cityrebel

alan mogridge helps run the training schools at rye house.

you are right what you say. on the rare occasion that i am not at rye house or arriving home too late from football, i face far too much of a battle with the family for control of the telly. i wouldn't expect them to sit there for three hours on a saturday evening while i watch speedway on the box. i usually tape the GP's but never seem to have the time to watch them.

i seem to remember in the first season bristol tried to use a dual surface for the dogs and bikes. i'm not sure when they started to lift and relay the track for every meeting. when i was a wee nipper on holiday in 1969 i went to see speedway at plymouth's old track at pennycross. the track there was a sand surface laid on tarmac which i recall was very dusty on a summers evening!

that's the crash alright. i recognise bob coles in his mildenhall leathers!.

i was at the meeting when bob coles hit the fence on the first bend and flew through the air. it was against wimbledon and i went on the dons coach. it poured with rain all the way and only stopped just before we got to bristol. i know this meeting was televised, i wonder if any footage survives.

unfortunately they were all dog programmes of no interest to me. the only speedway items i found were some plaster busts of norman parker dating back to the 1940's. i think i still have one somewhere at my parent's house.

did any of you lot ever go to speedway at eastville. i can remember a good stadium, massive crowds and a dodgy track. lets hope if the new venue gets off the ground it can get some of that fantastic support the bulldogs used to get.

i was working at plough lane post bradford fire when the stadium failed a safety inspection big time. there were hordes of paint and programmes dating back to the 1930's stored in rooms directly below the wooden terracing. it took a mammoth effort to get the whole lot cleared out. the celings beneath the terracing were then fire cladded to obtain a safety certificate. this work enabled the 1985 greyhound derby final to take place, the first one staged since the closure of white city.

you make some very good points about the wooden stands at west ham. although the back straight enclosure was already demolished by the time i made my first visit to custom house in 1970. belle vue (hyde road) was mostly an all wooden stadium and survived until 1987, so west ham stadium might have lasted for a few more years, if not for london speedway's biggest enemy, the GRA.

west ham stadium died with a whimper. there was none of the fury shown surrounding the bid to save dudley wood. the lokeren disaster of 1970 finally knocked the stuffing out of the club, along with three seasons of being poorly treated by the dreaded 'rider control'. this led to the hammers being rooted to the bottom of the league for their last three top flight seasons. by the time romford move into custom house in 1972 the grand old arena was a hollow shell. the decision to name some of the roads after former west ham heroes helps to keep their memories alive, even if it was well before my time of visiting custom house as a spectator.

does anyone think that saturday tracks will benefit from the liklihood of no GP'S on live tv this coming season, and will the EL survive if SKY pull the plug on domestic speedway when the current deal runs out at the end of 2013.

the roads at west ham are named after johnnie hoskins, bluey wilkinson, jack young, tommy croombs, aub lawson and arthur atkinson. i don't think i've left any out, but it's been a few years since i've been over there. i always feel a bit sad when i visit one of my old stamping grounds.

back in my boom years of the early 1970's there was a varied diet of tracks in london and the south east. monday reading, tuesday west ham, wednesday crayford, thursday wimbledon and romford, friday hackney, saturday wembley, rayleigh and canterbury, sunday eastbourne and rye house. you were spoilt for choice in those days!.

the first two british finals that i ever went to were at west ham in 1970 and coventry in 1977. both of these meetings pulled in crowds of over 15,000. these days the event struggles to get 2,000. it can't get any worse, can it.

at least you will now have plenty of time to get to the launch pad on may 11th!

in my era 1968 onwards, the start of speedway's decline was the loss of wembley as a world final venue after 1981. within a couple of seasons the BL had started to lose long established top flight venues like wimbledon, hackney, halifax, leicester, poole and birmingham. some to the NL and others to redevelopment. the BL never recovered from losing these tracks and it's been going downhill ever since.

the most exciting rider i've ever seen must be christer lofqvist. the two seasons i watched him ride on the wide open spaces of west ham's superb custom house track are part of the reason i still go to speedway. as a kid he was a real hero of mine and i was gutted when he never signed for the dons in 1976.

it's time for uncle len to get that caravan cleaned up!

my all time wimbledon team from my era of supporting the dons from 1968 to 2005 would be in no particular order. 1.ronnie moore 2.tommy jansson 3.trevor hedge 4.barry briggs 5.edward jancarz 6.dave jessup 7.malcolm simmons the likes of reg luckhurst, olle nygren, kelvin tatum, todd wiltshire, roger johns and larry ross would all be pushing for a team spot!

i think it was brad oxley. steve finch also rode for the dons in that meeting and took a bit of stick from dick barrie and some of the locals. was you one of them!

they did and i went to one of them. i saw wimbledon ride there in the koc in 1981. pre meeting the track was in a pretty poor state and some of the riders didn't want to ride, luckily for me they rode. i seem to remember rob grant beating malcolm simmons in the match which ended up as an away win for the dons. both the BL and NL teams entered the cup that season.

uncle len might be thinking of moving the rockets into central park in a couple of years time!

i went to park road twice but never got to holker street. although i did see the barrow bombers ride at rye house in 1974.

kent kestrels sounds like a decent name to me. it would provide a link to one of the countys former tracks at crayford.

don't forget sittingbourne and lydd, two excellent set ups down here in the south east!