Chadster

Brafield, or Northampton Shaleway, as I believe it's now called.

One of the problems now is the increasing lack of ready made stadiums to move into. When Division 2 was formed 6 of the 10 teams were able to move into existing dog tracks, 4 of which had staged speedway previously. Belle Vue Colts used their existing facilities and Berwick, Canterbury and Nelson rode around football tracks. How many stadiums are there today ready and waiting to stage speedway? Sunderland might be one, especially given the demise of Newcastle, but the sport has never been a success there. I read a facebook post recently from Brafield, announcing the opening of a new stand. There was talk a year or so ago that a promoter was looking there.

Great post. That was the start of a great run for West Ham; Simmons effectively rode as a heatleader for the rest of the season and Tony Clarke was alively presence at reserve, so it was no surprise that the Hammers made a clean sweep of the honours available to them. In the interests of fairness, it should be pointed put that Wimbledon were without Trevor Hedge, so effectively the Hammers were only one heat leader down. Still a great performance, though.

He was injured in 1967 but represented the Aces in 1968. He won his last race and denied Eric Boocock the title, with Barry Briggs going on to win the run off. The next few seasons a certain Mr Mauger was in his way.

Shame they can't spell Principality.

If I look at photographs from back in the day, I can always recognise Ken McKinlay and Charlie Monk. Ove Fundin is pretty easy to identify, too.

Nigel Boocock had a very distinctive style and, at certain moments, Emil Syfutdinov reminds me of him.

Wasn't there an attempt to bring speedway to Weston-Super-Mare recently?

This might help; https://wwosbackup.proboards.com/

This has been a very interesting thread for someone like me who has not much interest in machinery and even less knowledge about it. It's a shame because when I got interested in speedway in the late 60s there was little talk about the machines beyond whether someone was riding a JAP or a JAWA and set up seemed to be about picking the right gearing. So speedway could sell itself as a motor sport for people who weren't much interested in motors. Now it seems you have to be a mechanical expert to take part or pay someone a lot of money to be one for you.

Test matches in the summer would be very difficult to organise now bit I have wondered if we could organise somthing at the start of our season, before other counties get started. A 3 match series against, say Denmark would be a great way to highlight the start of our season. You might even try to link it into the Ben Fund meeting. I thought the Danes rather than the Aussies as it would be arare chance to see the top Danes in this country and might attract more fans.

Wimbledon is part houses, part football ground. Hackney became the media centre for the Olympics, which I believe has now been converted to residential use. London White City is now BBC offices. Harringay is a supermarket, New Cross housing and a park and Walthamstow is housing. Wembley is still Wembley, just a very different Wembley.

I highly suspect that someone posting under the name OveFundinFan is a pensioner themselves. If he'd begun his last paragraph with 'worryingly' rather than 'interesting' his meaning would be much clearer. Anyway, no cause for worry, there's no chance of the government seeing the SoN or even knowing what speedway is.

Wearing a Smederna race jacket. That might help narrow it down.

Happily, I didn't see the Vic Harding crash but I did see Denny Pyeatt's fatal crash. It's over 40 years ago but it's still as clear as day to me. Not something I ever want to see again Those of us who were there also won't forget that 1980 season when the Hawks almost won the League having propped up the table the previous two seasons. It all came to a sad end when Cradley won at Waterden Road but I'll never forget the Hackney fans giving the Heathen a great reception on the tractor ride afterwards. Spoke volumes about them and speedway fans in general. One of the highlights of that season (but not for me!) was Dons getting thumped 56-22. Cyril Maidment unwisely complained that the announcer was mispronouncing Eddie Jancarz's name, upon which the announcer simply replied, 'Hackney 56 Wimbledon 22'.