chunky

In 1965, West Ham also won the KO Cup, and the London Cup

Pete Wigley used to do that too!

Oh, trust me, Freddie Williams really is the prime example! And people today complain about having multiple events in Poland...

It doesn't fit in with the topic of this thread, Bob...

Oops! You know why I didn't include it? I didn't see that Martin Ashby won it in 1974!

Moreso than most sports, speedway traditionally has a problem with "home Advantage", but how big an issue is it? Let's look at some home-track winners from the BL era (1965 to 1990), and there are two reasons for that. Firstly, many tracks got into the habit of running regular (and well-established) individual meetings, and secondly, there was a tendency to get as many top riders as they could. I've chosen what I consider to be the strongest established events at most BL tracks. Some of you may wonder why I chose the Internationale over The Laurels, but I always felt that The Laurels leant toward a "regional field", or riders that we enjoyed seeing. I know there were several meetings like that around the country. So, here goes... Belle Vue - BLRC: Ivan Mauger (1971), Peter Collins (1974, 1975), Chris Morton (1984), Shawn Moran (1989) Coventry - Brandonapolis: Nigel Boocock (1966, 1968, 1971), Mitch Shirra (1980), Tommy Knudsen (1982, 1984) Cradley - Golden Hammer: Bobby Schwartz (1979), Lance King (1983), Alan Grahame (1984), Erik Gundersen (1986, 1987), Jan O. Pedersen (1989), Simon Cross (1990) Exeter - Westernapolis: Ivan Mauger (1973, 1975), Zdenek Kudrna (1979) Hackney - Champions Chase: Bengt Jansson (1973), Barry Thomas (1979) Halifax - Dews Trophy: Eric Boocock (1970, 1973), Graham Plant (1976), Ian Cartwright (1979), Kenny Carter (1980, 1981) Ipswich - Golden Sovereign: John Louis (1975), Billy Sanders (1976, 1978, 1979) King's Lynn - Pride of the East: Terry Betts (1968), Howard Cole (1969), Dave Jessup (1979, 1980), Michael Lee (1981) Poole - Blue Riband: Malcolm Simmons (1975, 1976, 1977, 1978) Reading - Manpower Trophy: Anders Michanek (1973), Joh Davis (1978) Sheffield - Yorkshire Bank Trophy: Bob Valentine (1973), Doug Wyer (1979) Swindon - Silver Plume: Martin Ashby (1974) Wimbledon - Internationale: Trevor Hedge (1969), Edward Jancarz (1977) Wolverhampton - Champion of Champions: Ole Olsen (1970, 1972, 1974) Sad note is the fact that, out of all these tracks, only Belle Vue, Ipswich, King's Lynn, Poole, and Sheffield still exist...

Les, Dick, and Jim Tolley were brothers. According to a comment from Nigel on the Brummies' Facebook page, Dick and Stan (not sure where Stan fits into this!) were "distant relations".

They are all still with us, but looking at the averages, Norman was actually the best of them...

That's ridiculous! Everyone knows that Hoskins built the old Wembley...

Clearly, whoever created/updated Dick's bio was wrong. He most definitely rode in the 1956 World Final. I know that people often question the accuracy of Wikipedia, but this is the first glaring mistake (related to speedway) I've found. Another great link for checking World Championship history is http://www.speedway.org/history/. Plus, I'm currently reworking the World Final file for Speedway Researcher (there were a ton of mistakes on the original file).

One would hope...

So did Bluey Wilkinson...

Perhaps Parker was like, "I Need You", so "We Can Work it Out", but Mauger was, "Hello, Goodbye", followed by "I'll Be On My Way"...

Money can be a great healer, though...

Should be safe - like your Lions... Blackburn could go down; four matches left, including Coventry, Leeds, and Leicester.

It seems that more Scottish football clubs were happy to share their stadiums with speedway than South of the border. One of the few I know is Halifax, and of course, they have been out of the EFL for a while now...

And he took was worse than Grubmuller. I always felt that he had potential, though...

Funny thing is, I didn't mention him, as he was around longer. So, I just checked the stats, and Grubmuller actually has better figures than Funk! Didn't realise that...

So you didn't write that?

That must be true; it says so on Wikipedia!!!

I did get to see his compatriot Walter Grubmuller at Plough Lane.

Thing that depresses me - and it's not just with speedway tracks - is the things that have been introduced in my lifetime, and are already obsolete! VCR's, pagers, 8-tracks, teasmades... As far as tracks, off the top of my head, we have Weymouth, Newport, Arena Essex, Milton Keynes (Groveway), Milton Keynes (Elfield Park), Canterbury, Paisley, Reading, Somerset, Camarthen, Boston, Castleford, Doncaster, Cowdenbeath, Linlithgow, Ellesmere Port... None of those existed before I was born. That's without tracks like Bristol Eastville, Scunthorpe Quibell Park and Ashbyville, Berwick Berrington Lough etc...

Shut up, Norman! My first one was Wimbledon v Southampton. Both dead... Bob's first one was Newport v Long Eaton. Both dead... Salty's first one was Cradley v Newport. Both dead... HertsRacer's first one was Yarmouth v Norwich. Both dead... Arnie's first one was Reading v Eastbourne. Both dead... Sadly, I see a theme here... Oh, and checking the riders from your match, pretty sure Tommy Sweetman is still with us.

As far as I know, Peter is still alive.

So, Monday, 5 October, 1970, at Tilehurst for a Challenge Match. Jessup won from Sims, Hammond fell, and Vernam packed up. Reading beat Eastbourne 45-33.