OveFundinFan

I watched BSN Peter Craven Memorial match sat on my settee with a 14” laptop on my knee, set of Bluetooth ear plugs, no problem at all. I paid BSN to watch 3 weeks ago, so Monday evening I went to BSN website, signed in, and away I was. Being the laptop was on my knee meant it was something like watching a 32” tv sat in the corner of the room. Good picture, good sound. Wife was sat in an armchair watching her program on tv, with my set of ear buds in meant I didn’t here the main tv and she didn’t hear speedway.

Who could it be?

Well, crowds are depleted at British speedway, we all acknowledge that. Many have said speedway needs to be a show to attract younger ones to come and see a show, not just to see 22 minutes of racing (15 if it’s a league match). BV did something last night to give more value for money. Introduced riders to the crowds via passengers on Harley Davidsons and at the start line up. Chase the Ace always works had. The whole meeting was very slickly run (no delays), a 5 rider semi, and a 6 rider final. I think that was pretty good show from BV, yet there is criticism. Anyone with some positive critisism ? Something that promotors can do to make a live meeting more attractive on a regular basis, but not costing a fortune.

A very good meeting, plenty of exciting racing even if it wasn’t for a race win. The meeting was very slick too. I like the 5 rider semi, and the 6 rider final Only thing there I would change is make the 5 rider semi 5 laps, and the 6 rider final 6 laps. I like the presentation of the final….. finalist coming out as passengers on big bikes, and then being able to chose their own gate. Overall presentation was better than GP presentations, IMO. Well done Belle Vue, and thanks to ALL the riders for making a great meeting. 22 races with very good competitive racing., in 2.5 hours. If every speedway meeting was held as good as that, presentation and racing, then maybe speedway in the uk could start attracting sponsors and crowds. And thank you to BSN for streaming the meeting. Quality I found to be very good, and the presenters/interviewers were all professional. Well done BSN

You could still pay and watch, it should be available for a few weeks yet I reckon.

I had no problem, mind you, it was 2weeks 2 days ago, that is the Saturday before the original meeting being rained off.

To get the speedway GP's you got to have Discovery+ with the sports package. As MD says £6.99 per month auto renewal until you cancel or £60 per year. You get loads of sports including WorldSuperBikes series, cyclo cros, other motor sports, non motor sports ie sking, plus loads of other channels, films etc. Pretty good value for money just for the speedway gp's IMO. Picture quality is good. I mostly use my TV, non smart but I have a ROKU box where I can access Disc+ app, also on my iPad which could be cast to a TV

Why?

Easy done, I hope he gets to see it…… nudge, nudge

The BSN pass, according to their website, is for Championship only, Premiership only, or for a discounted price you can have both.

Speedway meetings in March and October are, in my opinion, stupid ideas. The National Speedway Stadium can take a lot of water, but once saturated it just cannot take any more. It may have been light rain all day but the damage was done, and the forecast from 6pm is not kind at all. From what I see of the forecast, Wednesday looks no better - hope I proved wrong.

BBC weather for Manchester on my phone shows Wednesday better but not by much.

£14.99, a good price I think for a class field. The samples of stream at various meeting look good quality.

What about the smell?

Just signed up and paid the 14.99 for the PCMT match on Monday, looking forward to it. Thank you for the stream. I will be selecting various matches during the season to watch, haven't got the time to watch ALL the matches nor the spare cash for it so I will have to be selective.

No doubt about it, it is a very good lineup. For sure there are good riders not included, but who would need to drop out to facilitate them is the problem. Weather, it’s so changeable at the moment. It could be dry late afternoon/evening but what goes on during the day might be different. I’m subscribing, should be a great meeting, we all know how good the BV track can be for racers and racing. Anyone know what BSN are charging to stream individual premiership/championship meetings.?

I remember Freddie doing well in the GPs where he used the Gerhard engine, and yes, Gerhard was with him in the pits on most occasions as I saw it.

Mid 1960’s there loads of tracks, Manchester area was swamped with them, most have gone now. Must admit though, the modern day tracks I see on you tube etc look very professional, not all were like that back “when I was a young lad”.

+1, I give up on cold, wet, windy March/Oct nights long ago.

What’s TNT ?

Thanks for that “Vic” - nice one. Can’t remember the event but would have been my first visit to Offerton. Obviously a day I couldn’t keep the bike upright (J. Hatton). Mind you, Frank Finnigan (South) wasn’t the type to help keep you upright, the opposite more like. lol. Derek Benyon rode for Hopwood (North), near Middleton. A long way from Partington, but we became good friends and I went on my motorbike a few times up to Middleton that winter and helped build a track one Saturday. Reg Massey (North) became a team mate in 1964 summer season when I joined Belle Vue, and John Hopley North) became a team mate in 1965 when I joined Wilmslow.

MM - link not working for me. The other link is working.

I did the Edinburgh Festival a couple years running both with Wilmslow and as an individual. Probably 1965 and 66. The first year I had a Reliant 3 wheeler van. I could drive that by myself on a motorcycle licence. So two of us travelling up together, the driver side engine mounting sheared. That resulted in every time we had to slow down the engine vibration would cause the engine to drop that side. The fan blade was obviously lopsided and was chopping at the fibreglass bodywork. I had to get on my back on the nearside and push the engine from the oil sump whilst my mate was pushing the engine from the top offside. That effectively was revolving the whole engine until it settled on the engine mounting again. So off we would go again. Everything was fine so long as we could keep going, the constant engine revs kept things stable. Problem was when we started to enter the outskirts of Edinburgh we encountered traffic lights. When we had to stop the engine on tick over would shake off the mounting again, so it was the same procedure as before. The fan chopping away at the fibreglass every time. So what I was doing then was after seeing traffic lights in the distance, I would either speed up a bit to get through them, or slow down hoping they would change to green. I may have driven through when I shouldn't have once or twice. Ooops! This I had to do over the Festival weekend. Going home on the Sunday was fine once I cleared Edinburgh. The following year on the day before I set out for Edinburgh Dad said I could use his car (I had my car licence by then but still the Reliant Van). Of course I said accepted. It was a Mk1 Cortina and I loved that car, so was made up. The things we do for the love of cycle speedway.

Thanks for that. Your correct in saying Brian Moston built the Carrswood track, he lived very close by I believe, more or less the bottom of his garden. And, yes, it was probably the Manchester Grand Prix I was spectator at. Thanks too for the league info. I had completely forgot it was split North/South. Just shows how vibrant cycle speedway was in those days, attracting so many youngsters. My mistake when I was mentioning Gorton in my previous post. It was actually Openshaw who had the good riders, including Johnny Watchman, and it was Openshaw who came by train/cycled to Partington. Openshaw was a bit further away than Gorton which really shows their commitment. Down at the bottom I also see the result of the leagues North v South. The North won, and I was in that team. Looks like Moston never got going. The league table shows Partington didn’t finish bottom but next to bottom on points difference - success! Yeah! The Strangeways track was actually in the “shadow” of Strangeways prison. Creepy.

Carrs Wood in Gately, south Manchester, was the first track that I saw cycle speedway. That would be late summer 1963. It was for an individual championship, Bob Duckworth had been invited to present the trophies and had he took along mum, dad and me. I got a program and it was advertising the 1963-64 winter league and inviting applicants. I followed it up expressing interest. Partington Flyers came into existence. Mum made the race bibs from sheets of plastic with vertical red and yellow stripes of insulation tape whilst myself and friend sorted a “track”, very primitive. As we were still new to cs and no knowledge, the track was too big, very long straights. Again, being new to cs, for the first few meetings we rode bikes with Sturmey Archer 3 speed gears, low-medium-high and wide bars. Completely against the “norm” but we were very green. I think Peter Collins, Dave & Chris Morton etc we’re at least 6 years younger then me and the rest of Partington Flyers, so we didn’t really mix with them, they were only kids! Partington was then only a small village, and everyone knew each other. We did though “hire” the Bedford dormobile off Peters dad, Bill Collins, to get the team and bikes to away fixtures. PC does mention his dads dormobile in his recent book (a large part of his family life), and also Partington cycle speedway (chap 6, para 3) which was a surprise to me. I remember one visiting team, Gorton, visiting for a winter league meeting. Gorton is the area of Manchesters BV Hyde Road speedway track, approx 10+ mile from Partington. This was a Sunday, and the lads got a train(s) from Gorton to Urmston, still about 4 mile away. They then cycled on their cs bikes, remember very low fixed gear, to Partington, raced on a largish track, then did the return journey. That is commitment, very commendable. One of their riders in that winter league, Johnny Watchman, became one of the all time greats of British cycle speedway, top man. Some of you may remember him. I cannot remember the result of that winter league, which probably means Partington Flyers finished last (highly probable) and I would think Gorton may well have topped the league - they had a wealth of junior riders, most if not all, became very good riders in the Manchester league summer of 1964.