usineC

At The Shay Booker T and the MG's were played regularly and a song called The Hussle stick in the mind. But they played some other great motown/soul discs too, which I understand were favourites of the 'voice of Halifax Speedway,' announcer Doug Adams. Can anyone give us a run-down of the records played at Halifax during the 70s/early 80s?

Oh yeah, and weren't Oxford once the Rebels too, following White City's demise? Do you think Bill Clinton may have attended Sandy Lane while he was studying there? Could've made him unelectable, eh!

While I quite agree that politically correct objections to certain language/symbols can very quickly veer towards the absurd, there are broader considerations on this topic that deserves a degree of concern over and above the appearance of the apparent jingoistic bigotry straining to gush forth on this thread from the anti-political correctness brigade. The earlier, somewhat sarcastic, point that suggested banning the nickname 'Pirates' for politically correct reasons, quite effectively illustrated how absurd the pc debate can be. The same could equally apply to, say, the nickname Vikings, for all the violence popularly associated with those northern 'brutes' (just forget about the fantastic art they brought with them, eh!), though if you've ever had a saturday night out in Hull city centre you'd know that never was a speedway team more appropriately named!! Yet, while the posting above states that it's only the speedway community that is aware of the more politically in-correct nicknames (in this thread's case, Bomber Harris) and therefore doesn't really matter, we ought to be conscious that speedway does not exist entirely in some sort of cultural bubble. For example, I recently introduced two brand new people to speedway who have a wide range of interests, both are humorous and well educated. The meeting happened to involve Somerset and they were both absolutely flabbergasted by their Rebels nickname and at how proudly the fans brandished their confederate flags. Cultural symbols do matter and my companions were left wondering just what kind of people would so happily associate themselves with such a strong symbol of southern slavery and the KKK? They're aware of Bristol's history of participation in the slave trade but just how big is the Klan's presence in the west country these days, they wondered? During an initial period of discomfort, and extended period of p***taking, I could only reply that those people waving that flag would be speedway people who really didn't give a toss about the world beyond the fourth bend. Sorry to say, but that didn't sound like much of a mitigation to them! Anyway, you'll all be glad to know that these two debutants thought the speedway was thrilling, but whether they'll decide to venture back into our cosy little cultural bubble remains to be seen! Would it matter if they didn't return, anyway? Well, a speedway club that represents a city with quite a high number of young people from a different cultural background, Oxford, has just gone belly-up, so perhaps the image that speedway projects does matter, after all!!

Issues such as this only seem to emerge after the controversy in question has received broad national attention and the legacy of Air Marshall Arthur 'Bomber' Harris's wartime strategy has certainly received that! I would suggest that it is down to present day international relations, in the context of the European Union, that makes the memory of 'Bomber' Harris's razing of Dresden so sensitive for the politically correct establishment. Fair enough, you might say? After all, the whole underlying point of the EU is to prevent war in Europe from ever happening again so just whose interests are served by celebrating Harris's record?!! However, for speedway fans to start getting all hot 'n' bothered about Chris Harris's nickname is somewhat hypocritical considering no one ever battered an eyelid over former racer, Peter Carr's moniker of "The B52 Bomber!" More tonnage of bombs were dropped on the peasant population of North Vietnam by those particular aeroplanes than was dropped throughout the whole of WWII, so where was the objection to P.C.'s nickname? OK, Vietnam was not fought in our name but the connotations of both nicknames include obscenities of equal magnitude. For the record, I thought "B52 Bomber" was a great speedway nickname for a rider capable of such aggressive white-line riding as Peter Carr - and a formidable psychological weapon against his opponents, I should imagine. Unfortunately for Chris Harris, for him to have adopted a nickname which identifies him so closely with our erstwhile RAF commander, he becomes not only associated with his wartime record but the original bomber's somewhat pompous/bloated/priggish personage. A much more vital reason for dropping the name, I would have thought! In the final analysis, however, Chris Harris seems quite content to embrace the unfortunate associations that his name has thrust upon him. It is, therefore, entirely up to the new British Grand Prix Champion to reconcile these prickly issues with his own, seemingly, sensitive personality, and perhaps prepare some convincing answers should the German media raise them at their own staging of the speedway grand prix. Good luck then, 'Bomber' Harris, and may the win at Cardiff be the first of many!