BOBBATH

R.I.P.-just passed away , only 67

THanks BL65

BL65 I always enjoy your posts-you have a very comprehensive knowledge of our sports history and very good at sharing it with us. One question that bothers me-has anyone e.g. Speedway Researcher gone back to the start of League racing and converted riders' averages into the modern CMA system which was developed by Bryan Seery in the mid sixties when the BL started. ?

How is dad Clive doing these days-I remember him well-always value for money-think he rode for Middlesbrough at one point

Sorry to hear this , since I am getting up there myself I recall Peter starting at Brafield "Badgers"-time goes by so quickly. RIP Peter . BTW never figured out exactly where Brafield was -is there still a track. I seem to recall a guy called Laslo Muncsacki ( I think). Condolences to Peter's family.

That's crazy- I assumed the CMA was used for everything-to me that is the best judge . I remember Bryan Seery starting this in 1965 and the math for this is the best indicator of riders' performances

Well done BL65 -I never realized that- I always though Peter was top. Did Alby lead the averages any other year? Interestingly enough the Speedway Star of 13/11/1964 listed Peter as 9.37, Dick as 9.25 and Alby as 8.78- but I think that was just total points divided by number of meetings and did not use CMA's . Also from the number of meetings rode it looked like they included other than just PL meetings e.g.36 for Dick, so it must have included maybe PL K.O.Cup and say, Southern League. Your averages which I expect are more accurate were they on a CMA basis. Thanks for your response to this.

Here's another from the distant past- .Alby Golden of Newport from 1964 onwards. As I recall Alby was our third heat leader behind Dick Bradley and Peter Vandenberg. And he was a superb captain!!

I agree with you BL65-wasn't Nigel Boocock top of the averages in 1965- was Charlie the top of the former Prov. League Riders that year- I think George Hunter and Eric Boocock also had good years. And whatt about Jackie Biggs who I think had about a 3 point average for Coventry in 1964 and then became a star turn for Newport in 1965, when he would have been in his late forties I think. What a great year that was-the best!!!!!

Thanks everybody-as a matter of interest on the night the British Final was rained off (at West Ham), I spoke to Ivan at the bar and had a nice chat with him ( a gent). He was using a crutch as I recall and I said it must be a bit of a relief that it was rained off-gives you an extra week to recuperate etc. He said that it would take far more than a week to get better . He also didn't look 100%. As you mention he rode in the re-run of the meeting and despite a manful effort scored 5 points and was eliminated.

IN the great year of 1965-all of us PL fans wanted to see how well Ivan would do against the NL stars. Sadly Ivan had an accident very early on which affected his form . I am trying to recall the details- I think it was an early Newcastle match at Wolves-anyone recall more details e.g. other riders in the fateful race. I think one may have been Pete Jarman but am not sure

Hi Steve,guess Wyglenda still with us? The sixties Poles were great but I never thought Poland would become the centre of the Speedway world with the top League in the world. Can someone explain to me how that happened and why they replaced England as the top League-the crowds. they get seem to be like England in the forties

I rember pogo very well along with woryna and wyglenda- great and exciting riders. RIP Pogo. BTW are the latter two still with us- I hope so1

What was Steve Shovlar's mob-who was he???

Also thank you for your answer too Norbold.

Hi chunky, thanks for taking the trouble to answer this, good explanation that helped my understanding.

Well done Salty, thanks for correcting my mistake, I missed the obvious there. Cheers mate.

Just off the point a bit. I left England 52 years ago and I'm interested in how the English language is a flexible, living and evolving language and words are used in a different context now-e.g the meaning of the word "gay" which has changed meaning in all English speaking countries. I think I've noticed one change that hasn't come over here. This is the use of the word "of " instead of "have" e.g. in Terry's post he uses the word "of"instead of "have" in the first sentence as in "he would of always" etc. This is not meant to be a criticism Terry and I have seen this usage in other places including British newspapers. Are these two words now basically interchangeable on the your side of the pond? I have noticed other examples of this phenomon but can't think of any at the moment-although when I left England the use of the word "bottle"for courage was not widespread and the first time I saw it I had to ask my father-in-law what it meant!!

Last time I was in London, it looked like Sportspages had closed down, was it a victim of the internet and wikipaedia do you think? Has it ever reopened?

Speedway Researcher-what a wonderful site and many thanks to the folks who run it. I took Chunky's advice and looked up Wolves v. Newport on 8 October 1965 (my birthday -no need to send a card!!!) what a birthday present to a Wasps fan!! Here's the deal- all of the Wolves scored a max. Andrews, Sweetman, Francis, Airey, Jarman and Maxted. Guasco only man out-but even Gord had a paid maximum-four seconds. BTW I know what has happened in later years to all the Wolves riders except Brian Maxted-anybody have any update on Brian BTW Wasps bounced back from that awful defeat by beating CH 35-43 a week or so later (only their second away win of that season

I for one enjoy your posts Chunky. Not sure but I wonder if in the Wolves - Newport meeting in October 1965 which ended up 64-14 to Wolves (on my birthday no less)-whether all the Wolves had at least one race win-do any of you know the answer. Wasps forever!!!

Sorry to read this, how old was Bernie. I think he started riding in 1965 for Edinburgh maybe spent a couple of seasons there?

Sorry to hear this -71 is young these days. Was interested he was from Opole, until the end of WW2 it was the German city of Oppeln for almost 200 years.

Passed the link on to Reg Fearman, he greatly enjoyed the film and has passed it on to several other veterans of that era he is in touch with, Meadowbank was one of his most favourite tracks to race on. He is sure that the date of the meeting is 14 June 1952-which would explain why Jack Young is in civvies as he had moved to West Ham by then Apparently the full teams are shown on Speedway Researcher for that date. He recognised many of his old friends- Gordon McGregor, Bluey Scott, Bob Mark, Dick Campbell, Noel Watson , Don Cuppleditch for example. So again a big thanks to iris 123 for posting this great old film

Thank you , thank you, and thank you for posting this film. I followed the link and watched it a couple of times. It had an impact on me way beyond speedway- I was 6 years old in 1952 (a year older than Norbold I might add.) and it was great to see the spectators-how they looked , what they wore etc. ( think most of those spectators will have passed away by now).Just as I remembered.Everyone looked happy enough although life in UK was not maybe that great in 1952 (at least in our material terms) I remember seeing coaches like the ones the Motherwell fans descended from.. Great to see the huge attendances and some people with those wooden rattles which have long since gone. I have done my best to try and figure out the riders- here's what I came up with. In the Motherwell team picture I think I recognise on the far left Gordon McGregor and next to him Bluey Scott (both of whom I saw ride in the sixties). On the Edinburgh photo I recognised Dick Campbell and Don Cuppleditch (the tall guy), I certainly recognised Jack Young -(what was he doing there?) maybe he was a guest riding in the long lost rider of the night second half races (what happened to them)?? Also were there some riders in Glasgow(Ashfield) Giants colours? Anybody know who the guys signing autographs were?? Interesting to see the male spectators smoking and the ladies wearing head scarves, I remember all this.. I looked up the results for 1952 and see Edinburgh won both home matches against the Eagles 46-38 and 45-39., however much closer games at Motherwell 41-40 to the Eagles and a 42-42 draw. Can anybody help with identifications- Stan Bradbury who did so much for speedway in Canada was riding that year for Motherwell but couldn't pick him out. Were any forumlanders attending speedway in 1952 after all it is 68 years ago?? If so what sort of refreshments being served then- perhaps tea and meat pies or ham sarnies-do you think burgers and hotdogs were around or did they come later?? Were we happier then?-I don't know-we certainly never felt poor although I recall one xmas when my parents could not really afford presents- I got a hankie with a cowboy motif and a Dinky Car. Also and this is going way back-chicken was a luxury, very expensive, (before battery farming I guess) and we would get it once a year at xmas-this was the early fifties-turkey came later. Also great strides in health care have been made since then. Also then there was no central heating for people like me and chilblains occurred-never hear of them now!! Anyway wonderful memories generated by posting the link to this film-anybody care to share memories of that era?