Bryn Posted July 7, 2011 Report Share Posted July 7, 2011 Tony Hurren has imparted the following sad news on the Hackney 'Facebook' page: "One of speedway's best known fans, Tony (Professor) Barnard passed away peacefully on June 27th at London's Whipps Cross Hospital. Tony, who was 83, had battled lung cancer for a long time. He supported Hackney from 1963 until its demise half way through the 1991 season. He was also a regular at The Wick when the club operated as The London Lions in 1996. He was well known for his meticulous calculation of the number of passes in each race at Waterden Road. He also pioneered a revolutionary starting system which, alas, never came to competitive fruition. His funeral will be held at 10.30am on Friday July 15th at the City of London Crematorium." Very sad news indeed for all who, like myself, had the honour of knowing him and marvelled at the accurate statistics he produced meticulously week in, week out all without the aid of all the modern gizmos including computers! If you wanted to know a rider's up to the moment average or a particular rider's average away score at any track (particularly useful when looking for guests!) then "The Prof" was THE expert as he was for telling us all that there were an average of 4.79132 passes or whatever on turn three of the third lap of races at Waterden Road in all meetings! A real character. My deepest condolences to his family, R.I.P Professor Barnard - I feel honoured to have known you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted July 7, 2011 Report Share Posted July 7, 2011 (edited) Very sad news indeed. Tony was a great help with his insight in to pre war Hackney [as he attended pre-war meetings at The Wick as a boy] for the 2005 Hackney reunion programme. He also was the chairman of both testimonials the Hackney great Barry Thomas had. A fantastic man to speak to and here his stories of what he called the 'good old days of speedway' RIP Tony Edited July 7, 2011 by Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyMac Posted August 19, 2011 Report Share Posted August 19, 2011 Tony was a great bloke and a priceless addition to the Speedway Mail editorial team in the 80s and early 90s. My personal full-page tribute to him appears in the latest issue of Backtrack magazine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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