norbold

Pat Flanagan is not shown as a Hastings rider in 1948 in either Peter Morrish's "British Speedway Leagues 1946 - 1964" or in the 1949 Stenner's Review of Hastings, 1948. There is an entry for his In the 1949 "Who's Who in Speedway", which says, "Born London 1927. A 1949 Harringay junior."

Thanks for the link, Grachan. It looks perfectly ok to me. It just looks like a great move by Gundersen - and I think we should remember that Gundersen always figures in discussions about the greatest riders of all time and this sort of move is why.

Music is an interesting one. I was listening to one of my young teenage favourite songs yesterday - Runaway by Del Shannon. The song came out 60 years ago this year. 60 years before that was 1901!!!

I often make that comparison too. When something comes on telly that I remember etc., I think to myself what was that number of years before the event. It is quite frightening at times.

Cripes ! Not bad for a 103 year old man.

I saw Dave Jessup in one of his first races in public as a 15 year old in 1968 in a second half at West Ham. He beat Alan Sage, Vic Harding and Barry Thomas. My programme notes say, "won by half a lap". He was immediately signed up for the Hammers for the following season. It was obvious, even from that first race, that he was destined for greater things and he became my "protege". I always followed his career from then on - I just wish I could have advised him on how to look after his bike!

You know how to make people feel old. The first world final I saw was won by Ove Fundin!

Not bad for a poor old boy at death's door suffering from Alzheimer's: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/11/the-observer-view-on-joe-biden-audacious-spending-plans

Of course no-one could deny the significance of him and his death and I appreciate some people care more than I do. But the BBC already has a rolling News Channel. So if they have coverage on the News Channel and BBC One, why exactly is it necessary to cancel all other programming? What difference does it make having exactly the same coverage on BBC 2 as well?

I hope you've got your popcorn handy.

Wot? No popcorn?

I wish I had shares in Butterkist as well! https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/07/politics/congress-trump-naacp-january-6/index.html

I can only think that Bluey has shares in Butterkist the number of times he has said it is "popcorn time".

I agree Kester. Chunky is quite outspoken and doesn't mince words, but that doesn't mean he is wrong to do so especially if someone is posting complete nonsense and doing it specifically to wind people up themselves. Kester mentions Jack Keen from Erith, but at one time, John Hyam had at least four different aliases he was posting under and there were a number of threads where he took over and just argued with himself. It was bizarre. He did settle down from that but would then quite often post provocative statements and get hurt when people replied to them. I was actually quite friendly with John and had been for many years, as he did have a lot to contribute to the history of speedway, and, away from the Forum, was very helpful and supportive to me, but I have to say that even I found his posts very tiresome at times. I never picked him up on his posts or argued with him on here because of our friendship but it was a bit of strain to restrain myself sometimes! As Kester says, there were others far more outspoken than Chunky in their responses and Chunky did, on several occasions, try and help John out with information, both historical and technical, but, many times, his help was flung back in his face. Incidentally, I do find it funny how those posters accusing people of bullying are lining up to attack Chunky!

Poor old boy!