Andy Downes

Tuesday April 12th(?) 1980 Ladbrokes Stadium Crayford Crayford v Young Sweden challenge match Ex Hackney/Coventry/Swindon(?) rider Tommy Nilsson won heat one i think, probably from Laurie Etheridge but i'm guessing here Following week was my first 'meaningful' match, Don't remember the score but Crayford beat the Nottingham Outlaws despite Mike Sampson scoring a maximum. it took a few matches but i probably really got hooked after seeing Les Rumsey's finest hour/six rides when we won the 4's at Peterborough later that year. Thought it would always be like that, following a successful team - little did i know that's as good a it got for that variety of Kestrel ...

used to love going to see the Kestrels generally lose (Crayford version) / win (Hackney version) at Kingsmead ... nice blast down the M2/A2 on the bike, 7:00 p.m. start and an early finish which meant you could get back home to Sidcup in time for last orders! I remember that most of the junior races were over three laps ... Also remember being much amused one evening by Jamie Luckhurst riding into the back of the tractor and watching his bike being dragged around the third bend by the grading machine

Having started watching at Crayford in 1980, my first hero was Paul Woods, who never really fulfilled his potential From then on, it was Barry Thomas at Crayford and Hackney I think I lost a little bit of love with the sport the day Thommo retired

Do you have a link, would love to have a go myself, some awesome little grounds I ve done following non league football over the years. Enjoy https://www.footballgroundmap.com/ be nice if someone more technically minded could do a speedway one ...

I was just thinking the same - there is a football web site where you can put all the grounds you have been to (both old and current) and it produces a map showing you where you've been and other stats such as how many grounds have been knocked down. When i completed it, it turned out 38/80 footie teams i had seen at their home ground had moved to a new stadium, almost 50%. Compare that with the number of Speedway Tracks who are still operating/have defunct stadia ; in my first season (1980) there were 37 league sides; 17 teams are now defunct, 8 are still racing but in a different stadium and only 12 are still at the same track as 40 years ago. So in summary, just over 2/3 of supporters have lost their 'home' although around 1/5 have a new home track. The point (yes there is one) is that this is close to the football average so enclosed/semi enclosed stadia it appears do have a natural shelf life before redevelopment looms. Maybe any Rugby/Speedway fans could comment if the same is true of their other favourite sport

Recently, there's been a lot of criticism and general bad karma surrounding Craig Cook - coming from many different directions. I know he has never been the most popular of riders but some of the recent vitriol has got me thinking. Who was the most unpopular/hated rider and more importantly why? I know in the past there have been many 'pantomime villains' who play to the crowd as much as anything; certainly at Crayford the mere mention of the name Kelvin Mullarkey would lead to a chorus of boos; but riders like these were those we 'loved to hate' rather than have a genuine dislike about Who do you think was an unpopular rider and why?

1985 or 1986 not sure which year but certainly a May bank holiday 11:00 Kings Lynn 15:00 Arena Essex 19:30 Hackney

So by that logic Antonio Lindback isn't Swedish ?

Yes - he was coming to the end of his time at Crayford when I started going in 1980 but TBH I cannot really remember anything individual about him

Not sure but wasn't Mike Fitzpatrick, 1980's reserve/second halfer at Hackney and Rye among others Irish? may possibly have been second generation

Is that the world's first Lay-Down engine?

Melvin ******* Stewkesbury I personally hold him 50% responsible for Hackney's demise after he convinced/conned 3 other teams to dump the old National League so his precious team wouldn't step up a league single handed - took what was then a great league and ruined it - it has been been the same since. Not only did the league loose Poole Wimbledon Berwick and Ipswich but Eastbourne closed both Hackney and Milton Keynes were gone within 18 months

Having watched the programme today, the one thing they didn't mention was how he started on drugs - was he injured at the end of his career and it was to initially take the pain away? Addiction is a strange thing - it creeps up on you and slowly takes over your life bit by bit. I was a betting show manager for a number of years and I often saw people collecting pennies off of the floor they were that desperate to get the gambling rush of potentially backing a winner. i saw people waste fortunes in a few months and it's a lot worse now with companies making out that internet betting is cool and trendy and no worse than playing bingo with your friends, For some that may be so but for many others it's an addiction that often leads to theft to fund the spending. - just like a drug addict Whilst part of me congratulates Daniel Smith and his vigilante approach to drug pushers, not sure how you stop multinational bookmakers (or alcohol producers come to think of it) from pushing addictive product Anyway, good luck to Blair Scott - he may have done terrible things to his family but if he can get himself sorted out he just might be able to pay for the hurt he has caused his family

As an Aston Villa fan since the late 60's I had a love/hate relationship with the man. Since he sold out to Randy Lerner 10 years ago, my attitude slightly softened towards him - he always had the team at heart but seemed he wouldn't go the final hurdle to make them compete at the absolute top level (our European Cup victory was during his period not on the board) There have been many comments about him on the Villa Fan Web Site and a surprising number show how down to earth he was, fans writing to him would get personal replies within days and he was very generous with his time. he also had a wonderfully wicked sense of humour which he showed in the following exchange with the then birmingham city director Karren Brady Karren Brady) Hello Mr Ellis. Doug) (reading her name badge) Good evening Miss Brady. Why are you at this function? Karren Brady) I am with The City. Doug) (knowing full well who she was) Ah. The Council. Oh and to Mr Sholvar, Swindon Town admitted to 36 counts of illegal payments and the chairman Brian Hillier went to prison for six months, was Doug really to blame for penalising your club?

Adonis - I don't know how old you are but if like me, you have been a fan of the sport for 30 years or more, I think you tend to remember riders from earlier periods more fondly and rate them higher than current day riders. It's not Woffy's fault that bikes are now set up like rocket ships, competing on slick tracks and the argument that modern riders couldn't deal with the amount of shale or different bikes will always be a hypothetical one. You can only race and beat what is around you at the time and I would argue that the successful riding styles are almost unrecognisable to those of say the 70's or 80's which in turn are totally different to those in the 30's and 40's (if the action in Once a Jolly Swagman is anything to go by) . You would like to think a top rider of one period though could adapt to the style of another era. At the end of the day though it's all about opinions, I respect yours but I don't agree with it.

His 70's glory years were before my time I remember being disappointed when he joined hackney in the 80's - mainly because his huge average meant we had to lose 2 decent riders and promote a junior - the result meant hackney 1986 was perhaps the most forgettable of the hackney Kestrel Teams A beautiful stylist who dropped down a league too early (IIRC he was the only rider to beat Neil Evitts in the British Championship Final that year) but his final years seemed to be surrounded with controversy (I doubt Arena Essex fans have fond memories of him) with non arrivals, questionable injuries and other rumoured happenings that may or not be true but cannot be repeated as they could be construed as libellous

There are a few bits and pieces of Bristol Speedway memorabilia in the M Shed museum in Bristol - no real thought or narrative behind it though

Depends on what you want from your top ten - personally, I prefer entertainers to trophy winners and as I watched more NL speedway in the 80's than any other period, my list would probably not agree with anyone else's Anyway, in my opinion 1) Barry Thomas - the rest in no particular order Alan Mogridge, Mark Loram, Andy Galvin, Martin Goodwin, Kelvin Mullarkey, Kelly Moran, Chris Morton, Tomasz Gollob, Joe Screen

If that's as bad as it was, that is a disgrace. When I was young and Crayford were running, they used to put sawdust down to soak up the excess water - and I mean real lakes of water, not a trickle as in that photo - don't tracks do that nowadays?

You could have at Bristol but nowadays you'd run into the collect and cash section of IKEA

I'm sure when I started following Speedway you couldn't have both sides using R/R; they'd cancel each other out which to me made perfect sense When did this stop or is it still in the rule book and everyone ignores it/referee's don't enforce it?

Yes that's him! If I spelled his name wrongly it's because I haven't seen his name in print for at least 25 years (jeez time flies) After Hackney packed up, I didn't bother going to Arena as i'd got into a relationship with a lady who had no interest in bikes and i only really became interested again as an armchair fan again a few years ago - whatever happened to him anyway?

Personally and maybe somewhat selfishly, my personal 'beginning of the end' was in 1991 when both Hackney and Wimbledon closed leaving no team left inside the M25. I blamed Poole at the time! (Really ... the great Melvyn Stewkesbury plan which took 4 top teams out of the National League and left the rest of them to fend for themselves) Since then, it seems to have been never-ending small steps towards oblivion (1 big league not working, the rise of the GP, the rise of the overseas leagues in importance compared to ours etc, speed over trackcraft etc) Speedway reminds me of a fish out of water - flapping and contorting its body in a desperate attempt to find credibility. Its fan-base is shrinking and it seems to have major problems recruiting younger fans (i cannot get my son to move from his bedroom to watch it on TV so what chance of getting him from Bristol to either Swindon or Highbridge) I wish i knew the answer, i really do

As a Crayford fan, Kelvin Mullarkey was something akin to the Dark Lord - at Crayford they said he increased attendance by a couple of hundred just to boo him - and he loved it One of the last great entertainers - would wind up his opposition fans and at first I hated him but after I had the pleasure of spending a rather drunken evening in Canterbury in his company I realised he really was one of the good guys of the sport and the antics were all for show Sadly, I don't think our sport will see the likes of him again Condolences to his family