RobMcCaffery

Plausible but that has to be weighed against the promotion having already used it at King's Lynn. I think it was perhaps more a personal Nigel Wagstaff "brand". Did they play Lemmy's gentle little ballad at Lynn or Cowley?

Amazingly they did in the early seventies. The progression from the 1968 BL2 revival was Middlesbrough Teessiders - Teesside Teessiders - Teesside Tigers - back to Middlesbrough Bears. As you might imagine the racejacket for the Teessiders was a T.

I believe it was related to the West Riding-based Duke of Wellington's army regiment which used the elephant emblem. http://www.regiments.org/regiments/uk/inf/033DWR.htm

I didn't know Rye House Rockets were defunct, unlike Roosters/Red Devils. All that just because they lost at home to King's Lynn? Has anyone told their rather charming forum members?

Barrow were called Happy Faces for one season, 1972. They had a sponsorship deal with Duckhams whose logo was a Q. With the smiley being newly in fashion then they put inside the Q - and the Happy Faces entered our sport. I think it was a late change from "Boys" - I seem to remember seeing an away programme with that name in it, just before they took over the West Ham place in the BL2. Yes, an open licence side did get away bookings back then. I expect I was wrong about Ashington. Did the team actually race? I remember an opening meeting in 72 but little more. Picking up on shazzybird's point about Infradex Rockets I didn't realise we were including sponsorships. If so we will need a larger forum.

I'll tackle those from my time about in the sport. Sorry if some of these coincide with lists from others but I don't have time to cross-check, going roughly north to south: Motherwell Golden Eagles Newtongrange Saints Paisley Lions Coatbridge Monarchs/Tigers Barrow Happy Faces/Bombers/Blackhawks Workington Tigers Ashington Saints Sunderland Saints/Gladiators Middlesbrough Bears/Teessiders/Tigers Teesside Teessiders/Tigers Bradford Northern/Barons/Dukes Nelson Admirals Ellesmere Port Gunners Crewe Kings Halifax Dukes Castleford Kings Long Eaton Rangers/Invaders Nottingham Outlaws Scunthorpe Saints/Stags Chesterton Potters Boston Barracudas Norwich Stars Rye House Roosters/Red Devils Milton Keynes Kinights Leicester Lions Birmingham Brummies Cradley Heath Heathens Newport (no nickname - 1973-6) Exeter Falcons Weymouth Eagles/Wizards Southampton Saints Canterbury Crusaders Rochester Bombers Crayford Highwaymen/Budgies (sorry, Kestrels) Hackney Hawks/Kestrels West Ham Hammers/Bombers Romford Bombers Wimbledon Dons Wembley Lions White City Rebels I'm sure there are some glaring omissions but it's just off the top of the head.

Sadly I sold my speedway records and programme collection after leaving Rye House so I don't have anything but memory to go on but I'm pretty sure Laurie had outings at Rayleigh and Hackney at least. Okay Ken, as soon as I can rub a few fivers together you have a sale That reminds me, I must order some of my own programmes from the Tape 2 Tape video vault - I have very few copies ironically.

Thanks, I am delighted to learn something. That was one that never made it into the public domain. Was it at the Great Leighs site?

That was in the list of meetings on a historic DVD and had me confused - it must have been a typo because the closest I remember Chelmsford ever getting to speedway came about as follows: About the time Rayleigh's number was coming up there were proposals to run speedway at the Essex Showground at Great Leighs near Chelmsford. Despite being in a remote location there were noise objections.

I am reminded of Bruce Cribb's advice on coping with Exeter's metal fence... "Don't hit it". Was Halifax's better to hit on a warm afternoon?

I am reminded of Bruce Cribb's advice on coping withe Exeter's metal fence... "Don't hit it".

Ah but are we sure that's not just a tax dodge? You know what these promoters are like........

I note Geoff Maloney is missing from this list (sniff).

Given Ms.Taylour's recently-revealed politics I'd expect she'd have had Herbie shot... Greetings ex-employer

Barrow was running as an open licence track so was a convenient emergency alternative base, if not geographically.

"Culling" was strongly suspected to allow the creation of one league of theoretically viable teams. I am sure that the former NL sides involved soon found out the reality.

And they transferred to Barrow in 1972, not Workington.

As a footnote we had a rather unusual round of the four team tournament at Rye House in 1992 with both Milton Keynes and Mildenhall appearing, despite the news that both were sadly about to close. Indeed I don't think their legs were staged but it is a long time ago now and my memory is flawed. There was a real sense of speedway contracting at the time, and a fear that it was not quite accidental. Rye House followed suit in 1993 and not long after there was the amalgamated league.

Well it would be good for Terry and Paul to know that their influence was still being felt on the Rockets 20 years later. They both played a large part in getting me hooked on this sport through their announcing and writing. Little did I know as a 13 year old in 1971 I might one day be following in their footsteps.

I announced at the Groveway in the mid eighties. Without breaching too much confidentiality the crowds simply weren't good enough to keep it going. The move to Elfield Park didn't improve matters and problems with the design of the place, principally the drainage made the situation far worse and eventually caused problems with the authorities. Like so many failed tracks they simply weren't making enough money despite the huge efforts of promoters like Ted Jarvis and Terry Cheney and their many helpers.

In view of speedyguy's interest in four wheeled oval racing and Mr.Hyam's role with the Midget cars I had been wondering for a while whether speedyguy and Mr.Hyam had ever been seen in the same room together. In view of this it is time to confess that I am in fact, er me, as below. I do wonder if life would be so much easier - and honest - in these forums if we did use our real names. I've only used rmc as an abbreviation, but then I have nothing to hide. Time for me to edit my profile I suspect and let rmc go for a well-earned rest.

It is still first and foremost a Rugby stadium so there is no way in which a permanent speedway track would be constructed. It's also far too large and expensive to run any other kind of meeting there than a one-off grand prix each year. English football may be leaving but certainly not rugby. It will still be the national stadium for Welsh rugby and football.

It was still a great day after a big away win? My goodness, the greed of these Eagles I remember the great Terry Ripo (a, b, c you at speedway...) announcing he'd had a record delivered from London by some guy called Elton John - and we HAD to hear it. As you can guess it was Rocket Man. It struck such a chord that I used it as the farewell music at every Rockets meeting at Rye House once I in turn became the team's announcer. Another little catch-phrase dwelled in the programme column contributed by the Southend/Basildon Evening Echo's Paul Deal ..."I'm only here for the Weir, well it IS Rayleigh Speedway" (Younger readers - ask your dad or grandad about "I'm only here for the beer... )

I was a regular at Thornton Road in my student days from 1977 to 1980 and was close to the 1985 promotion. It was such a long track that passing was often at a premium but the sight of John Jackson blasting round it did a lot to compensate. What I remember most was how dominant the heat-leaders were - usually around double-figures with often only a token support from the rest of the side. Doug Adams was announcing then and his dry style enlivened many a meeting. Gate four was impossible to see from the rear of the grandstand so how on earth the referee, located on the back row, could see what was going on there I'll never know. It always seemed to be popular for rolling starts by the home men. The crowds were always poor though which was a terrible shame given its location, with only Belle Vue and Workington in the north west at the time. The lack of interest in anything other than football, rugby league or boxing by the Merseyside media didn't help though. In 1985 I got to know the management team rather well and a lovely memory was their trip to London that year. They were at Wimbledon followed by Hackney and I arranged their hotel accommodation in East London. Part of the deal was to show them the way across London. I didn't realise I'd be showing the whole team... Chief memory was making sure that Dave Morton's van was still with us as a very long train of cars and vans battled with traffic lights across south London. On to the hotel and I found myself showing Joe Owen to the nearest kebab house. Now in those days there weren't that many in the north west so Joe was looking forward to treating his team-mates to the delights of chili sauce. Of all the memories of meeting my heroes in those days that was perhaps the best - just buying kebabs with Joe. It was such a pleasure to get to know someone who had given me so much pleasure as a supporter. Despite the success on-track and Mervyn Porter's professionalism as promoter it was soon clear why the Gunners had folded before with the support just not materialising. Joe's crippling injury right at the end of the season left an appalling taste to the abortive come-back. One final memory, apart from being treated to a champage-a-gram at the 85 cup final was watching some fine young talent blasting their way down the back straight under the flames of Stanlow Oil Refinery. Another sad loss and much-missed.

Because of the way the 1999 relaunch team were treated the following year. I live over 100 miles away now and the only meeting I've been to at Rye House since the 1993 close was to show support for Steve Ribbons after he had been forced out. We all wanted Rye House to reopen but the way it was done behind the scenes was totally unacceptable to me. Len has achieved some great things in speedway but some of the people around him I did not want in my life in the slightest way.