Tracy Bird

my comment is based on one visit in 1978 to watch weymouth with a patched up team with three juniors including kevin smith,before barry thomas who was a fine site on any track,this team had laurie etheridge,alan sage,alan johns and tony featherstone not the most exciting riders and etheridge and sage . knew their home track like the back of their hand.just wasn,t a good meeting.the stadium was a mini wimbledon and the bar was superb,in fact the coach driver had to drag myself and my two mates out of the bar.unusually this meeting was on a saturday night.

rode in 1970.no doncaster riders rode both seasons,very rare occurrence in succesive seasons.

west ham,looked a huge stadium.nearly went to crewe once while on holiday in north wales,father changed his mind at the last minute. often wonder about tracks that only lasted a few years,romford,doncaster,sunderland,plymouth(pennycross late sixties) and barrow(park road) looked to have fine views of the surrounding countryside.on the mentioned north wales holiday also went past ellesmere port track but it was the year before it opened.i would say the worst track ive been is crayford.

lived at fraddon cornwall,was one of the nicest blokes around off track but on tracktook no prisoners. remember his spell at weymouth, if he gated nobody could pass him,lets say he used all of the track. sadly was killed a few weeks before st austells revival in 1997.remember reading his obitary in the speedway star how he was looking forward to his local track appearing again,a sight he sadly didn,t see.

im pretty sure he was from poole/bournemouth area,was a occasional second halfer at weymouth.

belle vue 68-2 ken moss belle vue 67-1 with middleton and nevitt peter thompson crayford 76-1 gary spencer crewe 75-1 max brown ocoatbridge 76-1&76-2 max brown middlesborough 76-1 andy cowan not doug underwood peterborough 76-1 phil cornwell weymouth 68-1 mike vernam

got a feeling he was born in malta.started at the training school at matchems ringwood in the early seventies alongside martin yeates, len davis, steve lomas, geoff swindells,russel foot ,brian chaldicott amongst others.he was the best rider out of these and would have been a quality rider.

belle vue 67/1 peter thompson berwick 76/1 peter waite boston 76/1 stuart cope ellesmere port 75/1 ian robertson paisley 75/1 bernie foot 75/2 geoff snider scunthorpe 76/1 tony gillias

nigel tremelling came over from australia in 1987, rode a few challenge matches for poole then crashed in his first league race never to appear again.

crewe dai evans is don beecroft both photo,s.photo,s taken at canterbury in crewes first away league match that season,dai evans and a young chap called phil crump were absent.

had his best season average wise at eastbourne 9.18

had his best season average wise at eastbourne 9.18

bradford unknown 1 71-1 mick fielding unknown 2 rod chessell hull unknown 4 71-1 pete boston unknown 5 71-1 pete baldock rochdale unknown 1 paul callaghan 2 robbie gardner 3 colin goad

berwick unknown 2 71-1 bobby campbell unknown 3 is maurie robinson with a cap on.

peterborough 72-1 brian clark

rayleigh unknown nigel rackett

hull unknown pete boston

probably hiding from a certain interviewer, the last person you need is him in a crisis

yes it maybe time for a change of manager,but middlo,s got a thankless job.every year he has at least one of our best riders injured, this year loram,admitted we wouldn,t have won with him riding but it would have been one less passenger. it was obvious kennet and stead were going to be lightweight in poland.when we have to call up oliver allen we are struggling,nothing against him but hes not international class.whoevers manager will benefit when the likes of bridger,woffinden,roynon,danny king hopefully become world class,but thats in the future.poland had everything going for them,but do you think they would have won in england,i dont think so,but england wouldn,t either.look at sweden injured riders,ageing riders and magnus karlsson were not the only ones with problems.

glasgow 87-3 phil kynman 76-1 john wilson

exeter gallery page 2 certain its not bob watts,he was a long haired guy,and the race jacket is early eighties to late for him ,never rode national league for exeter.got a feeling its alan leaver

gerhard uhlenbrock an east german rode for coventry in 1973.don;t know how he got here,but must be the only rider from the other side of the old berlin wall.

neil cameron was a disaster at poole couldn,t stay on his bike

bruce spargo weymouth 1977 chris martin weymouth 1983. was alan paynter of nelson and newcastle and rob jones wimbledon and weymouth kiwis