norbold

When did you reach 30, FD? You kept that quiet!

You don't have to scan in anything and send it to them, you just need to cite the date of the Speedway Star it appears in.

Billy used to be a regular but hasn't been for 2 or 3 years due to his health.

As far as I understand michig is one of the site's administrators.

I've been to the Norwich lunch every year for the last 15 years or so. As you say, gustix, a lot of former riders normally turn up, though, sadly, they are getting fewer and fewer every year. Amongst the regulars normally are Ove Fundin, Trevor Hedge, Ginger Abigail, Gavin Hedge, Ray Bales, Bert Harkins and Terry Stone. Len Read was also a regular but missed last year, though as he is over 100 now, I think he can be excused. Other well-known speedway personalities, such as the announcer Terry Ripo and "Hawkeye", Tony Hurren, are also regulars. it is a great occasion. The food is always excellent and the company brilliant. It's non-stop speedway chat and nostalgia for about four or five hours! Well worth going to if you can make it.

As a postscript to the debate about citing a reference to the date of Split''s death, I have just looked up a number of other deceased speedway riders on Wikipedia. Although all of them give the date of death, not one of them has a citation.

Yes, I've updated many pages before as well. About a year ago I did have the same problem. It was on the page for Stanley Holloway. It was mentioned that he appeared in Concert Party in Clacton when he was first starting out. He actually appeared for three Summer seasons at the West Cliff Theatre, of which I am now Chairman. In our archives we have the old Accounts books for the period 1902-1914. In it, it gives details of how much he was paid each season, so I just thought it might be of some interest to mention how much he was paid on his Wiki Page. So I added it and it was deleted as I didn't source it. So I added the source was the original accounts book in the West Cliff archives. They said that wasn't good enough as it had to be a printed source. Which I thought was very curious as they were willing to accept a secondary source but not a primary soirce.

Yes, that's the reason they removed mine.

Apparently one of the Wiki Admins has now removed my edit for reasons best known to themselves!

All done.

Kent until 1964; London since 1965.

Yes, it would be in Speedway in the South East. If you don't have a copy, I have a few left at very reasonable prices......

It won't be in there if it was a Surrey village.....

Who rode for Camberwell in 1805?

Indeed, iris. His best days were at Wembley and Harringay. Much more of a North London legend.

Given his extra-curricular activities, it would probably need someone like Tarantino to make the film, which would no doubt be x-rated!

So sad. One of the greatest speedway characters of all time and one of the greatest riders of all time. He was one of my heroes in the 50s and 60s. He was in the first race I ever saw.

I would agree that Lee has to be top for wasted talent. Yes, he did win the World Final once and make the podium twice more, which is, of course, pretty impressive by any standards, but, had it not been for his "other activities", I am certain we would be talking about him in discussions about greatest ever rider and he would be right up there with the likes of Fundin, Mauger and Rickardsson, perhaps even coming out no.1 on most people's all-time lists. That is a waste of talent.

Maybe because winning three World Championships in the Grand Prix era is seen as a greater achievement than winning one in the old one-off days.

They always burned Johnnie Hoskins' hat at New Cross (and every other track he promoted!)

I still have all my programmes and I too used to write comments in mine - still do, actually! I have sometimes found my comments useful when replying to questions and comments on this Forum and elsewhere. My whole collection of programmes (including comments), books and magazines were invaluable to me when I wrote my books. And again, they have proved useful in answering queries on this forum. But also I like to just peruse every now and again to remind myself about individual riders, teams or just the general history. Sadly, due to needing the space I am having to dispose of all my post 1960s Speedway Stars as I don't think I shall be writing any more speedway books, but I still have a very large collection of books and other ephemera and can't see myself disposing of them any time soon! P.S., Chunky, I still have my 1961 World Final programme!

Ernest compiled a booklet called, "The World Championship Story 1929-1961", which was published in April 1962. It gave details of all the Star Riders' Championship finals and the British and Speedway Riders' Championship as well as the World Championship. It also contains some detail on the Provincial Riders' Championship, 1936 and1960-61. There is autobiographical information on most of the leading riders and many photographs. It was my "bible" of the World Championship until Maurice Jones's book came out in 1979.

So far on this thread you have shown you have no interest in the history of the sport nor in the modern day sport. Can you explain what exactly you are doing here?

Same as me. I don't think there were any in 1958 and 1959. There was also the People's Guide 1947 to 49; Lennon's Annual 1946-7 and Astoria's 1953 to 1958.

Yes, we were posting at the same time!