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Sidney the robin

Briggs, Fundin, Mauger , Crump, Rickardsson, Roll of honour.

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8 minutes ago, chunky said:

Actually (not that this would surprise you), but Huxley is one I always include in my list of "elite" riders, along with Vic Duggan...

Well, you did get an honourable mention in my little diatribe above...

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8 hours ago, norbold said:

Well, you did get an honourable mention in my little diatribe above...

For me the subject has been done to death on numerous threads, which is why I couldn’t be bothered to go over it all again

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9 hours ago, norbold said:

It is fun of course and I love doing it as much as anyone, but it really is an impossible job. The more time goes on the more older greats are forgotten. What the "greatest" really means for most people  is the greatest you have experience of. How many these days would put Vic Huxley or Frank Arthur in their top 10?

In fact, the only pre-War rider who even gets a mention these days is Tom Farndon and that's only me (and chunky!) What about Bluey Wilkinson, Eric Langton, the Milne Brothers, Lionel Van Praag and so on and so on? There is no-one around now who has any real knowledge of them at their peak, so no-one can really compare them. It's only with Jack Young and the Big Five we begin to get actual memories and, over time, those memories will fade too. "The Greatest" is a movable feast.

I'll always shout for Jack Parker, who I regard as the greatest Speedway rider of all time.  He may not have an official World title (2 unofficial ones of course) but he is the only rider I know of who was at the top of his game against 2 (possibly 3) sets of top riders from different era's.  He beat the top pre-war riders (Huxley, Lamaroux, Van Praag, Milne brothers, Langton, Varey etc) but also beat the top early post war greats such as Duggan, Price, Williams, Biggs and youngsters Briggs, Young and Moore. As far as I can recall no other rider has managed to be so consistent for so long (not even Mauger) and had he not been so seriously injured in midget car practice he could have gone on for a couple more years at the top (he was on an 8 point plus the season before his accident). Just MHO.

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20 hours ago, chunky said:

Actually (not that this would surprise you), but Huxley is one I always include in my list of "elite" riders, along with Vic Duggan...

Definitely Duggan Chunky,    the speedway public were robbed of seeing just how good Farndon and Craven really were a crying shame .Jack Young and Ronnie Moore for me would also be in a top 20 riders ever in history.

Edited by Sidney the robin

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Just out of interest, after mentioning Peter Jackson's averages on another thread, I thought I'd just take a look at who topped the averages in the pre-War years (1933-1939).

1933: Jack Parker 10.33, 1934: Vic Huxley: 10.31, 1935: Bluey Wilkinson 10.57, 1936: Jack Parker 10.27, 1937: Jack Milne 11.09, 1938: Jack Milne 10.96, 1939: Cordy Milne 11.50 (The 1939 season was unfinished of course).

 

 

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2 hours ago, norbold said:

Just out of interest, after mentioning Peter Jackson's averages on another thread, I thought I'd just take a look at who topped the averages in the pre-War years (1933-1939).

1933: Jack Parker 10.33, 1934: Vic Huxley: 10.31, 1935: Bluey Wilkinson 10.57, 1936: Jack Parker 10.27, 1937: Jack Milne 11.09, 1938: Jack Milne 10.96, 1939: Cordy Milne 11.50 (The 1939 season was unfinished of course).

1929: Jack Parker (Coventry - Southern League) 10.76, Arthur Jervis (Manchester White City - Northern League) 10.00.
1930: Ginger Lees (Liverpool - Northern) 10.89, Vic Huxley (Harringay - Southern) 10.55. (Jack Parker, Coventry, 10.34).
1931: Eric Langton (Belle Vue - Northern) 11.28, Dick Case (Wimbledon - Southern) 10.14. (Jack Parker, Southampton, 10.02).
1932: Dick Case (Wimbledon - National League) 10.42. (Jack Parker, Clapton, 8.80 - Southampton team moved to Clapton).

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1 hour ago, BL65 said:

1929: Jack Parker (Coventry - Southern League) 10.76, Arthur Jervis (Manchester White City - Northern League) 10.00.
1930: Ginger Lees (Liverpool - Northern) 10.89, Vic Huxley (Harringay - Southern) 10.55. (Jack Parker, Coventry, 10.34).
1931: Eric Langton (Belle Vue - Northern) 11.28, Dick Case (Wimbledon - Southern) 10.14. (Jack Parker, Southampton, 10.02).
1932: Dick Case (Wimbledon - National League) 10.42. (Jack Parker, Clapton, 8.80 - Southampton team moved to Clapton).

I wonder what Langton's  average was at Hyde Rd ?he often gets forgotten.

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24 minutes ago, Sidney the robin said:

I wonder what Langton's  average was at Hyde Rd ?he often gets forgotten.

He was a member of the Belle Vue team that won the League Championship six times in seven years in the 1930s. After retiring from the sport he returned to Belle Vue in May 1946 scoring a full maximum in his first match back and averaging 10.93 in his comeback season. Remarkable!

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38 minutes ago, Split said:

He was a member of the Belle Vue team that won the League Championship six times in seven years in the 1930s. After retiring from the sport he returned to Belle Vue in May 1946 scoring a full maximum in his first match back and averaging 10.93 in his comeback season. Remarkable!

His run off with Van Praag in the 1936 world final was a strange affair.!!!

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3 hours ago, Sidney the robin said:

His run off with Van Praag in the 1936 world final was a strange affair.!!!

Indeed!

 

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On 9/27/2020 at 5:20 PM, norbold said:

About a month or so after my book, Speedway in London, came out, I looked in on Sportspages (a specialist sports book shop) In Tottenham Court Road to see how it was selling. They told me that it was going quite well and that Mark Loram had been in and signed all the copies they had, which had helped sales. I had no idea he had done this. We never spoke about it, he just did it. I thought, as Terry said, what a great bloke. There was nothing in it for him; it just helped me. 

Last time I was in London, it looked like Sportspages had closed down, was it a victim of the internet and wikipaedia do you think? Has it ever reopened?

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On 10/4/2020 at 2:39 PM, Sidney the robin said:

Great post i  personaly think Erik was more consistent than many think and he would of always been there in amongst it.The Hans/Erik years was a strange period really because Penhall, Lee,Carter, Sanders,Sigalos all disappeared  off the scene because of differing reasons leaving a huge void and opportunity.Going to Oxford was the best move Hans ever made and yes he should of won at least six titles great rider certainly.

Just off the point a bit. I left England 52 years ago and I'm interested in how the English language is a flexible, living and evolving language and words are used in a different context now-e.g the meaning of the word "gay"  which has changed meaning in all English speaking countries. I think I've noticed one change that hasn't come over here. This is the use of the word "of " instead of "have" e.g. in Terry's post he uses the word "of"instead of "have" in the first sentence as in "he would of always" etc. This is not meant to be a criticism Terry and I have seen this usage in other places including British newspapers. Are these two words now basically interchangeable on the your side of the pond? I have noticed other examples of this phenomon but can't think of any at the moment-although when I left England the use of the word "bottle"for courage was not widespread and the first time I saw it I had to ask my father-in-law what it meant!!

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1 hour ago, BOBBATH said:

This is the use of the word "of " instead of "have" e.g. in Terry's post he uses the word "of"instead of "have" in the first sentence as in "he would of always" etc. This is not meant to be a criticism Terry and I have seen this usage in other places including British newspapers. Are these two words now basically interchangeable on the your side of the pond? I have noticed other examples of this phenomon but can't think of any at the moment-although when I left England the use of the word "bottle"for courage was not widespread and the first time I saw it I had to ask my father-in-law what it meant!!

Actually, they are not interchangeable, Bob. People have always done that, but it's just more prevalent now. It's based on how people interpret words when they hear the contractions "would've", "could've", and "should've". They interpret it as "could OF" etc.

Think about the usage, based on questions and answers:

Q - Have you done what I asked?

A - Sorry, I should have (should've).

It's a direct response. The question "OF you done what I asked" doesn't make any sense.

It's the same these days with people not understanding the difference between "then" and "than"; the two have totally different meanings, and are not interchangeable.

Referring to the second part of your comment, there were lots of words not in common usage when you left the UK, that are now! "Bottle" is one that still means nothing to North Americans, as a "bottle job" to them means you've coloured your hair!

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Re- of and have, I agree with chunky. I know languages evolve over time, but the use of of instead of have is just plain wrong.

As far as the use of the word bottle goes, it has been in common usage at least in the East End for as long as I can remember. Back in the 1960s, when a rider was behind in a race and packed up, we often used to write in the programme "bottle gone" instead of e/f or d.n.f.

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9 hours ago, Sidney the robin said:

I wonder what Langton's  average was at Hyde Rd ?he often gets forgotten.

1933: 9.79; 1934: 10.26; 1935: 8.74; 1936: 9.95; 1937: 10.73; 1938: 8.13; 1939: 10.44; 1946: 11.57

Those are Langton's home averages only.

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