BOBBATH

I'm sure many of you know about this site already but its absolutely tremendous- I was directed there thru a posting on this forum. I think one of the Forum members directs it. Well its great- I've just seen Tommy Price win the 1949 WF and about 5 minutes of the Halifax v Hanley meeting of 1949-was able to pick out Arthur Forrest and Ken Adams. This is a wonderful site and thanx to whoever put it together.

Thanx Trackman -if you can find any photos that would be great

I hate to say it but I think that old pirate Jim Squibb passed away-I think he lived in Spain his last few years. Can anyone confirm??

Good for Greg- I remember him mainly as a member of Halifax xhampionship winning team of 1966-I think the other second strings and they were all real contributors to the team success were Bert Kingston and Bob Jamieson are they also back in Aussie.??

Gosh indeed that's a name from the past I think he became a team manager later and was the uncle of David Crane-how are Cyril and David these days -well and in good health I hope.

Perhaps ruthless rather than wild would have been a better description of Bill Andrews-I remember a huge punch up he had with Peter Vandenberg at Newport in 1965-also see Simmo's book page 43-44

While there are a number of candidates for this I would have to say my nomination would be Chris Blewett anybody remember him on the track-another contender would be Bill Andrews also Clive Featherby-any thoughts out there on this.

A couple of things.Chopper-if you see Charlie at Adelaide-perhaps you could tell him about this forum discussion item and just tell him that he is still remembered with great affection by many for all the pleasure he gave us. Re the book -sounds great-one question re averages-would they be for League only, league and cups only or all meetings-not being picky would just be interested. Sounds great though and I will get a copy.

You guys are lucky to be able to attend this-perhaps one time I will be able to come over from Canada just to see this famous site-have a good time!!

Thanx frigbo-let me know if I can help

Folks, good luck on this project-if you find it difficult to get some pieces of data-please post here I'm sure myself and others could help. One respectful suggestion would be to add date of death as well as date of birth for those no longer with us-what do you reckon??

I understand your viewpoint Customhousekid but Ken made so many World Finals and it would have been great for Charlie to have made just one-also I'm not so sure it was that open and shut-because a rerun was considered following a tribunal review-anyway they all tried their best!!

Folks see my note on British Final 1965/ Charlie Monk thread-I reckon it might be able to be done for 1946-90

I think this could be done-at least from 1946 to 1990. From 46 thru 64, Peter Morrish's book "British Speedway Leagues 1946-64,has all riders for all teams year by year-just points scored by each rider, not # of appearances. This book was published by Midland Speedway Agency 1984. From 1965 to 1990 there is "The Complete History of the British League" by Peter Oakes published 1991. Hope this helps,

Thanx Norbold great that you still have the program, I'd forgotten that Monk had come from 4th to 2nd in the race which Vandenberg won-a real spoiler that evening was Gordon Guasco who almost made it thru as reserve to World Final-losing a runoff to Mike Broadbank.I had been at Poole for the semi-final where Gordon beat Briggo fair and square-an unpredictable rider was Gordon.

Anybody out there remember this meeting-it was at West Ham,was delayed a week by rain and then the riders refused to ride unless they got more money. Six riders were going thru to the World Final and at that point Charlie Monk had not been defeated in any race in the World Championship rounds that season. I figure he was a cert to be one of the six.In his second ride he was defeated by Peter Vandenberg and a buddy pointed out that was the first point he had dropped in the World Champs so far. He had 5 pts. from two rides(Vandenberg didn't score another point all night). Heat 20 comes round Charlie has 8 pts.-on his way to another 2 at least-he gets excluded-Jimmy Gooch wins ,goes thru to his only World Final on 10,ditto Reg Luckhurst on 10, ditto the late Brian Brett on 10. No problem we all thought-he'll back and make many World Finals-he's only 24.Yet Charlie never came that close again.I recall talking later in the West Ham bar to Ivan Mauger who scored 5 pts., which was a real achievement as he had his leg strapped and shouldn't have ridden at all and Ivan had a similar view and respect for Charlie. Funny game speedway

Thanx everybody,particularly great to see the photo.-my best Charlie Monk memory was the PL Rders Final in 1964-Charlie finished third in his first ride -surprisingly-Bill Andrews came from behind to win and Jimmy Squibb just came second,the rider finishing fourth was Jon Erskine. Charlie then won all his other races including beating Ivan Mauger.Ivan dropped another point to Roy trigg. In the run off Ivan beat Charlie. I fo nly Charlie had finished second in his first race he would have got it.

Anybody know what Charlie Monk is doing these days-he'd be 66 now-in 1964 he was the one PL rider who seemed to beat Ivan most frequently(with all due respect to the late Ivor Brown)

Well, I'm not as scary as Barney Kennett!!!!!!!!

First of all I'm so sorry that George has been quite ill. Second of all,Shazzybird I'm sorry to hear you thought Ross G. was scary.Sitting here in Canada I reckon I should come back some time , do a tour ofthe speedway tracks and perhaps meet some of you folks-but how would I identify you??

In reading this thread with interest I noticed some familiar names from the sixties-PL and BL- appear in the score sheets; specifically George Major,Ross Gilbertson, Bob Hughes and Terry Shearer-the latter two in my mind connected with Newport, Ross with Poole and George with Neath and CH.I think they are all British except Terry. I left UK in 68 so my main interest is prior to that-anybody know if these folks are still alive and if so what they are doing these days.Thanx in advance to everyone out in Speedwayland!!

Thanx andout- I was privileged to be at Paris when Stan was honored( a fine gentleman).Incidentally also a tremendous speedway meeting the same evening for the Canadian Championship-Kyle Legault(over from Sheffield) was undefeated and broke the track record a couple of times-but everyone raced excellently with a lot of passing.A nice feature is that quite a few expat Poles were there and I had an interesting time talking to these folks about Plech.Jancarz,Sczakiel,Woryna etc and other Polish riders of that era. All in all a wonderful evening and any speedway fans from overseas would have a great time if they visited the Paris track(not that far from Niagara Falls or Toronto)

Someone mentioned that Tony Armstrong lives in Canada-I can confirm that.He married Stan Bradbury's daughter-last I heard they were living in Edmonton, Alberta

I remember this-there was a small item in the Toronto Globe and Mail-I even went to the trouble of calling their newsroom to find if they had more data-they hadn't published any names. I had to wait to receive my Speedway Star.What a tragedy it was

Thanx Miro that answers the question-by the way looking at the Oxford v Sheffield scoresheet I noticed Bob Paulson's name-I know the poor chap committed suicide. That got me thinking of others who had ended their lives and I came up with quite a few names which leads me to wonder whether a higher than average number of riders did this compared to the general population and whether the sort of person who takes up speedway is perhaps more volatile, up and down, call it what you will than the general run of folks. Anybody got any views on this or who also have thought they noticed this.