Hammerin' Around E-Book

Brian Belton

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 310

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2002

Beschreibung

This is a history of speedway at the West Ham stadium, from its first-ever dirt track meeting in 1928 to its final season in 1971. Exhaustively researched and supplemented with detailed statistical appendixes, this is a nostalgic but worthy tribute to the track heroes of a bygone era.

Leseprobe

HAMMERIN’ ROUND

SPEEDWAY IN THE EAST END

West Ham, 1948. From left to right: Arthur Atkinson, Howdy Byford, Malcolm Craven, Bob Harrison, Tommy Croombs, Kid Curtis, Aub Lawson, Cliff Watson, Stan Greatrex and (on machine) Eric Chitty.

When a knight won his spurs in the stories of old,

He was gentle and brave; he was gallant and bold,

With a shield on his arm and an lance in his hand,

For God and for valour he rode through the land.

No charger have I and no sword at my side,

Yet still to adventure and battle I ride,

Though back into story-land giants have fled,

And the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.

Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed,

’Gainst the dragons of anger the ogres of greed,

And let me set free with the sword of my youth,

From the castle of darkness, the power of the truth.

HAMMERIN’ ROUND

SPEEDWAY IN THE EAST END

Brian Belton

First published in 2002, reprinted 2003

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Brian Belton, 2003, 2013

The right of Brian Belton to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUBISBN 978 0 7509 5247 7

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

1

The First Speedway Days

2

Running Round In Circles

3

Claret And Blues

4

Golden Age On A World Stage

5

Bluey Wilkinson, Hammer Of Wembley

6

War Engines

7

Through The Gap On A JAP

8

Jack Young – West Ham’s Second World Champion

9

The Roar Is Succeeded By Silence

10

Revving Renaissance

11

Decline And Fall

12

The Final Hammer

Conclusion

Appendix I: Chronology

Appendix II: Statistics

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My grandmother used to sell West Ham Speedway programmes. She once told me that the men who rode the bikes were the greatest sportsmen who ever lived. They would use body, mind and spirit to contest their races. Bravery, intelligence, and a high bodyweight/strength ratio was required. They needed to be competitive, but also be able to entertain. They succeeded in this dual task, to the extent that they drew people to watch them in their tens of thousands; men admired them, women loved them, children worshipped them – these were no mean men and they captured that most elusive of entities, the spirit of their time. This book is written in homage to those brave riders and particularly the men who wore the claret and blue, with crossed hammers on their chests.

What follows was only possible because of the great help, generously given, by the Speedway Veterans’ Association. In particular, this history owes its existence to two former Hammers. One is a true giant of the sport (in every sense of the word) and a man who is part of the history of the oval tracks, Reg Fearman. The other is probably the most active historian of the side and speedway in general, Terry Stone. They both possess all the qualities of speedway riders, but they are also good and kind people, hospitable and humane. It is their devotion and love for this most romantic of sports that this work is dedicated to. It may be of interest to note that the quotations at the start of each chapter are taken from The Speedway Annual, which was co-edited by Peter Arnold, the announcer at West Ham Speedway for many years. ‘Up the ’Ammers!’

Reg Fearman.

Aub Lawson, Aussie Hammer, 1947.

FOREWORD

It was in 1946, when West Ham Speedway reopened after the Second World War, that I first saw the Hammers in action. My parents, who lived in Plaistow, just down the road from the home of West Ham Speedway, Custom House Stadium, had been life-long supporters of the team and the sport, having watched the first meetings at High Beech in 1928.

That introduction to West Ham Speedway, with the thrill of the riders broadsiding and the silver sand, which was the surface of the track, spraying in a plume behind them, the smell of the methanol and Castrol R oil burning in the racing engines and 40,000 fans screaming with excitement, gave me the desire, along with thousands of other kids, to emulate our heroes. For us kids, it all started on the cycle speedway tracks which mushroomed around the East End of London. West Ham Speedway was extremely popular on Tuesday nights. In 1946, I would go straight from school at 3.30 p.m. to take my place in the queue at the turnstiles to save a place for my parents and sister until 6.00 p.m. Then, along with other kids, I would run round to the back of the stadium and bunk in under the fence!

I was luckier than most. Cliff Watson, the Australian, came to stay with us for the season when West Ham signed him in 1947. A few weeks later, he asked if his friend, Aub Lawson, could also come and stay. They were with us for several seasons. Unbelievably and suddenly, at fourteen years of age, I was in an extremely privileged position with two Australian internationals sharing our terraced home in New City Road. The bobbysoxer fans of the day camped for hours outside our house for autographs and a glimpse of their idols. At the end of the 1947 season, just before Aub and Cliff left for Australia, Aub obtained two 1928 Douglas machines on loan for me to practice on during the winter of 1947/48. He brought them home on a trailer and said ‘Here you are, Junior, see how you get on with these’. That winter, I rode one machine or the other on the Beckton Cycle Speedway track, pushing it the two miles from home. In February 1948, I graduated to the West Ham small practice track in the car park of Custom House Stadium and from there to the silver sand race track.

The West Ham management – all pre-war England internationals – promoters Arthur Atkinson, Stan Greatrex and manager, Tiger Stevenson, had a good youth policy and gave us youngsters tremendous encouragement. In May 1948, my parents bought me one of Cliff Watson’s modern racing machines for £150, which I rode at West Ham practice sessions on Wednesday mornings from 6.00 a.m. to 8.30 a.m., following the Tuesday night’s race meetings. Aub and Cliff were always present at these practice sessions. The reason for the early start was that greyhound racing took place on Wednesday evening, and the tarpaulins protecting the greyhound track from the silver sand had to be lifted and the stadium made ready. After practice, I had to pedal my bicycle like fury up Prince Regent Lane to Balaam Street so that I wouldn’t be late for school.

At the age of 15 years and 3 months, I took part in my first public race meeting at Rye House on 1 August 1948. It was an individual event – the Holiday Cup – and Wally Green, who was then riding for Hastings, presented the Cup; not to me, but almost. I scored 11 points out of 15 and fell when second. This prevented me from contesting a run-off with Dennis Gray of Wimbledon, who scored 13 points to win the meeting. The Auto Cycle Union and Speedway Control Board promptly banned me from racing in public, declaring that I was too young and that I should wait until I was sixteen.

Ever a Hammer – Cliff Watson.

Aub Lawson, leg-trailing in 1947.

So, on the evening of Tuesday 26 April 1949, West Ham captain Eric Chitty presented me with my racing licence in front of 40,000 Hammers fans – a tremendous thrill. Racing with West Ham at the other London speedways – such as Wimbledon, New Cross and Harringay – was incredibly competitive. Every team had its star international riders and at Wembley, in front of their regular 60,000 fans, it was simply awesome. It made one feel like a gladiator performing in the arena of Roman times. The West Ham riders had a terrific camaraderie and would discuss team tactics before each match. As individuals, Eric Chitty, Malcolm Craven and Aub Lawson were always capable of taking first prize in a Championship event. Eric Chitty was frequently called to the microphone during the interval of a match to sing to the fans. He had a good voice, Bing Crosby style, and cut several records in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

In fact, they were all charismatic men. Malcolm Craven often flew his own aeroplane to speedway meetings on the Continent and would arrive at West Ham in his 1946 American Buick convertible. Aub Lawson, known as Gentleman Aub, was a hard man on the track but an absolute gentleman with the crowd, and he would stand for hours signing autographs. As my mentor, he said to me at the beginning of my racing career ‘Junior, when you go to a speedway meeting, make the crowd remember you – score a maximum or knock off their best rider.’

In October 1950, as one of the youngest selected, I sailed from Tilbury for Australia with the England team, captained by Jack Parker. We lost the series but the experience was invaluable. After National Service and eighteen months of racing in New Zealand, I followed in the footsteps of a number of former West Ham speedway riders, namely Bluey Wilkinson, Arthur Atkinson, Tiger Stevenson, Stan Greatrex and Aub Lawson, when, in 1960, I promoted my own speedway track in Stoke-on-Trent. A change of career saw me promoting for twenty-five years at a number of different venues throughout the country as well as in Egypt, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates – but, regrettably, not at West Ham.

Throughout my life and wherever I have been in the world, West Ham Speedway has remained close to my heart, and I have always been ready to talk openly and affectionately about my time with some of the greatest speedway riders of that era. Any rider who has pulled on a Hammers race jacket has always remained very proud to have done so. West Ham had champions in each decade – in the 1930s, these were Arthur Atkinson, World Champion Bluey Wilkinson and Tiger Stevenson; in the 1940s, Eric Chitty, Malcolm Craven and Aub Lawson; in the 1950s, Australian Jack Young (twice World Champion) and Wally Green; in the 1960s, Scotland’s Ken McKinley, Norwegian Sverre Harrfeldt, Malcolm Simmons and, of course, former World Champion Tommy Price as manager. Team spirit was always a key word with the Hammers.

Much of my time since retiring from active speedway has been spent in contact with members of the British Veteran Speedway Riders’ Association, of which there are over 600 members. There are similar associations operating in Australia and New Zealand.

West Ham car part practice track, January 1948. Reg Fearman (foreground) is on a 1928 Douglas and Alf Viccary rides a Martin JAP.

When West Ham Stadium was demolished for housing many years ago, thousands of former fans and riders had tears in their eyes. The speedway, however, will live for evermore, not only in the hearts and memories of people like myself but factually, as a number of the roads on the estate that now stands on the former site of Custom House Stadium are named after eminent former West Ham riders – Wilkinson, Atkinson, Croombs, Baxter, Young, Lawson and promoter Hoskins.

I know this book by Brian Belton will make armchair broadsiding compulsive reading.

To win without risk is to triumph without glory.

(Corneille, The Cid, 1636)

Reg Fearman

Former member of West Ham Speedway team

Former British Speedway Promoters Association chairman

England Speedway Test Team manager

England World Team Cup and World Pairs manager, Great Britain Speedway Test Team manager

England Speedway Test Match Rider, Veteran Speedway Riders’ Association president, 1992

Aub Lawson and Reg Fearman being presented with the Senior and Junior Conran Trophies.

Travelling man, Eric Chitty. The West Ham team captain and a mechanic demonstrate how the professional racer got about before the Second World War.

INTRODUCTION

The Starting Gate

Perhaps the main piece of specialist electrical equipment on a speedway track is the starting gate. When the referee flicks the switch to shut off the current, the heavyduty elastic contracts and pulls the tape carrier up very quickly until it slams hard against the rubber buffer at a top of the mechanism. There are other designs, but this is the most common, the main alternative being a magnet operating the reverse way round, working a hook arrangement on the bottom of the tape carrier, the sudden surge of current pulling the hook out of its position and thus releasing the tapes. Some gates do use springs instead of elastic, but these are very rare. It is interesting to note that the innovation of the starting gate probably saved speedway racing from a premature death in the early 1930s, for it did away with the rolling start which was so unsatisfactory and was causing enormous discontent among the fans of those days.

Silver, L. ‘Anatomy of a Speedway’ in The Speedway Annual compiled by Silver, L. and Douglas, P. (London, Pelham Books, 1969)

A huge, buzzing crowd encircles the floodlit oval, a dirt band lit up in the East End night, illuminated, 400 metres in a theatre of speed. The tension grows as the time ticks towards the first race. At the pit gate, four dark knights adorned in leather sit astride their exhaust-smoked, revving chargers. Last adjustments to helmets and gauntlets are made, as much to placate nerves as anything else. Fuel switch on. Signal for a push start.

The bikes circle cautiously, bound for the starting tapes. The floodlights flicker across the riders’ team emblems that bedeck their collective rainbow of race jackets. The starting marshall motions the bikes up to the tapes, the green light throws out its message, every eye homes in on the starting gate. The tapes fly up, like a huge, elongated, albino bat. Engines snarl in response, propelling the quartet of metal steeds into a hail of dirt and shale created by the madness of spinning rear wheels.

The four hurtle into the initial bend; the monstrous bikes lean sideways into surreal broadsides. The helmeted pilots are now involved in a fight to hold the mechanical hurricanes, but there is not a thought for giving quarter. Wheels are forced into a wavering approximation of equality as the contestants hammer down the back straight. Four laps are eaten, at an average speed of nearly fifty miles an hour. The war to out-race and out-think is compressed into something little more than a minute by a chequered flag. The smallest slice of a second can make a rider a champion or a loser, a somebody or a has-been. Every individual in the crowd has filled their eyes with the brief, uncomplicated, profound action. The whole moment has meaning created by a panoply of phenomena that ignite reality into the fantastic metallic metaphor that is speedway.

The East End Connection

This racing sport is just one form of motorised competition taking place on an oval circuit. The basic tenets of oval racing go back at least as far as the Roman chariot racing that took place in the Coliseum and across the Roman world. Speedway is one of a group of closely related ‘oval contests’, that include motorcycle racing on indoor ice ovals of little more than a hundred metres in length; stock cars moving at 200 mph on high banked super speedways – like the 2.66-mile Alabama International Motor Speedway in Talladega; sprint car confrontations in Sydney; ice action in Kazakhstan;the Indianapolis 500; freight trains at Daytona; power boating on the Danube or in Singapore harbour; and snowmobile shoot-outs on the frozen lakes of North America. From Alice Springs to Pocono and from Prague to Ulan Bator, enthusiasts of the oval trial gravitate to see the gladiators of internal combustion strain for victory.

As such, oval racing, of which speedway is a species, is nothing less than a global sport, geographically and technically speaking. Its collective spectator potential across the planet would rival any sport. However, this book will focus on West Ham Speedway and will, as such, be concerned with that genre of motorcycle competition. Nevertheless, it would be unrealistic to tell the tale of the Hammers without framing their existence within the wider context of the speedway, which includes its evolution and development up to and including the years when the East End’s team gave way to time. So, this history will start from the birth of speedway and conclude in 1972. Thereafter, speedway without West Ham, but with the likes of Ivan Mauger and the Grand Prix, is another story, to be told at another time.

Motorcycle sport has relatively long roots in East London and West Essex (of which West Ham was a part until the early years of the twentieth century). For example, on 19 July 1903 an ‘International Motor-Cycle Race’ took place in Canning Town, at the Memorial Grounds, the former home ground of Thames Iron Works Football Club, the team that became West Ham United in 1900. The event was marred by tragedy as the East Ham Echo of Friday 24 July 1903 reported under the headline ‘Motor Track Fatality’.

At the West Ham Coroner’s Court on Friday, Mr George E. Hilleary, the West Ham Coroner, held an inquest on the body of James Adams, aged 31, of 31 Larch Road, Cricklewood, who met his death at the Memorial Sports Ground, Canning Town, on Wednesday, July 15. Mr Percy J.H. Robinson watched the proceedings on behalf of the Ormonde Motor Company, one of whose machines the deceased was riding.

James Simms, the ground man at the Memorial Grounds, said that on Wednesday at about three o’clock the deceased and another man went on the ground with motorcycles. Witness knew they were coming, and asked, ‘if they were going for the records?’ Deceased said, ‘No. We will wait till Mr Goodwin comes, but we are going to try the machines.’ They rode round the track, each on separate motors, no one else being on the track. Deceased afterward went round twice; had he gone round a third time he would have done a mile. In witness’s opinion the pace was from 50 to 60 miles an hour on the second lap. At the third lap it seemed as if the deceased was going at such a speed that his machine gave from under him, or that he lost control of it. He was no sooner off the motor than he was spinning round. His head struck a post. Witness saw blood and at once sent for a cart, and with assistance took deceased to West Ham Hospital.

A Juryman: Can they do as they like on the track? – There’s the rule of all one-way, but they can go at what speed they like.

Arthur Goodwin, of 79, Wells Street, Oxford Street, manager of the Ormonde Motor Company, said the deceased was not on the track at or by his direction. As the jury knew, there had been races in Ireland, and at the meetings the Ormonde machines had been very successful. And when they came back they were thought to be good enough to secure World records. Mr Adams, an expert rider, asked if he could ride for the records, and it was agreed to let him try the machine … Deceased and the other man each rode about two miles; then they both dismounted and rested for a time, and went on again. Witness saw the accident – he was watching the rider most closely – and his impression was, he felt thoroughly convinced of it, that the speed developed so much that the rider could not realise the great rate. When he came to the bend, he took it perfectly clean, and from witness’s observation the machine simply skidded clean from under him. He ‘twizzled’ round on his stomach 30 or 40 yards along and up the slope till he came to the fence. The machine was hardly damaged, the friction had flattened the handle-bar and fired it, and the saddle was grazed with friction, but the mechanism was all in order.

Before he started the second time witness asked the deceased what he thought to the machine, and he said, ‘I think this is very fast; I think it is good enough for the World record; arrangements would have to be made for that. They were not supposed to know the speed limit of machines; it was impossible for anyone to know the limit of the speed of the machines, so much depended on the rider. The deceased was a perfectly good rider, sound and cool-headed.

A Juryman: The slope was not sufficient to keep the machine in its place? – Quite so.

Then it is the fault of the track? – The track was built for cycle riding, never for motor riding.

The Coroner: What speed do you say? – As near as I can tell from 60 to 65 miles an hour. It was a terrific pace.

Witness added that the deceased had ridden on the Crystal Palace track on a similar motor at 45 miles an hour, and he had made the remark that ‘it was like touring, so easy to go round.’ The Canning Town track was considered even better than the Crystal Palace track. On it had been won World records, and it was therefore assumed that it was the best track. He did not notice the ‘wobbling’ spoken of by one of the witnesses, who probably was misled by the usual ‘lean over’ of all cyclists in turning bends. Deceased had cleared the corner when the machine went away.

By Mr Robinson: The machine was the identical one that won the speed trial in Ireland, and the deceased knew that. Deceased was an amateur and got nothing from the company, who chose the Canning Town track because it held all the records for motors and cycles too.

The Coroner: What is the record?

Witness: It stands at 1min. 6sec. – roughly 58 miles an hour.

Mr Robinson: What was the horsepower of this machine?

Witness; It is impossible to say, it depends on the revolutions. Normally it was 3 ¼ hp. It was quite possible deceased was driving 2,000 revolutions, which would be equal to 4 hp.

The Coroner, in summing up said it was quite clear no track was a proper place for speed tests, or, indeed, for any excessive speeds. But expert riders were perfectly well aware of the risks they run. The jury then returned a verdict of ‘Death from misadventure’, and the foreman said it was the wish of the jury that no slur should be cast on the Canning Town track as a cycling track worthy of its reputation.

Anyone who knows speedway will recognise much of the glory, dangers, techniques and criticisms of oval racing in this report. It is a testament to the history that the sport has in London’s East End and indicates that the essential elements of short-track motorcycle racing were in place from the time when motorcycles first sped across the face of the planet.

The Birth Of Speedway – The Workers’ Racing

Speedway can be understood as a product of or a response to road racing, although even when controlled and administrated by a common governing body, a dichotomy is evident. Road racing was largely pioneered in Europe. The first generation of race drivers were, in the main, from the higher echelons of society. They were professionals and/or members of the gentry. The development of propulsion by way of the internal combustion engine in Europe took place on a relatively advanced system of roads, so it was logical to use the existing road networks for place-to-place races, and city-to-city races became extremely popular as the twentieth century began. This type of contest became firmly established in the mind of the general public as the preserve of gentlemen, the only group that had the time and the finance that the sport demanded.

In the early days, France was generally regarded as the home of the motorcar and, as such, Paris became the starting point for many of the long-distance contests. Paris to Berlin, Paris to Amsterdam and Paris to Vienna were among these early road marathons. They were not without dangers, and after the terrible events and near carnage of the Paris to Madrid race of 1903, open-road racing was effectively abandoned to be replaced by the closed-road circuit competitions. This started the sport on the evolutionary road that has given rise to the contemporary Grand Prix circuit and its association with massive development and staging costs.

Motorcycles have been a feature of organised oval-track events for over a hundred years all over the world. There are references (although confirmation as to their authenticity is not available) to forms of motorcycle short-track racing, on a circuit with a loose dirt surface, in Pietermaritzburg, Natal, South Africa in the spring of 1907, but, geographically speaking, the sport has three main strands of development.

The American Dream

Speedway, as a generic discipline, is a product of the USA. It was there, just after the First World War, that the sounds and smells of motorcycle oval racing became evident in any meaningful and consistent way (the expression ‘speedway’ was first used in the American context in 1902). As early as 1906, motorbikes were racing on the American fairground circuits under the auspices of the Federation of American Motorcyclists. By the early 1920s, these events had evolved into racing on huge dirt tracks (thus the term ‘dirt-track racing’ came into existence) originally laid down for racing horses. Many of the tracks were a mile or even more to the lap, but the majority were half-milers. It was the very size of these circuits that discouraged any attempts to surface them. The spectacle was a big public draw and highly dangerous, with riders using giant 1,000cc machines. Such high-powered apparatus needed superb riders, and the Americans certainly rose to the demand. These bulky hulks, with their ‘vertical’ handlebars, did not allow for any measure of broadsiding. The technique of cornering was to roll around the bend, with a little throttle and the wheels in line – similar to the road-racing style.

There was keen competition between manufacturers, such as the Harley-Davidson, Excelsior, Indian, Peerless and Cleveland companies. These, and other companies, retained professional riders to regularly race on improvised or loose surfaced tracks, which, despite precautions such as the spraying of light oil or calcium chloride on the surface, threw up voluminous clouds of dust. This, together with dangerous fences, inevitably caused fatalities, obliging organisers to limit competition machines to 500cc.

The introduction of smaller capacity motors permitted a more spectacular method of cornering. It was called the pendulum skid: a kind of power slide, which came to be known as broadsiding. This enabled a rider to negotiate a 180-degree turn on a powerful machine in a controlled skid in which the rear of the bike swung out – like a pendulum – and then back into line as the turn was completed.

The credit for the innovation of broadsiding has been given to a man by the name of Maldwyn Jones, an Excelsior and Harley-Davidson rider in 1922. During that year, other 500cc aces also became accomplished at the new technique. One of these was Eddie Brinck, who was killed while racing at Springfield in August 1927. After a couple of years, the smaller engine machines (500cc) were being raced everywhere in the United States, and broadsiding was recognised as the swiftest way of rounding the dirt track bends. It became the basic art of speedway racing.

Towards the end of 1925, 350cc racing machines made their debut on the Milwaukee dirt track, including the Harley-Davidson and Indian 350cc road models modified for racing purposes. These events caused a great sensation. In the Harley range, the 21 cubic-inch ‘Peashooters’, as they were named, averaged over 69mph in five-mile races; they were just two seconds slower than the famous 500cc bikes.

Advance Australia Fair

An early form of motorcycle track racing in Australia dates back to 1909, around a quartermile slightly banked asphalt track in Maitland, in the Hunter River Valley, before the track was closed in 1917. However, that same year grass-track racing was held at the nearby Newcastle Show Ground and during 1918, Sydney and interstate riders turned up to do battle with the locals on the one-mile racecourse at Wallsend, New South Wales.

For all this, while the development of dirt-track technology and style was going on in the USA, it was in rural New South Wales, back in the Hunter River Valley, under floodlights at West Maitland Agricultural Showground on the 15 December 1923, that the first incarnation of modern short-track solo motorcycle racing (that was to become universally accepted as speedway), took place. The person behind the event was a New Zealander, one John S. Hoskins, better known as ‘Johnnie’. This restless and energetic man was to become the accepted father of the sport. His life story accompanies the tale of West Ham Speedway and the sport’s overall history. It was Hoskins who organised the West Maitland ‘Electric Light Carnival’ that took place that evening, celebrating the then recent installation of electricity in West Maitland. He decided to add interest to the event by including short-track motorcycle racing on a quarter-mile dirt surface. Few rules would encumber the adventurous spirit and ingenious spontaneity of speedway’s first contestants, although riders were instructed that they could not put their foot down to help their stripped down road machines round corners. Australians always called their dirt-tracking ‘speedway’ – the British did not officially adopt the title until 1930.

The success of the meeting led Hoskins to conclude that he could make what started out as something of a gimmick into a new and exciting form of racing. More meetings were organised at West Maitland, and it came to be acknowledged as the birthplace of speedway. The sport reached out across New South Wales to Newcastle and, more importantly, to Sydney. The organisation of events became more stylish and sophisticated. The Australian riders of the time, that included the now-legendary figures of Vic Huxley, Billy Lamont, and Frank Arthur, were reinforced by a some American pioneers – most notably the gigantic (in height as well as talent) Sprouts Elder.

Speedway’s origins then can be understood as being set distinctly within a particular working culture and as such are very different from road racing. Speedway, like other forms of oval tracking, is essentially the product of the rural, new frontier countries colonized by Britain and other European powers. North America and Australia were as enthusiastic as Europe about automotive competition, but their circumstances were very different. They were countries built on a continental scale. Their road networks were, at best, sketchy. Those roads that did exist were often little more than rutted dirt tracks, unsuited to the type of racing that developed in Europe. Land, however, was not in short supply and not, as was the case in Britain, mainly in the hands of a landed aristocracy or gentry. Early enthusiasts in America and Australia found it a simple matter to mark out basic dirt courses on which anyone who wished could race. Motor races were very often associated with carnivals and local fairs, and most fairgrounds had show rings or dirt horseracing ovals. Car and bike racing on these tracks was a natural development and became tremendously popular.

As such, it can be seen that the geographical character of the frontier countries placed ordinary workers in the forefront of motor sport to a much greater extent than their European counterparts, but the nature of the social hierarchy also had an impact. The entrepreneur, not the landed gentry, topped the social strata. This social group was more focused on the development of business than the sporting pursuits associated with the European ‘leisured classes’.

The 1924 programme for the first ever speedway meeting in Maitland, New South Wales, Australia.

One result of all this is that speedway has often been associated with rowdy fairground activity and been projected as a slightly seedy, downmarket pastime. Historically, it has been considered to be rather less than respectable by sections of the motor racing establishment. However, this has meant that speedway never lost its working-class roots and, perhaps more than any other sport, has remained true to itself.

The British Experience

If America was the mind of speedway and Australia the soul, Britain has been where the body of the sport was established and where it found a home. There are reports of a form of speedway racing being held in England, at Portman Road football ground at Ipswich, in 1904, but it was only when reports of the new Australian daredevil sport filtered through to Britain that it started to become the seedbed of speedway in Europe. However, exactly how the sport arrived in the country remains a controversial question. The Speedway Control Board had it that a licence was granted by the Auto-Cycle Union (ACU) for a meeting at Camberley Heath in Surrey on 7 May 1927 (the local club claimed credit for many new events, including scrambles and even football on motorcycles). They staged an event subsequently described in Motor Cycling as: ‘the first British Dirt-Track Meeting. However, the day’s races were run the ‘wrong way round’ on a surface of loose sand and as such it would appear to have had more of a resemblance to modern grass-track racing than speedway. There was even a race with pillion passengers and Fay Taylour (a woman) was the winner of the unlimited final.

Northern followers claim the first British speedway meeting took place at Dodds Farm, Droylsden, near Manchester, on 25 June 1927. This meeting, organised by the enterprising South Manchester Motor Club, took place on a 550-yard cinder trotting track. Once again though, it is said that riders raced in a clockwise direction and that the event bore little resemblance to a modern speedway meeting.

High Beech, the birth-place of British speedway.

As such, speedway is understood to have put down its roots in the East London/West Essex area, when a race meeting was organised at the King’s Oak track (an abandoned running/cycle track) at High Beech in Epping Forest, Essex on 19 February 1928. The track was situated behind the present day King’s Oak public house and a conservation centre now stands on the site. Of all the ‘dirttrack type’ events that took place in the late 1920s, the King’s Oak contest approximated most closely the look and feel of what was to become modern speedway. Jack Hill-Bailey, the secretary of the Ilford Motor Cycle Club, was the person behind this historic meeting, although the King’s Oak track was by no means his first choice of venue. Custom House Stadium, the edifice that was to become the home of West Ham Speedway, that had opened in 1928, was initially chosen to stage the event. However, the stadium was built primarily for greyhound racing and the owners of the arena were loath to open their new venue with anything other than a greyhound meeting. This somewhat defensive attitude prevented the impressive stadium from providing an inspiring stage for the first ever speedway meeting in Britain.

Hill-Bailey, in talks with Lionel Wills and Keith MacKay, had also attempted to stage races at Parsloes Park, a half-mile trotting track near his home, in Barking, Essex, about two miles down the road from Custom House. He was not able to pull this off, but if this idea had been successful, High Beech would have never gained its distinction as the birthplace of the sport in Britain – although neither would Parsloes Park as the track would have been too long.

So, Hill-Bailey moved on to his third choice. Initially, he had planned an open permit event at High Beech for 9 November 1927, but the ACU would not grant permission for racing on a Sunday. A large number of entrants were disappointed, particularly so following all the false starts, to the extent that many would-be competitors were ready to go ahead and stage a meeting in defiance of the authority.

Eventually, Hill-Bailey, working with the Colchester Motor Cycle Club, obtained a permit from the ACU for the meeting, which was issued to the Ilford Motorcycle Club (this was the first meeting to be staged after the new ACU sub-committee responsible for licensing tracks had come into being). The application list was opened once more, and the response was immediate. First-rate riders from far and near applied to take part.