chunky

You started it...

I think he mentioned it once...

NEXT!!!

Doyle? Well I never...

Okay, that makes more sense... As far as the GP's, the Wild Card and track reserves are nominated by the hosting national association. With other events, such as the British Final, NLRC etc, it was usual (but didn't always follow) for the hosting track to nominate the track reserves. For example, the track reserves for the 1974 British Final were Coventry riders Frank Smith and Roger Hill. The NLRC was another example. In 1974, Bob Hughes, Brian Havelock, and Willie Templeton all "qualified" as their track's No.1, and all rode as reserve on the night. Same with Ian Clark and Graham Jones in 1977. However, Wimbledon juniors Ian Williams and Dave Brewer rode as reserve in 1976 and 1979, and Keith Yorke and Graham Knowler did the same in 1980.

"MADE IT to the Cardiff GP lineup"? He was named as "track reserve", which is hardly the same thing. You could say that Keith Yorke made it to the NLRC, and at least he actually rode! Yes, Iris123, why are you slagging him off for being a heartless violent thug and criminal?

Do you mean a "wig"?

I understand. I'll get me coat...

In 1965, West Ham also won the KO Cup, and the London Cup

Pete Wigley used to do that too!

Oh, trust me, Freddie Williams really is the prime example! And people today complain about having multiple events in Poland...

It doesn't fit in with the topic of this thread, Bob...

Oops! You know why I didn't include it? I didn't see that Martin Ashby won it in 1974!

Moreso than most sports, speedway traditionally has a problem with "home Advantage", but how big an issue is it? Let's look at some home-track winners from the BL era (1965 to 1990), and there are two reasons for that. Firstly, many tracks got into the habit of running regular (and well-established) individual meetings, and secondly, there was a tendency to get as many top riders as they could. I've chosen what I consider to be the strongest established events at most BL tracks. Some of you may wonder why I chose the Internationale over The Laurels, but I always felt that The Laurels leant toward a "regional field", or riders that we enjoyed seeing. I know there were several meetings like that around the country. So, here goes... Belle Vue - BLRC: Ivan Mauger (1971), Peter Collins (1974, 1975), Chris Morton (1984), Shawn Moran (1989) Coventry - Brandonapolis: Nigel Boocock (1966, 1968, 1971), Mitch Shirra (1980), Tommy Knudsen (1982, 1984) Cradley - Golden Hammer: Bobby Schwartz (1979), Lance King (1983), Alan Grahame (1984), Erik Gundersen (1986, 1987), Jan O. Pedersen (1989), Simon Cross (1990) Exeter - Westernapolis: Ivan Mauger (1973, 1975), Zdenek Kudrna (1979) Hackney - Champions Chase: Bengt Jansson (1973), Barry Thomas (1979) Halifax - Dews Trophy: Eric Boocock (1970, 1973), Graham Plant (1976), Ian Cartwright (1979), Kenny Carter (1980, 1981) Ipswich - Golden Sovereign: John Louis (1975), Billy Sanders (1976, 1978, 1979) King's Lynn - Pride of the East: Terry Betts (1968), Howard Cole (1969), Dave Jessup (1979, 1980), Michael Lee (1981) Poole - Blue Riband: Malcolm Simmons (1975, 1976, 1977, 1978) Reading - Manpower Trophy: Anders Michanek (1973), Joh Davis (1978) Sheffield - Yorkshire Bank Trophy: Bob Valentine (1973), Doug Wyer (1979) Swindon - Silver Plume: Martin Ashby (1974) Wimbledon - Internationale: Trevor Hedge (1969), Edward Jancarz (1977) Wolverhampton - Champion of Champions: Ole Olsen (1970, 1972, 1974) Sad note is the fact that, out of all these tracks, only Belle Vue, Ipswich, King's Lynn, Poole, and Sheffield still exist...

Les, Dick, and Jim Tolley were brothers. According to a comment from Nigel on the Brummies' Facebook page, Dick and Stan (not sure where Stan fits into this!) were "distant relations".

They are all still with us, but looking at the averages, Norman was actually the best of them...

That's ridiculous! Everyone knows that Hoskins built the old Wembley...

Clearly, whoever created/updated Dick's bio was wrong. He most definitely rode in the 1956 World Final. I know that people often question the accuracy of Wikipedia, but this is the first glaring mistake (related to speedway) I've found. Another great link for checking World Championship history is http://www.speedway.org/history/. Plus, I'm currently reworking the World Final file for Speedway Researcher (there were a ton of mistakes on the original file).

One would hope...

So did Bluey Wilkinson...

Perhaps Parker was like, "I Need You", so "We Can Work it Out", but Mauger was, "Hello, Goodbye", followed by "I'll Be On My Way"...

Money can be a great healer, though...

Should be safe - like your Lions... Blackburn could go down; four matches left, including Coventry, Leeds, and Leicester.

It seems that more Scottish football clubs were happy to share their stadiums with speedway than South of the border. One of the few I know is Halifax, and of course, they have been out of the EFL for a while now...

And he took was worse than Grubmuller. I always felt that he had potential, though...