Grachan

Blimey! No wonder they won the league.

Mmmm, Arena-Essex look interesting. Andrew Silver eh? And the Chessels, and Steve Bishop. Keep 'em coming!

Thanks. If you can be bothered the teams would be greatly appreciated. If it's not too much trouble. No hurry. Tomorrow is fine. In the morning. Nine-thirty. Sharpish!

Must have been a hell of a hat though Steve!! Right, here's a question for everyone. Apparently I can get 3 meetings from 1987 for £20 from re-run video, so can anyone think of any particular meetings that might be worth getting? Can't be that difficult - it's only 16 years ago!

I've added a few of Steve's old pictures to (hopefully!) help get your bearings a bit better. Click here.

Steve, Any chance of getting a look at some of the old photos? I've been looking through all my old books to try and see how it was but haven't come up with anything. I can't be sure, but I would guess that the bottom photo was probably the pits area. The other pictures were taken going round the track from the entrance in a clockwise direction and they are in that order on the page. The two long pictures have been taken from the apex of each bend, but the shape may look a bit strange due to the way they've been joined together.

Marty, and anyone else who can bear to look, my pictures from last week can be seen here. (Thanks for the re-run site address by the way Gem. I've sent them an e-mail.)

I didn't know that about Kenny's son, but apart from that aren't we going over old ground here? I miss Per Jonsson too. A large part of Reading speedway disappeared when he had his accident and I reckon he would have won a few more World Championships if it hadn't been for his injury. Does anyone know if there are any other riders who have finished their careers top of the British averages? I'd love to see Shawn McConnell or Andrew Silver back at Swindon and I reckon both could still do a good job in the PL too.

Martin Ashby and Bob Kilby at Swindon. Martin was true quality and a brilliant team man while Killer's gating had to be seen to be believed at times. One rider from the same era who rarely gets a mention due to his lack of success at World Championship level is Dag Lovaas, who I remember being absolutely sensational at Oxford in 1975.

Really? It's a mad mad mad mad World.

Ah Tommy Jansson. I used to adore Tommy Jansson as a kid. I recently got hold of a video of the 1974 (or was it 1975) World Team Cup final and the very first shot was of him putting his face mask on. I'd say the current rider he most reminded me of would be Leigh Adams, so my theory is if Leigh ever becomes World Champ then Tommy would have done too. Bit flimsy I know, but it's just my little way of deciding.

Cheers Kevin. Anyone know the website address?

Hyde Road would probably be my answer too, but as it's getting too predictable now I'll go with Exeter for excitement. Never forget looking straight into Ivan Mauger's eyes as he came flying past me down the home straight me once.

I took quite a few photos. I'll try & scan them at the weekend so you can have a look.

Went to the track Saturday morning. The road was locked by a construction company, but it was pretty easy to get in by climbing over the fence at the end of the sports field. There's not much there, but you can still clearly make out the layout of the stadium and shape of the track. It was fascinating for me, as someone who never went there when it was a speedway stadium, to walk the track and stand on the banks trying to imagine all that might have gone on before. Does anyone know how I can get hold of some videos from the old days? It would be amazing to see that patch of wasteland spring into life.

Thanks. I'll take a look at the weekend. I did try to find it on the way home from work last night without any map or directions, but didn't find it. I did find a road called Havelock Road though! It turned out I was the wrong side of the main road. Next time I shall have my little Canturbury tourist map and your directions. Thanks again.

Cheers. Looks like I'll have to use my imagination a bit then! A shame if it's just wasteland that they couldn't keep it going longer, although I don't know the history of why it closed etc.

I'm working in Sandwich for a couple of weeks and staying in Canturbury. Never went to the Speedway. The only time I was here before was in a time that I never went to speedway, although I did go to the Cricket ground and, as I'm staying close to it, I took a wander up the other day and had a look. Brought back some wonderful memories of my dad and of people like Alan Knott, Derek Underwood & Asif Iqbal. No interest in Cricket apart from that though! I hope to take a look at where the track was while I'm here. I saw where it was on a map at the hotel, and on a newer map it says Kingsmead Redevelopment area. What is there now? Is there any sign of the stadium remaining or has it all been built over now? I can't let the two weeks pass without a look though.

Quite a few league tables (1963-1983) on the Hackney site. hhttp://www.hackneyhawks.co.uk/ I'm not sure the 1974 table is correct though. It has Hull bottom and Oxford above them, but I'm sure that the Hull v Oxford result was reversed after the season ended and Oxford eventually came bottom.

I don't think you're taking this seriously, Sand Racer. Egon Muller

As Falcace says, Kenny Carter always provokes a reaction, and that being the case I don't see why people should avoid discussions about him. Sure, it's a speedway board, but, whatever he did, Kenny Carter was a speedway rider and his life and death had a big impact on anyone who was around at the time. In all my time as a speedway supporter I can think of only 3 occasions when the sport has made the front page of the national newspapers. One was Peter Collins winning the World Championship, another was a bizarre race fixing 'scandal' reported in the Sunday People (eg, did you know the Bruce Penhall only won the 1981 World Championship because Jiri Stancl let him beat him in his final race?). The third time was the Kenny Carter incident. It was a big story and I see no reason to avoid it.

Try here: http://www.leisurecollectables.com/speedway/ It's listed in the Books section for one and a half English pounds, but I see no reason why they wouldn't send it to Aus.

There hasn't been much response to this, Dublin Duke, probably because there was a big Kenny Carter discussion on the old forum fairly recently. I understand the old forum is to be archived as read-only so you should be able to read that in the future.

He he he. You're not wrong there. I noticed that they never had anything on Reading every week in Speedway Mail so I thought I'd write something myself and fax it in. Couldn't believe it when they started printing it! I had a problem though - no access to the riders. Therefore I used to get my rider quotes by writing down what they said over the PA during the meeting. I often wondered if anyone ever actually noticed this. I did do a proper interview with Jeremy Doncaster once though, when they gave me his phone number and asked me to call him. I felt such a charlatan!

I remember Speedway Now. Russell Lanning took over Speedway Mail at one time too, but he wasn't there very long. I also remember Speedway Mail going the same size as Speedway Star for a while. I think they were trying various ways of increasing the readership. It was always more difficult to obtain, though, other than at the tracks themselves. I could always find Speedway Star in a newsagent somewhere, but never Speedway Mail. That can't have helped.