chunky

I have a mate who lives in Dalton Avenue, and since they knocked down most of Phipps Bridge, I'm quite happy to get the tram there. Never had any problems elsewhere in Mitcham - despite much of it looking like a WW2 bomb site!

I have to agree, but I do feel that things are worse these days. I'm always seeing reports of muggings and stabbings - often in broad daylight. That being said, it's so much easier to spread the news now via the internet, so will see more of these stories. As far as you growing up on Blackbird Leys, I grew up on the St. Helier council estate, and it was never as bad (or it didn't seem to be) as the media would have you believe! Of course, we did have the bad areas, such as the Phipps Bridge Estate (Mitcham), Durand Close (Hackbridge), and High Path Estate (South Wimbledon), but I stayed away from those!

Realistically, I think that the 60's and 70's were probably the safest era to be out walking around. Before then, you had to deal with the dregs of post-war society, and since then, there are just too many self-important thugs...

"We often complain that gang crime in London is getting out of control nowadays, but gang culture certainly isn't anything new in the British capital. Some one hundred years ago, gangs were still rife in impoverished parts of inner-city London, the difference being that back then gangs were much more entrenched in local communities. There were several gangs operating across the city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Bethnal Green Mob, the Hoxton Mob, the Broad Mob, the Elephant and Castle Mob, the Islington Mob, the Kings Cross Gang, the West End Boys and the Whitechapel Mob were just some of these notorious gangs. Some of these gangs were known as the 'Kosher Nostra', in reference to their Jewish background. The Yiddishers, the Aldgate Mob, the Russian Jews, the Bessarabian Tigers and the Odessians are examples of well-known Jewish gangs who used to run pockets of North London and East London during this period. Probably the most famous of these gangs were the Bessarabian Tigers, also known as the Stop At Nothing Gang. They were a group of immigrant Jews from Eastern Europe, the gang's name denoting their homeland on the Russian-Romanian border which is today known as Moldova. Instability in the region in the late 19th century brought many Bessarabian Jews to London, most of them settling in Whitechapel where there was already a well-established German Jewish community. Gang leaders were quick to recruit the Jewish newcomers, who they would use to both protect and terrorise local Jewish business owners."

I get where you're coming from, but I'm not talking about races - or even going flat out. Just getting them out there doing laps would help break up the surface, and they'd be getting valuable experience.

I've often said that the GP's usually start to liven up after 8-10 races - once the track settles in - and they could easily send juniors out before the meeting to get it in shape from the start. There is no reason at all why they couldn't do that at ALL meetings - and EVERYBODY would benefit.

Back in the day, you would get four or five of the team returning the following year. Look at Wimbledon. Trevor Hedge, Reg Luckhurst, Bob Dugard, and Jim Tebby were there from 1965 to 1970 (six years, they formed the basis of the team), and Olle Nygren was with them for the first four of those years...

All that should mean is that they don't get a testimonial then!

I see... That's weird, though. I remember seeing a bunch of posts on here about 17th April, 1946 - at New Cross; all saying something about a "first-ever meeting"...

Ah, that's interesting! There are so many "claims", and so many different views from so many different people. So, why?

So we don't count Droylsden in 1927?

That was the way it USED to be. I have no idea why they changed it; to be "more inclusive" I suppose...

June 14, 1969, KO Cup 2nd Round. Riding at No. 1, he won Heat 5 in a new Track Record of 65.6 from Gote Nordin, Les Owen, and Eddie Reeves. Booey equalled it in Heat 7.

It scares me that I'm 60 - and I'm outliving most of my friends!

Happening all the time, Steve. At least he was a decent age. I lost two friends on Saturday; one was 54, the other was 52. Last week I discovered I'd lost another friend. She was 33...

Sad to report the passing of former Coventry rider, Col Smith. He was 84.

More to the point, in this day and age where EVERYTHING is expected to be available to the public (often through social media), I don't need to SEE things as proof. I know who and what to believe, as I'm not one of these crazy conspiracy theorists who refuses to believe fact and reality...

As a Don, Tommy was my hero. I still remember picking up the Daily Mirror on the Friday morning to see the headline, "Speed Star Killed"; seems like yesterday. I was at West Ham for Christer Lofqvist's first meeting, and immediately took a liking to him. There are so many others not mentioned here that I remember well; Leif Soderberg, Soren Karlsson, Stefan Salomonsson, Bo Jansson, Bo Wirebrand, Haase Danielsson...

A ton of water on the track?

You want to see them riding around the BBC offices???

01 - Arthur Payne - 28/08/23 02 - Chum Taylor - 04/04/27 03 - Billy Bales - 06/06/29 04 - Ian Williams - 04/08/31 05 - Per Tage Svensson - 16/10/31 06 - Peo Soderman - 29/10/32 07 - Ove Fundin - 23/05/33 08 - Dan Forsberg - 25/03/34 09 - Josef Hofmeister - 17/06/34 10 - Brian Crutcher - 23/08/34 11 - Mike Broadbank - 25/09/34 12 - Barry Briggs - 30/12/34 13 - Aage Hansen - 13/04/35 14 - Gote Nordin - 02/07/35 15 - Bob Andrews - 27/10/193516 - Reg Luckhurst - 11/11/1935 17 - Doug Davies - 06/08/193618 - Sverre Harrfeldt - 23/11/1937 19 - Leif Larsson - 16/02/193820 - Rick France - 12/07/193821 - Leif Enecrona - 05/03/194022 - Andrzej Wyglenda 04/05/194123 - John Louis - 14/06/194124 - Jim Airey - 19/08/1941 25 - Bengt Jansson - 09/01/194326 - Anders Michanek - 30/05/194327 - Trevor Hedge - 30/08/194328 - Terry Betts - 15/09/194329 - Howard Cole 29/12/194330 - Martin Ashby - 05/02/194431 - Jan Simensen - 26/07/194432 - Zygfryd Friedek - 19/10/194433 - Jerzy Trzeszkowski - 10/01/194534 - Eric Boocock - 02/02/194535 - John Boulger - 18/06/194536 - Hasse Holmqvist - 18/06/194537 - Jim McMillan - 03/12/194538 - Soren Karlsson - 23/10/194639 - Ole Olsen - 16/11/194640 - Ray Wilson - 12/03/194741 - Doug Wyer - 16/08/1947 42 - Grigori Khlinovsky - 11/11/4743 - Egon Muller - 26/11/194844 - Christoph Betzl - 13/02/194945 - Jiri Stancl - 18/11/194946 - Viktor Kuznetsov - 27/11/1949 47 - Georg Hack - 20/02/195048 - Marek Cieslak - 28/06/195049 - Alois Wiesbock - 31/07/1950 50 - Tommy Johansson - 21/10/1950 51 - Vladimir Gordeev - 30/11/1950 52 - John Titman - 26/01/1951 53 - Dag Lovaas - 25/02/1951 54 - Jan Verner - 03/03/1951 55 - Petr Ondrasik - 08/10/1951 56 - Phil Crump - 09/02/1952 57 - Henny Kroeze - 11/03/1952 58 - Valery Gordeev - 28/08/1952 59 - Dave Jessup - 07/03/1953 60 - Ales Dryml - 10/06/1953 61 - Scott Autrey - 09/07/1953 62 - Gordon Kennett - 02/09/1953 63 - Robert Slabon - 15/09/1953 64 - Peter Collins - 24/03/1954 65 - Larry Ross - 15/06/1954 66 - John Davis - 10/11/1954 67 - Finn Thomsen - 16/02/1955 68 - Mikhail Starostin - 24/02/1955 69 - Tommy Nilsson - 10/03/1955 70 - Jan Andersson - 07/05/1955 71 - Kai Niemi - 15/09/1955 72 - Jerzy Rembas - 18/04/1956 73 - Chris Morton - 22/07/1956 74 - Steve Bastable - 16/09/1956 75 - Bruce Penhall - 10/05/1957 76 - Karl Maier - 24/08/1957 77 - Roman Jankowski - 05/10/1957 78 - Bo Petersen - 21/02/1958 79 - Les Collins - 24/05/1958 80 - Mitch Shirra - 27/09/1958 81 - Michael Lee - 11/12/1958 82 - John Cook - 18/12/1958 83 - Dennis Sigalos - 16/08/1959 84 - Erik Gundersen - 08/10/1959 85 - Hans Nielsen - 26/12/1959

Sad to report the passing of another list member - Coventry's Jim Lightfoot. He was 89.

Newcastle, Sunderland, and Belle Vue...

Exactly! People just get something in their heads, and can't consider any alternative. Most of us (not all of us, apparently) would rather see four riders in a race, rather than just three or two. It's okay to punish a rider or team for a starting offence, but why should the fans be punished by being forced to watch races with riders missing?

Oh, I get it - so make it 30 yards...