Next Issue Of Classic Speedway - Oct 2011

[cityrebel 2,960]

when i was a good few years younger i was lucky enough to meet the great man on several occasions. even as a youngster i knew i was in the presence of a speedway legend. my most endearing memory of johnnie hoskins was seeing him greet the fans on their arrival at kingsmead. how many promoters would do that these days!

[BigFatDave 258]

Just one question, Dave, how do you think Wikipedia gets written?

Just one question Norbold; any chance of you replying on topic for once?

[Ross Garrigan 2]

when i was a good few years younger i was lucky enough to meet the great man on several occasions. even as a youngster i knew i was in the presence of a speedway legend. my most endearing memory of johnnie hoskins was seeing him greet the fans on their arrival at kingsmead. how many promoters would do that these days!

 

I've mentioned on this thread that Johnnie should be remembered for the many fine things he did do for speedway, and not what he didn't do. I researched and wrote a speedway historical piece some years ago now in which I detailed a major achievement of Johnnie's for which he is seldom given credit, in fact few even know about it. He was the driving force behind organising, and even managed, the first touring party of English speedway riders to visit Australia. I told a few amusing anecdotes about Johnnie in that story, what a character he was!

Edited November 3, 2011 by Ross Garrigan

[The White Knight 9,039]

He wasn't in Sainsburys today.

 

 

I am sure - actually - HE WAS.

[norbold 7,116]

Just one question Norbold; any chance of you replying on topic for once?

I just reply to what you write, Dave. If the replies are off topic it must be because your posts are.

[norbold 7,116]

Anyway, Dave, let's do a deal and start again. I promise to keep on topic if you do.

 

To start us off on our new found relationship, perhaps you can explain why you think the meeting on 15 December 1923 was the first to be held "under the banner of SPEEDWAY"?

[Nigel 38]

He wasn't in Sainsburys today.

 

 

I am sure - actually - HE WAS.

 

 

I was in Tescos

[BigFatDave 258]

I just reply to what you write, Dave. If the replies are off topic it must be because your posts are.

Let me get this straight: who introduced Religion into this thread - why it was YOU, in response to no-one but your own ego. Must be awfully lonely up there on the High Moral Ground.

Anyway, Dave, let's do a deal and start again. I promise to keep on topic if you do.

 

To start us off on our new found relationship, perhaps you can explain why you think the meeting on 15 December 1923 was the first to be held "under the banner of SPEEDWAY"?

Once again you make an untrue statement, then follow it up with a question. I'm still waiting for my apology and your reasoning behind your statement in post #132 that what I said in the first post on this thread was untrue, when in fact it wasn't.

You might be happy rewriting history in your own image, but until you can back up your grandiose sweeping statements and blatant lies you can poke your constant nit-picking questions where the sun doesn't shine. Are you sure you're not Impartial One in disguise?

Edited November 4, 2011 by BigFatDave

[norbold 7,116]

 

Once again you make an untrue statement, then follow it up with a question. I'm still waiting for my apology and your reasoning behind your statement in post #132 that what I said in the first post on this thread was untrue, when in fact it wasn't.

You might be happy rewriting history in your own image, but until you can back up your grandiose sweeping statements and blatant lies you can poke your constant nit-picking questions where the sun doesn't shine. Are you sure you're not Impartial One in disguise?

So, what you're saying is that you can't actually back up your statement that the meeting on 15 December 1923 was the first held under the banner of speedway.

[norbold 7,116]

 

I'm still waiting for my apology and your reasoning behind your statement in post #132 that what I said in the first post on this thread was untrue, when in fact it wasn't.

 

 

This is what you said in your first post:

 

From Ian Hoskins:

 

To those who are looking for me to defend the attacks upon my father, Johnnie Hoskins, I have done so in my next article for Classic Speedway. The issue is due out on October 14th and I am glad to see that there are other critics who rise to his defence as a pioneering speedway promoter apart from myself. I put it this way- if an un-named person allowed a field to be used by some motor cyclists to do a few circuits in 1920, what is the point in calling him the pioneer promoter of speedway if he never followed up by staging weekly events before the public as Johnnie did in 1923?

 

Speedway should have a birthdate to be recalled by riders and the public like football and cricket have. Johnnie gave such a date and promoted it boldly. He introduced broadsiding, cinder tracks, safety fences, rules of racing and peronality riders. He followed up by promoting at Newcastle, Sydney and Perth in 1927. He was a promoter in every sense of the word. I rest my case here and have more to say in my Classic article.

 

Ian Hoskins.

 

 

Once I'd actually read the article I said, in post 132:

 

Actually it's quite an anti-climax. It doesn't say what BFD says in the post that started this thread off. Actually, I wouldn't disagree too much with what Ian says in his article. In fact, I've already said it above. Firstly that the importance of the West Maitland meeting was that it was the start of "continuity" and secondly that he subsequently promoted speedway at other locations across Australia. The only thing I would say is that when he says, he "left a trail that led to High Beech in England and from there, the world..." of course he had nothing directly to do with the High Beech meeting and, although the role he played as a promoter in Australia was very important, it gives no credit to the other great Australian promoter of the time, A J Hunting, who subsequently had a much bigger influence on the early days of speedway as an organised sport in England.

 

The rest of the article is about how Johnnie Hoskins opened up Odsal and Newcastle and re-introduced speedway to Scotland at Glasgow after the War. All of which, as far as I know, is true. As I keep saying I have the greatest respect for Johnnie Hoskins as a promoter. He was a great promoter, who as Ian says in the article, took great risks. Speedway would have been all the poorer without him. He lived and breathed speedway, no-one has ever denied this. But it doesn't mean that the meeting on 15 December 1923 was any different to dozens of meetings that had already been held in Australia and America and there is no way that Johnnie Hoskins could be said to have "invented" speedway. A great promoter, yes; a great publicist, yes; but not an inventor.

 

I didn't say that what you said was untrue. What I said was that the article didn't say what you had said in your first post when reporting what Ian Hoskins had said. Nowhere in the article does it say, "Speedway should have a birthdate to be recalled by riders and the public like football and cricket have. Johnnie gave such a date and promoted it boldly. He introduced broadsiding, cinder tracks, safety fences, rules of racing and peronality riders. He followed up by promoting at Newcastle, Sydney and Perth in 1927. He was a promoter in every sense of the word," which is what most of the subsequent discussion on this thread was about.

 

I realise you have the disadvantage of not having read the actual article, but I have and let me assure you again that the article nowhere says, " "Speedway should have a birthdate to be recalled by riders and the public like football and cricket have. Johnnie gave such a date and promoted it boldly. He introduced broadsiding, cinder tracks, safety fences, rules of racing and personality riders. He followed up by promoting at Newcastle, Sydney and Perth in 1927. He was a promoter in every sense of the word."

 

That's what I was talking about. What I said was true, so I see nothing to apologise for.

[BigFatDave 258]

So, what you're saying is that you can't actually back up your statement that the meeting on 15 December 1923 was the first held under the banner of speedway.

Easy cop-out again mate, answering statements with questions. You can twist your words around as much as you like, no-one's listening to you any more, ol' feller.

[norbold 7,116]

If it makes you happy to think so, Dave, carry on. (Though, actually, I can't help thinking that people are more interested in furthering the debate on Johnnie Hoskins's role in the origins of speedway than in whether I apologise to you or not and therefore would be much more interested in an answer from you to the question I have asked than in your constant prevarication).

 

Anyway, I did answer your substantive point in my next post which, although much longer than the one you have chosen to reply to, you seem to have somehow overlooked.

[The White Knight 9,039]

Come on Chaps.

 

Speedway is a Sport for our enjoyment - not for us to keep sniping at each other. Perhaps the two of you, BOTH of whom I respect, could perhaps agree to differ and move on.

 

It grieves me to see two obviously keen and enthusiastic lovers of our Sport having a go at each other.

[BigFatDave 258]

Come on Chaps.

 

Speedway is a Sport for our enjoyment - not for us to keep sniping at each other. Perhaps the two of you, BOTH of whom I respect, could perhaps agree to differ and move on.

 

It grieves me to see two obviously keen and enthusiastic lovers of our Sport having a go at each other.

I've given up on him, Ian - anyone who dares to disagree with him, including one person who actually took part in the 1923 meeting, is either senile or deluded - just ask him.

[norbold 7,116]

Sorry, White Knight. I know you are right, but all I ever wanted was to discuss Johnnie Hoskins role in the origins of speedway. BFD made a statement early on that the meeting on 15 December 1923 was the first to be held under the banner of speedway, which, if true, would add to the argument that Hoskins "invented" speedway. I have asked BFD several times what evidence he has for saying this as it will help towards understanding the place of that meeting in speedway history but every time he falls back on some pretext to avoid answering the question.

 

The only first hand evidence I have seen of that meeting is, as I have already said, the report of the meeting in the Monday December 17, 1923 edition of the Maitland Daily Mercury. Nowhere is the word speedway mentioned; it is referred to as motor-cycle racing throughout. In addition the paper adds the information that "several other tracks have been used for this kind of sport on a number of occasions". Now, this seems to me to be pretty clear cut that the meeting on 15 December 1923 was not the first of its kind, nor was it called speedway. All I am trying to get from BFD is more information to support his statement that this meeting was the first to be held under the banner of speedway. As a historian, interested in facts, that's all I am asking. Is it too much?

Edited November 6, 2011 by norbold