cityrebel

a very fair post. what i want as a neutral rye regular is just a little more dirt and a bit more water prior to the start of meetings.

hi rob, i went to three world long track finals in the 1980's - korskro, marianske lazne and herxheim. all three of these circuits were shale based and resembled very large speedway tracks. i recenty read an article by ivan mauger, where he comments that all pre 1991 long track competitions were more like speedway compared to the current long track series which resembles grass track with very few speedway riders taking part. it's just another example of how the sport has evolved over the years.

i'm only joking with you rob. i do agree with what you say about the indoor meetings, most of those staged in this country have been a farce. the only venues that resembled real speedway were brighton and bournemouth because they ran on a shale surface.

so the 1969 season at plymouth should be removed from the record books!.

was high beech the first meeting to be licensed by the ACU in this country.

rob, when i was a wee lad on holiday in 1969 my parents took me to see plymouth ride at pennycross. the surface there was very much sand like and what about all the indoor meetings raced on concrete and ice these are all classed as speedway.

the track at rye house on sunday was packed down hard with a lack of dirt. can i count that as a speedway meeting ?.

the track at plough lane was reduced in size at the end of the 1967 season because of the damage being caused by the stock cars to the speedway circuit bends. the track from 1968 to 1991 had seperate bends for the cars and bikes. shale on the inside and tarmac on the outside. at the end of most speedway seasons we used to lift the shale from the straights so the car track was tarmac all the way round. it could be a nightmare trying to relay the speedway straights after a wet winter. i can remember sliding all over the place while driving a mini roller trying to pack down the wet shale!. the reason the starting gate was moved back was to give the riders a longer run to the first bend because the straights had been made shorter. happy days.

i remember seeing jimmy ride for hackney during my first proper season of going to speedway in 1970. what i mean by proper is going to tracks other than my home circuit at plough lane.

i'm not a fan of individual or challenge meetings, in fact i've been to very few in the last twenty years. for this event i'm probably going to make the effort, it's for a very good cause and it will be interesting to see how these world class riders perform on the tricky rye house circuit.

i've been a wimbledon fan all my life and i still go to speedway twice a week. i do have a slight attachment to lakeside only because it's a track where a lot of us london fans gather most fridays and talk about days gone by.

i went to my first ever meeting at wimbledon in september 1968 so i never saw sverre ride before his terrible accident earlier that year. my first visit to west ham was in may 1970 against the dons. if my memory serves me right this was christer lofqvist's debut for the hammers and in the same meeting sverre fell and broke his arm. it was a cruel blow as he was just getting some form back. i was lucky enough to see him ride plenty of times for wembley in 1971 and as a kid he was one of my favourite riders at the empire stadium. thanks for the memories sverre.

crayford was a track that took a lot of stick because of its size and shape but i used to love going there. for me it was so easy to get to. a direct train service from waterloo east to crayford station which was connected to the stadium. how us fans in the south east could do with a venue like that today.

i have an original bradford panthers badge in my collection which is red and white, but the year bars for 1961 and 62 are blue and yellow.

i think that jiri stancl and the verner brothers rode in the meeting i saw at romford. i remember dave jessup and john louis riding for the young lions team but i was only a kid at the time.

i tend to give most winter speedway a miss. i attended 89 meetings last season and i need the winter months to recharge my batteries for the new year. i go the the high beech event in february to blow away the cobwebs and get ready for the start of the new season.

i remember seeing red star at canterbury in the 1980's, but my first memory of the czechs was watching them scrape the concrete wall at romford in 1970.

i don't know if this is any help but the long eaton speedway badge year bars were issued in the following colours 1963 (blue), 1964 (blue), 1965 (green), 1966 (yellow) and 1967 (red). unlike most other clubs they were never issued in any colour order.

i remember seeing him work at wimbledon stadium for terry russell's cleaning company. a lot different from his then evening job as a top national league speedway rider.

hi derek it's 1976 press and practice day. i've got richard greer's silver city rebels race jacket in my collection from that season.

yes i remember that i missed out as well. to ease the pain a bit i do have mike sampsons west ham bombers race jacket from 1972 and a replica childs jacket from around 1970. it is the same as the west ham london design but slightly smaller. as a kid i remember seeing it in the track shop and it will have to do until the real thing turns up. at least it's been at the track unlike all of these copys for sale.

what about these other dons juniors from the 1970's. paul dowdall, ian fletcher, brian canning, lee edmonds and ian silk. i wonder what happened to these riders.

i loved the white city from the first meeting against the dons to the last rebels match v bristol. the worst thing for me was that i helped strip out the old place prior to demolition as part of my 22 years working for the dreaded GRA. it was like sticking a knife through my heart and i still can't forgive them for taking west ham away from me when i was a child. the GRA are the main reason speedway is dead in london.

you are right sheffield also used that design. i'm lucky enough to own the original sheffield badge, it is a very rare one that seldom comes up for sale. this badge was remade in the sixties but the genuine issue was made by thomas fattorini.

if it's round and blue with two riders heads in the middle then the badge is cardiff white city circa 1929. the original in my collection has the makers name lewis on the back of the badge. for many years this badge was thought to be london white city but the design is the same as the pre war cardiff programmes.