Nigel

This may be of interest? Here is another early dirt track race:- A 1 mile trotting track "The Empire City" Yonkers, New York 1903 Hard packed surface (contemporary photo). There was a lot of motorcycle racing on the concrete velodromes in 1903, Canning town London, Aston Villa, Bristol, Workington etc. Also Fallowfields which I think was a flat hard rolled cinder track?. Much racing in France also. Bristol may have been the first track in the world or at least in England to suffer a major crash with fatalities. In May 1903 the Bristol velodrome (concrete) which had only shallow banking was the scene of 2 fatalities when 2 riders collided mid turn and careered off, shot over the barricade and killed two boys, also seriously injuring 7 other spectators and a rider. Sounds very similar to the Great Velodrome disaster in New York. Have a nice easter speedway history fans ...if the weather lets you

trouble is ... one sermon wont covert the heathen (no jokes about Cradley please) Norman we need to get the story out to a wider audience.. need a few websites to host it . The fact that Darrell thingy wrote a column and was a speedway corespodent says it all ...another journalist .. not a historian. just used to writing bumf for the general public ..just filling column inches... O Maitland Maitland were for art thou West Maitland ...for thou art nought but a 700yrd (640m) trotting track covered in Grass (With apologies to Will Spokeshave) An article in a British motorcycle magazine.. From an Englishman Racing the USA... says racing on 800yd (half mile) tracks with a top surface of softish earth with riders skid turning the bends.. called dirt track racing, would do well if introduced into this country.. the date of the article 1923 yes 1923. Portman rd ..just one of many race meetings on rolled cinder athletic and cycling tracks in the early years of the twentieth century . An advert for High Beech feb 1928... says .. as seen in Australia and the USA Time to fire up the Tardis ..back to West Maitland 1923. someone called Hoskins is starting a brand new sport.

Im sure Norman wont mind me replying. hope you dont... The Sheperds Bush track was a banked concrete oval cycling track, there were several in London on which motorcycles raced on a regular basis. This track should not be confused with the White City track.

Blimey turn your back for a min and they post in their thousands. Interesting stuff gents .... Of all the criteria for what constitutes real speedway there is I believe one certainty "Broadsiding the turns" this technique marked the sport out from other disciplines, this is what made the sport attractive, caught the imagination of the general public.... erm I might add..IMO Using all the other criteria, surface material, track length, shape etc as a definitive is treading on dogy ground as there are many anomalies. One possible reason for the lack of broadsiding was no doubt the use of stripped down road bikes, somewhat difficult to slide as they were not designed for the purpose. West Maitland was a Grass track using stripped down road bikes When the sport first hit Britain it was known as Dirt Track Racing.. As far as I am concerned the first Speedway meeting (as opposed to real Speedway) was Camberley May 1927. The ACU sanctioned the meeting... yes official ... a permit was issued for 'Dirt Track Racing'... A travesty of our sport it may have been but these people were pioneering a sport they knew little about. Same with Droylsdon, Fred Fearnley of the SM MMC is quoted as saying "The meeting was something of an experiment as we know little about the sport". again a permit for Dirt track racing was issued. I have only very recently found out that at Droylsdon 1927 the track was so narrow that for safety reasons the riders started off one at a time!!!! What of Audenshaw 3-3-1928 no proof of broadsiding ...yet Audenshaw 5th May 1928 one rider in particular was noted for his deft use of the brakes..but he may have been the only one to do so? I think you will find the Star article did not give any definitive answers ..it left the reader to make up their own minds. I think Norbold is right on the evidence found at the time the article was written the meeting at High Beech 9th April is the best candidate for the first real Speedway meeting. IMO The 7th April may well be a candidate but until we have a written report by an eye witness it is just speculation, however compelling the arguments Errrm......IMO

Rolling starts were used in 1928.. latter came clutch starts..then the starting gate 1934 I believe helmet covers were first used by ISL tracks May/June 1928 Wolverhampton and Foleshill (coventry).. races were over 5 laps usually with 5 or more riders.

In reply to Cyclone. Some of us spend many hours trawling through old newspapers, magazines, old speedway mags etc at the National Newspaper Library and others plus various archives etc' around the country... most of us are not privy to letters, diaries etc "we have to go by what we find". We do not have the luxury of owning an historic programme with all the details, particularly as yours is probably the only copy in existence. We have been unable to find any meaningful details of the Saturday meeting , we may have missed them or they may exist elsewhere. Having read your evidence and opinion, you are possibly correct and sat the 7th was the first real speedway ..That is until someone comes up with evidence to the contrary, But if they relied on Digger Pugh training them then there wasn’t any broadsiding. Colin Watson would not have learnt anything from Pugh. Broadsiding on the sat 7th event is without written evidence an assumption/opinion. Of course if any solid evidence of broadsiding can be found for Audenshaw March 3rd. Then this discussion is academic. (Track length argument aside) Digger Pugh:- I have to laugh ....the euphemism is lovable rogue.. Born in Northampton , he had never seen dirt track racing until it arrived in England, how he blagged his way into that job ?? “gift of the gab. Although it seems he could turn his hand to almost anything. How he demonstrated broadsiding on a gutless 250cc Dunelt 2 stroke is beyond me. (Wouldn’t pull the skin of a rice puddin) I think his tenure as trainer was short lived as was his speedway career. His only other involvement with speedway was helping to organise an amateur speedway on a track of soil covered with cinders near Hannington Northamptonshire. (That says it all) He then went back to showbiz! If only we could have got him working with Johnnie Hoskins!!!

Digger Pugh thats a laugh that man could tell a tall story. he new as much about speedway as I know about brain surgery. he rode a 250cc Dunelt 2 stroke still no time to expand on the life and times of Digger Pugh .. will have to post later. and Pugh was English

Thanks for that Bavarian I have read reports of Dirt Track racing in Italy in 1911. No doubt like most industrialised countries racing on oval tracks began around the turn of the century. The British Press reported on the dirt track meetings held in Germany in the 1920s One report remarked on the skid turning techniques used, reminiscent of our own skid turning exponents it said !!! I assume that the Cologne meeting being inspired by reports from overseas can only mean Australia ? Pity more information cant be found.

Very interesting I would love to know more .. It is a fact that American style dirt track racing on the big horse trotting tracks was taking place in Germany and Austria through out the 1920s

Bit more fuel for the fire Claude Langdon the man who ran Stamford Bridge claims he was planning to introduce speedway to England before the High Beech meeting took place.. claims his was the first real speedway in the country Langdon was a showman with a big ego... and in the Hoskins traddition ... he could tell a tale He should have stuck to Ice skating shows.... then we would have had speedway on ice....real cool

Comparing the Hoskins Grass track at Maitland 1923 with a motorised bicyle race in 1902 is stretching the point a tad.. a 'similar' motor cycle race.. he must be joking.. chalk and cheese come to mind..

A fair point ! no doubt many others feel the same way....... but those who are passionate about history may not find satisfaction in the one size fits all approach ?

To quote Jim Blanchard from the 'Speedway History Forum'...................Hope you dont mind Jim Quote:- Steve Wright in the afternoon on BBC Radio two has the definitive answer with one of their 'factoids'. The day before yesterday one included the following read out by Janey Lee Grace. It was, and I paraphrase. 'The first motorcycle speedway race took place at Maitland Australia in 1925' -: un quote Still I suppose the answer is in line with the intellectual level of the Programme

Dan Brown ! Or perhaps a writer of political speeches

It is the purpose of history to get as near to the truth as possible and to give credit (or damnation) to those who made it and not let others bathe in the un deserved limelight or notoriety Whoever wrote the piece in the FIM mag. just cobbled together some un researched stories and in so doing caused an injustice to history and to those who created it. I do not think anyone has set out to denigrate Jonnie Hoskins as a person; I/We just want to get at the truth. I/we are not out to “get” Jonnie Hoskins. Hoskins was a great showman and promoter and I wish we had more like him in speedway today! It has been suggested that Hoskins himself is not responsible for these myths, this may be true? (There are I think articles attributed to Hoskins where he says he invented speedway and brought it to England?) But Hoskins is oft quoted as saying that he invented Speedway, this may have been a tongue in cheek statement ?. Ian Hoskins has I believe gone on record as saying his father invented and introduced speedway to England, when these statements have been challenged Ian has defended his father’s mythical stories vigorously and indeed insulted a well know Australian historian. So the son carries on the myths. It also begs the question where did Ian hear the stories? Like all good showman JH could tell a good story, he knew how to spice things up ! he knew the value of self publicity “I invented speedway etc” would have done much for his kudos (er... assuming he actually claimed it) I await the reply from Ian Hoskins

Many thanks for that info Team Bouchard

I still feel there is some uncertainty as to which year My thanks to all you good people for your replies to my question...

Can anyone help? My memory must be failing (senior Moments ) but I always seem to remember Long Eatons Colours in the 1960s were yellow and green. but I now understand they were changed in 1963 to yellow and red and I have a ref to red and amber in 1965 1965 is the year I am interested in. Must be some long Eaton experts out there

Oh dear ! seems quite a common occurrence, heres me thinking my hero may be the only one.. silly me shows how much I can remember of recent times but I can recall the past much easier .. Still Hunt may have been the first to ahieve this feat.. anyone know of any earlier double maximums?

In a double header at Birmingham 26-9-1953 Alan Hunt scored two Maximums, 12 from 4 rides as Wembley went down 46-38 and 15 from 5 rides as Coventry got a battering. Has any other rider achieved this feat?

Book, Books.... they like to embellish and exaggerate ...to make things more interesting ....Journalistic licence.. Something that creates the myths of history!!!

There were rumours in the pits that night he won the Scottish open.. that he was riding a 'big un' Poor Bill he was one of the few riders who got stitched up buying one of those "Matchless" speedway bikes

No probs Jim

That design featured on a number of tracks programes in 1928-1930 I believe sheffield was one. take a look at the 'old programme gallery' ISL was dissolved in Dec 1934..but they may have ceased trading a couple of yrs before that.

A company may cease trading but it may be a long time before it is dissovled.. the dates may be found in the London Gazzette. Unfortunatly the records of ISL have been destroyed or at least Companies house does not have them neither do they know where they may be. ISL had 5 tracks. The first was White City (London) , Harringay, Wimbledon, Hall Green (Birmingham) and for a short time Kirkmanshulme Lane Manchester. all opened in 1928. Be intesting to see those badges. Oh!.. and if any one is interested Vivian Van Damm owner of the Windmill theatre was a director of ISL