Unused Venues

[Ian 24]

Ian Hoskins had nothing to do with Wemley's revival in 1970, Rod. The promoter was Bernard Cottrell, a property developer, and nor did Ian Hoskins present the meetings - that duty was shared between two well-known disc jockeys, Ed Stewart and David Hamilton.

 

I saw all of the Wembley home matches that year, and a good many away ones, and my recollection is that the only appearance by Ian Hoskins was as team manager for Newcastle.

 

Former Coatbridge riders in the team that year were Bert Harkins, Reidar Eide and Brian Collins.

[norbold 7,167]

I believe Wembley took over the Edinburgh licence and several of the riders - including the ones you mentioned - transferred. Although, you are quite right to say, Ian, that Ian Hoskins then had nothing to do with the Wembley promotion which was run by Bernard Cottrell and Trevor Redmond.

Edited February 12, 2004 by norbold

[Guest Rod King]

Thanks to Ian and Norbold - after 30 years I have recollections rather than exact memories. I hadn't realised that Trevor Redmond had been involved with Wembley and maybe that is where I was getting confused with the Hoskins connection. Trevor "fronted" Glasgow speedway in the mid 1960s and there was always enormous fuss when Ian Hoskins and his Monarchs came west. It was only later that I discovered that Ian was a director of Glasgow's promoting company, so it was another great Hoskins' family wheeze (I nearly said "con" but that would be unfair!) that there was bitter rivalry between the two managements!

[Ian 24]

Rod, I well remember this "rivalry" from the days when Trevor Redmond was fronting Glasgow (and simultaneously riding at heat leader for them!)

 

Maybe sometimes it's easy to forget that speedway, whilst unquestionably one of the most thrilling of sports, is also about ENTERTAINMENT and SPECTACLE. That means it's at its best when we have rivalries between promoters, riders, team managers et al. Hoskins was the master at this as far as promoters go, and Len Silver was pretty good too; riders like Jack Millen, Kenny Carter and Dougie Templeton could always be relied upon to do their part as riders; and team managers like Dave Lanning in his West Ham days or Dick Barrie at Glasgow understood the value of getting a bit of niggle going.

 

All of these people could use their own personalities (real or invented - it mattered not) to put numbers on the gate and to make sure that the crowd were entertained for the duration of the meeting. The pity of it is that so few speedway people nowadays bother to do this. Most of the riders I have met are personable, interesting and remarkable guys, but is anything done to project this to the crowd at a match?

 

There needs to be a balance in speedway between sport and entertainment. Sometimes we take it all a wee bit too seriously, perhaps.

[Guest Rod King]

David Jefferies of course came from Yorkshire and Joey was 'Yer Maun' Rod.

 

(Rod did you ever do a double act with an Emu? )

Sorry - my post must have been confusing - must be something to do with the accent! "Mon" or "Maun" are both used for the great Joey, and DJs background is well known. But he was another rider who loved road racing in Ulster.

As far as emu's are concerned, I don't think this is the place to discuss my personal life!

[Guest Rod King]

Rod, I well remember this "rivalry" from the days when Trevor Redmond was fronting Glasgow (and simultaneously riding at heat leader for them!)

 

Maybe sometimes it's easy to forget that speedway, whilst unquestionably one of the most thrilling of sports, is also about ENTERTAINMENT and SPECTACLE. That means it's at its best when we have rivalries between promoters, riders, team managers et al. Hoskins was the master at this as far as promoters go, and Len Silver was pretty good too; riders like Jack Millen, Kenny Carter and Dougie Templeton could always be relied upon to do their part as riders; and team managers like Dave Lanning in his West Ham days or Dick Barrie at Glasgow understood the value of getting a bit of niggle going.

 

All of these people could use their own personalities (real or invented - it mattered not) to put numbers on the gate and to make sure that the crowd were entertained for the duration of the meeting. The pity of it is that so few speedway people nowadays bother to do this. Most of the riders I have met are personable, interesting and remarkable guys, but is anything done to project this to the crowd at a match?

 

There needs to be a balance in speedway between sport and entertainment. Sometimes we take it all a wee bit too seriously, perhaps.

Another entertainer was Bill Bridgett - the Doc's uncle. I have a memory of him turning up at Edinburgh in the Powderhall days in a white Rolls Royce and, I think, a white suit!

 

You are absolutely right about entertainment and the whole idea of "promoting" is to do with this. I have often wondered if someone should look to repackage speedway as entertainment rather than sport but then consider wrestling, either Kent Walton style or WWF and realise how bad it could become.

 

So maybe we should repackage as sport? Get rid of arbitrary points limits and operate on a simple divisional basis. May the best team win. There are too few "big money" tracks for the sport to turn into a Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea and the rest situation. If a "big money" track signed up all the best riders, their income would reduce because they would be putting on processional racing. So the need to balance the interest would stop the same few teams dominating the leagues.

 

Just a thought!

[Guest smelgy]

A fascinating and interesting thread. May I add a few comments?

 

In 1964 I was reading the London Evening News aged 9, when I noticed in the entertainments listings "SPEEDWAY" Underneath was a box advert "National League West Ham .v. Norwich". Having been born in Stratford, and living near West Ham football club the fact that a sport I had never heard of had a team called West Ham intrigued me, and I badgered my mother to take me. "You won't like it it's noisy motorbikes" was the stock reply, but I won in the end.

 

Visiting the Temple that was Custom House Stadium I was immediately hooked from race 1. To me as a young boy speedway bikes looked like cycles with one difference - the front wheel appeared "thin" like a bike tyre, and the back tyre obviously belonged to a motor bike. The fact that they broadslid round the bends completed the fascination.

 

Now 40 years later, mountain bikes to me look like speedway bikes. Kids hang around on street corners, with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and yet most of them own and love racing on mountain bikes - BMX etc. Ask them what speedway is, and they haven't a clue. One of the major problems to me is the BBC. They are so establishment it is unreal. To them sport revolves around Football, Cricket, Horse racing, Olympics, Athletics, Golf and Tennis. They have the brass neck to give 250 hours per year coverage of snooker, 200 hours per year coverage of darts, and even 100 hours per year coverage of Indoor Bowls! Speedway? F**k all.

 

That's the problem. Until and unless the BBC even dare to give results, or clips from major meetings, we are up the creek without a paddle. Can anyone reading this actually believe that the results from the British Grand Prix are ignored on the news or sports broadcasts by both the BBC and ITV? Even Channel 4 put the highlights on two weeks later at 7am in the morning!

 

So what can be done? It is up to every fan, to bring along as many children as possible and get them hooked. If you take your child, talk to your neighbours and offer to take their kids. They are the audience of tomorrow. Without them the sport will eventually die, and those of us who are now pushing 50 will only have our memories left, and internet pictures of the really greats of the 50's etc.

 

Wimbledon, I feel are doing their best to encourage. It is currently £10 admission for adults, expensive for Conference league I know, but only £1 for children, although I do expect that to increase this season.

 

If only I could win the lottery, I would scour the country and open a track and make it a success. Many of us want to do that and has been said in earlier threads - the word is PROMOTE!

[SCB 15]

That's the problem. Until and unless the BBC even dare to give results, or clips from major meetings, we are up the creek without a paddle. Can anyone reading this actually believe that the results from the British Grand Prix are ignored on the news or sports broadcasts by both the BBC and ITV? Even Channel 4 put the highlights on two weeks later at 7am in the morning!

About the BBC, when I bought my car just under 18 months ago I bought it form a man who (did) work(s) for the BBC, infatc he worked for BBC Wales Sport. So, as we were test driving the car (Myself and my dad) we obviously got chatting to him and found this out, so being speedway fans, we asked if the BBC had looked into showing speedway in any way, shape or form and his reply was along the lines of, we(the BBC) wanted to show the British GP(from Cardiff, Wales) so loked into it, but Sky wanted far too much just to show highlights, not even enough for a programme of it's own but they wanted to muhc for the BBC to warrent paying for a few heats to show on Grandstand.

 

He also knew, without us saying anything, about Newport Speedway and he told us about how they had done well in 1999 so we told him that we went to watch the Wapss EVERY week, so he told us how he was sorry about our poor season (having just a week or two before, picked up a wooden spoon!) and he clearly knew a fair bit about speedway, it's background an it's politics so, as we had started, we asked, why can't we have any coverage from Newport Speedway and he told us again, that BBC Wales Sport had looked at it and wanted to keep people up-to-date with Newport Speedway as the Welsh will support anything Welsh and they wanted to help with Newport Speedway BUT AGAIN Sky wanted more money than it was worth to show highlights during there weekly sports round up(Wales on Saturday) on BBC Wales. He pointed out that the BBC had got speedway on Wales on Saturday one week and we told him yes, we watched it and we even have it on video and he told us that it costs a huge anount.

 

So finally, having moaned at him and got what were clearly well researched answers (and we didn't give him time to research these answers, it all happened in a car driving around Cardiff) we asked, why don't the BBC mention speedway in it sports news round ups even if they cannot show video coverage and his answer was, why bother, who is going to watch it to find out how Newport speedway have done for 5 seconds at some point in a 30 minute program and have it looking amatureish as they have no video to show as vidoe was involve sending camera men to Newport (not cheap to beging with) and then paying SKy for the pleasure)

 

 

So there you go, BBC Wales at leats have TRIED (clearly after Skys involvement) and have got nowhere, clearly Terry Russell has sold Sky's sole to Sky, had he only sold EL rights BBC Wales would show Newport Speedway highlights and give it a mention. SO well done Terry Russell and that why I laugh even more when I hear he sold the Right for GB Speedway twice, once to Sky and again to the betting company who were going to show speedway digitally on the BSPA site but TR had to give the 2nd company there money back, prehaps the BSPA should get a man in with experiacen of selling TV rights etc rather than trusting a man who owned a cleaning company for Gawds sake!

[iris123 21,079]

That's the problem. Until and unless the BBC even dare to give results, or clips from major meetings, we are up the creek without a paddle. Can anyone reading this actually believe that the results from the British Grand Prix are ignored on the news or sports broadcasts by both the BBC and ITV? Even Channel 4 put the highlights on two weeks later at 7am in the morning!

 

So what can be done? It is up to every fan, to bring along as many children as possible and get them hooked. If you take your child, talk to your neighbours and offer to take their kids. They are the audience of tomorrow. Without them the sport will eventually die, and those of us who are now pushing 50 will only have our memories left, and internet pictures of the really greats of the 50's etc.

 

Wimbledon, I feel are doing their best to encourage. It is currently £10 admission for adults, expensive for Conference league I know, but only £1 for children, although I do expect that to increase this season.

 

If only I could win the lottery, I would scour the country and open a track and make it a success. Many of us want to do that and has been said in earlier threads - the word is PROMOTE!

On another thread i said it was crazy that the British GP was on the same weekend as the Euro Championships start in Portugal!what chance have you got of getting any results or publicity? Also the sport has to sort its self out before it can really gain and grow from television exposure.People in the sport have been pointing out the ridiculous and confusing rules that make the sport a joke.Back in the 60s it was pointed out that in one week Colin Pratt rode for 3 different team(inc for West Ham vCradley and then for Cradley vWest Ham !).Does it still happen today? And i must say as a recently returned fan i`m finding it a bit difficultworking out everything thats going on.This golden joker lark in just laughable!

[loramski_legends 0]

I know there are many tracks that have made way for housing or other developments, but what about the famous venues that still stand but are not used for speedway anymore.

 

 

Odsal - Bradford

Used for the likes of Bradford Bulls instead and posible in the next few years Bradford City will be playing their as well. Can't see why they can't make room for Speedway as well.

[norbold 7,167]

So there you go, BBC Wales at leats have TRIED (clearly after Skys involvement) and have got nowhere, clearly Terry Russell has sold Sky's sole to Sky.

If all what you say is true SCB - and I have no reason to doubt it - it would seem to me to be very short-sighted on Sky's part. The more people that watch small highlights opn BBC the more people are going to get interested and want to watch the full matches on Sky.

[SCB 15]

If all what you say is true SCB - and I have no reason to doubt it - it would seem to me to be very short-sighted on Sky's part. The more people that watch small highlights opn BBC the more people are going to get interested and want to watch the full matches on Sky.

Which is probably part of there reason why they will not even give results, only Sky will gain.

[Exiled Bandit 0]

Come on the BBC can't show Grand Prix highlights because Sky have paid for the exclusive live rights and Channel 4 show highlights having stumped up for the privilege. Had the BBC shown any interest in speedway for the 70 years before Sky came on the scene they could have had it all wrapped up. The only reason they are interested now is that Sky have show the sport has the audience that the BBC always denied existed ("Can't justify speedway old boy, too minority don'cha know, not the appeal of the Boat Race or rugger old bean")

Easiest way to cover their own incompetence, claim it's someone else's fault and the gullible will bite!

[SCB 15]

Someone asked why the BBC don't mention speedway, I explained, from what I know, why.

 

The "Exclusive" right should not have been sold, the fact TR tried to sell the gambling/live on the net side proves he didn't realise he had sold it all, so Sky have got one over on the small man(compared to BSkyB the BSPA are tiny really!) and the BSPA should now take the Sky dealings away from Terry Russell and given them to a real agent or something similar.

[Ian 24]

("Can't justify speedway old boy, too minority don'cha know, not the appeal of the Boat Race or rugger old bean")

Funnily enough, I've just read on Ceefax that the BBC have just lost the right to show the Boat Race. That will be the first time in 66 years, we are told, that the Beeb won't be televising this.

 

I'm sure all speedway fans will want to join with me at this sad time in commiserating with the Beeb, and in expressing just how gutted we are that this upper-middle-class nonsense is to be denied to us. Speaking personally, my sole consolation rests in the secure knowledge that I'll be able to watch it on ITV, along with many other speedway fans (he safrican americaned!)

 

Tally ho, chaps! Jolly Boating Weather, and all that....