Andy Downes

I remember Billy Lellmann riding a challenge match at Hackney and he looked pretty decent - I heard he left as he was homesick

There was a meeting at the London Arena in winter 1990 (or 91, can't remember the exact date) - another former London Speedway venue that's bitten the dust. Seem to remember there was a problem halfway through - could have been a leaking roof but the memory is too hazy - hopefully someone out there can remind us more about that day

I think Toni Kasper Jr would have achieved more if he had had more than 1 1/2 seasons in the British League

England F ..........!

About 15 years ago I was working in Saudi Arabia and I was asked if I wanted to go back to the UK for a Thursday/Friday seminar at the Sandbanks Hotel in Poole. Now almost every flight from the Gulf to the UK leaves in the middle of the night and arrives in London about 7:00 a.m. so for a Thursday course, i thought aha! you have to be in Poole on a Wednesday for that and what happens in Poole on a Wednesday? Speedway!I I'll do it! Disaster struck though as for possibly the only time in their history, Poole decided to shift the meeting to Thursday for some reason - think it was a big championship meeting in Scandinavia on the Wednesday so they shifted the meeting back 24 hours so they'd get a full side out, or something similar So not a rain off (although after being stuck in Saudi you tended to view rain as something of a novelty) but definitely a case of travelling in the hope of seeing some action - of course Thursday was out as the after seminar dinner was compulsory. Flew home Friday night so no chance of seeing anything anywhere else.

I remember Vladimir Kalina at Hackney - didn't look too bad (although not much to judge against that year ...) a little surprised he didn't get picked up somewhere after Hackney folded.

Crayford - you never forget your first love/track Hackney Cradley Heath Only went to Ashby Ville Scunthorpe a couple of times but seem to remember saw two cracking meetings there Never liked Wimbledon although to be fair, most times I went were in the latter NL days when the track was as slick as hell

I think that access could have been the problem - I remember trying to get away from the stadium used to be chaos after the athletics - i used to ride a motorbike in those days and it was difficult getting out on that. Seemed to remember they used a one way traffic flow so it was into the park one way and out another. Not a impossible task to fix though you'd think

Went to a few Friday Night Athletic meetings - most memorable was one where we arrived at 7:15pm and the Pole Vault had started. By the end of the night's schedule (around 10:00pm) the pole vault was not only still going on but the 'star' hadn't even taken his first jump! Anyway, after about 15 minutes all the other competitors had finished their attempts so enter the last man, the bar was immediately set to a new world record height, out came the athlete and his one jump that night was a new WR - his name Sergai Bubka

Think you'll find Ru Paul is an updated version of Danny La Rue - has DLR been seen on mainstream television since the 1970's? - a bit like Speedway itself

Wasn't the rider who tried to get a track running in Spain in the 80's/90's Lee Paine? - I'm sure it was an ex-Arena Essex Junior/Reserve who was trying to get one started but was defeated by Spanish building laws? Happy to be proved wrong if someone has more accurate information

I am not a Poole fan - I bear no ill feeling to any of their regular contributors (unless they are responsible for reason 2 below!) but 2 incidents many years annoyed me and they have not won me over since Reason 1 - Mervyn Stewkesbury. - Remember his grand plan for saving speedway in 1991? Poole had won the NL for the previous 2 seasons and wanted to move back up to the BL. Nothing wrong with that but I suspect he looked at Hackney's attempt in 1987 and the lack of help from the existing BL promotions so he came up with a cunning plan where 3 other clubs would also move up thus increasing the numbers in the BL and forcing some movement of heat leaders, the problem Hackney never overcame. Fine - and you may say yes it worked BUT at the cost of the teams deemed not big or sexy enough to move up - 1991 saw Eastbourne close (at first), a substandard team at Wimbledon with only 1 heat leader before closing and moving to Eastie, a sub standard Hackney with a new promoter who proved to be out of his depth and the team closing halfway thru the season, both Mildenhall and Milton Keynes would not survive 2 seasons, with Canterbury closing in '87 and Rye House only having a couple more years, only Arena Essex (who would soon be a BL team) were left. NL speedway was all but wiped out in the south east thanks to Mr S - as a Hackney fan, I went from a 50/60 matches a season to a few weekend run outs on the M/C - which comes to reason 2 Reason 2 - Some un-names F***** at Poole 1994 I went to the occasional mid-summer match at Poole, it was a nice run out from London on the bike, especially if you avoided the M3 going down. I cannot remember the date or the opposition but I do remember coming out of the stadium to find my bike on the floor in the carpark, obviously it had been hit by a car, fairing was smashed, paintwork scratched as if it had been dragged and worst of all the front forks had been damaged. I called out the breakdown people who took one look at it and told me the front wheel was cracked so there was no way it could be ridden back to Kent as it could potentially collapse at any moment. Things got worse as the garage who had insured me had made a mistake on the insurance and insured it pre customisation which meant I ended up spending a fortune getting the bike resprayed in Embassy Blue. OK my fault on that one for not double checking but whoever knocked the bike over just drove off - no exchange of numbers/note left, nothing. So that's my reasons - I realise it's a long time ago and my feelings for Poole have mellowed through the years from pathological hatred to a smug smile when things don't quite go right - I bear no malice to any Poole bloggers, indeed I find them quite entertaining in their own way when they are defending their team Rant over -feel better for that

Thanks for checking that out MR - pretty close as I'm sure Laurie was out with a back injury so Sagey would have been the first RR of the evening

Think it was April 14th 1980 Crayford verses Young Sweden at London Road Tommy Nilsson won the heat I believe - not sure of second swede, think the Kestrels pairing was Alan Johns and R/R Laurie Etheridge but that's a guess Certainly remember the riders from the second meeting more - verses Nottingham Outlaws - Mike Sampson went thru the card for a 15 point full max Looking at the date, if correct, it was 42 years ago yesterday - off for a large G&T to get over the shock of that date ....

Back to tracks that you couldn't use from the original list: - Crayford. The old stadium was knocked down and a 'micro stadium' about half the size of the old one built - the rest of the land and the large car parks are now Sainsbury's The replacement dog track was heavily criticised by the dog owning community with complaints that it was too small with the bends being too sharp (resulting in too many dogs colliding and getting injured). Any speedway track laid inside would be around 150 - 180m maximum if it could be laid - and as the dog track has sharp bends, the bends would be somewhat pointed As the last dog track inside the M25, it is a busy track so cannot see the owners wanting the bikes interfering anyway

From memory, i believe he initially took a year off to help out with the family business and of course never came back Wayne Brown was for a while public enemy #1 at Crayford after his clash with Paul Woods at the 1980 NL Riders Championship

Tuesday April 12th(?) 1980 Ladbrokes Stadium Crayford Crayford v Young Sweden challenge match Ex Hackney/Coventry/Swindon(?) rider Tommy Nilsson won heat one i think, probably from Laurie Etheridge but i'm guessing here Following week was my first 'meaningful' match, Don't remember the score but Crayford beat the Nottingham Outlaws despite Mike Sampson scoring a maximum. it took a few matches but i probably really got hooked after seeing Les Rumsey's finest hour/six rides when we won the 4's at Peterborough later that year. Thought it would always be like that, following a successful team - little did i know that's as good a it got for that variety of Kestrel ...

used to love going to see the Kestrels generally lose (Crayford version) / win (Hackney version) at Kingsmead ... nice blast down the M2/A2 on the bike, 7:00 p.m. start and an early finish which meant you could get back home to Sidcup in time for last orders! I remember that most of the junior races were over three laps ... Also remember being much amused one evening by Jamie Luckhurst riding into the back of the tractor and watching his bike being dragged around the third bend by the grading machine

Having started watching at Crayford in 1980, my first hero was Paul Woods, who never really fulfilled his potential From then on, it was Barry Thomas at Crayford and Hackney I think I lost a little bit of love with the sport the day Thommo retired

Recently, there's been a lot of criticism and general bad karma surrounding Craig Cook - coming from many different directions. I know he has never been the most popular of riders but some of the recent vitriol has got me thinking. Who was the most unpopular/hated rider and more importantly why? I know in the past there have been many 'pantomime villains' who play to the crowd as much as anything; certainly at Crayford the mere mention of the name Kelvin Mullarkey would lead to a chorus of boos; but riders like these were those we 'loved to hate' rather than have a genuine dislike about Who do you think was an unpopular rider and why?

Do you have a link, would love to have a go myself, some awesome little grounds I ve done following non league football over the years. Enjoy https://www.footballgroundmap.com/ be nice if someone more technically minded could do a speedway one ...

I was just thinking the same - there is a football web site where you can put all the grounds you have been to (both old and current) and it produces a map showing you where you've been and other stats such as how many grounds have been knocked down. When i completed it, it turned out 38/80 footie teams i had seen at their home ground had moved to a new stadium, almost 50%. Compare that with the number of Speedway Tracks who are still operating/have defunct stadia ; in my first season (1980) there were 37 league sides; 17 teams are now defunct, 8 are still racing but in a different stadium and only 12 are still at the same track as 40 years ago. So in summary, just over 2/3 of supporters have lost their 'home' although around 1/5 have a new home track. The point (yes there is one) is that this is close to the football average so enclosed/semi enclosed stadia it appears do have a natural shelf life before redevelopment looms. Maybe any Rugby/Speedway fans could comment if the same is true of their other favourite sport

1985 or 1986 not sure which year but certainly a May bank holiday 11:00 Kings Lynn 15:00 Arena Essex 19:30 Hackney

So by that logic Antonio Lindback isn't Swedish ?

Yes - he was coming to the end of his time at Crayford when I started going in 1980 but TBH I cannot really remember anything individual about him