News 2010
IN CLUB GRAND PRIX ANNOUNCED (added 7th April 2010)
Horspath announce they will be holding an in club Grand Prix series for those riders not involved on British Premier League days in the style of the BJYL, Grand Prix points over the next five BPL meetings with a trophy for the overall winner and top Under 14 rider sponsored by Hammers Vice President Geoff Gamage, "It is to give all those races who aren't in the BPL squads races, today we had eight riders not including Danny Harper and Dave Carmichael watching, even Jess Lamb had travelled from Poole so it is to keep them active really".
TRANSFERS (added 7th April 2010)
Hammers confirm that they have full filled their transfer programme with Paul Gibbs also coming in from the defunct Filton club, he was on a secondary at the Village last season. He joins Jessica Lamb, Rafal Dulinski, Premek Binkowski, Shaun Rudman, Lewis Osborne, Chris Osborne and Ian Lawrence all having gone over as full time Hammers for 2010 some having been on secondary licences for last year. A big squad at the Village hopefully one for all occasions quoted Gamage.
BOALER SCARE (added 7th April 2010)
British number three and Hammers skipper Mark Boaler almost missed the BPL encounter with Wednesfield due to a hamstring injury picked up playing football the day before (he had to be taken off), heavily bandaged and with the magic spray's Boaler managed to get through the match, Hammers already without injured back victim Dave Carmichael, and Wayne Hutt due to work commitments.
HAMMERS GETS CLUBMARK (added 7th April 2010)
Good news for the Horspath Cycle Speedway Club was confirmation of Go Ride Clubmark accreditation, Horspath would like to acknowledge the support and efforts of British Cycling Regional manager Josie Hefferenan is helping to achieve this, "She drove us to have one big paperwork session at Robyn Carter's one night and without that we'd still be chugging along not getting very far!" said club secretary Geoff Gamage. "I know of club's that never have contact or see their Regional Manager is cycle speedway but certainly we appreciate the support of ours, we look forward to the presentation of the accreditation certificates".
BUSY TIME FOR HAMMERS IN TRANSFER MARKET (added 22nd Feb 2010)
It's been a busy close season for the Hammers with no less than 5 new signings for the 2010 season. The only newcomer to the village is top lady racer JESS LAMB from Poole. Obviously Jess will add considerable strenth the our ladies team especially in the British club championship.
Coming back home is former hammers heat leader LEWIS OSBORNE along with his brother CHRIS who has established himself as a geniune top 6 Premier league rider in the couple of years he's been racing at Blakenham, the return of these two will definately add considerable strenth to both our Premier league and British team championship squads as will the returning SEAN RUDMAN.
Former king of the village RICHARD EDGE is also to make a full time return to racing, although not likely to want to race at Premier league level he could emerge as a very important member of our vetrans and SW teams.
News 2009
HORSPATH HAMMER IT HOME!! (added 19th Oct 2009)
Horspath complete the year by winning the Premier League 2009. This follows the recent win of the South West League 2009 and British Team Championships 2009 (No preasure next year then!!!) Well done to all the riders for a fantastic year, and to team manager Robyn Carter, Geoff Gamage for keeping us all up to date with all things 'cycle speedway', to all the junior riders for supporting the Seniors at many SW and PL matches, and to all the supporters that have followed the team this year. The junior riders really have something to apsire to in the future. 2010 - Bring it on!
THANK YOU TO OUR VOLUNTEERS (added 19th Oct 2009)
In adition to the above thank you, a big thank you goes to all the people working behind the scenes at the club during 2009. This includes all those involved in maintaining the track & facilities and preparing the track for matches, for arranging much needed sponsorship for the club, for driving to and from matches (especially the poor people that had to endure the minibus full of children!). for providing the refreshments, for being the flag man/women, the gate man/women, and any other tasks that I have forgotten to mention. In 2009 the club has thrived with all the support.
CARMICHAEL IS NEW WELSH CHAMPION!!! (added 13th Oct 2009)
Congratulations to our very own 'Mighty Atom', Mark Carmichael on winning this season's Welsh Championship!!!! Mark has had an amazingly successful season
The Welsh Riders Championship was sponsored by Halfords Bikehut. Carmichael turned in a brilliant performance, winning all five races to finish well clear of the field. A tie break race was needed to decide the rostrum places after three riders scored 17 points, the silver medal going to Ben Mould (Poole), ahead of Neil Power (Newport) and Chris Davies (Filton).
21 Junior riders make it to the Individual Finals (added 5th Oct 2009)
21 junior Hammers qualified for the South West Junior Grand Prix Individual Finals on Saturday 3rd October. The riders travelled downs to Southampton with supporters and family to cheer them on. The riders that qualified were: Jack Currell, Eben Wakefield, Alfie Russel -Sharp, Callum Cooper, George Horsley, Max Russell-Sharp, Alfie Wakefield, Ben Carter, Jordan Richardson, Marco Cooper, Jake Carter, Ben Green, Callum -Russell -Sharp, Lee Clarke, Matt Coulter, Jack Smith, Wayne Clarke, Mark Carmichael, Rachel Edge, Livvy Horsley and Jemma Cosh. Results to follow shortly.
The Hammers on YouTube! (added 21st Sept 2009)
Check out a great short video of Horspath vs Sheffield on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec5n4pn53Ok Thanks to Jonty Semper for posting it on YouTube.
The Hammers Nail It (added 21st Sept 2009)
Thank you to the Senior riders for giving us some fantastic racing at the British Campionships. A coach load of supporters headed off to East Newport unprepared for the highs and lows they would expereince with the riders. The stress levels around the track fence were as high as the levels in the pits! Well done to all the riders for winning the British Championships 2009.....a great day was had by all. You really showed our junior riders what Cycle Speedway is all about and gave them all something to aspire to.
Thank you to al the supporters for taking the time out to go to East Newport. I am sure the boys really appreciated the moral support and having people to share celebrate their win with.
See Match Report page for detailed report of the British Championships 2009.
Harris does it again! (added 24th August 2009)
Congratulations to Steve Harris who takes the British Veteran Title for the second time. Harris won the title in 2008 and repeated his performance last Saturday (22nd August 2009). Harris scored a faultless 20 point maximum. For a full report on the days racing please go to the 'Match Report' page.
Robyn Cater Live on Radio Oxford (added 24th August 2009)
Those of you that were still in bed at 7.30am on Saturday 22nd August will have missed a treat on Radio Oxford. Our very own Robyn Cater was live on the radio promoting the Junior League Grand Prix that was taking place later that day. But don't be sad if you missed it, because you can tune in online and listen to the for the next 5 days! The interview was with Phil Mercer and can be heard on BBC iPlayer by clicking the link below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p001d7cs and then click on 'listen now'. In the new window that opens, move the pink slide bar along to "1:37.20/2:59.50" and you will hear Phil Mercer introducing Cycle Speedway and Robyn Carter - enjoy!
S D Timmo Car Sa
les sponsors the Hammers (added 11th August 2009)
Many thanks to our new club sponsor S. D. Timmo Car Sales of Oxford. Team Manager Rob Carter is seen here receiving one of the Senior Tracksuit tops from company director Spencer Timmo. The club wishes to pass on its thanks to Spencer for kindly sponsoring the senior riders.
S.D. Timmo Car Sales Japanese vehicle import and sales specialists offering a range of MPV, 4x4, Sports and family vehicles
or Telephone Spencer on : 01865 778 999
Mobile: 07970 384651
Photo by Peter Payne
Injury for Edge (added 13th July 2009)
Rachel Edge is fighting to be fit for the next round of the British Junior & Youth League where she also has to race her National rd 1 A Final of the 14-17 Girls. Rachel has injured her foot in an accident on the way to work, she sat out the British Premier Combination clash at home to Poole, and has the week off next Sunday with the Individuals at Southampton.
Horspath have been drawn as the home team in the semi final of the British Team Championship at East Newport against the one non Premiership team Stoke, who do though have a number of riders on a secondary licence at Premier League clubs. This is the 2nd semi scheduled for 12-30 following the Wednesfield - Poole clash. The club are looking to arrange transport to support the team in South Wales on Sunday September 13th, Horspath are also due to race at East Newport on Sunday August 2nd in the South West.
(Report by Geoff Gamage)
Breaking News .......Horspath make the Nationals (added 30th June 2009)
Horspath have qualified as a team for the British Junior and Youth League National Finals which start THIS Saturday (4th July) at Norwich. originally it was thought that because East Newport had piped Hammers into second spot in the SW qualifying rounds they'd got in. However it is done on race points so the top two non winners of their regions qualify which gave the Hammers to verdict by a mere one and a half race points! The club are currently hastily arranging transport for the trip to Norwich. ( it was thought that eleven had qualified anyway for the GP's so not as a momental task as it could have been).
Presentation of New Tracksuit Tops (added 29th June 2009)
On behalf of ABC Taxis, Pete Horsley presents one of the new Track suit tops to Rob Carter (Team Manager). Thank you again to ABC Taxis for their sponsorship and support of the club. And thank you to Pete for arranging the sponsorship on behalf of the Horspath Cycle Speedway Club. Watch this space for photos of all the Junior riders in their new tops.
New Sponsor for Junior Riders (added 9th June 2009)
ABC TAXIS (OXFORD 770077) have kindly given £250 to purchase track suit tops in the club colours of red/black/white for our junior league riders to travel to away matches in. Thank you to ABC Taxis - the funding is gratefully received. Special thanks to Pete Horsley for organising the sponsorship deal.
Cycle Speedway Junior League (added 31st March 2009)
This Saturday (4th April) sees the start of the Cycle Speedway Junior League in the South West region. The first league match takes place in Southampton and more than 15 Junior riders will be competing from Horspath. There will be 6 rounds with various matches for each age group, starting as young as 7 years old. Most of the riders will be travelling across the South West in our newly sponsored Mini Bus curtesy of both Property Care from Witney and Monarch from Oxford. More than 20 parents will be supporting the riders throughout the Junior League so they will have plenty of encouragement at the matches. Horspath Hammers Premier league riders and club officials would like to thank our sponsors and wish our younger rider good luck for their new season.
Ray and his Merry Crew have been busy! (added 30th March 2009)
If you go down to the track today, you will be in for a big surprise........it has been painted, in fact almost everything in site has been painted! Thanks to Ray, Martin, Pete, Lee, Wayne and Andy for the fantastic job they have done preparing the track for our first home match of the season. I think you will all agree that the track has not looked so good in ages!
***** Geoff Gamage celebrates 40 years with the Hammers!!! *****
(added 27th March 2009)
Congratulation to Geoff Gamage from everyone at the Horspath Cycle Speedway Club! This weekend Geoff is celebrating 40 years with the Hammers. Gamage made his debut on 27th March 1969 (which is before I was even born Geoff!!!) at home to Tottenham Kangaroos in the Old English League.
Over the years Geoff moved from rider to Club Official and has worked tirelessly for the club. Geoff is currently Club Secretary for the Hammers and is also League Chairman for the South West. Before becoming League chairman Geoff served as League Co-ordinator for 14 years. Geoff is also a former Hammers Team Manager with to three consecutive Junior Team Titles, U16 team and two Junior League and two Junior Indoor team wins under his belt.
Geoff is a highly respected member of the Hammers, who always has encouragement to offer all our riders young and old. Anyone that has had a long conversation with Geoff will know that he is a walking encyclopaedia about everything to do with Cycle Speedway, and can easily recall matches and results off the top of his head.
Thank you Geoff for all your hard work and commitment to the club. Long may it last for many years to come.
Spokesman-Online links to our website (added 26th March 2009)
www.Spokesman-Online.co.uk has suggested to its readers to check out our new website. A new section on Spokesman-Online called 'Web Watch' reviews new cycle speedway website appearing on the net. They posted our web address on their site on 20th March and already it has generated 98 visits to our site (552 pages were viewed in total by these 98 people!). Since our launch in January we have had over 400 unique users viewing our site (over 6000 pages viewed in total!). Thank you for taking the time to look at the website and a hugh thank you to Spokesman-Online for publicising our site.
More Sponsorship for Club (added 26th March 2009)
In addition to sponsorship from Porperty Care, we have also received sponsorship from 2 other companies. Crown Decoration Centre on the Horspath Road Trading Estate, Oxford has kindly donated some painting materials to help maintain and improve our track facilities.
In support of the Junior Team, Monach of Oxford have kindly donated fuel to run the mini bus donated by Property Care. The mini bus will be used for all Junior league matches and so this offer of fuel will enable the club to keep costs down for the riders.
Thank you to all our sponsors, we are extremely grateful.
New Sponsorship from Property Care (added 12th March 2009)
As reported the week before last the first of 3 new sponsorship deals has been agreed. Local building company Property Care have agreed to provide mini bus's for the ever growing band of junior Hammers taking part in this years junior league matches which take place on 10 Saturdays during the season. Team Manager Rob Carter was clearly very happy with the news "I would like to say a very big thankyou to Mr Derek Beesley of Property Care for his very generous support during what is as we all know very difficult economic times, also to Ray Martin for his hard work in helping to secure the sponsorship. I feel this is a major and important step towards the development of our younger riders which in turn will help secure the future of our club". We will add details about Property Care to our sponsers page as soon as we have them.
2 New Signings For Hammers.... (added 7th March 2009)
Team Manager Rob Carter today confirmed the signings of Mike Burgess and Paul Gibbs from Bristol club Filton on secondry licences. They will be added to the clubs Premier League squad while continuing to race in the south west league for parent club Filton. Rob is continuing negotations with another 2 top riders to further bolster the top end of the team to complement the confirmed 9 man squad, more news is expected during the coming week!
Steve Harris claims another World Title! (added 1st March 2009)
Congratulation to Steve Harris who became the Veteran World Champion 2009 in Findon, Australia this week!
Harris won despite an incident with the concrete earlier in the day when he spectacularly went over his handlebars at the starting grid during the Senior Semi-Final heats. Apparently he lay motionless on the ground for a few minutes, but eventually staggered to his feet to a tumultuous applauds before gingerly exiting from the racetrack.
Steve showed that he had the guts and determination to be a World Champion. A Quote from CSN Cycle Sports news websites states: ‘The display he put on here today was the stuff inspirational films are made of!’. In the Veteran Individual World Championship, Harris won all his races and was the only rider in the World Titles to take a maximum. Well done Steve – you are an inspiration to all Hammers!
Possible Sponsors for 2009 (added 24th Feb 2009)
Club officials are in talks with 3 new major sponsors for the 2009 season. Negotiations are at an advanced stage with 2 large local companys, and although details are yet to be confirmed they are both expected to benefit the junior members of the club with transport and costs! The third deal is more complex but if it comes to fruition it is thought to involve racing shirts, track trousers and a number of new club bikes. All three deals are expected to be completed before the start of the new season.
New Website off to a flying start! (added 22nd Feb 2009)
You may have noticed that the old Horspath website is still on the web. We are doing what we can to get this removed as soon as possible (we need to wait till Geoff is back from Oz to do this). However, you should now be able to Google, Yahoo, MSN the site or use other search engines to find it. We have also notified British Cycling to update the links from their website to ours. One of the links has been amended, and I am chasing for the other link to be changed as soon as possible.
On a high note, the website has had 96 unique visitors since its launch in January 2009. There has been a total of 256 visits to the website by those 96 people and they have viewed over 2000 pages already!!! Don't forget, if you want to add any news or details to the website then use the 'Contact Us' page on this website.
2009 Premier League and SW team confirmed (added 7th Feb 2009)
Team Manager Robyn Carter has confirm the senior riders for premier league racing next season. They are Steve Harris, Mark Boaler, Mike Morgans, Matty Szymczak, Dave Carmichael and Rob Hunt. Top junior rider Mark Carmichael is also confirmed as available for both SW and Premier Leagues. Rob is also talking to another 4 riders and hopes to bring in a couple of these before the start of the season which would give us a very useful 9 man squad for premier racing.
Our South West team will be made up of 4 of the above riders plus Wayne Hutt and Joe Wyatt and then 2 of our top junior riders, with Rachel Edge, Matt Coulter and Wayne Clarke to the fore for the remaining 2 places. With all the Junior league and age catergory racing on saturdays throughout the season plus of course 2nd team racing for both Premier and South West leagues, not to mention conference U18 league, Horspath will need all of the evergrowing list of junior riders already back in training. In fact while on the subject of juniors riders our aim is to double our numbers this season by attracting 40 riders by the end of the season, so if anyone is interested in coming along please do so.
New South West League Chairman - Geoff Gamage 
The annual coming together of all the South-West clubs took place at Poole in December.
The new committee for the South West League includes Horspaths very own Geoff Gamage who moves to the Chair (previously League Secretary). Rob Absalom takes over Geoff's now vacant position as League Secretary. Ian Sizer accepted the new position of Fixtures Secretary while Debbie Reed took up the challenge of becoming South West Treasurer - another of Geoff's former roles.
We wish Geoff luck in his new role as Chair of the South West league. Geoff has also retained his position of Horspath Cycle Speedway Club Secretary, so he will have a very busy 2009! |
Horspath Cycle Speedway Club AGM - 16th Nov 2008
The Horspath Cycle Speedway Club AGM took place on 16th November 2008. There was a great turn out from many riders and the parents of our younger riders.
The officials of the club will remain the same for 2009 (see the 'Officials' page for positions held in 2008). This year Ray Martin will be responsible for site maintenance with help from riders and parents. In addition, this year the club has two new Welfare officers - Martin Green and Andy Wyatt.
Steve, Rob and Geoff are all pleased with the number of new junior riders that have joined us in 2008. With the indoor practices, it is hoped that we will retain the riders into 2009.