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mickthemuppet

Wembley and world finals

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49 minutes ago, steve roberts said:

...and yet Olsen lost it after registering four wins in 1972! :D

Oh dear, how sad, never mind!!

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46 minutes ago, customhouseregular said:

Internationale meetings at Wimbledon were a must for me.

Loved the Whit Monday trips up to London

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10 minutes ago, Midland Red said:

Oh dear, how sad, never mind!!

Yep and he had the audacity to criticise Hans when he fell in a vital race during the 1995 Grand Prix for over doing it! :D

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1 hour ago, steve roberts said:

...and yet Olsen lost it after registering four wins in 1972! :D

Barry should of won it on 14 though Steve !!!     but Bernie the bolt ( RIP i held no grudges against him) had different ideas.

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31 minutes ago, Sidney the robin said:

Barry should of won it on 14 though Steve !!!     but Bernie the bolt ( RIP i held no grudges against him) had different ideas.

Barry had a good chance having beating Ivan in his first race (why was that race not coverered by ITV at the time?) but not sure if he would have gone on to win the meeting as he would have still had Olsen to beat as well as the likes of Lofqvist, Louis & Michanek who were all capable of a win when they were due to meet? Makes for good debate though!

Edited by steve roberts

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7 hours ago, Sidney the robin said:

Norbold do you think that Biggs bottled it ( nerves got to him) in his last ride or you just think it was meant to be.? Young then became the first 2nd division rider to win a title and what a rider Jack was often think Aub Lawson gets forgotten though.Another year that i had forgotten about that was strange was in 1993 when SAM won it .He won his first four starts and then ran a last Hans Nielsen and Chris Louis  ending up  behind second and third on 11 points each.

Some time ago, I posted this under another topic in this Forum.


"I once read in an excellent book (!) called Speedway's Classic Meetings that it has been said that Aub Lawson went to the other two riders (Split Waterman and Freddie Williams) in Biggs's fateful last heat and asked them if Jack had ‘said anything’ to them, i.e. offered a small inducement for them to let him win They replied he had not. The story goes that when Biggs said nothing  to them, they decided to ‘fix’ him.

Biggs said later when this story began to circulate that he hadn’t ‘said anything’ to them because he was confident he would win – or at the very least get the third place he needed to become World Champion, as one point was all he needed. He had been by far the fastest gater all evening and Lawson and Williams were having poor evenings – Lawson in particular as he was suffering from a hand injury. To him – and probably the whole crowd there that evening – it was unthinkable that he wouldn’t at least get third place.

So, even if they did decide to ‘fix’ him, it wasn’t easy to see how they would be able to manage it. The book go on to say, “Nerves seem a much more plausible explanation.” He had a long gap between his fourth and fifth rides and he just sat in the pits getting more and more nervous.

The book quotes Ken Taylor, a long time speedway fan who was there that evening, as saying, “It was nerves that beat him.” He said he had seen Biggs in the pits some years previously in the London Riders’ Championship Final when, again, he was in with a chance of winning and his hands were shaking so much, Ken was surprised that Biggs could even hold the bike, let alone race it.

It should also be remembered that Biggs came third in the run-off as well – again a race on the previous form of the evening he should have won. But his nerves were shot to pieces by then."


I don't know if Aub Lawson gets forgotten. I've never forgotten him. He won the first race I ever saw (beating Split Waterman funnily enough, given the above). There is no doubt he was one of the all-time greats and a must for consideration in the perennial topic, "Greatest Rider Never to Win the World Championship". Between 1955 and 1963 he was one of only three riders to make the podium in the World Championship other than the "Big Five". That was in 1958 and considering that his best days were in the late 1940s and early 1950s, that certainly took some doing!

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2 hours ago, steve roberts said:

I never made one unfortunately.

Obviously Wimbledon wasn’t Wembley but the Internationale was second only to the World Final for me. You would have really enjoyed them. 

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1 hour ago, steve roberts said:

Barry had a good chance having beating Ivan in his first race (why was that race not coverered by ITV at the time?) but not sure if he would have gone on to win the meeting as he would have still had Olsen to beat as well as the likes of Lofqvist, Louis & Michanek who were all capable of a win when they were due to meet? Makes for good debate though!

How the Briggs v Mauger clash was never shown on ITV is baffling i have only seen it on a Polish edition video in which Bob Radford lent me.

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6 minutes ago, Sidney the robin said:

How the Briggs v Mauger clash was never shown on ITV is baffling i have only seen it on a Polish edition video in which Bob Radford lent me.

Did Barry win by a big margin Sid?

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9 minutes ago, steve roberts said:

Did Barry win by a big margin Sid?

Not really Barry gated and  if he had  made a mistake Ivan would of been through.

Edited by Sidney the robin
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In all honesty the day out and atmosphere was electric at Wembley in 1975, 78, 81 unforgettable the best sporting experience i have had.That includes  having seen a Wimbledon  Tennis final and seeing Mike Tyson live but were those finals that great entertainment wise.?

Edited by Sidney the robin
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