daveallan81

I was sent lists but they required some work and I'm only about a third of the way through them. I think they'll do the trick once I'm finished but if they don't I'll get back to you. Thanks for the offer.

Does anyone have prepared season-by-season lists of riders from 1965 onwards? I don't need any other details (averages, clubs, etc) just the riders, year-by-year.

No worries. The programme (not mine) is marked up to some degree, do you want any of that info?

Bulldogs: Kelvin Tatum, Paul Thorp, Richard Knight, Neil Evitts, Malcolm Simmons, Andy Galvin and Jamie White at reserve.

https://app.box.com/s/wm7cfpcwle17ebtue3q3/file/4130456627

This sad news concerns Jimmy Beaton Senior, father of Bobby, Jim and the late George Beaton. A true legend. RIP Jimmy.

Aye I've already seen those. The year-by-year lists only run until 1972. I could extract them from the team lists but I wanted to see if anyone had ready-made lists to save me several hours of work.

That was the only possible reason I could come up with but it was hard to tell from the footage. Thanks.

In heat 8, when the rider caught the bales on the back straight, why was the rider in red (Makarov) also excluded from the rerun?

I'm trying to pin down a date for a Scottish Junior League fixture between Halifax and Berwick. By all accounts it should have been 21st June 1980 but having got the programme it was Halifax v Stoke that night. I've eliminated two other possible dates 5th & 12th July so that just leaves the 28th June Dews Superstar Trophy and 6th July Inter-League 4TT Halifax v Berwick v Hull v Sheffield. The latter is obviously a prime target. Can anyone confirm the date and, if possible, furnish me with the heat details of the junior match?

Indeed they did. However, according to the yearbook, in the return match at Barrow it was Jeff Ratcliffe who rode!

Can anyone confirm this riders' correct name? He rode around Northern circuits in the 80's at junior level and I've seen various combinations of his fore- and surname.

Yeh I've got him confirmed. The rider I'm looking for also 2nd halved at Ellesmere Port, in fact I have a record of them both in the one race.

http://wwosbackup.proboards.com/

Thank you very much.

I'm looking for the race details and heat times from the 3 Silver Helmet Match Races between Mike Ferreira and Steve Lawson which were staged before this match, if anyone can oblige.

I haven't broken my figures down but for all official fixtures across all three leagues I made it: 489 matches of which 70 saw both teams tracking full declared 1-7's. 789 guests and 368 uses of r/r.

Sad news. RIP Dave.

I got 9. I would have got more but the questions came too fast to post queries on here Got me thinking though, what would your chosen area of the sport be if you were to give it a go? I think I'd need to stick to Glasgow, or a more general 1970 to 95 at a push.

As anyone who has compiled speedway statistics will agree, the sport contains many instances where the waters become somewhat muddied. I would be interested to hear opinions regarding this one. The scenario: a programmed rider falls and aggravates an existing injury on his way to the tapes for his first ride. He is forced to withdraw from the meeting and his rides are subsequently covered by the reserves. The question: should this count as 1 match ridden, with a score of 0 points from 0 rides, in a rider's statistics?

There's clearly an argument for both sides. As it stands, only the yearbook credits him with the match. Three other sources do not. Bryan Seery is the only one of the three contributors (the other two being Dave Welch and Ian Steel) who receives a credit in the yearbook. If Bryan compiled the figures for the yearbook then he clearly changed his stance since the Speedway Star review figures were submitted. It should also be noted that the Speedway Star match report, while making mention of McKinna's withdrawal, does not include him in the scorers. Similar to the Jim Beaton example I gave earlier, at Middlesbrough in 1979 Steve Lawson blew up his engine in the warm-up and withdrew from the meeting. He receives no credit for the match and no entry in the yearbook. The significant difference where McKinna is concerned is he at least got as far as being on track. Perhaps that is the dividing line. An interesting example from 1978 - Reidar Eide arrived late at Wimbledon, shortly before the start of heat 12. He was placed on 2 minutes but failed to take to the track and was excluded. He isn't credited with the match or any score in the yearbook. I am still leaning towards no match.

Kenny was 4th in Tigers' averages at the time so no rider replacement facility was available. As it was a National League fixture, a guest wasn't an option. There were at least 4 home riders in waiting, 2 of whom had league racing experience, but as the match had started I doubt whether the option to change the line-up was available.

I'm trying to reconcile the averages for each season but thanks to the poor standard of reporting I'm left to chase the following queries down. While I believe I stand more chance of being the first man on Mars, hope springs eternal so here goes. For each of these from 1974, I'm looking for the reason the named Coatbridge rider ddn't take his place be it exclusion under 2 minutes, tapes or just a reserve change: 13th April at Berwick - Heat 9: Dave Gifford. 28th April at Workington - Heat 7: Grahame Dawson. 24th June at Scunthorpe - Heat 13: Jimmy Gallacher. 14th July at Eastbourne - Heat 4: Brian Collins & Heat 13: Dave Gifford. The 1975 query has already been posted and received no replies but I'll include it again here: 7th April at Crewe - ascertain the rides taken by Brian Collins & Paul Heller. 1976 is a bit more mixed: 17th April at Berwick - Heat 2: reason for Derek Richardson's exclusion. 16th May at Workington (KOC) - Heat 3: reason for Doug Templeton's replacement. 27th May at Oxford - confirm number of rides taken by Doug Templeton. 30th May at Workington - confirm the number of rides taken by Derek Richardson & Mick McKeon. 3rd July at Canterbury and 4th July at Eastbourne - confirm the number of rides taken in each meeting by Jimmy Gallacher & Benny Rourke. 7th September at Ellesmere Port - Heat 11: reason for Brian Collins' exclusion. If you can help with any of these please get in touch.

Thank you all for your replies. The scenario is an account of what happened at the Glasgow v Oxford match 24th July 1981. The rider in question was Kenny McKinna. He was riding, or attempting to, with a broken ankle. He was programmed at #3 and his first ride was in heat 4. Unfortunately I have no recollection or record of whether he was under the 2 minute allowance. He made a practice start on the back straight and, if I recall correctly, rode into the third bend at speed, as if to test the strength of his injured limb. Whether it gave out or he fell of his own accord (the latter being unlikely) he ended up in the fence. He then withdrew from the meeting and the reserves covered his rides. In the Speedway Star Glasgow track review for 1981, Bryan Seery credits McKinna with riding in 37 matches out of a possible 38 (36 league & 2 KOC). As McKinna was ever-present throughout the rest of the season, the 'missing' match must be the Oxford one. However, the 1982 Yearbook credits him with a full house of 36 league matches and affords him a 0-0 score for the Oxford match. Looking to other sources, the Glasgow programme averages do not credit him with the match. The Edinburgh programme of 18/09, with figures compiled by Dave Welch, follows suit. It seems to be universally accepted that riders such as non-riding #8's or those who didn't arrive are not credited with an appearance. An example of a rider being present and named in the team but not riding would be Jim Beaton at Edinburgh in 1979. For reasons unknown Jim, named at #6, took no part in the match and Glasgow had to run 2 races with 1 rider only. Beaton receives no credit for that match. The only comparable scenario to the McKinna incident I have to hand is from a junior challenge at Blantyre in 1980, where Bill Logan looped his machine performing a practice start prior to his first ride and suffered a dislocated shoulder. The yearbook reports simply 'did not ride'. In the same meeting, Ian Barney blew his machine in the pits and took no part in the match. Again he is afforded 'did not ride'. My personal take is that McKinna should not be credited with riding in the match. There is no report of any exclusion under the 2 minute rule. That rule was radically different then to the klaxon-fest we suffer today - with McKinna on track and heading for the start I find it unlikely he would have been under warning. I may change my stance if it was to be proved that he was on 2 minutes and subsequently excluded while he received treatment. Similarly if the 2 minutes had been applied for him in later races, perhaps to give the reserve a breather. With regard to the 'when a race starts' conundrum, I have always taken it to be when the green light comes on. Where abandonments are concerned, the carefully worded disclaimer used to be 'prior to the start of the sixth race in the programme'. If you were to get three Golden/Silver Helmet races, then three races of the following match before abandonment, then re-admission tickets would not be valid. A promoter once told me that was the reason for 'Event 1, Event 2' etc. - each meeting must have an official running order.

That's what I wanted to hear. The scorers in the Star and the yearbook indicated Close & Wright were swapped in one of the heats. Many thanks.