cityrebel

west ham stadium died with a whimper. there was none of the fury shown surrounding the bid to save dudley wood. the lokeren disaster of 1970 finally knocked the stuffing out of the club, along with three seasons of being poorly treated by the dreaded 'rider control'. this led to the hammers being rooted to the bottom of the league for their last three top flight seasons. by the time romford move into custom house in 1972 the grand old arena was a hollow shell. the decision to name some of the roads after former west ham heroes helps to keep their memories alive, even if it was well before my time of visiting custom house as a spectator.

does anyone think that saturday tracks will benefit from the liklihood of no GP'S on live tv this coming season, and will the EL survive if SKY pull the plug on domestic speedway when the current deal runs out at the end of 2013.

the roads at west ham are named after johnnie hoskins, bluey wilkinson, jack young, tommy croombs, aub lawson and arthur atkinson. i don't think i've left any out, but it's been a few years since i've been over there. i always feel a bit sad when i visit one of my old stamping grounds.

back in my boom years of the early 1970's there was a varied diet of tracks in london and the south east. monday reading, tuesday west ham, wednesday crayford, thursday wimbledon and romford, friday hackney, saturday wembley, rayleigh and canterbury, sunday eastbourne and rye house. you were spoilt for choice in those days!.

the first two british finals that i ever went to were at west ham in 1970 and coventry in 1977. both of these meetings pulled in crowds of over 15,000. these days the event struggles to get 2,000. it can't get any worse, can it.

at least you will now have plenty of time to get to the launch pad on may 11th!

in my era 1968 onwards, the start of speedway's decline was the loss of wembley as a world final venue after 1981. within a couple of seasons the BL had started to lose long established top flight venues like wimbledon, hackney, halifax, leicester, poole and birmingham. some to the NL and others to redevelopment. the BL never recovered from losing these tracks and it's been going downhill ever since.

the most exciting rider i've ever seen must be christer lofqvist. the two seasons i watched him ride on the wide open spaces of west ham's superb custom house track are part of the reason i still go to speedway. as a kid he was a real hero of mine and i was gutted when he never signed for the dons in 1976.

it's time for uncle len to get that caravan cleaned up!

my all time wimbledon team from my era of supporting the dons from 1968 to 2005 would be in no particular order. 1.ronnie moore 2.tommy jansson 3.trevor hedge 4.barry briggs 5.edward jancarz 6.dave jessup 7.malcolm simmons the likes of reg luckhurst, olle nygren, kelvin tatum, todd wiltshire, roger johns and larry ross would all be pushing for a team spot!

i think it was brad oxley. steve finch also rode for the dons in that meeting and took a bit of stick from dick barrie and some of the locals. was you one of them!

they did and i went to one of them. i saw wimbledon ride there in the koc in 1981. pre meeting the track was in a pretty poor state and some of the riders didn't want to ride, luckily for me they rode. i seem to remember rob grant beating malcolm simmons in the match which ended up as an away win for the dons. both the BL and NL teams entered the cup that season.

uncle len might be thinking of moving the rockets into central park in a couple of years time!

i went to park road twice but never got to holker street. although i did see the barrow bombers ride at rye house in 1974.

kent kestrels sounds like a decent name to me. it would provide a link to one of the countys former tracks at crayford.

don't forget sittingbourne and lydd, two excellent set ups down here in the south east!

speaking as a neutral i think the heathens should keep the dudley name. cradley were a team that closed in 1995 and should remain that way until a new home track is found. like boston and hackney in the past, i'm just not in favour of defunct clubs running in the league. this is just my opinion and no offence intended!

preventing the constant clock watching leading up to the mad rush would be a big bonus for me. at least i can relax a bit and watch the meeting, i don't get home until 12.30 am even when i catch the earlier ferry. the proposed cuts to ferry services start in january 2013. there is currently a petition doing the rounds to demonstrate against the changes to the timetables.

with wightlink looking to cut even more services from the current timetable it seems a logical decision to make. last season it wasn't just us fans making a mad dash to catch the 9.45 fast cat, the riders were also rushing to make the 10pm car ferry. failure to make that sailing would mean a wait until midnight!

well done to all of the riders for putting on a show at a wet launch pad last night. with a couple of additions rye could have a decent team in 2013.

the forecast is for some wet stuff on sunday. maybe uncle len will pull the plug on this early.

it's no worse than the EL koc is it!

a pleasent mild afternoon in london today. it's a shame the match is off tonight, i feel like going to a meeting, i did consider the ELRC, but £25 plus prog for an event i'm not really interested in plus travel costs would work out at around the £70 mark!

shads, you should know the only opinions uncle len allows at hoddesdon are his own!

you could end up with a lifetime ban from the launch pad shads!