YOUR Hackney

[TonyMac]

YOUR HACKNEY

 

For my regular Backtracking column in Speedway Star I’m asking fans of different clubs – past and present – for their personal thoughts on what immediately springs to mind whenever their team or track is mentioned.

 

Over the years which riders, meetings, incidents and people associated with this track stand out – and why?

 

It’s not only open to home fans – visitors’ recollections are also welcome. You can mention as many different aspects as you like but please don’t simply type names – add some supporting comment explaining what they mean to you.

 

Best contributions will appear in print. Thank you for taking part.

 

To help prompt you, here are several suggestions…

* ‘Make it a Date, Friday at Eight’

* Leaping Len, Pratty, Benga, Cass the Gas, Thommo, Mort, Plechy, Bo Pete, Pavitt, Russell, Loramski, Louis, Galvin, Moggo, etc

* Hawks and Kestrels

* The ‘lucky’ 50 pence piece

* Snowie Beattie’s weekly fiddle

* Hawkeye and Birdbrain, Bert Busch, Ken Archer, Alf and Keith Weedon, Big Arthur, Bryn Williams

* Superama, Champions Chase KO, NL Best Pairs

* Terry Ripo, Ted Sear

* Sampson’s Coaches

 

Edited May 31 by TonyMac
Typing error

[Goldhawk]

The Magnificent Seven and Skipper Barry Thomas leading out The HACKNEY HAWKS ! The excitement was incredible !! Zuper ZENON was The Goldest Hawk of them All !!! The years roll on but the memories never fade of my youth and Friday at 8 at Hackney Speedway. Leaping Len = LEGEND ! GO HACKNEY !! ( Len should be Sir Len for services to Speedway ) Maybe Speedway Star can start the ball rolling ? Hackney will always be my club and hold very special place in my heart. The racing was just brilliant !! A thrill a minute. Len Silver on the mic geeing up the Hackney crowd after another another brush with officialdom on centre green telephone !!! 

Edited May 31 by Goldhawk
Add

[KevtheRev]

All the above plus:

The First Bend Track shop and the one up the back of the 4th bend grandstand.

Walking from Stratford down the street of a thousand smells.

The coach to Rye House on a Sunday

Beating those fickle Dons, especially in the cup final

[iris123]

Have to agree with Big Arthur. Wasn't he the Mail seller outside the stadium ? First person who met you with a big smile

And I seem to remember two wooden huts as you came in. One was I think the supporters club shop and the other up on the terracing. Both a must look in

I think of all the stars I saw there, it was Paul Whittaker who most impressed me, alongside Barry Thomas of course

Edited May 31 by iris123

[GeneralMelchett]

As a youngster and an Arena-Essex fan we would regularly get to 'ackney for friday at 8. I did enjoy trips there. I have some great memories but we were also there the night Paul Muchene had his crash from which he never recovered and I have never forgotten that! He'd been a promising junior at Arena left to go and ride with a certain Mr Nielsen at Oxford and he had just signed for Hackney when the tragedy happened - bless both him and and his dad who used to always be there, its been so long now and I often reflect on it.

However, always try and finish on a high - yes the magnificent 7, the man selling the star - Andy Galvin invincible. I recall a patched up Arena getting runners up in the NL fours in 87, the NL pairs meetings they were always good!

Huge rivallry with the fans as well but nearly always good natured - although one did call Arena a mickey mouse track much to my annoyance. Think he was miffed we'd just won i think! A certain Ipswich promoters debut season and seeing Mark Loram as a raw 16 year old novice and thinking wow he's good!

For some reason I always had a sniffle / sore throat the day after going to Waterdon Road - my old man always reckoned it was due to all the factories and  industry stuff in the area. Would give anything to have both Hackney and Arena back!

Edited May 31 by GeneralMelchett

[miadfa8]

The sublime Bengt Jansson going out to the fence on bend 3 of the last lap before swooping under an opponent to take the win.  Poetry in motion.

[hawks 1975]

Something I wrote a few years back:

I was introduced to speedway at Plough Lane. Wimbledon Speedway were the red and yellow glamour team in London.They had the ‘proper’ stadium – uniformly enclosed cover all around, with a big glass fronted grandstand down the finishing line straight. They also had these unusual wooden cubicles/desks on the third/fourth bends, out in the open, which if you got there early enough, you could sit behind and then have no excuse if your programme wasn’t filled in neatly. They even had a posh centre-green, with cut grass and even plants or flowers sometimes!

They also had Ronnie Moore, Briggo, Trevor Hedge, plus Reg Luckhurst and Cyril Maidment.  Not to mention Jim Tebby!!

Additionally, it played host to some big individual meetings, like ‘The Laurels’ and ‘The Internationale’, and later ‘The Daily Express Spring Classic’, all of which drew bumper crowds from all over the country, with each club from Glasgow to Leicester to Exeter having their usually vociferous and colourfully attired supporters all in their little clumps, supporting their star man.

SW17 had the Dons – the Belle Vue of the South.

So why did we try this, and reject it in favour of E15 and the Hackney Hawks?

Perhaps the answer lies in a slogan that Len Silver used for awhile as almost a ‘strapline’ in his advertising for his team:

TRAXCITEMENT!

Wimbledon may have had the stadium, but Hackney had the race track!

Who wants to sit in relative comfort, but be bored, when you can go along the (Waterden) road and be excited?

MAKE IT A DATE – FRIDAY AT EIGHT……..and we did from 1971, for twenty years.

[Goldhawk]

5 hours ago, hawks 1975 said:

Something I wrote a few years back:

I was introduced to speedway at Plough Lane. Wimbledon Speedway were the red and yellow glamour team in London.They had the ‘proper’ stadium – uniformly enclosed cover all around, with a big glass fronted grandstand down the finishing line straight. They also had these unusual wooden cubicles/desks on the third/fourth bends, out in the open, which if you got there early enough, you could sit behind and then have no excuse if your programme wasn’t filled in neatly. They even had a posh centre-green, with cut grass and even plants or flowers sometimes!

They also had Ronnie Moore, Briggo, Trevor Hedge, plus Reg Luckhurst and Cyril Maidment.  Not to mention Jim Tebby!!

Additionally, it played host to some big individual meetings, like ‘The Laurels’ and ‘The Internationale’, and later ‘The Daily Express Spring Classic’, all of which drew bumper crowds from all over the country, with each club from Glasgow to Leicester to Exeter having their usually vociferous and colourfully attired supporters all in their little clumps, supporting their star man.

SW17 had the Dons – the Belle Vue of the South.

So why did we try this, and reject it in favour of E15 and the Hackney Hawks?

Perhaps the answer lies in a slogan that Len Silver used for awhile as almost a ‘strapline’ in his advertising for his team:

TRAXCITEMENT!

Wimbledon may have had the stadium, but Hackney had the race track!

Who wants to sit in relative comfort, but be bored, when you can go along the (Waterden) road and be excited?

MAKE IT A DATE – FRIDAY AT EIGHT……..and we did from 1971, for twenty years.

Absolutely . Got it in One ! Wasn’t it just great to also to Whoop those Dons too, especially at Plough Lane . Garry Middleton was KING there . Hackney Speedway 1969 to 1996

Edited May 31 by Goldhawk

[chunky]

6 hours ago, hawks 1975 said:

Wimbledon may have had the stadium, but Hackney had the race track!

So you may think!

At least I didn't have that poxy drive down Mile End Road to get to Plough Lane!

[iris123]

7 hours ago, chunky said:

So you may think!

At least I didn't have that poxy drive down Mile End Road to get to Plough Lane!

I didn't want to bite. But Plough Lane served up some great racing. For a while i went to Wimbledon, Arena and Hackney almost every week, and Plough Lane was at least as good as Hackney. And of course back when Ronnie Moore was riding, nobody could say it was a bad track.

[M.D]

Eastbourne fan and only went to Hackney a few times when I was younger and not in the last few years at the track.

The outstanding memory for me was going up to see Paul Woods for an England V Denmark meeting, Woodsy was a non riding reserve and didn't get an outing.

What caught my eye was a certain Michael Lee, think he got 16 + 1 from 6 rides, he was unbelievable that night.

Edited June 1 by M.D

[hammer1969]

I'll never forget, West Ham Tuesdays 7.45, can't remember the meeting but pretty sure we needed the point, Martin Piddock fell off but needed to finish he got up and pushed his bike from the 3rd bend with Johnny Hoskins next to him giving him encouragement, but obviously not touching bike or Martyn which would have meant disqualification, he made it across the line and all us fans went wild, happy days, a young life taken tragically at Lokeren.  RIP Martin.

[iris123]

One of the meetings that sticks in my mind was the England v Poland meeting where England got a 5-1 in every heat except the last, when I think someone got excluded and it ended up a 3-2 possibly. And it was a decent Poland side 

How things have changed 

Edited June 1 by iris123

[norbold]

My main memory of Hackney is walking across Hackney Marshes to get there. It was the only track in my 60 odd years of speedway that I have lived in walking distance of!

[Chris116]

Living very close to Wimbledon it was the track I visited twice a week for many years (speedway and stock cars) with my parents and Ronnie Moore was my hero.

Hackney was however visited half a dozen times a year with early memories including 'pirate' Provincial League meetings. At that time we used the Central line to Leyton and caught the special bus to the track. The buses were some of the oldest I ever travelled in.

Moving forward to the mid 70s and I took my new girlfriend to her first speedway meeting, a young England verses young Poland event. The Poles had an absolutely dreadful evening and when one fell off early in the meeting and my father casually mentioned that the bikes did not have brakes my girlfriends face went sheet white and she could barely watch the rest of the meeting. 

Moving forward to the late 80s and Race Video asked me to do the commentary at both Hackney and Arena Essex for their Speedway videos. A lasting memory from that time was interviewing Steve Schofield with him stand two steps up the stand steps so our heads were at the same height for the camera.

I just wish Wimbledon, Hackney and Arena Essex were still running as I miss my weekly fixes of two and four wheel racing. 

Edited June 1 by Chris116

[customhouseregularisback]

I wasn’t a Hackney regular but would go when West was were racing, and for individual events, tests, WC qualifying rounds etc. Always enjoyed my visits to Waterden Road. 

[E I Addio]

On 5/31/2024 at 1:23 PM, TonyMac said:

YOUR HACKNEY

 

For my regular Backtracking column in Speedway Star I’m asking fans of different clubs – past and present – for their personal thoughts on what immediately springs to mind whenever their team or track is mentioned.

 

Over the years which riders, meetings, incidents and people associated with this track stand out – and why?

 

It’s not only open to home fans – visitors’ recollections are also welcome. You can mention as many different aspects as you like but please don’t simply type names – add some supporting comment explaining what they mean to you.

 

Best contributions will appear in print. Thank you for taking part.

 

To help prompt you, here are several suggestions…

* ‘Make it a Date, Friday at Eight’

* Leaping Len, Pratty, Benga, Cass the Gas, Thommo, Mort, Plechy, Bo Pete, Pavitt, Russell, Loramski, Louis, Galvin, Moggo, etc

* Hawks and Kestrels

* The ‘lucky’ 50 pence piece

* Snowie Beattie’s weekly fiddle

* Hawkeye and Birdbrain, Bert Busch, Ken Archer, Alf and Keith Weedon, Big Arthur, Bryn Williams

* Superama, Champions Chase KO, NL Best Pairs

* Terry Ripo, Ted Sear

* Sampson’s Coaches

 

Len losing his trousers at the end of season meetings!

[E I Addio]

6 hours ago, norbold said:

My main memory of Hackney is walking across Hackney Marshes to get there. It was the only track in my 60 odd years of speedway that I have lived in walking distance of!

Obviously the racing at ‘Ackney made less of an impression on you than Stan Stevens beating Briggo at the wonderful West Ham ! 

[M.D]

On 6/1/2024 at 8:36 AM, M.D said:

Eastbourne fan and only went to Hackney a few times when I was younger and not in the last few years at the track.

The outstanding memory for me was going up to see Paul Woods for an England V Denmark meeting, Woodsy was a non riding reserve and didn't get an outing.

What caught my eye was a certain Michael Lee, think he got 16 + 1 from 6 rides, he was unbelievable that night.

For information, it was 8th July 1983, England won 65-43

[MassMarauder]

I used to go quite regularly to both Wimbledon & Hackney from 78-86 - but always preferred the racing at Hackney.  I supported neither team.  The bloke running the track shop on bend one always kept back the Kings Lynn progs for me (in the days when tracks sold progs from other tracks).  Around 1985 I started making small stick on photos 2"x3" of popular riders from 35mm photos I would take in the pits - sold a lot of them at Hackney and Rye House to the girl fans of certain 'cute looking' riders.  Never got caught by Len.  I still have a few of Melvyn Taylor.....