scampispeedway

I got my Concessionary Bus Pass in 2006 when I was 60 because a woman could retire then at that age and get her State Pension but in the next 5 years the payment of the State Pension was altered each year until it matched the men's age and Bus Passes qualification was also altered until you didn't get one until you were 65. When I took early retirement at the end of 2006 I didn't get my state pension until I was 65 but got 5 years extra credit in my payments towards a full pension, looking online just now almost all state you must be 65 or over to get a Speedway Concessionary Ticket but only Ipswich give Tickets to any one 60 or over.

More information for everybody, Monmore Green home to the Wolverhampton Wolves Speedway was originally an exact copy of the layout of the Brough Park track, watching it now live on BT Sport they have changed it from the old days I remembered and set up as all the vast majority of tracks built now are for the modern laydown engined bikes and so if you make the gate and go as fast as you can, nobody will pass you. Ivan Mauger said many years ago, if you could ride Brough Park, you could ride anywhere but after watching only a few heats of modern G.P. and League speedway I change channel and watch something else with more entertainment.

For information Sunderland Greyhound Stadium is owned by the same company as Brough Park (ARC) so if they did allow speedway to return, they no doubt would charge the same sort of rental as Brough Park. For the historians Sunderland ran for a short while in 1964 and we got Ken Sharples when they closed which allowed us to win the Provincial League and when Newcastle closed in 1970 because the British League Licence was transferred to Reading who were getting larger crowds and the Stadium Manager at Brough Park said it had to be British League or nothing and so ended another era. The Berwick Promoter Mrs Taylor jumped in at Sunderland and I remember going once to see the Sunderland vs Rayleigh match in 1971 which the away team won, my main objection for not returning was the cost of entry which in old money was 8 shillings and sixpence as against 6 shillings and sixpence, the previous year. They ran from 1971-1974 and then Ian Thomas won the battle to stage Speedway at Newcastle which had become available and under his promotion ran for several years with great success until the decision to go up to the British League in 1984 which cost him loads of money and we closed again

Steve, did the second NJL meeting take place because the Speedway Updates site only shows the first one which ended as a draw ?.

The news from Rob Grant that the home meeting against Birmingham will be his last one at Brough Park and as there are no potential new owners coming forth, alongside the uncertainty of the Stadium and Stadium Landlords then the chances of Newcastle returning next year are very slim.

For information, the land that the City Stadium now occupies was planned for housing but originally it was a wide Ouseburn valley and so the Council took the chance for more access from the Heaton area to the Town centre and they started by creating a strengthened concrete culvert so that the flow of OuseBurn river was not impeded down to the River Tyne and the valley was filled with tons of household rubbish. However after a few years the ground was found to be totally unstable as it settled and because of pockets of methane gas coming from the decomposition of the organic material which ignited by itself and was visible on a evening as small flickering flames, the original idea was abandoned and left as a green field area.

Don't tell him Pike

I did some checking on the South Shields Gypsies Sports Pitch today and it has ample packing near by and is a short walk to the pitch which is in an open field so what do you do about stopping people just watching speedway without paying. The Pitch is 10 miles from Brough Park so this may involve driving through the Tyne Tunnel which has a toll to get to the site and if you have no car then this means getting to a Metro station from anywhere in the Tyneside area to the South Shields Interchange and because Newcastle run on a Sunday, the only bus you can use is the E1 which passes on the main road on its way to Sunderland and you then use the same method back to home as both run at a regular intervals that day.

My understanding was the City Council would not allow Speedway to re-open if Newcastle closed for more than one year, this is due to new housing regulations and people must realise that in 1929 when the Stadium was originally built, it was in open ground and there was not a house in site for anybody to object to the noise.

This reminds me very much of 1984, when Ian Thomas lost money after his venture into the British League and ended his involvement with Newcastle.

When Newcastle was the team to beat away from home and were on a 1-5, I saw many times one of the home riders deliberately fall and stay down and not make any effort to clear the track and get the race rerun, hoping in some occasions that his partner gated and won the race. I always maintained that if this was a case of blatant cheating by the home team, the race should be awarded when the race was stopped and this would stop this trick but the Referee has to rerun the race unless it was the last lap.

Crescent Girl, I'm sorry to say that the Scaphoid is the worst bone in the body to break and can take a very long time to heal as you cannot plaster it up in the normal way and if it doesn't heal a plastic replacement bone is installed. As someone who hit a car with my motorcycle in the drivers door when pulled on to main road without looking to see if it was safe to do so and ended up with a dislocated right elbow and as it turns a greenstick fracture of my scaphoid in my right thumb because I used the front brake to try and stop myself hitting the idiot. The latter injury was only spotted when the swelling in my hand went down and was told the bone had healed itself in that position but because of the impossibility of resetting the fracture, it was left as was and so it has remained that way for over 50 years with a pronounced bump in first bone of the thumb.

Ulverston to Workington is only 46.5 miles and wouldn't be out of the way on the way north if you took the coastal route.

mac101, have a look at the topic on Newcastle Diamonds 2021 and you will see that they have replaced Joe Alcock with Jack Parkinson Blackburn

Can someone enlighten me on why Newcastle used Archie Freeman No.8 in the first heat, was it because nobody from the main team wanted to ride so early in the meeting.

As Somerset has withdrawn from the league in 2021, will they be allowed to run the Championship Pairs this year as they have no Track Licence.

I was at that meeting and I think that this was Martin Scarisbrick's first ride of the day and later on I learnt that Dave Younghusband Newcastle's Team Manager gave him the best advice in the circumstances, ride like you go round the old Belle Vue track at Hyde Road which was his home base i.e. go as fast as can and don't shut off at any time.

Hi East End Fan, Foxhall Heath where Ipswich Race is in an area east of Ipswich Centre but as the second part of its name it is a large open grassland area and you need to travel quite a way through this to get to stadium when driving from the main road. When entering the stadium itself the track is at the bottom of a hollowed out area and so the sound of the Speedway bikes and Banger cars are contained as much as possible so keeping the area fairly quiet for people walking nearby heath land.

Talking a fun in Speedway, on one of my early trips to Eastbourne, I saw some Newcastle fans presenting Dave Lanning who was introducing the riders a box of Trill for his Budgies.

Hi THJ, reading your last post is clearly stating Newcastle's problems in getting riders to come to Brough Park, up to now established tracks like Glasgow still need 1 rider, Poole 4 riders and Redcar 5 riders to complete their teams so I will await with interest who we end up with.

Reading the Grant Farm website again, it does say that 2 years ago Rob jnr. moved to Crescent Farm post code NE15 9RE which near Throckley.

Just done a search for the farm and it is in Prudhoe which is 15 miles from Newcastle

If Newcastle went into the National League would enough people attend to make it viable and considering at present there are only 7 teams in that League with the nearest being Belle Vue and would mean long hikes to Plymouth and the Isle of Wight and Sittingbourne.

I don't know why Nicki should ask about the Edinburgh Track as he rode for Newcastle in 1998 and one track he visited throughout the season was the one at Armadale.

Way back in 1964, my late father drove me to Cleveland Park and dropped me off for my first ever away match for the Newcastle Diamonds which we won and later on he returned from the local pub to take me home.. I think that speedway was closed the next year at Cleveland Park and the licence was transferred to Halifax and it wasn't until we ourselves returned to the New National League in 1975 under Ian Thomas that I went down the A19 again to return to Cleveland Park.