East London Cycle Speedway Club

“The Jock Blog Three” – 13^th. July 2008

  Halfway through the season and East London continue to struggle both on and off the track with another fixture, Gt. Blakenham away called off due to rain. A close but good away win at Kesgrave bolstered the side only to lose at home to the same opposition a month later due to a number of self inflicted crashes did us no favours in the league standings. Despite a change of opposition in our qualifying round of the Vets Team Championship at a sodden Hull the four of us (Les, George, Kevin and myself) enjoyed our day there, although it was depressing to see 2 former East London riders and capital residents plying their trade for a club 200 miles away! Wednesfield were the eventual winners as inclusion of now 40 year old Mark Griffiths and 2005 Vets Champion Andy Franks was too strong for fancied Filton from Leicester and Sandwell. Personally my riding form in 3 consecutive Vets event deteriorated from finishing 6^th. at Edinburgh, an unconvincing showing at Hull to finishing dead last at Filton so decided to give yesterday’s over 50’s event at Wednesfield and similar 40’s one at Horspath in September a miss. Les Stevens went but finished well down the field with Ian Lawrence of Filton wining again with a full maximum whilst Colin Wheeler won in the over 60’s.

  Les and Nicky are keeping the EL hopes going in the SE GP’s but apathy seems to have crept in not only with our club but most of the others and sensible suggestions of how to improve and expand this fine competition have not been taken up. However I was proved wrong expecting a poor show at our round today but in beautiful weather a good number turned up with Les and Nicky unlucky against series leader Garry Brown of Somersham in the final and George Hughes coming from behind to beat me in the Vets final. Thanks due to Huggy, Nicky and Dave Flemming for refereeing. Interested spectators included 70 & 80s Newham riders Ray Devitt and Kevin Sommers who both had a go at the end and the latter’s son raced in the under 12s event. Sarah did good business in the canteen amid a picnic atmosphere of 1980’s events.

  As the normal team matches lessen and lack of fixtures cause large gaps people lose interest and I fear greatly for the future of the sport. The damage done to Regional and Local League racing by the Premier League and Secondary Licensing is now being noticed by a lot more people than myself and recent correspondence in “Spokesman Online” from senior personnel in the sport have endorsed my previous suggestions for running the PL mainly on Saturday evenings to leave Sundays free for regional and local racing is gaining support.

  On the plus front several former riders, like the ones mentioned above, have contacted our website and have promised to try and come to some of our fixtures with hopefully keen offspring accompanying. EL are still suffering from Steven Jarvis’s reluctance to race, John Jo Slaughter’s non appearance, loss of premier duo Lee Ridgwell and Aleks Zeilenski to Gt. Blakenham at crucial times but one bright note is the continuing good form of Alek’s brother Michael in all the fixtures he has raced in despite at the same time trying to wrestle the “Crashes Prize” away from Nicky Gunkel and George Hughes.

  Hopefully when league fixtures resume we will fare better than in the first part of the season meanwhile we must recover from the uncertainty of the clubs future prospects.

   East London “Survival Plan” coming soon, your views appreciated.

  Two months into the 2008 season problems continue to thwart East London’s year. The lack of training and six inches of snow cancelled our first home fixture against Hethersett and consecutive back to back defeats against Norwich, the league’s strongest club, meant honours in that competition were over with only avoiding the wooden spoon an option now. Our racing can only improve but the main disappointment is the non appearance of Steven Jarvis, arguably our best prospect in years of gaining National and International honours. Hopefully he will reverse his decision not to race but will need a lot of catching up to do. It seems to be a problem our sport has of losing talented sons of famous riders at an early age after showing great promise as in recent years the likes of Shaun Ellis, Gavin Wheeler (although he is back again this season), Shawn Woodhouse to name 3 top liners and former SE legends Hubble, Galley and Riches’ offspring hardly started the sport. Likewise Steven’s great rival for the past 3 years John Jo Slaughter, signed on a secondary licence from Colchester, has yet to appear for the club and has only made a brief appearance for his host side as well. Coupled with this is the failure of the previously registered Thurrock / Southampton riders to become part of our racing squad which puzzles me as they all live locally and have not yet signed for a Premier side 100 miles away! Predictably our two Premier riders with Gt. Blakenham, Alekzander Zielinsky and Lee Ridgwell will inevitably cause fixture attendance problems as the season unfolds. My continued thoughts on the damage the Premier League does to regional / local racing as it is run at present will be aired comprehensively at a later date but there is a growing opinion from an increasing amount of grass routes organisers voicing that things would improve if Premier Racing was run primarily on Saturday evenings which I have been saying since the PL began.

  Equally disappointing is the lukewarm response by East London riders in taking part in the SEGP series with only myself, Nicky Gunkel and Les Stevens appearing so far. Those riders who complain of lack of race fitness should enter if only for the benefit of their health instead of complaining of lack of fixtures! Hopefully more will race in them as the season progresses.

  We were unable to enter a team in the Euro Club Championships at Leicester primarily due to the xenophobic insistence of team make up the authorities decided on rather than our usual reluctance to explore different racing options. This ongoing problem of foreign / resident riders and secondary licensing must be sorted out or the sport risks imploding on itself. Because of this, the event, which I attended on the Saturday, should have been a lot better than it was only being redeemed by a fantastic climax on the Sunday with the Polish teams triumphant of course. It may have been a different story if the host club were able to field Lukas Nowaki, a permanent resident in England for the past 9 years, Sheffield being able to use Mitch Spear their exciting Aussi youngster and our Aleks and brother Mickael not being required by their old club Torun, the eventual winners, with whom they have not raced for several years, could have turned out for EL. The uneven amount of clubs entered meant meaningless matches, two thirds of which contained many 2 or 3 man races. To bring the number of teams up to a manageable 16 a couple of composite teams (from a Premier Select, International Select, Veterans Select or Leicester “B”) made up on the day, like they do in Rugby Sevens events, containing any rider attending who was not part of any team, being denied international experience and the whole event run as 16 heat matches similar to the Norwich Lads Club indoor meetings of the nineties keeping all teams involved for the whole length of the tournament resulting in finals of equal abilities. As ever at these International events it was good to see old riders and friends like Johan Koudjis from Holland and Grant Warwick involved with the excellent organisation.

   A week later it seemed that we were back on track as a club with a full turn out of available riders resulting in a 1^st. team defeat at Ipswich despite some spirited racing on a glorious sunny day and a convincing performance in the second match giving victory with an impressive display from Michael Zielinsky despite a couple of earlier crashes. This enthusiasm resulted in a definite entry for the Vets Team Cup at Hull next month. However within a week the Club was at an all time low with only 5 riders available for the Division 2 match at home against Colchester resulting in a shock defeat by the Essex side and an uphill struggle ahead to try and win that title, due to 15 penalty points for using Nicky Gunkel coupled with a chain derailment by George Hughes at a crucial time costing us dearly. Despite a statistical perfect match for myself, scoring a full maximum for the first time since racing against Edmonton (2^nd. team) in the 80’s, it was disappointing that young David Crawley did not race as it was one of the few fixtures he would have been up against riders of his own age and ability. Once again it was the intrusion of the Premier League on the regional fixture list a factor in our poor turn out. It was good to see Ken Lossley the St. John’s Official spectating again although despite a nasty collision between Dave Hughes and Colchester’s Mike Boulger, formerly of Hillingdon 2 decades ago, was not called on for his services.

  A long hard look at ourselves and the options available for racing, commitment and future plans must be taken if we are to avoid the tragedy of complete collapse. The recruitment of youngsters has always been a problem despite the efforts over the past few seasons of Dave Flemming and other club members but it has always been a 2 steps forward and 3 back operation as few ever stay the distance primarily because they do not wish to race in our “traditional league” set up which means being carted halfway round the country by reluctant parents to race against “big blokes” who will always beat them. We have now lost all our best prospects - Steven J., Alec Briggs, Carl Day for the slimmest of reasons and it needs dedicated family personnel other clubs have but we do not to succeed in that field. Recent interested emails from former riders, some with young offspring could yield a fresh input if pursued.

  Another more radical plan would be to “Bite the bullet”, reel in the riders from their Premier commitments, re-employ the services of previously mentioned former riders, get other interested parties involved and form a Premier side of our own (London Olympia), not necessarily funded by EL and up our profile resulting in more publicity hopefully attracting new recruits primarily from the Capital’s cycling sphere – Cycle Couriers, ride to workers and those who compete of the charity cycle run circuit. A big gamble but if the Premier League was to do the sensible thing and race mostly on Saturday evenings I would support it fully (in a non riding capacity) and spectator interest could then be transformed into riding ability the following day.

  As usual my views only and not those of the club.                       Cheers Jock

“The Jock Blog” – March 2008

  Another season of Cycle Speedway begins in earnest this weekend despite a poor weather forecast and building / groundwork at the track denying any proper pre season training although we got a new fence out of it.

  A lot has happened over the close season especially in the way our sport is now perceived and reported via the Internet. I admit to being a slow convert to new technology being the last member of the club to get a mobile phone and my initial foray into sports reporting our pastime as in previous years was thwarted by mistrust and technical embarrassment of this new way of working. In spite of dabbling in computers at work in the late 70’s it was almost impossible to teach a Cartographical Draughtsman brought up in the strict Print Union disciplines of “hard type, chemical inks and whirring presses” the space age processes embraced by any 12 year old now. However my knowledge and application increases bit by byte each day.

  The most important change has been the setting up of the “spokesman- online” site by Rod Whitham helped by many others to instantly report our sport to a worldwide audience coupled with Martin Jarvis’s rejuvenation of the EL version you are currently reading this on. We now have so much info at hand that it is now a challenge to me to find time to actually race.

  With continuing health problems to my parents back in Scotland I now have to drive there every 2 to 3 weeks so my appearances on the track down here will be very limited at present although I have taken the opportunity again to secondary license to Edinburgh having managed a practice session there last weekend, one of the few riders in the country to use this privilege as it should be used rather than bolster the fluctulating and undulating riding strengths of distant clubs to the detriment of local and regional competition.

   Last season was a political catastrophe for the sport with a season of league racing for us disappointing due to cancelled fixtures and those that took place varying in quality and quantity in both opposition and our own team strength whilst the International scene suffered from poor British representation at the World Championships in Poland, the hosts winning everything except the Vets although their embarrassing pull out from the Final Test at Canning Town which we had put so much effort and expense into continues to cause headlines in the new media outlet illustrating the arrogant attitude of the ruling members to properly implement changes that need to be made to stablise the nationality rules and regulations to competitions which no longer cater for all the competing riders resident in the UK. Even the game of Cricket, for so long the bearer of the English traditional sporting standards has embraced 20/20 Cricket unlike our own sport which soldiers on oblivious to the changing lifestyles and cultures imposed on our free time since 1979.

  I fear that if as a club we only focus on an ever decreasing menu of team / league racing the sport will stagnate. Riders are all complaining that there is such gaps between fixtures that they become disinterested but I myself have never raced as much as I have over the past 3 seasons so there are still many avenues to compete in. Last year’s SEGP series was well supported by East London Riders in general but the other clubs excepting Ipswich and Colchester failed to provide sufficient riders. It was an excellent series providing racing for many youngsters, a very competitive under 16s event with only the seniors and veterans lacking in depth. A fine tuning of the competition with fluidity of entry to the various age classes could further enhance the series. Properly promoted and attended these meetings should really become the most important fixture of the season to be staged at each club / track as an all day money spinning social  event as well. The Wossock Brown Series has already proved that and the emergence of female competitions, “born again” Vets meetings not to mention entering regional, national and international individuals should occupy most weekends of the racing season for those keen to race to a higher standard rather than expect to ‘have to race’ for a Premier Team in a competition which even after several years of existence is still dogged by varied make up of teams each season, political infighting, controversial refereeing, bad tempered participation and other organisational concerns which could easily be cured if the Premier League was run under floodlights, creating a fantastic atmosphere, on Saturday evenings when long distance road travel is so much easier than “Shopping Sundays” and not disrupt the grass level sport regionally as it does at present.

  Meanwhile I hope East London members will have enough enthusiasm to enter a team in the European Club Championship at Leicester over the first May Holiday, remember we were the runners up in the inaugural competition in Poland in 1997, took part at Blakenham in 2001 but I was only a spectator at Almere in 2003 despite our club’s fondness at racing at the now defunct Dutch venue although I rode for Scotia at Leszno in 2005. Alexzander will be eligible and with Steven, Nicky, Les more than capable. If we can persuade the Southampton trio of the 2 Lees and Toby to commit to the East London squad we could have a very good chance of upsetting some of the favourites.

  Likewise with my Vets hat on we must enter a side for the Vets Club Championship at Hull on 21^st. June as we could have a very good chance of success using Lee Galley, Les, myself, Kevin, Dave and George Hughes as we should have been in the top 3 had we entered the last 2 versions. With the demise of holders Edinburgh’s vets riders we may even win it, possibly getting Cockle to compete as he seems interested in doing more than just the Old Masters in October. I hope others as well as Les and Lee will also enter more of the dozen or so Vets meetings now arranged for the season.

  On the International front I hope to go to Australia in 2009, only as a tourist though I will do Vets Demolition Derby if tempted but Martin has indicated that he wishes to take son Steven over there to bore him to death about Australia 1985 so if we could persuade anyone else to go we could enter an EL team in World Club Championships by commandeering Glynn Whale to turn out. I don’t think I will go to Poland in July for the Europeans unless I am required by Scotland again but if others are interested from EL I could be tempted as I think the great foreign Cycle Speedway European trips will become a thing of the past with only moderate performances from the fewer British participants and socialising less of an experience due to the westernisation of Poland but still worth a visit for the first timer as long as you don’t wreck your hotel room!

  Well that’s all for me just now. Again apologies for sparse appearances in the coming months and wishing a good, injury free and successful racing year to all East London riders. As usual all the views above are my own and not those of the Club, CSC/BCF or even the Eurovets organisation but please feel free to contact me by phone or email for any other information.

Thank You Steve (Jock) Harvie stephenr.harvie@btinternet.com Telephone 01634 668180 / 07730 283522