News and Updates
Future Policy
The Speedway Researcher magazine which can be viewed on the Speedway Researcher web site was set up by Graham Fraser and Jim Henry to promote research into the history of Speedway and Dirt Track Racing. It was intended to help those with an interest in any aspect of the sport and its history to make others aware of what their interests and to encourage others who had similar interests to work together. It provided a vehicle whereby researchers could advise others of what they were doing and make others aware of what they were looking for.
The magazine published articles on a wide range of topics related to speedway and dirt track racing.
The web site came along a good while after the magazine, the idea of the late Ron McNeil who gave us the idea of using this medium to provide a platform for sharing information about speedway meetings held in the UK from 1928 to date. At first the site was funded by income generated by the magazine but since the magazine closed down the funds have become nearly exhausted and it is now largely privately funded. The costs are dictated by the amount space taken to host the information and are currently not unreasonable. The next step up, is, however, a significant leap.
Taking this into account the space available has to be prioritised. The first priority is to ensure the base source of information, meeting details, are fully provided for.
For the foregoing reasons we are going to decline to carry any additional items which are compilations of information drawn from our meeting details. However, in a bid to facilitate networking we intend to continue for the time-
June 14
Robert Bamford continues his great work with the Swindon files and contributes a new file for 2003 this week.
New Files
2003 -
Updates
1929 -
1930 -
1931 -
1952 -
June 29
A great update today with some new files and some excellent updates. Robert Bamford has submitted the file for the joint Reading and Swindon Conference League side, the M4 Raven Sprockets, for their only season, 1997 and has finished the two remaining files for the Swindon Sprockets league seasons. Also, Andy Reid has completed our first Linlithgow file. Many thanks to both and to Graham Gleave for his tireless efforts on the updates front.
New Files
1991 -
1994 -
1996 -
1997 -
2004 -
Updates
1928 -
1929 -
1930 -
1931 -
1934 -
1937 -
1938 -
1947 -
2003 -
July 21
Huge thanks this week to Robert Bamford for two new Swindon files, Mark Aspinell for a new Reading file, the intrepid Graham Gleave who has been to the Newcastle library to dig out some Whitley Bay and Newcastle Gosforth results from nearly a century ago, and to our Wembley correspondent for the loan of the 1937 steward’s programmes, from which we have gleaned a lot of new information -
New Files
1991 -
2004 -
2006 -
Updates
1928 -
1929 -
1930 -
1936 -
1937 -
1939 -
1948 -
1949 -
1950 -
August 12
Gary Done has completed his file for the 1985 season. It can be found on the Year by Year page and is a fantastic piece of work, in keeping with the previous files done by him and his great friend, the late Steve Wilkes. We are very grateful to Gary for continuing with the research and the file is a great addition to the site. You will see that there are some bits of missing detail that Gary would like to find and if you can help, please get on touch with me or Jim via the homepage and we will pass you on to Gary.
Also this week, there is some major progress on the results from Newcastle (Brough Park and Gosforth), thanks to Graham Gleave who has been digging out reports in the local libraries. The meetings took place almost a century ago and Graham’s research has filled in loads of information from some dates where we knew a meeting had taken place but had no details at all as to the results. We can’t thank Graham enough for his tireless efforts.
The site now has season results files for 1928 to 1947 and from 1965 to 1985. I am close to completing the 1948 season and Gary and Peter Henry are working on the post 1985 seasons. The site always will be a work in progress and we appreciate your understanding and patience as we work to fill in the gaps.
New Files
1985 -
Updates
1929 -
1930 -
1932 -
1948 -
1957 -
1990 -
1992 -
1996 -