Out of the Bomb Sites
A short history of Cycle Speedway by Tony Mann
You would be hard pressed to think of a sport with more humble beginnings than Cycle Speedway, out of the devastation and despondency following the end of World War Two has grown one of the most exciting and spectacular, high speed, all action cycle sports.
The sport started, quite literally, on the bomb sites of Britain in the mid forties. When the war ended (in 1945) the population, starved of entertainment after five years of depravation, sought out thrills and activities both indoor and outdoor. Local cinemas, of which there seemed to be one on every street corner, were playing to packed houses and the major sports at that time, football and motor cycle speedway were drawing vast crowds despite the acute shortage of money. It may seem incredible now but ninety thousand people were at Wembley every Thursday evening, not for football, but to cheer on the Wembley Lions speedway team throughout the summer months. It was similar all around the country, at Manchester if you wanted to see the famous Belle Vue Aces in action you had to go early, by 4.30pm if you wanted to sit down, at no extra cost and if you arrived after 6 you would probably find the “Full House” notices up with 40,000 inside and it didn’t start till 7 - every Saturday night.
Every town or city had its speedway track, or so it seemed as the sport mushroomed in the late forties. The many youngsters in these vast crowds inevitably tried to copy their leather clad heroes of the dirt track and the lads would be out and about after school on their bikes racing round any piece of waste ground, of which there were many, learning to slide the back wheel, by using the brake at first, but soon developing their own skills and techniques of bike handling (although we never called it that at the time). Makeshift tracks were marked out, usually by placing loose house bricks to form the track inside edge. Bikes were stripped down to the bare essentials and primitive teams were formed with one street racing against their neighbours.
These lads didn’t know it but they were inventing the country’s newest sport. The activity quickly became widespread and so popular that it featured in local and national newspapers who coined the name: “Skid Kids”.
There was no domestic television in those days but the skid kids made the cinema newsreels with their homemade, all-action racing. Ingenious race jackets were made out of leathercloth or fabric and identity emblems painted on them for the teams such as Lions, Rockets, Hammers, Aces - the list was endless.
Soon the sport became organised and the first leagues were formed as early as 1946 which is now recognised as the official start of the sport (although many old-timers will know they were racing before that). Most of the racing in those days was within a given area in the town but it was obviously going to outgrow that with racing further afield. It has to be remembered that in those days riders had to pedal virtually everywhere they raced. Usually on their track bike which had no brakes - no health and safety concerns then. It wasn’t long before test matches were being held and area control boards were formed, another copy from speedway.
Moving the story along somewhat, the first national competitions took place in 1950 when Poole based Gem Pirates became the first team champions beating Manchester’s Chorlton aces in a meeting that was truly historical in three different ways. Not only was it the first national event but also the first international and the first indoor meeting. As part of a double bill including England versus Holland test match which the Dutch won 45-39 it was held on a wooden board track at London’s famous Empress Hall in front of a crowd of 5000 spectators. This may well surprise many who think indoor racing is a modern development. just a year later the first national individual champion was crowned at a conventional outdoor track at Hayes in Middlesex again in front of a very large crowd when Lew Grepp from Manchester’s Cheadle Hulme Rangers, won the title. Lew, now in his seventies, still lives in the Cheadle Hulme Area.
The basic concept of cycle speedway hasn’t changed much since the original copy of Speedway in that four riders compete from a standing start for four laps of a small oval red shale track, usually between 65 to 90 meters per lap. Some physical contact is allowed but not the use of excessive force. Racing is for points in either team or individual meetings, the scoring system was changed in the seventies from the original 3-2-1-0 (as used in speedway) to 4-3-2-1. This has a couple of advantages, the point keeps the last rider going for the full race and if a team suffers an exclusion or non finisher they cannot win the heat as the 4 points for the win is negated by the 3 and 2 for second and third which wins the heat 5-4.
The administration of the sport has undergone many changes from the original and much loved NACSA which survived for over two decades. In the sixties the sport went through a period of having two national bodies in NACSA and the British Cycle Speedway Federation which wasn’t a bad situation as they both catered for different needs. NACSA had the majority of clubs and ran the national competitions but many of the clubs would be considered to be at grass roots level whilst the BCSF catered for the elite among clubs, mostly southern based and had a very strict code of conduct and match presentation.
Moves in 1971 brought the two bodies together and the Cycle Speedway Council was formed to unify the sport under one body. The Council underwent several changes until the national government changed the ground rules for the allocation of grant aid for all sporting organisations and cycling speedway had to join all the other various cycling disciplines under British Cycling.
The overall umbrella of one organisation overseeing all forms and levels of cycling from the top professional racing through to the lowest grass roots activities has not been without its problems. In many ways cycle speedway is unlike any other form of cycling. Never commercially driven, it has developed steadily in its own way under its amateur but dedicated specialist leadership. It is in fact more aligned to football in its match format and league structures than to any other form of cycling, it is also the only one that is truly team based, a concept that the BCF seem to have some difficulty with at times.
Far from its primitive origins most of the tracks today, of which there are around forty in the country, are of pretty high standard, mostly situated in sports centres, parks and in some cases attached to private social and sports clubs. Many of the clubs have embraced the requirements of the age and achieved British Cycling Go-Ride or UK Sports Clubmark accreditation with all the issues that they involve.
Although at its best, cycle speedway is a great spectator sport attracting large crowds to some prestige events it has been in the main ignored by the media. All too often matches take place in front of the proverbial “one man and his dog” but there have been major TV coverage in the last three years. Coventry made the breakthrough in 2005 by contracting Sky sports to feature the British individual final, costing the club an incredible £4,500 an enormous sum for an amateur club to find. The following year Bury rose to the challenge and Ipswich kept the continuity going in 2007, all three clubs pulling out all the stops to raise the required finance and raising the standards of cycle speedway match presentation to new heights in the process. The resultant thirty minutes screenings, often repeated, have provided the sport with the best showcase ever and delivering the action to an ever wider audience. It is understood that the Poole League intend to continue this new tradition in 2008.
The sport is currently structured to cater for everyone. The top clubs compete in the Premiere League and also support their regional leagues along with the majority of the others. Some areas also provide more localised racing sometimes midweek and there is a full programme of individual competitions at all age levels, locally, regionally and nationally as well as European and World competitions. The four regions run their competition independently to cater for their membership’s requirements from under eights to over sixties.