WHAT’S got one gear, no brakes and birls around at a furious speed? That’s right, it’s a speedway motorcycle. Or is it The Herald’s editorial pool car? No, it’s definitely speedway … then again?
Here in Glasgow, they’ve been broadsiding, powersliding and roaring anti-clockwise over the dirt and shale for 90 years and speedway enthusiast Peter Colvin has been in touch with the diarist to pass on a few historical pearls as well as the picture plonked up the top.
Celtic Park, for instance, was one of the first speedway venues and staged a meeting in1928 while team racing involving what would eventually become the Glasgow Tigers began at the White City stadium on Paisley Road West in 1929. Funnily enough, another form of motor sport apparently took place in the confines of the boardroom at nearby Ibrox when the Gers were going doon the financial pan. Yes, you’ve guessed it, a Demolition Derby.
Over in Mount Florida, meanwhile, speedway was also a regular feature at Hampden Park back in ye olden times of yore.
Interestingly, evidence of this frenetic oval occupation can still be witnessed in the inner sanctum of the national stadium to this day as the fruitless search for a new manager of the Scotland team leaves the SFA high heid yins careering about in circles.
POOR old Boris Becker. If being declared bankrupt wasn’t bad enough, this teutonic tennis titan has now revealed that he’s mislaid five of his Grand Slam trophies and simply can’t find them.
It stirs up images of a quite desperate rummage. Down the couch, behind the sideboard, in the car’s glove box? Supporters of Partick Thistle can no doubt sympathise with beleaguered Boris. They’ve been looking for silverware for years, after all.
THE news that follicly-challenged Rocket Man, Elton John, has called time on his touring career was met with the predictable, withering response that “he played one gig at Airdrie fitba club and said ‘sod it’.” There’s always a price toupee, eh? Dearie me.
Of course, auld Reggie Dwight positively relished his brief stint in North Lanarkshire last summer as he charmed the natives with his tinkling ivories. The bold Elton was particularly enamoured when a hardy regular of the Boar’s Head pub gleefully informed the pianist’s manager that he’d “always enjoyed Elton lightly fingering his crotchets” before handing him an ‘Up the Diamonds’ rosette.
IT wasn’t quite Hawaii Five-O, more Hawaii Five-FORE! Colin Montgomerie’s recent golfing sojourn to the Pacific archipelago was all rather eventful. Firstly, he got caught up in a false alarm about a nuclear weapon thundering towards Hawaii. Then he was advised against going surfing because “I would kill myself on the reef.”
The hysterical bomb warning shrieked: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER.”
Perhaps the Hawaiian defence minister had merely panicked at the prospect of a scantily-clad Monty catching a wave on his surf board and crashing into the startled beach-goers on the shore.
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