Chadster

I think some of these things might be able to happen but not if every track tries to work in isolation. Are there people with expertise who could set things up centrally? It needn't be a promoter, but maybe fans with enthusiasm and interest who could establish a template for working with the police or with schools? I believe that a knowledgeable fan has given great help to campaigners at Coventry and Peterborough to help them navigate the planning process.

Good point about the police initiative. Are there any tracks that participate in these schemes? I guess it would have to be a track like Leicester or Scunthorpe where there's more or less continuous access. Running schemes like these ould be a good way of encouraging a positive view of the sport by local councils. I don't think the visits to schools would be to encourage participation, except as spectators. Again, can the sport offer something to schools? I think Zach Cook was on one of the school visits at Poole. Could he talk to them about life in Australia as part of a Geography lesson, could someone from the club talk about the track and the sport as part of local history? A stats based sport should have some relevance to Maths lessons.

The Northampton rugby team are known as the Saints so that might have local appeal and has a speedway pedigree.

Reading, Canterbury, Berwick, Peterborough, Workington, to name but five.

You might find this site helpful. Good luck! Defunct Tracks

I can't remember 1937 world champion Jack Milne ever riding in Division 2. Jack Millen did (aka Millen the Villain).😃

Wasn't Malcolm Simmons imprisoned in the 1960s?

It might help your case if you didn't refer to an important museum as a 'village hall' and if you could tell the difference between East and West. Coventry is and always has been in the West Midlands.

Thanks for that. It seems that it may all be from the Peter Craven Memorial Trophy as the Don's rider is Olle Nygren who was in that event and it would explain the helmet colours which had puzzled me. I was actually at the Aces v Diamonds match that season, which was late in the season and much too dark to be filming second half racing. Looks like a cracking race between Mauger and Fundin.

Some sequences from a couple of meetings, versus Wimbledon and Newcastle it seems. Ivan Mauger features prominently.

My impression is the Poles dislike the Pairs format and much prefer the traditional World Team Cup format. It will be interesting to see the attendance for that in Warsaw next season.

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.