More Memories
By Steve Haire

West Ham (Picture courtesy of Fred Pallett)

This is becoming a Dave Pickles, Steve Haire reminiscent site. I just want to expand on my 'Rose Tinted Spectacles' article and to quote a few statistics for the anoraks amongst us.

As to Dave's 'West 'am', I too went every week from '69 until their closure as the West Ham Bombers in '72 in which I think you can still watch the last meeting against Hull on youtube, plus I would have also visited Wimbledon or Romford most weeks.

Back in '68 West Ham's top three were Ken McKinlay, Sverre Harrfeldt and Norman Hunter.

'69 Sverre Harrrfeldt had suffered a badly broken leg from which he never fully recovered although flashes of his old self shone through when he signed for Wembley, Norman Hunter moved on. '69 McKinlay remained and the other top two were Wimbledon's ex No.1 Olle Nygren and up and coming Tony Clark.

'70 still with Nygren and Clark they were later joined by the spectacular Christer Lofqvist and Antonin Kasper.

'71 Nygren and Lofqvist were joined by ex-Wimbledon rider Reg Luckhurst as their top three.

In the seventies I had become pally with Ron Dyer of West Ham who was famous for his red and blue scarf with all the badges, he was president of the British Speedway Supporters Club and would annually sponsor a Junior Championship at Kings Lynn and although he would never speak about it was in the 1970 Lokeren Road disaster in which 5 of the West Ham party lost their lives and in effect ended Colin Pratt's racing career.

Anyway in '76 we went to Ken McKinlay's Testimonial meeting at Scunthorpe's Quibbel Park, a four team tournament between Scunthorpe Saints 20 (Keith Evans 8), Coventry 21 (Alan Molyneaux 9), Sheffield 32 (Doug Wyer 10) and Wolverhampton 23 (Jim MacMillan) 12). Ron knew the promoter Brian Osborn and managed to get me on the infield where I shot some cine film and had a good chat with Sheffield's Craig Pendlebury, unfortunately my flat was broken into and my projector with all my films were stolen.

Hackney, and about 'Uncle' Len's first meeting saying "we were top of the league", here is the stats to back it up. Dave pointed out they were against fellow Friday nighters, that bit is correct.

Here goes; 1968 I didn't start going until May but the speedway researcher says it was Wolverhampton on March 25th 42-36, 1969 March 21 Glasgow 39-38, 1970 March 20 Newport 47-31, 1971 March 19 Wolverhampton 36-42 (the following week we did beat Glasgow), 1972 March 17 was Gold Cup defeat by Kings Lynn 32-46 but the following week we beat Newport 40-38.

Both 1973 & '74 the first two meetings were Spring Gold Cup matches, 1975 March 14 Newport 43-35 and 1976 March 19 again Newport 42-36 and that's where it ends with first meetings being League matches.

I'm glad to see Tracy Holmes decided to do an Eric Boocock vs Ivan Mauger comparison and I think it's okay to include Phil Crump, an honorary Englishman (If memory serves me right didn't Aussies and Scots have a right to represent either country, if their (grand)parents were English, tend to remember Jason Crump having that choice?

I appreciate you have to draw the line somewhere with whose included but I do wish to nominate two other Englishmen of note who again were amongst the top of the league averages for over a decade but never translated their success at World Championship level, Martin Ashby of Swindon & Exeter (I went to his testimonial) and Terry Betts of Kings Lynn.

Lastly, on Talking Pictures (TPTV) they showed a programme called 'Stadium Thrills' which covered two shorts about 1930's speedway and included racing from Hackney Stadium in 1939 when they were the Wolves. Apparently you can do a catch up from their website. They also showed the B/W movie 'There Is Another Sun' which features speedway.

This article was first published on 22nd September 2024