Dave Stummings Posted April 16, 2013 Report Share Posted April 16, 2013 What a great shame speedway doesn't even have an Elite League KOC competition anymore! This once oh so prestigious competition was such an important cup to take part in and it wooooed the crowds. So lets go back to 1968! Yes what on earths Hackney 1968 doing in the general speedway board! Why? I think its worth spreading to a wider audience that Hackney Speedway is reliving the whole of 1968 through the eyes of the club, its just like speedway updates but in 1968. It's a great idea, I'm loving it and sure others will to. Well worth looking at http://www.hackneyspeedway.com and on http://facebook.com/hackneyspeedway, tonight its West Ham v Hackney KOC. I think I'm correct in saying in those days they were on offs and not over two legs. Please mods, keep this post here, so others can enjoy the real good old days of speedway! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tocha Posted April 16, 2013 Report Share Posted April 16, 2013 (edited) What a great shame speedway doesn't even have an Elite League KOC competition anymore! This once oh so prestigious competition was such an important cup to take part in and it wooooed the crowds. So lets go back to 1968! Yes what on earths Hackney 1968 doing in the general speedway board! Why? I think its worth spreading to a wider audience that Hackney Speedway is reliving the whole of 1968 through the eyes of the club, its just like speedway updates but in 1968. It's a great idea, I'm loving it and sure others will to. Well worth looking at http://www.hackneyspeedway.com and on http://facebook.com/hackneyspeedway, tonight its West Ham v Hackney KOC. I think I'm correct in saying in those days they were on offs and not over two legs. Please mods, keep this post here, so others can enjoy the real good old days of speedway! It was in 1971 Hackney won the KO Cup beating Cradley Heath over two legs in the final. All qualifiers up to the final were, in those days, over just one leg so it was the luck of the draw as to whether a team were at home or away. In the semi-final Hackney drew King's Lynn away and secured an unlikely draw which resulted in a replay at Waterden Road. This went right down to the wire. In the final heat, Hackney needed a heat advantage to progress thus winning 39-38. For the entire race Terry Betts led Bengt Jansson until Banger pulled out one of his finest cutbacks coming out of the final bend to to win by no more than the width of a tyre. Hackney reached the final the following year but were up against the majestic Ivan Mauger fuelled Belle Vue. To their credit, the Hawks won the home leg 40-37 with Banger scoring a 12 point maximum. As I recall, this was Belle Vue's only third defeat the entire 1972 season. Hackney lost 45-33 at Hyde Road. Edited April 16, 2013 by tocha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Voice Of Reason Posted April 17, 2013 Report Share Posted April 17, 2013 (edited) So many great memories of my beloved Hawks. This is a VERY interesting article on your brilliant site. Hope that you don't mind me quoting it - as it epitomises the type of excellent content of your site Dave. Maybe, there's a lot of 'food for thought' in Uncle Len's marketing techniques of 45 years ago, in order to kick start some (most?) tracks even in this day and age? An Open letter to Tracktopic man PETER OAKES from Hackney boss LEN SILVER DEAR MR OAKES, During the winter months 1 have quietly endured the inferences in your column that West Ham, or more correctly, Dave Lanning is the only London promotion that is publicity conscious. You have jibed that West Ham have gained space in the wintertime newspapers while others have slept. Oh Mr Oakes, how wrong can you be? Certainly it must be admitted that West Ham have gained space in the newspapers, but what have we read? The big story was the Sunday racing one . . . and what a silly farce THAT turned out to be! Other stories have had little or no consequence, like the tale about Harrfeldt buying some roses. All good strong stuff. But what were we doing while Mr Lanning sat behind the phone talking to his newspaper colleagues? Well, we decided to get our priorities right, and to this end put in a terrific amount of physical work at the stadium so that when the people come, they have a show to see that is worth seeing. Then and only then we thought about publicity and appointed a P.R.O. Mr Peter Douglas. Quietly he went about his business, making his contacts with personal visits and generally making friends of the people who matter. While West Ham released their silly little stories, we were working for a big splash when it mattered most, the very eve of the season. And what a splash we made! With near perfect track conditions at our Press Open Day at the "Wick" the riders were able to put on a fine display of racing for the press and TV and film men present, The result? Half a column in the "Daily Express" that dwarfed all of West Ham's pieces put together! Pathe Newsreel coverage in EVERY A .B.C. cinema three days before we opened and a firm promise of a Speedway programme on TV's "Blue Peter" and a feminine angle in a famous woman's magazine: All this in addition to tremendous local coverage. But were we content to sit back on our laurels? Not likely! We then personally distributed 50,000 yes, 50,000 handbills in East and North London and placed posters ill every conceivable place. Our loudspeaker van also flooded the area with music and news about our opening meeting, if we don't get a crowd on Friday, it certainly won't be for the want of trying, So please, Mr Oakes, be sure of your facts before you criticise. LEN SILVER Edited April 17, 2013 by The Voice Of Reason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Stummings Posted April 17, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 17, 2013 So many great memories of my beloved Hawks. This is a VERY interesting article on your brilliant site. Would love to take the credit for the site, but regrettably it's not me but very interesting reading as a former Hawks fans as well. Of course we didn't know it at the time, but I believe this was the beginning of the post war golden era of speedway. The second division had been formed in 1968 and speedway was on the up in the UK BIG time, but I guess it started to diminish in the early eighties and has never domestically really recovered. Sky's involvement should have seen speedway go back up in the popularity stakes, but apart from the play off finals and the GP at Cardiff-not that that gets the 80,000 Wembley used to get for the one off World Finals- the crowds have never returned. If Sky pull the plug on speedway as rumored next season I really to fear for Elite League speedway in future in the UK. Poland seems to have taken the mantle as the place to ride and indeed maybe we should go back to the drawing board as Len did back during the winter of 1967/68. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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