steve roberts

Great image!

It would be a great atmosphere I'm sure...would love to get back down to Cowley!

...now there was a complex controversial character!

Great news! The "Cheetahs" versus their oldest rivals the "Budgies!"

Many thanks for putting the record straight.

...which opened the doors to so many bland channels and in the area that I now live a sometimes questionable reception with the picture breaking up!

Sad news indeed. RIP

Impressive list!

Great to know that he is still around!

I think it was...Trevor Redmond was the promoter (?). I would have also liked to have visited the "new" St.Austell...have a meeting on DVD and seemed surreal!

...wish I had visited St.Austell!

Enjoyed my trips to Berwick when on holiday in the area or staying with relations. Called in to see the other track as a matter interest...miles from anywhere!

A long list - Oxford, White City, Swindon, Reading (Tilehurst & Smallmead), Exeter, Poole, Weymouth (Radipole Lane), Poole, Eastbourne, Somerset, Canterbury, Crayford, Canterbury, Arena Essex, Wimbledon, Hackney, Rye House, Ipswich, King's Lynn, Peterborough, Long Eaton, Coventry, Leicester, Birmingham (Perry Barr & Wheels), Leicester (Blackbird Road), Coventry, Cradley Heath, Wolverhampton, Sheffield, Belle Vue (Hyde Road), Scunthorpe (Ashby Ville), Middlesborough, Newcaste, Berwick (Shielfield Park), Norden, Vojens, Amsterdam, Katowice, Wembley (Stadium & Pool), NEC, Bradford, Ullevi, Mildenhall, Milton Keynes (both venues), Newport (Somerton Park), Bristol, Cardiff, Boston.

Tom Pricket at Cowley back in the seventies...his daughter married Rick Timmo!

Many happy returns Dave! He was involved with Oxford Speedway for many years and was very pro-active on the Supporters Club front. He was at the forefront of the SOS committee back in 1975/76. My abiding memory was on a trip to Denmark (1988) when he took his "Aunt Sally" props along and bemused the watching Danes as he set up an impromptu game in the grounds of the hotel I found out some years ago that he is actually related to me (a very distant cousin many times removed) when I was researching my Family Tree.

...which is often the case whereby the speedway promotion only leases the stadium and any money generated thru' catering goes back to the stadium owners. With Oxford that was also the case with bar takings in the past.

I think it was known purely as the "Oxford Channel"?

They were based on the Woodstock Road in Oxford and was very local in its content...I knew some of the presenters (both speedway and otherwise). I have some DVDs of the meetings that they covered.

Yes I've read his book and to say that he was conventional would be stretching it somewhat...but was a tremendous all-round motor-cyclist.

We also enjoyed a local TV station who showed home meetings plus the occasionally away but for the life of me I can't remember what it was called? Don't think that it exists anymore? There was also the local commercial Radio Station FoxFM (think they sponsored the Junior Team?) which gave service to the speedway.

...I did some school talks pre-season and was promised a bike to take along but nothing materialised!

We were fortunate at Oxford that Track Presenter, Peter York, also had a regular programme on Radio Oxford so the speedway got lots of air time and interviews with riders and with Promoter Bernard Crappper in particular. The Oxford Mail, with John Gaisford, also gave the sport a high profile in the city and beyond.

Malcolm Simmons was another who favoured West Ham.

...recall one time Weymouth promoter Mervyn Stewkesbury driving round Weymouth with placards advertising the meeting due to take place that evening. I even remember seeing posters around Oxford/Eastbourne advertising the speedway...had one on my bedroom wall for years! Apparently Len Silver used to post adverts all around the Hackney area? I personally used to take friends/work colleagues to meetings in the hope that it would ignite a spark.

...and one wonders why speedway has become expensive for the competitors when it should be about keeping costs down.