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Post by rodders on Sept 6, 2022 11:16:30 GMT
It was the 80th Birthday of a chap at Peterborough last night who had been watching for 70 years. Although I am not eighty I can claim to have been watching Speedway for longer than that.
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Post by davet on Sept 6, 2022 12:33:58 GMT
You beat me, Rodders. I've been watching since 1960 (Yarmouth), but I haven't watched live speedway since lockdown.
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Post by admin on Sept 6, 2022 14:17:07 GMT
You beat me, Rodders. I've been watching since 1960 (Yarmouth), but I haven't watched live speedway since lockdown. I decided to go this year (on the basis that it may be our last, although that threat seems slightly less at the moment?) having not been since lockdown either because I was not enthused by British Speedway's 2021 league structure or Peterborough's Dads Army. 2022 has certainly seemed a lifetime (missed 2 I think inc last night) although as a snotty schoolkid I used to first go with my sister & her boyfriend when you could walk in from heat or or thereabouts I think? That was around 1972. |
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Post by davet on Sept 6, 2022 15:24:58 GMT
In retrospect I wish I had gone for at least some of the meetings last year. I was put off to some extent by social distancing as I've gone on my own since my grandson moved away, and sitting or standing 2m away from anyone else for 2 hours or so didn't seem like fun to me!
Shouldn't be a fair weather supporter but the dismal performances this year have kept me away.
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Post by rodders on Sept 7, 2022 16:22:05 GMT
I remember when tracks were actually made of cinders. Slightly off subject but recall a meeting at Wembley that was rained off my father had an abandoned meeting ticket but this did not include a programme, which cost 6d . He could not afford this and I had to give him my programme.
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Post by davet on Sept 7, 2022 17:41:58 GMT
Yarmouth was a cinder track in 1960, although I believe it had previously been shale. I don't know why they seemingly went against the trend towards shale but I guess cinders were readily available in the 60s. I believe it's been tarmacced for the stock cars now.
The only other cinder track I witnessed was when Hackney ran a nostalgic meeting (Versus Lea Bridge) in the late '60s, and dressed the shale track with cinders for the occasion!
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Post by rodders on Sept 7, 2022 18:55:44 GMT
Shale became the surface of choice in probably early nineteen fifties. Bristol however had sand in the seventies and Canterbury's surface was white what it was made of I am not sure.
I attended Provincial League Riders Final at Harringay in the sixties where they spread shale on top of a tarmac surface
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