Where It All Began

[arnieg]

WE went up to the Hunter Valley wineries yesterday (and after a little wine-tasting) - Maitland is just 15 miles up the rode.

 

When we arrived the place looked all deserted and locked up, but we found an open gate where a water tanker was at work. So we got in to have a quick peek.

 

The Showground is fairly easy to find. The site feels like Peterborough, although the buildings have the same air of modernity as those at Long Eaton.

 

There is a greyhound track inside a trotting track. The large very elderly looking grandstand has a plaque (very discretely) attached to it commemorating the origins of speedway

 

For more on Maitland: http://vintagespeedway.homestead.com/Maitland.html [more recent pix on www.speedwayplus.com (under West Maitland)]

 

For more of the debate: http://www.historicspeedway.co.nz/Start%20...y%20(world).htm

 

My observations: Sports aren't created, they evolve. So there can never be a meeting truly described as the first, just a series of events that converge into what we now recognise as the codified sport.

 

Secondly history is determined by those who write the history books not those who actually make it!

[Tsunami]

WE went up to the Hunter Valley wineries yesterday (and after a little wine-tasting) - Maitland is just 15 miles up the rode.

 

When we arrived the place looked all deserted and locked up, but we found an open gate where a water tanker was at work. So we got in to have a quick peek.

 

The Showground is fairly easy to find. The site feels like Peterborough, although the buildings have the same air of modernity as those at Long Eaton.

 

There is a greyhound track inside a trotting track. The large very elderly looking grandstand has a plaque (very discretely) attached to it commemorating the origins of speedway

 

For more on Maitland: http://vintagespeedway.homestead.com/Maitland.html [more recent pix on www.speedwayplus.com (under West Maitland)]

 

For more of the debate: http://www.historicspeedway.co.nz/Start%20...y%20(world).htm

 

My observations: Sports aren't created, they evolve. So there can never be a meeting truly described as the first, just a series of events that converge into what we now recognise as the codified sport.

 

Secondly history is determined by those who write the history books not those who actually make it!

 

Interesting. BTW by the contours of the grass on the centre green of the half mile track, I would say there had been an earlier smaller track with the main grandstand in the middle of the home straight. Perhaps with developing the big track, the smaller track on the right was created to host the other small track activities.