Tracks around football pitches

[ch958]

just looking at some pics of Coatbridge and i wondered do these tracks generally produce good racing. I know Berwick gets criticised occasionally and I've never been to Ashfield. I personally never saw much overtaking at the Shay, although it was spectacular. What do people think

[coldace]

Somerton Park Newport certainly didn't produce good racing

[racers and royals]

Bristol was the worst ever track man has produced- even made Tampere look good !!!!!

[Sotonian]

Poole wasn't too bad.

[stevehone]

Canterbury was good, although a bit narrow.

Loved the old Poole track

[HGould]

From my recollection Bristol wasn't proper shale, wasn't it sand based as they had used sand old dog track. 

Steve Gresham liked it I recall.

I'm sure i went to a track at Weymouth (not Radipole Lane) that was round a footy pitch.

Halifax was horrible, everything about the place was horrible, granite dust, steel fence, dangerous banking, Charlie Monk liked it i remember and the Pusey's.

Paisley that was round a footy pitch early 70's?

Canterbury used to love going there in days when Brummies had Georgie Major and Arthur Browning and Phil Herne.

 

 

 

Edited June 17, 2019 by HGould
slight typos

[chunky]

1 hour ago, stevehone said:

Canterbury was good, although a bit narrow.

Loved the old Poole track

You beat me to it!  I always enjoyed my trips to Kingsmead, but as you say, it was a little on the narrow side.

I don't know if ch958 was keeping it just to football (well, association football to be precise), but there were also tracks with rugby pitches, like Exeter and Hull (Boulevard).  I think they would be very similar.  Oh, and how about another rugger venue - Odsal?  The one observation I can make is that some of these were pretty narrow, with Hull being one.

One I never went to was Love Street, home of Paisley.  Anyone here have any memories of that?

Steve

 

[Vincent Blachshadow]

29 minutes ago, chunky said:

You beat me to it!  I always enjoyed my trips to Kingsmead, but as you say, it was a little on the narrow side.

I don't know if ch958 was keeping it just to football (well, association football to be precise), but there were also tracks with rugby pitches, like Exeter and Hull (Boulevard).  I think they would be very similar.  Oh, and how about another rugger venue - Odsal?  The one observation I can make is that some of these were pretty narrow, with Hull being one.

One I never went to was Love Street, home of Paisley.  Anyone here have any memories of that?

Steve

 

Hull reopened at Craven Park in the mid 90s, which was also around a rugby league pitch, Hull Kingston Rovers this time. Never went to The Boulevard but I was told that Craven Park wasn't quite as narrow. I've seen some good meetings at Derwent Park, Workington, which was around a rugby pitch.

Edited June 17, 2019 by Vincent Blachshadow

[Chris116]

The short lived and VERY NARROW track at Romford was at the old football stadium. I remember enjoying my visits as a young teenager but it may be due to rose tinted spectacles syndrome! 

[Tsunami]

3 hours ago, coldace said:

Somerton Park Newport certainly didn't produce good racing

Totally square. Gaters track.

[chunky]

27 minutes ago, Vincent Blachshadow said:

Hull reopened at Craven Park in the mid 90s, which was also around a rugby league pitch, Hull Kingston Rovers this time. Never went to The Boulevard but I was told that Craven Park wasn't quite as narrow. I've seen some good meetings at Derwent Park, Workington, which was around a rugby pitch.

I was 4000 miles away when Craven Park opened, and I really don't know anything about the place. I only went to The Boulevard once (Royal Wedding Day in 1981), but you can see from vids on YouTube it wasn't the widest track!

Yeah, I forgot about Workington. Only went there the once, but I was very impressed with the racing.

Steve

[Fortythirtyeight]

Can't think of any track around any pitch that could be classed as a good ' race ' track , passed or present.

Glasgow is awful despite the efforts to improve it.

Berwick and Workington , much better tracks but suffer from narrow exits to the bends spoiling the overall shape and therefore racing lines, most crashes at these tracks occurred at the exits of the corners unlike smaller tracks.

Paisley was very poor, Halifax was spectacular but home riders dream. Hull was very narrow  and rough at times. Exeter was the same and , like Halifax, the steel fence put visiting riders off.

[Fromafar]

IMO 

nothing wrong with Ashfield

Halifax was good, as was Workington.

Coatbridge was good.

Old Meadowbank was great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ch958]

just looked at youtube footage of Ashfield and it looks fab racing

Rugby pitches are generally smaller than football pitches aren't they

 

[Barney Rabbit]

Only went to a couple of league matches at Wembley and wasn't impressed but the couple of big meetings were something else. Saw some great racing then - or maybe I thought I did because of the occasion.

Edited June 17, 2019 by Barney Rabbit

[martinmauger]

[Sorry, Text Editors Issues]  Tracks around football / rugby pitches always tend to be a tad narrow & a bit square due to stadium design.  At the Boulevard (415 yds / 379m), the track was a bit square around the line and the straights were a bit (a bit?) skinny but the bends were pretty wide.  With Ivan's arrival the track was widened winter of 1977; the fence was taken out on the bends and back straight and the fence along the straights extended to allow better more entry and exit room on all 4 turns.  Though the back straight gradually narrowed once more season on season as more and ever lighter in colour grass strips were laid on the inside.  As is traditional due to lack of room the 'end zone' (?) corners were lifted then replaced for each speedway meeting.  The surface tended to be a bit rough too for home advantage, all that said we see some good racing there.  Speedway only ended after rugby club Hull FC's fortunes improved and was evicted end of 1981 but theroetically could have continued til 2008 until the stadium demolished to make way for an academy.

In 1995 Hull KR's Craven Park , the track (378 yds / 346m - almost identical to Wembley) was sandwiched between the rugby pitch and dog track but only approx 6ft was taken off the touchlines and goalline (?) at each end of the rugby pitch, I know this to be true as I bunked off college to watch it happen.   The end zone corners were also lifted then replaced for each speedway meeting and the track was bit wider on the straights (I paced them out !) at 8.5m / 28ft and about 14m / 46ft on the bends and was a better overall shape but also 'tight & technical' as Nige & Kelv would say, so the surface needed to be a bit slick.  The surface and therefore the racing improved as time went on but annoyingly,  it was not permitted to build much banking on the bends as apparently "it would have interferred with viewing the dog track", I went to greyhounds a few times and it wouldn't have.  To be honest, as with the Boulevard and most tracks really, CP provided some great racing and also some average heats, it happens everywhere.  Speedway ended once more end of 2005 as with greyhounds already gone, ironically to the Boulevard, the rugby pitch was enlarged and tentative plans were in place to lengthen the speedway track, similar to Workington's with each bend like Workys' turns 1 & 2.  But again, like Workintgon, after winning the treble in 2004, the speedway faced big money problems and sadly was forced to close once more.   Both rugby clubs appeared to have short memories, forgetting when they were more than grateful for the extra income.  It was physically j-u-s-t possible to still fit in a speedway track so the sport could have continued until 2010 or so but the erection of new stand on turns 3 & 4 mean it is no longer possible.

 ASFAIK no footage exists of Hull White City (1930's) or Hull, Hedon (Hull Angels 1948/9) but posters and fellow track anoraks, can see the later 2 Hull circuits for themselves, won't bother with links as they often don't work but type into Youtube: Hull Speedway, Hull Speedway Yorkshire Television Trophy, Hull Speedway at Craven Park or Hull Vikings v Belle Vue Aces 1999 to see for yourself....

 

 

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by martinmauger
spelling & grammar 3x, sigh

[Fortythirtyeight]

1 hour ago, ch958 said:

just looked at youtube footage of Ashfield and it looks fab racing

Rugby pitches are generally smaller than football pitches aren't they

 

It's definetly not

and No.

[pawel115]

Wroclaw track is around American Football pitch.

[steve roberts]

13 hours ago, Vincent Blachshadow said:

Hull reopened at Craven Park in the mid 90s, which was also around a rugby league pitch, Hull Kingston Rovers this time. Never went to The Boulevard but I was told that Craven Park wasn't quite as narrow. I've seen some good meetings at Derwent Park, Workington, which was around a rugby pitch.

There was of course the occasion that John Berry produced a measuring tape during the interval at Hull and proceeded to measure the width much to the annoyance of the home promoter Ian Thomas.

[James Carter]

Interesting topic. Speaking to my dad who went to Halifax 1965-84 I think he would disagree with it been a horrible track. His view was that it was super fast (perhaps only Crewe faster?) and caught a lot of visiting riders out. Back then the spectacle of speedway was so exciting and coupled with the noise and slug of air at the back of the Shay main stand it was thrilling (similar times eh?) Another poster mention Chris Pusey who remains my dad's favourite ever rider and after watching speedway for over 50 years that's pretty good going. A friend of his has actually reproduced an exact Chris Pusey replica bike but that's for a different thread

Onto Bradford... Another track around a pitch. I'd say for most of the 20 years racing at Odsal was generally OK. Decent shape and plenty wide enough. Then in the last few years before closure  with the likes of Wigg, Loram, Screen, Sean Wilson the track was prep'd in such a way that you could see visually the outside of the bends was thick with extra dirt. All of sudden you had the most tremendous race track. Just wished they'd done it 15 years earlier!!