norbold

How many people would put Vivian Woodward in their top 20 footballers of all time?

I'm not suggesting they won't be remembered, but as people fade out who actually saw them, I'm sure they will fall out of people's top tens just as, in general, apart from a few diehards like myself, the three greats from the early days I've mentioned above have done. How many people on this forum would include any of those three in their top 10 list of all time great speedway riders? Even taking iris's point, how many people would put John L Sullivan in their top 10 boxers of all time or even Jack Johnson apart from the diehards who really know the history of the sport?

Tom Farndon? Vic Huxley? Frank Arthur?

Of course it is all a matter of opinion and there is no definitive answer to the question. Everyone will have their own views and, like you, I cannot argue with you if you think that Peter Craven etc. are the top three. The only thing that generally concerns me with this type of question is that there is always a skewing to the more recent (in this case) riders, though it could be best footballer ever, best album ever, best band ever. Which is only natural because people know what they know and older "greats" fade as the people who remember them fade. In thirty or forty years time I wonder if Peter Craven will make anyone's top three.....

It has to be comparative though doesn't it? Who knows what Tom Farndon would have done on a modern bike with modern tracks? How would Peter Collins have fared on a Douglas on a deep track? Bikes and training are improving all the time. By saying that Mike Lee and Peter Collins are better say than Chris Harris or Scott Nicholls you are still comparing different times and having to go by results. I think the only way you can do it is to make a comparison through time and the achievements of the riders at the time they were riding under the conditions they rode in.

Tom Farndon was British Yes, I quoted Keith Farman's research some time ago. Keith was a devoted fan of Ove Fundin and tried to record every race he ever rode in. He once told me that the rider who beat him most in the period 1954 to 1963 was Peter Craven.

Not sure about best three EVER.....

He also scored 21 points in the second Test at Rybnik on 15 October. The only reference in the report in the 1961 Speedway Star Digest to his seven rides says, "In the first match at Wroclaw, Poland raced to a 68-39 victory. Peter Craven, given seven races, scored 21 of England's points. Craven repeated this feat in the second Test at Rybnik....." Poland won this match too 56-51. The strange thing is that England won the last Test (56-52) when Craven "only" scored 17 (from 6 rides).

Incidentally, during the period 1955 - 1963, Arthur Forrest was one of only three riders to break the dominance of the Big Five and obtain a World Championship podium spot other than them. This was in 1956 when he beat Peter Craven in a run-off for third place. The other two riders to break the Big Five dominance were Aub Lawson in 1958 and Gote Nordin in 1961 (both third places as well).

As did Ken le Breton, known as the White Ghost.

Beaten to it! He was known as the Black Prince because he always had immaculate black shiny leathers.

Phil Clarke, Billy Bales, Ove Fundin all at Norwich.

Bob Andrews, Cyril Maidment, Eric Williams, Ron Mountford, Arthur Forrest......

Shock horror! Hoskins is pro-Hoskins!

Top five Brits I've seen: 1. Peter Craven 2. Peter Collins 3. Michael Lee 4. Nigel Boocock 5. Mark Loram Top five Brits I've not seen: 1. Tom Farndon 2. Jack Parker 3. Eric Langton 4. Freddie Williams 5. Tommy Price

You could well be right, Jim. Although, as I've said above, my feeling would be that Ove Fundin would have won more titles under a GP system, I think it really is almost impossible to say who would have won what in the period between 1956 and 1967. Any one of the Big Four (Five when Bjorn Knutson joined them and back to four after Peter Craven's tragic death or maybe three when Ronnie Moore wasn't riding...oh, you know what I mean!!!) could have won in any of the years. But it's all a great field for speculation for us old fogeys who were actually around at the time. Sidney, Barry Briggs also struggled as a novice as did Ivan Mauger. Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them (Jerzy Szczakiel).

Jim Blanchard had it on his New Cross tribute site: http://jbsportsimages.co.uk/page0.html

It certainly was, kenny.

I'm not sure how many were held in 1930 but there were also four meetings in August 1929, the first, on 10 August featuring Sprouts Elder, Tiger Stevenson, Ivor Creek and Buzz Hibberd. Frank Arthur and Bluey Wilkinson also appeared in 1929. The 1930 riders included Tiger Hart, Steve Langton, Bill Clibbett, Ted Bravery and Jack Douglas. The 1930 season opened on 21 April following three trials on 5,9 and 12 April. The last meeting was held on 2 October 1930.

Ronnie Moore always said that the team was more important to him than his own individual career. He said he used to see other riders in the pits on World Championship night getting very tense and nervous but he said he thought that was just silly and he said he always saw it as just another meeting. As iris said above though he was probably the most naturally gifted rider speedway has ever seen along maybe with Michael Lee. There may have been others who eventually became more successful but they had to work harder to achieve it.

You're certainly right about Fundin. His preferred line was round the inside though being the world class rider he was, he would adapt as necessary and use whatever line he thought would win him the race. I should emphasise that Keith's statistics made it very clear that Fundin beat every other rider more times than they beat him, so he beat Craven more times than Craven beat him and it was just that Craven beat him more times than Briggs did.You may be right about why Craven beat him more times than any other rider and it could be that Craven's superiority at Hyde Road led to this statistic.

1960 is an interesting year because you are right about Craven's World Championship record that year of course, Rob. However, 1960 was my first year at speedway. I went every week to New Cross from May onwards and was an avid reader in my teenage exuberance of the speedway press and it seemed to me that Fundin was unbeatable. I remember being most surprised when I learned that he'd been involved in a three-way run off with Craven and Moore for the title. I thought he would have won it easily. So, to my way of thinking, over the whole season, he would have walked a 1960 GP. (Also, of course, neither Fundin nor Moore rode in the British qualifying rounds so Craven's unbeaten record on the way to Wembley did not include beating or even meeting either of them.) Now here's an interesting snippet though. The late Keith Farman, who was a devoted Ove Fundin fan and a statistician of cosmic proportions, set out to record every race Fundin ever rode in and he once told me that the rider who beat Fundin more times during his career than any other was not Briggs but Peter Craven. So make of that what you will! National League Averages for 1960 show Fundin well in front, though these are not CMAs but actual Match Averages including Bonus Points: Fundin: 16:00 (To emphasis his "selfish" nature this includes no bonus points at all!) Craven: 13.90 (Includes 14 bonus points) Briggs: 13.70 (6 BPs) Knutson:13.51 (4 BPs) Moore: 13.15 (25 BPs)

There's no doubt it's all a matter of conjecture and there can be no definitive answer to who would have if.... The only thing I would say about Leigh Adams as compared to Fundin and Briggs though is that yes, they were all three consistently good and at the top of the averages, but Adams did not have the selfish ruthlessness that Fundin and Briggs possessed when it came to individual events. Adams was a bit like Ronnie Moore in that respect; an excellent team man but without that "me me me" streak. So I'm not sure Adams would have even won a one-off final which would lessen his chances when looking back in history and saying he would have won a GP series if he couldn't even win a one-off. More conjecture though of course.... The Speedway Star & News rankings weren't just based on league averages but were the sum total of the opinions of speedway journalists world wide on how riders had performed in league, cup, Tests, individual events and the World Championship, so, in that sense it was the nearest thing you could get to an overall view of the riders form for each year.

As someone who was around for part of the time, I think it is very difficult to say who would have won GP style World Championships between 1955 and 1964 when the Big 4 later joined by Bjorn Knutson to make it 5 reigned supreme but my own feeling is that Fundin would have been a very difficult man to beat from 1956 to 1963. In the Speedway Star and News yearly rankings he was ranked no. 1 every year from 1956 to 1963 except 1958 when he was no. 2 to Briggs. He was also no. 2 to Briggs in 1964. So taking the rankings as an overall guide to the year, Fundin would have won 7 and Briggs 2 between 1956 and 1964. Also in all that time, Briggs only made no. 2 on one occasion (1957). Of course Briggs came good after Fundin's peak period and may well have won in 1966 and 1967, but that still makes only 4 overall to Fundin's 7 if we give 1965 to Knutson.

Although no-one has replied to this topic on the Forum I would like to thank all those who have contacted me either by email, phone or PM and provided most of the information I needed. I've still got one very interesting lead to follow up and then I think I can get the book off to the publishers. It should be out later this year.