BL65

Presumably you have Southampton 62 The Rest 33 on 27th March, The Butlin Trophy on 2nd June won in a run-off by Ronnie Moore from Jack Geran and Peter Craven after they tied on 13 points, England 52 Australasia 56 on 8th September. 12th May Fundin 14 and How 14 tied for first place, with Crutcher third on 12. There was no run-off, although in a top scorers scratch race Fundin won from Maidment, How and Taylor. 16th June Crutcher won with a 12 point maximum, with the meeting run over 16 heats, Jack Geran and Ronnie Moore were next highest scorers on 9. The results of the tour matches on 23rd and 30th June are confirmed. 7th July the meeting was won by Crutcher from Peter Moore and Ron Mountford. 11th August the meeting was won by Peter Moore with 14, from Ronnie Moore and Cyril Roger, both with 13. 22nd September was Southampton 66 Continentals 42.

The totals tally with the results in my programmes and those reported in the magazines. I can confirm that the meeting at Swindon on 25th April was called off after a day of heavy rain and the meeting at Poole on 1st May was also rained off, as recorded in the Swindon programmes afterwards.

Correct.

I can confirm that the meeting on 31st May was the missing SAL match between Eastbourne and Aldershot. The original teams taking part were named as Eastbourne, Rayleigh, Rye House, Southern Rovers and Yarmouth. The intention was that Southern Rovers would be based at a new track at Sittingbourne but this never materialised. Rayleigh did not compete, being replaced by Ipswich. After the Southern Rovers SAL season had started with the meeting at Eastbourne it was decided the team would be based at Aldershot and the result then became one of the Aldershot results. To confirm the matter, the visiting line up is made up of Aldershot riders from the 1959 season. The tally of points scored by riders in the other 7 Aldershot SAL meetings compared with the published totals for the season leaves the shortfalls as Thomas 10, Meredith 9, Vandenberg 5, Eadon 4, Edwards 3 and Pickering 3. These are the same points as these riders scored in the meeting on 31st May. The result of the meeting between the sides is also shown as 38-34 in Peter Morrish's British Speedway Leagues book.

Eric and co always managed to predict the world final winner in the 1960s. In 1966 Eric Eric went for Briggs, Eric James selected Mauger and Eric Danny chose Knutson.

In no particular order: Eric Linden Basil Storey Tom Morgan Tom and Jim Stenner Peter Oakes Philip Rising Dave Lanning

The vast majority of riders take a while to reach their peak and some, including Barry Briggs and Ivan Mauger, take a couple of years or more before starting to hit the high spots. My personal all time favourite is Ronnie Moore, who arrived in Britain at the age of 17, immediately notched an 8 point plus league average in the top division and reached the World Final. He left Britain having suffered a badly broken leg during the 1963 season, in which he recorded a 10 point plus league average and appeared to have retired, only to return in 1969 at the age of 36, good enough to average around 10 for 4 more years, reach another World Final, win a World Pairs title and rejuvenate the Wimbledon team, in which he was an outstanding captain, team man and team rider. Ronnie was a speedway genius from the day he arrived in Britain until the end of his career here in 1972 (I discount the two meetings for Coventry in 1974) and he would always be top of my list of greatest ever riders.

1. Igor Plechanov 2. Boris Samorodov 3. Emil Sayfutdinov 4. Viktor Trofimov 5. Gennady Kurilenko

His father, Chum Taylor from Australia, was with Cardiff in 1952 and at the beginning of the 1953 season, before transferring to Bristol. Glyn was born in Cardiff, but is classed as Australian, same as Bristol-born Jason Crump.

Several sources record that Howard Cole was born in Cardiff. Taking this and the probability that Leo McAuliffe was born in London into account, my revised top five is: 1. Freddie Williams 2. Eric Williams 3. Howard Cole 4. Ian Williams 5. Cyril Francis

I remember seeing some of his early rides in second half races at Midlands tracks, mainly Wolverhampton and Cradley Heath from about 1964 onwards. Dai also rode in half a dozen meetings for West Ham early in 1967.

Records show that in league racing in Britain Keith Harvey averaged under 4.5 points per match and de la Porte under 5.5. Although these are comparable to Dennis Newton's league record Dennis gained more titles in South Africa, as referred to by Britmet.

I was listening to news about it on Radio Guernsey earlier.

If there had been a Channel Islands team Ivan Mauger would have qualified as he had grandparents from Guernsey, where I saw some good racing on the beach at Vazon Bay over the years.

Event 1 comprised 4 heats of speedway. Heat 1 was won by Brian Craven from Derrol Melbin, Graham Beattie and Fred Collier. Heat 2 was won by Derek Skyner from Keith Rylance, John Key and Ted Connor. Heat 3 was for the first and second riders in the first two heats and was won by Craven from Melbin, Skyner and Rylance. Heat 4 was for the third and fourth riders and was won by Beattie from Collier, with Key and Connor falling. Event 2 comprised two sidecar heats and a final. Event 3 was a speedcar match race and Event 4 comprised two heats and a final for speedcars. Event 5 comprised four speedway races. Heat 1 was won by Craven from Connor and Key, with Collier falling. Heat 2 was won by Melbin from Beattie, Skyner and Rylance. Heats 3 and 4 were handicap races. Heat 3 was won by Craven (100) from Keith Rylance (20), Skyner (50) and John Rylance (gate), with Connor (30) a faller. Heat 4 was won by Key (30) from Melbin (80) and Collier (gate), with Beattie (50) and Pat Byatt (20) both falling. Event 6 comprised two sidecar handicap races. Events 7 and 8 were speedcar races. There was no overall winner of the speedway events.

1. Henry Long 2. Doug Davies 3. Doug Serrurier 4. Fred Wills 5. Dennis Newton

1. Freddie Williams 2. Eric Williams 3. Ian Williams 4. Leo McAuliffe 5. Cyril Francis Some sources suggest that Leo was born in London, but he was listed as being Welsh when he qualified for the 1963 World Final. Ivor Hughes was heading for the top five when he was tragically killed in 1966.

I understand that Dai was born in Bridgnorth, which is in Shropshire, England.

There's nothing in my programmes to show that he rode at Wimbledon, but he did make one appearance for Wimbledon at Shelbourne in 1951.

I would have included Bob Hughes and Phil Morris ahead of Taffy Owen.

I would have put Paddy Hammond, the former Norwich and Yarmouth rider who also rode at Shelbourne, ahead of Des Monson in the list shown.

Totally agree. In 1953, during his brief time with West Ham Basse Hveem top scored at Norwich, when as reserve he recorded 5 race wins and set the fastest time of the meeting. In two appearances at Poole he won a World Championship qualifying round with 14 points and scored 17 points for Overseas against Britain.

Aldershot 4th June Whitsun Trophy Bill Osborne 14, Ross Gilbertson 13, Jimmy Gleed 12 Aldershot 1st August Hampshire Trophy - The meeting was abandoned after heat 6 due to torrential rain, with Ken Vale leading on 7 points. Although it was never reported in the magazines at the time my own records carry a note that there were further postponements of the re-scheduled meeting on 6th and 27th August, when the original programme was to be re-issued. Aldershot 13th August - no result or mention of the match was reported in the magazines and my programme is blank. I suspect that this meeting was also postponed as match reports elsewhere confirm there was heavy rain across the country from 9th to 13th August. I have a copy of the missing Researcher file which makes no reference to the meeting. Stoke 14th May - no report was published in the magazines. I have the programme for the meeting, which I will retrieve from my archives. Stoke 9th July Reg Fearman beat Geoff Mudge in a run-off, as reported in Speedway World. Stoke 29th October In the run-off Jenkins and Roper both fell on the third lap, with Brown and Flanagan awarded the win. Rye House 18th September was called off on the day due to a waterlogged track. Exeter 12th September nothing further available.

Arne would have had a good chance of making the 1965 World Final, a feat achieved by his Oxford team mate Jimmy Gooch, but he wasn't allowed to take part in the qualifying rounds. Having decided to apply for British citizenship he wasn't entered in the European rounds and the powers that be decided because the process was not complete Arne was not eligible to ride in the British qualifiers either.

In the Handicap Final at Perth on 28th October 1960 Ken McKinlay, Aub Lawson and Les Saville tied for first place. McKinlay and Lawson had started off 160 yards handicap and Saville off 80 yards. Ken was leading but suffered machine trouble approaching the end of the race, allowing the other two to catch him on the line. Does anyone know of any other occasion where there has been a three rider dead heat in a race?