Jeff.

You are too young to remember the World Team Cup Finals of 1976 & 1982 at White City. No crowd and a financial disaster because England failed to make the final.

About time Erik was featured!!!!!!!!!!

Nice one here http://www.millwall-history.co.uk/the_den4.htm

Dave Jessup was riding one in 1983, Egon Muller wor the World Title on one that year. I can't recall them being used prior to that though

Quite a good little potted history Ron, although it wasn't actually Templeton in the heat it was Dudley McKean. Question is did Craven start fro scratch or nor?!!!!!!!!!!!

The old Shay had a granite surface

In truth I don't believe Carters crime to be the reason for the decline in media interest. The media were losing interest in speedway in the 5 or 6 years before this anyway, and the loss of World of Sport was a crushing blow to speedway regarding TV exposure. Paradoxically Kenny Carters death probably hastened the media decline in as much as they lost the last really marketable, and well known outside of speedway circles, English rider, Simon Wigg came close but other than that, Tatum, Cross, Doncaster, Morton etc, hardly in the same mould as Carter. Their have been books and films made about many similar killers, remember dance with a stranger, it told the story of Ruth Ellis who was hanged, because believing her boyfriend to be having an affair took a revolver and shot him. Does that sound familiar. I am fully aware there was more to the Ellis story than that but there was no public outcry over this story being told.

Equally then I presume Parsloes considers Peter Sutcliffes crimes bringing shame on all Yorkshire folk, or Fred West bringing shame on the construction community nationwide. Kenny Carters crime brought shame on Kenny Carter and Kenny Carter alone. He of course heaped misery and suffering on numerous friends and relatives through his crime. The question here seems to be should this story be told in all its horrific detail? My personal opinion is yes it should. A long time has passed and the heartbreak caused at the time is much less raw now over 21 years since the shooting. There will be nothing in the book that Malcolm and Kelly Marie are not aware of and so will not adversley affect them. Ultimately sales will decide if Tony Mac has misjudged the mood of the people, if he sells hardly any copies then Parsloes can claim "told you so" but I suspect the book will sell like hot cakes

Kenny Carter wouldn't have thought Eriksen entertaining either

2001,2002, 2005 high attendances and a Swedish World Champion, other years no World Champion poor attendances, this year no Rickardsson extremely poor attendances

The circumstances were as descibed above by drop a cog. It was a qualifying heat for the second half final and PC was tight on the line chasing Ian Turner. Unfortunately during the interval one of the track maintenance staff had dragged the cover a few inches over the track with his hosepipe. PCs front wheel hit this cover, flicking it up and inflicting the most hideous wound to his left leg. Barrow Hepburn were the leather company you refer to, they supplied all the Aces team with a set of leathers during the interval.

Fair enough Moxey. I knew it was the Grand Prix qualifier. What year did Berger sponsor it

They fail you in this instance. PC clocked his time in a Berger Grand Prix Qualifier

Ashfield was originally the home of Ashfield Giants but they do now race as Glasgow from the same stadium. I believe it was still Glasgow when they raced out of the White City Stadium, quite often with the "White City" tagged on after the "Glasgow

I wouldn't say anything of the sort, but all the London teams mentioned were separate teams, the Birmingham and Glasgow ones were the same team moving fom venue to venue

But London has only had 1 "London" team and that was in 1996 when the Lions raced at Hackney. All Stasolo's venues were graced by "Birmingham" teams. Same goes for Sotonians Glasgow teams

It happened in 1988 as well Ron, Gundersen Nielsen and Pederesen. Gundersen and Pedersen From Cradley. The Speedway and National presss often reported 90000 crowds for speedway at Wembley but in actual fact it only happened 4 times, although I think 1949 could have been 1 of the 4. Even in 1981 the crowd was only 70 odd thousand although 92000 is the usually quoted figure

Does anyone know where "White City" as a stadium name derived from. It was quite a popular name with London, Glasgow and Manchester all having White City Stadiums

At the top end I would probably agree with you, we do have our share of top riders. The British Elite League though has a tendency to be crammed with dross at the lower end where the Polish and Swedisg Leagues carry a bit more strength throughout the order

Neither was Hans Nielsen in 1995, Egon Muller in 1983, Anders Michanek in 1974, Bjorn Knutsson in 1965. Without a shadow of a doubt the so called British Elite League is the weakest of the three major leagues

And in between Teesside Tigers and Middlesbrough Bears were the Middlesbrough Tigers

Tony the British Final referred to here and in the magazine was 1984 not 1985. Otherwise another good read

Of course he wouldnt have replaced him if he qualified, but he didnt did he, he went out at the British Final stage. Of course now certain qualifiers have withdrawn then a selection process is necessary to replace them. One method of doing that could have been to select the next in line at the British Final, another method is pick your mate. I prefer the next in line option myself but at the end of the day Andy went out at Belle Vue. I think this whole thing makes an even bigger mockery of the sport. Cant think of another sport where this would be allowec to happen, if a rider qualifies then he races in the next round, barring injury of course

Although it seems obvious that if a top 4 rider did not want to continue then the fifth in line should take his place, then sixth and so on, was that ever laid down in the rules? I personnally doubt that any criteria was laid down to cover such an eventuality even though the scenario was likely to occur. Truth is though that being the best of the rest doesnt actually make Andy a qualifier and if he were to be put through it would be just another form of selection, albeit a more easily justifiable one than the team manager picking his mate!

Since he quit the few interviews I have read regarding Simmo he has come across as bitter and twisted blaming anyone and everyone for the things that went wrong in his career. I really liked watching Simmo in his heyday and I hope this article is positive and reinforces my opinion of the guy when he was racing rather than since he finished