E I Addio

The Sverre Harrfeldt thread got a bit side tracked by a discussion about Christer Loftqvist andReidar Eide so rather than spoil that thread I thought I would start a separate one as both were involved in two of the most memorable races I have ever seen. I say memorable rather than great because we can have different opinions on what is a great race but sometimes you see a race or races that just seem to define everything you love about speedway. The two races in question took place in a West Ham v Wembley match 13th October 1970 . There was a great build up to them . Reidar went out and won heat one over a second faster than anyone else rode that night, and inflicted Olle Nygrens only defeat of the evening. He was back out in heat 5 and whopped Tony Clarke and Barry Crowson. Two heats later he came out on a tac sub to beat Christer Loftqvist. He was looking invincible and the fans resigned themselves to him going through the card. Then came a fabulous heat 11 , when Loftqvist and Eide were programmed against each other. Reidar made the gate (just) but with Christer scraping the fence as only he could , he slowly edged in front , but with barely half a bikes length lead he locked up sightly coming out of bend two lap 3 allowing Reide back in front by a matter of inches. I think Christer had the throttle hard against the stop for the rest of the race and came back to win by about half a bikes length. Heat 13 was a repeat of Heat 11 except that this time Christer was round the line unusually for him and Reidar round the boards. Christer again locked up a bit, same place ad before, but being on the inside, he recovered more quickly and again won by about half a length. Speedway at its absolute best. Anyone else remember it ? One of the few programmes I still have. West Ham closed down for redevelopment soon after and I felt bereft. I continued to Hackney for a time but it was never quite the same to me and eventually I drifted away for many years until returning to Lakeside, which for me somehow captured the mood of Wets Ham in a way that Hackney never did, not for me anyway.

Looking back over old programmes it is surprising the number of riders that my memory tells me were very good weren’t actually all that consistent, it’s just that I have been judging them on the basis of a few great races I remember and one tends to forget the ones they don’t do so well.

They are to all intents and purposes, the public face of speedways administrative body. They are by far the worst leaders the sport has ever seen. Both are totally inarticulate, totally unimaginative , totally unable to project themselves or the sport, totally unable and unwilling to comunicate with the fans in a meaningful way, and totally unable to seriously consider any outlook on the sport but their own. Other promiters may have simialar flaws but these are the two front men who should be selling the sport. Quite seriously, what progress has the sport made since they have taken over the reins , despite Chapmans bluster at the outset ? They are the worst of a bad bunch. Beyond useless.

So if we say, in general terms, the quality of the racing is roughly the same as it's always been, some good meetings, some not so good, then as long as there are not too many bad meetings, we can say it's not the quality of the racing that turns people away. Obviously there are a lot more ways to spend your leisure time today than there were 30 or 40 years ago, and less and less people want to stand around in stadiums all evening because it's not just Speedwáy that has suffered. Dog racing has suffered heavily and stick cars are not doing as well as they used to. So if we say that is not the on track action that had turned fans away, at least not in great numbers, it has to be the off track issues like presentation and the cheating which to my mind is a major factor , even though it was probably always there to a point. If it is the off track issues that are the problem then that falls back in the lap of the BSPA. Unless and until the likes of Godfrey and Chapman take a long look at themselves and take their share of responsibility, nothing will change.

If the future of the sport is in the hands of Godfrey and Chapman we might as well shut up shop now . Godfrey behaviour last season was beyond the pale. As 50+ year follwer of the sport since knee high to a grasshopper, I now find motivation to see another meeting ver difficult, and it’s almost entirely due to Godfreys machinations last year. The sport can’t afford to lose a single fan yet Godfrey has just turned thousands away. The man is a complete and utter plonker. As one promoter said to me last season, the way things are going we will finish up with the same two teams facing each other eeek after week, nothing else left.

So let’s get this right. You start a thread asking a question you already know the answer to, and which nobody has the slightest interest in, and when challenged you try to tell us your reason for starting it was to see if Iris 123 would trail you . Of course you didn’t expect him to catch you out by pointing out that it was just another of your attention seeking scams. Take notice of what Chunky says and stop making a complete fool of yourself.

Jack Young, Adam Shields, Dave Watt, Nick Morris, Geoff Mudge , Aub Lawson, Leigh Adams, Jason. Crump,

A excellent choice, if I may say so Mr Bold, although I have liked to include the Hurri-Ken himself, namely the immaculate Mr McKinlay.

The duplicity of the BSPA general and Rob Godfrey in particular knows no bounds. My utmost sympathy to Worky fans. It was Godfreys interference in the fixture list that created the problem.You can bet your bottom dollar that if Scunthorpe were in Workys situation acw@y round it would have been found. Still more money in the BSPA coffers and another promoter who loves the sport forced out.

Boy, how good is that starting procedure. Everyone lines up a bike length from the tapes, then when they are ready the start Marshall calls them all forward, they move forward onto clearly marked lines on a hard surface, tapes go up and off they go. No gardening no fiddling with clutches, no moving into someone else's part of the grid, no hanging around on a two minute warning because someone isn't ready or is playing games. It's all so simple. How did the powers that be manage to make the start so complicated ?

They are fair points norbold so I guess it comes down to there being no final absolute black or white final answer but in the context of the thread I think it is fair to say that as Eric Chitty, Aub Lawson and Jack Young all won the London Riders Championship as West Ham riders that makes West Ham a London track in speedway terms...….

Yes, I agree 100%, but it raises the question " when is a troll not a troll?" , in other words , how do you draw the line between the genuine trolls, and those that are just plain thick, or socially inept or attention seekers or like others to think they have inside information when they don't, and all these other things that are irritable to most of us but not exactly trolling Bottom line is, it's a public forum and you can't ban people just because you don't like the way they express themselves. You are right though. I haven't looked at the Premiership section since the season finished and usually only have cursory glance at the Championship section, for the reasons you state. In a sense it reflects the way the sport in general is going, which is a shame because I have met some great people through Speedwáy.

How do you define what was Essex and what was London ? The postal address was London E.16 ( the stadium that is) , in contrast to Romford which was always Essex and only got a post code when Greater London swallowed it up. As a County Borough it’s governance was independent of both London CC and Essex CC , it operated it’s own fire brigade and its own Tramway ststem until 1933 when it came came under London County Council. The police service was part of the Metropolitan Police but conversely the judicial system came under Essex County Council. The adjacent boroughs, Ilford Barking and Degeham always were regarded as Essex for postal services until absorbed into the GLC. All in all its a bit of a moot point but Having spent part of my childhood in West Ham and later teenage years in Romford people in West Ham certainly considered themselves to be Londoners but Romford people always thought of themselves definitely as Essex.

You have a report facility on each post. If you don't like something that has been said you can always report it. No good moaning about the mods if you don't use the report facility they have given you.

West Ham , the county of my birth, was a collection of Essex villages until the building of the Victoria and Albert Docks around the mid 19th Century onward and the building of the Eastern Counties Railway linking the Docks to London. It then became rapidly developed industrially and became one of the most populous boroughs in the country . By the time the Speedwáy stadium and dog track was built in 1928 it had been a County Borough (( making it independent of Essex County Council) for around 30 years, and was part of the London Postal Area (E.16). A number of services were being provided by the old London County Council. That to my mind makes it a London track from the time the stadium was built.