Full Description
During his time as speedway reporter for MCN, Andrew Edwards travelled extensively witnessing first-hand the thrills and spills of world class speedway, meeting the top riders and hearing and reporting on stories of epic euphoric success and sometimes tragedy.
Here Andrew recounts his own story from humble beginnings in provincial journalism in the West Midlands to national newspaper reporting of Grand Prix world meetings with anecdotes and characters described in his own style with a fair bit of humour along the way. How he met with some of the greatest headline makers over decades of speedway reporting becoming great friends of many along the way including legendary names like Ivan Mauger, Barry Briggs, Bruce Penhall, Peter Collins, Simon Wigg, Jason Crump and Kenny Carter.
There is also the story of how Andrew experienced major changes in the publishing industry, from hot metal presses, the days when clanky ink ribbon typewriters were the latest technology and even before mobile phones were invented, right through to a new dawn of the new digital printing revolution.
Contents
Chapter 1 The wrong car park 1
Chapter 2 World Final Poland 4
Chapter 3 My early days 11
Chapter 4 My dream 17
Chapter 5 Brierley Hill office 23
Chapter 6 Tragedy on track 28
Chapter 7 Four meetings in four days,
one in Poland! 31
Chapter 8 Second phase, MCN 38
Chapter 9 Early MCN days 46
Chapter 10 MCN office for japes 66
Chapter 11 MCN story 80
Chapter 12 Peter Arnold nostalgia 104
Chapter 13 Fan to speedway reporter 109
Chapter 14 MCN on tour, to Silverstone GP 119
Chapter 15 Back to the speedway 124
Chapter 16 Cradley days 133
Chapter 17 Tragedy off track 139
Chapter 18 MCN Golden Helmet days 148
Chapter 19 MCN state of our sport! 162
Chapter 20 The press corps, Simon Wigg 169
Chapter 21 F1! 182
andrew edwards
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Chapter 22 The TT 189
Chapter 23 Back to speedway. Again 197
Chapter 24 Speedway GPs take over 208
Chapter 25 EastEnders! 217
Chapter 26 Honda speedway engine 229
Chapter 27 MCN stars of four decades 233
Chapter 28 More MCN changes 237
Chapter 29 My era 1973-98 246
Chapter 30 Life After MCN 251
Chapter 31 In court! 255
Chapter 32 Speedway freelance years 263
Chapter 33 Vintage speedway 274
Chapter 34 Programmes 283
Chapter 35 Characters along the way 286
Chapter 36 Mum's book 302
Chapter 37 The biggest laugh 306
