Jimmy Gooch and Arne Pander fight a lone battle with 13 and 12 respectively as West Ham virtually end the Cheetahs title hopes with a 45-33 win at Cowley The Hammers added to their title challenge with a similar win at Edinburgh just two days later.

Exeter beat Wolves 59-37 in the KO Cup semifinal and don’t have to wait long to find out who they will meet in the finalLater that week West Ham arrived at Glasgow unbeaten in the British League since the end of July and a 44-34 win at Edinburgh the previous week confirmed that they were in top form Tigers had a tough time containing the Hammers heat leaders but, by packing the minor positions, were still level after twelve heats.Heat thirteen was to prove unlucky for the White City men. Reserve Willie Templeton, who had won his two programmed rides, was brought in to replace Maury Mattingly. Partner Nils Paulsen fell and Willie’s bike slowed badly on the third lap, giving West Ham a 5-1. He had blown his motor and was out for the night. However Hammers lead was quickly reversed when Charlie Monk and Bluey Scott had little difficulty in beating Trott and Leonard to even the scores with two races remaining. The penultimate heat saw no less than four exclusions, with cries for a fifth! Firstly Malcolm Simmonds was excluded under the two minutes rule and was replaced by reserve Tony Clarke. The race was stopped after Nils Paulsen fell, with the Norwegian being excluded as the prime cause of the stoppage while Tony Clarke was also ruled out of the rerun for not being under power when the race was stopped. Graham Coombes lined up against Sverre Harrfeldt but his bike failed on the second lap. He tried desperately to restart it but was eventually lapped while pushing it down the back straight. His red exclusion light glowed on the gantry. Harrfeldt was out by himself and was cruising round. As he came round he final bend he slowed completely and used both hands to remove his goggles. He finished in a time of 97.8 seconds and got an appropriate reception from the White City faithful. Cries for his exclusion for not making a bona fide attempt to race fell on deaf ears but it really was academic as McKinlay and Hunter took the expected 5-1 over Maury Mattingly and Bill McMillan in the final race. West Ham had now won two consecutive away KO Cup ties and would meet Exeter in the final which would be run over two legs

Bjorn Knutson was the surprise winner at the Wembley World final and seemed to have benefitted from not riding in the BL, going unbeaten after finishing second to countryman Bengt Jansson in his first race. Plechanov beat Fundin in a run off for second place after both scored 13  with Briggs and Jansson next on 10.. The other British Final qualifiers   Brian Brett 9, Nigel Boocock 8, Ken McKinlay 5, Reg Luckhurst 4 and Jimmy Gooch 3

Briggs took some consolation winning The Laurels with 15 from Gooch 13 and Nigel Boocock 11 and beats challenger Sverre Harrfeldt  2-0 in the first leg of the Golden Helmet. He takes the second leg 2-1 at The Brandonapolis later that week to retain the hrelmet

The weather starts to break up with many tracks suffering rain offs. Glasgow’s meeting with Halifax gets abandoned when heat nine is stopped after a mid race deluge with the score standing at 31-17 and will subsequently be rerun.

The weather starts to break up with many tracks suffering rain offs. Glasgow’s meeting with Halifax gets abandoned when heat nine is stopped after a mid race deluge with the score standing at 31-17 and will subsequently be rerun.