E I Addio

A number of respected Speedwáy historians regard Jack Young as one the the most naturally talented riders ever. He started riding just after the Second World War on what was basically a converted road bike. By his second season he had gained sponsorship and on a proper Speedwáy bike he beat the Australian team captain, Bill Longley. It is Speedwáy folklore that he won his first World Title while still a second division rider with Edinburgh, and to prove it was no fluke he scored 19 maximums in 38 matches the following season with West Ham in the First Division. (Darcy Ward eat yer heart out ! ) But natural talent was not enough. By the mid 1950' s a new breed of rider was coming along with a new brand of professionalism, their names were Barry Briggs, Ronnie Moore, Peter Craven and Ove Fundin. Jack wasn't really into all that . Rather than spend days travelling across Australia chasing titles he preferred to go fishing. With a different of more professional outlook he might well have been several more titles, but who knows. As Bwitcher says you have can only compare like with like, but there is no doubt Jack Young was a massive talent and if I could go back in time at see one rider at his peak I think I'd probably pick Jack. Based on everything I have read and researched on the sport I would say that in terms of sheer natural talent alone on the bike, and not counting tthe other things the top ones are probably Jack Young Ronnie Moore and Darcy. Ward.

They woulldnt want him in the side. It was a tongue in cheek parody of the reiability of Matty's promises. How many riders down the years has he picked up and dropped as it suits him.

Have a guess, based on the way Poole usually do things. Choice of three alternatives:- 1. £ ...........(brown envelope) 2. £...........,.(backhander) 3. Hi Ben, Matt here, Muddlo and I are very keen to have you in our squad next year, almost nailed on in fact, if if you guest for us you are as good as in .

That's a fair post . Of course we only have Rosco's word for it that Cook stormed off in a temper and threw his toys out of the pram. The other side of the coin is that's rider needs permission of the Clerk of the Course to leave the pits. Now if Cook had been incorrectly given permission the it's understandable that he should come back because it's not his mistake. If he did leave the pits withouT the CoC' s permission how come Rosco didn't mention that ? So what is the truth if the matter. According to Rosco's rant on the.Swindon website Cook slammed the dressing room door so hard he took the door clean off its hinges . Really ? Frankly I find, that very difficult to belive. For one thing if Rsoco was in the pits he wouldn't know what happened when Cook was in the changing room. Secondly it s very difficult indeed to take a door off BOTH hinges unless it's loose anyway. Thirdly if the door was taken off its hinges someone else must know about it but we only have Rosco's word on this when he clearly wasn't there to see what happened. Unless someone knows something about the door coming off its hinges or Cook storming off without permission of the CoC Its looks like another one of Rosco's rants that we have seen with increasing frequency in the last few years. " In victory- magnaminity, in defeat-defiannce". - Winston Churchill "In victory- go round crowing about it, in defeat- have a rant". - Rosco

Here's a radical idea. How about the rules to be applied as written down in the Speedwáy Regualations and interpreted in accordance with the English Language, instead of promoters able to form little cartels and change the rules at will as and when it suits them. Or what about when EL clubs sign a PL rider with an EL average they have to use the EL average instead of fiddling it through on the PL average? Or how about some sort of penalty for referees who don't know/don't apply the rules correctly and thereby rob the paying public?

What he actually said in his programme notes was "We have no interest in th Premier League in its present form but a regionalised version of it would be right up our street" We can only speculate on what he meant by a regionalised version of the PL or whether it would include other clubs currently in the EL. He has also not ruled out running a NL side in 2016 if the decision on the stadiums future comes too late for an EL team to be entered when the AGM takes place in October.

You can't judge everything by statistics. I was watching Zengota the night he guested for Belle Vue. As a Lakeside supporter it makes no difference to me whether Swindon or Belle Vue make the cut for the play offs but when you spectate at the same track every meetingyou get a feel for things that don't seem quite right and certainly it did not seem to my eyes that things were quite right. I was watching Zengota in particular because people were calling him the. man in form and I thought he might be a match winner, as indeed he was for Swindon a couple of weeks later, but of all visiting riders this year he did look ver,y bad. Nothing can be proved or disproved but all I can say as a neutral between Belle Vue and Swindon, is that it looked very odd to me at the time and even more so when he came back with Swindon looking a totally different rider . Others can form an opinion through the prism of whatever club they support but that's my view FWIW as someone who saw it.

That's a bizarre way of putting it. Whether NP deserved it or not is irrelevant. There is no rule that says Greg is the sole arbiter of who has what coming to them.if one rider attacks another in that way, he has to have a punishment otherwise it would descend into a free for all.

I don't doubt what you say but I am shocked. Having worked in insurance in the past maybe I know my way around the system more than some but I have always been surprised at people who don't question insurance quotes. Anyone under 21 is going to pay a lot more but in my experience the prices level out after that except that under 24's carry a bigger policy excess but the actual premiums seem to stay the same whether you are 21 or 61. The thing is the premiums different companies charge vary enormously. When I get my renewal notice in I always phone up and ask nicely if they can do anything on price. They will often knock a bit off even if it's only £20 to keep your business. The trouble is people are gullible. I know someone who thinks because he is retired and insures through Saga he will get a good deal but in fact he was paying £300 for some silly little Fiat, over £100 more than I was paying for a 1600cc Astra at the time but he just paid without question. The only thing I would say is that if you put several insurances with one company you get a better deal. I have both cars and the house insurance with the same company and saved about £120 on what it would cost to insure separately.

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The other side of the coin is that some of the serious injuries in the past would have been fatalities today. Partly because of medical advances and partly because of safety standards. Alan Wilkinson for example is one who would almost certainly have walked away from the crash that crippled him if airfences were around in the 70's. There are many other examples..

My understanding is that the tracks owned by the local councils have in the past been available to clubs either for free or at a minimal rent but with the economic squeeze the councils are starting to look for more rent from clubs. It not all that much different is Poland where there is a recent history of clubs getting into serious financial difficulties.

Thanks Rob, Swap Briggo for NP and swap Fundin for Greg, Holder Tai or whoever and one can imagine the furore if that happened in a deciding race for the title in this in this day and age ! ! !

Maybe Watt thinks he is still riding for Lakeside ?

By fixed costs I am not referring to fixed as to price but they are fixed in the sense they have to be paid and don't vary, with use,whether you use the thing a lot or a little. unlike petrol and wear and tear which vary according to the amount you drive If you are sitting down working out your household budget then everything you spend will of course be averaged out, but the reality is that if you are going to a Speedwáy meeting tax incpsurance etc has already been pain so it doesn't cost you an extra 45 p per mile, it cost an extra 20 per mile or thereabouts according to the cars efficiency. I'll take your word for it that average insurance is £432 but I can only assume that is the full cost before no claims discount. I never paid anything like that even a couple of years ago doing 13000 a year on a 1600cc car. If anyone is paying anything like £400 a year I would strongly advise them to shop aound. If you have a clean licence and a few years accident free you can get much better deals for an average saloon . I have just bought a new car and got a years free comprehensive insurance with it. Thats how desperate insurance companies are to get you on their books in the hope of retaining your business next time round. Like most other things if you don't shop around you are liable to get ripped off.

I suppose that sums up why they were and still are such great characters in the sports history and I suppose the sort of characters that people say are missing these days. It was before my time but I seem to recall reading at one of the world finals they finished joint top on points and had a run off for the title ( imagine the tension in that) . At one stage they locked handlebars and both went under the fence . Fundin was apparently trapped there but Briggo got up and won the race and the title . Can you verify that?

It doesn't work like that. Once you have paid your fixed costs like tax, insurance etc they are there whether you go to Speedwáy or not. Presumably you would have a car for other things like work, socialising etc so if you go to Speedwáy it's only costing you petrol and a bit of wear and tear. If you don't go to Speedwáy you still pay the same tax etc so you all you save by not going is your petrol. And £400 insurance ? Either you have points on your licence, drive a Ferrari or you are being ripped off.

I was recently reading an interview with one of Fundins former Norwich team mates -I can't remember which one but might have been Gordon McGregor- but anyway whoever it was said exactly the same thing about Fundin. However, to relate the Fundin -Briggs rivalry to Hancock and Pedesrsen , on Barry's DVD he tells of an incident on track at Norwich that spilled over into the pits , and Fundin came over to have go at him and Brigho had to push him off . Bad feeling between the pair of them at the time but by the end of the evening Fundin came over and said he was staying the night in England and could he stay at Barry's mothers house,. Briggo said of course he could and they both drove down to London together. The dispute was forgotten about , no Facebook, no public comments, everything smoothed over. Maybe some of the present "stars" coukd learn a thing or two from the hard men of past eras.

Everything in the Swedish garden is not rosey th,ough. Their attendances are reported to be in decline. Not as much as ours but the decline is running a few years behind Britain, Looking at last weeks Speedwáy Star, Piraterna -v- Indianerna, which included Hancock, Ward ,Holder , Lindback, Iveson, Lindgren, Nicholls and Bech, drew a crowd of 2,667. Not particularly brilliant when you consider the wage bill for that lot. Elsewhere an Allsvenskan League match drew in a mere 481. Certain others drew in crowds no better, and in some cases worse than EL matches.

Well done to the Aces. Lakeside were weakened by Bech's injury and withdrawal but the difference at EDR reserve told its own tale like so many other matches throughout the EL this year. The Aces deserve a play off spot because the whole side seem to have been pretty consistent this year. A few ups and downs here and there but if you take the season a whole they have been a pretty solid side, and if they make the play offs it will have been on merit and an all round team effort so one has to admire that sort of performance. Fricke still needs to work on consistency but when he hits his best form has really does it bigtime. The thing I like is that he is obviously quite a talent but doesn't seem to let it go to his head. Seemed a very modest guy when I chatted to him last year,so I wish him well. Can the Aces spring a play off surprise though? All my instincts say no, particularly if drawn against Coventry in the semis who are very strong at reserve in but if all the top 5 fire together I don't think the Aces can be written off completely, so could be very interesting.

The point that is being missed is not the fact that there is a guest and its not the fact that the guest strengthens the team. That happens all the .time to all clubs. But it seems to me to be the height of conceit to proclaim it as a "great win" when what you are doing is rolling over the likely wooden spoon team with an enhanced team of your own. Other clubs have won at Wolves this year and I don't think any fans have been on here crowing about it being a "great win" . It is unfortunately a fairly common place occurrence this year against a weak team with an underperforming No1. I say unfortunately because when teams get into the sort of mess Wolves are in it invariably impacts on crowd numbers and that is not good for the sport. An away win over the top two clubs could be classed as pretty impressive, but talking about a "great win" over the wooden spoonists is pretty much a Swindon thing it seems. As I said it depends on your standpoint but if you think it's a great win, that's fine, but many would say that's somewhat triumphalist.

Totally missed the point of the post. As I said , great win or hollow victory depends on your standpoint but this sort of mis match is hardly likely to bring the crowds flooding in.

A great win ? Seriously ? With a team strengthened by a guest like Harris ? That is Swindon mentality. All these unbalanced teams are doing (and the rules that allow it) is ultimately driving more punters from the sport. A great win or a hollow victory depending on your standpoint but level playing field it ain't, and that is what p's many fans off.

I agree with that but would add that in addition to bringing better riders back we also need to produce more of our own. Part of the problem is not enough British riders coming into the sport. When George Barclay was running his training school at Lakeside a few years ago he had people coming from as far away as Cornwall. Obviously there won't be many who can keep that up and need facilities nearer to home. A lot of good riders like Scott Nicholls got into the sport through junior grass track but grass track in general has shrunk the same.way speedway has in recent years. We have had some decent ex -moto crossers come into the sport, like Craig Cook, The Worralls and Richard Lawson and more should be done to attract them, and giving them better breaks. What amazes me when talking to NL riders is that quite few have absolutely no idea when it comes to set ups. It. Would nt take much to give those guys some basic help and set them on the right road more quickly.

Add VAT to your £15 and the total admission is almost up to what is being charged now, and that is before you start averaging out concessions, under 16's etc , and you also have to factor in rain-offs, and smaller crowds on the nights people stay away because rain is forecast and the meeting hoes ahead. Whichever way you look at it the answer is not so much cutting costs as increasing revenue by better crowds. For a lot of clubs an extra 100 through the gate every meeting would make massive difference to survival.