I actually attended the first ever meeting (and the last) at Smallmead as a school boy. It was in my eyes at the time, a brilliant new track, just down the road from swindon where I lived at the time and had exciting kiosks dotted around the stadium selling such things as bottles of coke and such like!
The track seemed to be an excellent shape, the crowds in the early days were very good too. The covered back straight and viewing area for the pits made it a stadium I always looked forward to visiting.
I didn't go to speedway in the 80's or the 90's but retuned in 2006, where I visited Smallmead again for the first time in 20 odd years. I got the shock of my life! It was a run down ramshackle of a place and within a year or so had been flattened. Very sad. But holds some fond memories for me.