czechhero

Agree 100% Finals like 1973, for me, add to the attraction of the sport. Well at least they used to.

Any Brum fan old enough will more than likely say 1974, the Div 2/ KOC double year and rightly so. Herne, Browning, Major, Hart, Day, Askew, Anderson. What a team. Closely followed by 1975, first NNL champs. Browning, Major, Hart, White, Day, Askew, Anderson, Grahame. As they say, happy days.

Would loved to have seen speedway in the original stadium at Brum's present Perry Barr home. Warren v Parker would have done nicely too.

Impressive stuff BFD. There must have been a crime spree in Rome that day, with all the coppers busy riding bikes!

My first meeting was Cradley v Swindon 18/07/70 as a 10 year old. Memories were.......... Shiny chromed bikes. Thinking the parade was the first race. Shiny black leathers, although one or two Robins wore red ones. The noise and the smell!!! The sheer spectacle of the whole thing. The milk crates at the starting gate, not always used for kids to stand on. The chants about Briggo who wasn't even riding (Zigger, zagger, zigger, Briggo is a etc etc) My first speedway hero, Chris Bass. Running around the place wearing a pair of gas goggles. In a word, hooked.

I'd go with 1979 I/C final at the WC.

A mechanic being able to do up a tie? No Perhaps it's a clip on.

I worked with Derek in the motorcycle trade in the late 70s/80s. He was and still is a smashing bloke with a great sense of humour. He used to tell me many stories from his racing days, the most cringeworthy being the time he returned to the pits after a fall only to sit down and find a 6 inch nail sticking out of his kneecap! Ugh. I think he knocked himself about a bit during his career, especially in the few indoor meetings he rode in around 1971/2 and he now gets around with aid of a stick, but he's as cherpy as ever. I've always known him as Ron, his christian name, he changed it to Derek because when he signed for Wolves they already had 2 Rons so he used his middle name to avoid confusion. One of life's nice guys is Mister Timms. Son Paul works in the pits at Perry Barr and his other son David is a PB regular and ardent Brummies fan.

A few more............ Going to Brum in a Reliant van Going to Cradley in a Reliant van Going to Stoke in a Reliant van Going to Wolves in a Reliant van Going To Cradley on the train. Brummies riding for Birmingham Riders from Brum actually riding speedway. Proper end of season shennanigans (Donkey Derbies etc) Angus Kix Glamour League in Speedway Star Getting, er, excited (wrong choice of word?) when a girl I knew was in it, in a bikini!!! phwoarrr!!!!

Ladbroke Stadium, Perry Barr Brum v Eastbourne Foreign touring teams The mystery of Iron Curtain riders Proper 2nd halves Arthur Browning Jap v Jawa Speedway on telly Ice Speedway on telly A plethora of teams Riders in football shirts Citroen Safaris Joe Thurley Joe Thurley's Trans Am The smell of the River Tame on a cold night on the way out of PB. The car in the PB car park with the model speedway scene on the parcel shelf. Home made clipboards

My thoughts entirely. If Nicki P was going to take that line from gate 4 then he should have been prepared for the consequences and so should the ref.

99% sure he was Australian, Kev.

News from the Brummies Forum is that Neil has been spotted driving a delivery van and that he may be tuning engines too. I'll post updates if anything concrete is posted.

Sorry Spinny, couldn't resist it. Neil was at Perry Barr last year for the "Legends" book launch, but as to what he's up to now, I'll ask the question on the Brummies site later.

He's probably asleep, look at the time!

It's a shame but my abiding memory of Joe was seeing his awful crash at Bordesley Green which left him paralysed. It happened right in front of where I was standing. Such a big, big shame for the bloke, a great rider, no question.

George suffered a heart attack in 2006, but is fine now. I met him a couple of times at Perry Barr last year and he was in great spirits. He actually suffered his HA the day after we had emailed each other to arrange to meet up at Smallbrook. I didn't find out what had happened until his son James gave me the news, it was quite a shock at the time. There's a picture of George and myself on the opening night at PB on my facebook site. Here

Zdenek Kudrna for me. The guy was just such a character, ok, never a world beater in conventional speedway, but we loved him at Brum and I'd guess Falcons fans loved him too. Much missed. I will admit that George Major and Arthur Browning come close, but when push comes to shove, it has to be ZK.

That's the trouble with speedway, first out the gate always wins! Nice one Chris, what a boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This has been a terrible season for our sport so far, no more please, no more. RIP Kenny Olsson.

Well said, a very good performance at Telford.

Will any footage of this meeting be available on t'internet?

The only way this development should be considered as the "Way Ahead" is if it is a cheaper alternative than what is used at present. Speedway isn't F1 or MotoGP with a bottomless pit of money, it needs to evolve into a less costly sport to survive, at least in Britain anyway.

According to the Exeter site, Nigel Sparshott was sadly killed in a car accident in July 1998.

Now that'll be worth reading. I think The Big A was 6ft 2in. @ Although the wife says he's 6ft 5in, but women are terrible judges of these things, no?