Grachan

I went to the opening meeting at Eastville. It wassomething of a disaster race wise, with several riders - including Martin Ashby, who I was a fan of - walking out because the track was so bad (they were effectively riding on the Greyhound track). The crowd was huge though, and there was a traffic jam on the motorway, which passed behind the 1st & 2nd bends. People were actually stopping their cars to watch the racing.

How about this for a score chart - Swindon v Halifax, Friday 8 April 1977. Swindon 62 1. Martin Ashby 3-3-3-3 12 2. Soren Karlsson 2'-2'-3-2' 9+3 3. Bob Kilby 3-3-3-3 12 4. Jan Andersson 3-2'-3-2' 10+2 5. Bobby McNeil 2'-3-2'-2' 9+3 6. Geoff Bouchard 2'-2'-1 5+2 7. David Ashby 3-0-2' 5+1 Halifax 15 1. Henny Kroeze 1-ef-2-0 3 2. Tom Godal 0-f-0 0 3. Graham Plant 1-1-1-1-1 5 4. Ian Cartwright 1-2-0-1-1 5 5. Chris Pusey 0-0-0-0 0 6. Geoff Pusey 0-0 0 7. Mike Lohmann 1-0-1' 2+1 Blooming reserves let us down!!

Just in case anyone missed it the first time, there is brief footage from that first ever Swindon v Oxford match HERE.

The oldest currently competitive rider in Japan is 64 years old, so you never know!!

I don't know how old you are, SJW, but if that was around 1971?? time it could have been Jimmy Ogisu, who came over to ride in the Internationale.

Don't wish to go off topic but as you already have: Swindon 21 Oxford 56 is one louder.

I think Mitch Shirra did too.

Here are some not particularly brilliant pictures that I took in 1987. They are from a match between Newbury Town and a Motorcyclists XI, which was a benefit match for Motor Cross Rider David Stirland, whose brother played for Newbury (and was also in the same 1st Hungerford Cubs Six-a-side team as myself that won the six-a-side cup a few years earlier with a suburb display in the final over 1st Kintbury - but I digress). Picture 1: The teams pose for pictures slightly to my right. On the far left are Steve Schofield and Simon Cross, with Martin Yeates a bit further along. Picture 2: Simon Cross prepares to, er, cross. Picture 3: Goalie Martin Yeates and a big, beery looking bloke, leave the field.

I remember a horrendous crash between Bob Kilby and Ivan Mauger at Swindon on the pits bend. I'm not sure what injuries they suffered now, but Ivan was excluded and Killer was unable to come out in the re-run. More recently was Andre Compton's crash at Sheffield when he broke his ankle. He slid off his bike and was run into by James Birkenshaw. It was one of those where the whole crowd gives out a gasp and falls silent.

I was going to buy this month's copy at Swindon last night, but they were still selling the Kenny Carter edition. Looks like I'll have to wait another week to get it.

Slightly flawed is, if anything, an understatement and claiming that they show the best rider hasn't neccesarily won is not true. It may be interesting to see how much they have averaged, but the fact is riders don't score points in the GP because of the format. Using that method, a rider coming fourth in the final would get a 0 point average for that race, whereas a rider winning a first round eliminator would get 3.00 for that race. It just doesn't add up, but well done for doing it anyway.

You can get it from http://www.bellevuezoo.co.uk If you select the 'Speedway' menu it brings up a whole load of archive videos for sale. I've bought 3 of them and they're all very interesting. The one featuring Swindon v Oxford is No 6 in the Aces of Yesteryear series.

It's from a video called 'Aces of Yesteryear', which has loads of old clips from various tracks. I haven't got anything else from mdi-80s or before I'm afraid. I'd love to see some 70s stuff myself, as that was when I started going and it would be great to see Martin Ashby and Bob Kilby on top form round the Abbey one more time. Be great to see Shawn McConnell as a Robin again too. I remember TV were there filming a match agains Coventry when he was in the team. I think it was one of the epic Midland Cup ties which kept finishing level, so I'd love to see that. I have a few late 80s videos though, if they're of any interest. There's a couple from Screensport, and a couple of Swindon videos such as the 1967 team 'Champs are back' meeting in the late 80s. That was a good evening. Before heat one I was wondering if Bob Kilby would still be able to show his suberb gating skills from the past. THIS is what happened.

Spot on Frigbo. I couldn't have put it better myself.. and didn't.

Same as me Liontamer. I don't normally know when it's on, but caught one accidentally in the middle of the night and it's not half as entertaining without her. She was a really good presenter and had a good rapport with the riders. I saw her presenting some car racing the other day. Be interesting to know if they see this as a step up or a step down in her career!

I remember seeing the Swindon team play in a charity Ice Hockey match once.

I've got a few Crumpie autographs too. The old pits at Swindon were brilliant from a spectators point of view. You really could get right up next to the riders. It's such a shame they changed them, though maybe it's better for the riders to have more that a wire fence between themselves and the crowd!

Just a thought, but why weren't there any track staff there to help him pull the bike off the track? He was so obviously struggling with it, and a little help would have prevented the race having to be stopped.

The thing is, you can never really guess what the referee is going to do in these situations, so why would Crumpie lay down his bike and risk exclusion when in a qualifying position? If a footballer takes a dive and doesn't get his foul, then he just carries on regardless. In speedway, if it doesn't work then you're out of the race. Thinking about it, I'm sure he didn't put it down deliberately.

Doitashimashi-te TonyE kun. It's the third time I've been there, and I finally managed to track it down. A very interesting experience. More like horse racing than speedway..... well, except there's no horses of course. (HOHO! - looks like the naughty word block doesn't take foreign words into account!!)

And there was me thinking they had to draw for gate positions in the semis and the final. Shows what I know!

Scott Nicholls was more unlucky! He fell on the last bend of the semi, whilst in a qualifiying position. This is how I remember it. Pedersen & Crump were, I think, on the third/fourth bend of the first lap. Pedersen moved out coming off the bend and Crump came in slightly. Pedersen's deflecter hit Crump's front wheel. Crump went down. In the Final, Pedersen lifted on bend 4 (not sure which lap) and came down. His bike careered down the track a bit, and he ran after it and tried to drag it off the track but was too late and the race was stopped.

Scott was acceleration off the bend at the time, so it probably wouldn't be easier to fall off at all. Just dangerous. In Crump's position, Scott would have probably laid down too. I was a bit disappointed with Stead. I never expected him to go very far in this company, but he was well off the pace. It would have been good to at least have seen him getting stuck in a bit.

It didn't look to me like Bjerre touched him, even though they were close, which is probably the reason he wasn't excluded.

I haven't really got anymore myself that's worth showing (unless, of course, you want to see my wife stuffing her face with noodles or my daughter jumping up and down on a window ledge), but you can see quite a few videos HERE, on the official website. Click on where it says MOVIE on the left hand side column. (If you don't have Japanese installed you won't be able to read it, but if you click 2 lines below where it says 'Regular' in red text then it will bring up the video menu).