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Newcastle
1947 To 1950 |
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The Newcastle Harts
South London v Newcastle
1950 Whipps Cross Comets
Barrie Braidford's Photos |
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Jimmy Smith's Photos |
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Newcastle v Edinburgh 1949 |
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| Photo courtesy of Jimmy Smith |
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| The earliest known photograph of Cycle Speedway
in the Tyneside region, - The
track was in Byker
26th September 1949. Newcastle (Fossway) v Edinburgh. If you have
any memories of the early days or any other information then
please send me an email
Les
and we can improve the website. |
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Introduction
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It is not certain when the first track was built and the name of the
team. We may be confident that after World War 2, Newcastle, as in many
other towns and cities many sports flourished and there would be many
young men riding their push bikes pretending to be their speedway
heroes who they would see at Brough Park every week. It is a small jump
to find a piece of spare land, mark out a track and race against each
other. Before long teams were formed and raced against each other,
facilities became more sophisticated and the best tracks had rising
starting tapes, concrete starting areas and adult supervision. |
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We have evidence of only one track in photographs. the track is shown
above. It was situated on the Fossway, just a hundred yards or so west
of Brough Park. Other tracks known to have existed are at Roman Avenue,
also off The Fossway and at Monkchester Common in Walker. Team names
that have survived are Bensham Broadsiders, Brough Park Eagles, Byker
Red Stars, Team Valley Meteors, Wallsend and Newcastle Harts.
There is photographic evidence of a race jacket with an "N". The test
team that rode at South London had tops with a small N under the left
shoulder.
How long the sport survived is also not known, but it can be assumed
interest would have died off after the closure of Newcastle Speedway at
the end of 1951.
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We now have confirmation of cycle speedway in the region in 1948. The
Speedway Gazette magazine had a regular cycle speedway column, and
this was in the November 13 edition. Seaton Delaval Rams can be added
to our list of teams. |
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Unearthing the facts about the sport on post-war Tyneside
has not been a straightforward task. As research has
progressed, the information coming through has sometimes
confirmed what was already known or surmised, but has also
sometimes changed or contradicted existing assumptions.
There was no dedicated national Cycle Speedway magazine
until late 1948 or early 1949, and the initial information
about the sport’s early days on Tyneside came from a trio
of riders from that era, and depended on their memories,
some faded newspaper clippings and old photographs,
placing 1949 as the possibly earliest date.
The
earliest nation-wide mentions in print of the sport came
in the Junior Gazette in 1947, a section of the Speedway
Gazette, and there was sufficient interest to merit a
regular Cycle Speedway Gazette page within the same
magazine in 1948 (John Leith’s better-known Cycle Speedway
Gazette did not commence publication until 1951). In 1947
there were league competitions in Glasgow and Bradford,
and Tyneside would have been ideally placed between those
regions – but we have no evidence yet that the sport was
running in that year.
The
earliest report of activity on Tyneside appears in an
autumn 1948 issue of the Cycle Speedway Gazette, which
revealed the existence of some form of racing during that
year, which must have been sufficiently developed to
permit discussions with Edinburgh about a Test Match
series in that year (according to anecdotal evidence in
1949 in another national magazine). The series never came
to fruition in 1948, but did take place in 1949.
The
picture has become much clearer as a result of access to
the British Library’s newspaper archives, where copies are
held of the Cycle Speedway Record, Cycle Speedway Monthly
and Amateur Cycle Speedway magazines, as well as Graham
Payne’s Cycle Speedway Annual for 1951-2. These reveal
plenty of information about 1949 and 1950, but the only
references to 1948 are those brief ones in the above
paragraph – so we still cannot set in stone the earliest
date for Cycle Speedway on Tyneside. |
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| Early Team Photos 1949 |
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| Courtesy of Jimmy Smith |
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The British Library
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The British Library is a great source of written information. Les
Gustafson visited it a couple of times, this is what he found. |
Cycle Speedway Record
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17 June 1949. Newcastle and
District Control Board was organising a knock-out competition for
all interested teams Organiser was Edmund Hall, 50 Bede Close, Holy
Cross, Wallsend. |
Webmaster John Skinner says: I
know Edmund Hall. We met a few times around 2004/2005. Edmund
it turned out was a big speedway fan and he was involved with
the Wallsend Festival when I provided a Newcastle Speedway
publicity stall in Wallsend's festival for 2 years running.
Edmund was quite an age but he told me he loved his speedway. |
| John says: Keith Dyer met with Edmund Hall
in June 2014 and obtained some photos and recollections from
Edmund about cycle speedway in the 1940s. If you want to
skip to the Edmund Hall page follow this link
Ed Hall |
1 July 1949 Mr Hall visits the
magazine in London and tells them the Newcastle League consists of the following teams
Walker Mustangs,
Byker Meteors,
Byker Red Stars,
Holy Cross Demons, and
Bensham Broadsiders (Gateshead),
with challenge meetings with Seaton
Deleval
Rams (North Tyneside). They were hoping that Wallsend Council would
build a track (Eds note, nothing came of this as far as I am aware).
Cycle Speedway Monthly
April 1949 Jack Marshall, 28
Hartburn Terrace Seaton Deleval, captain of the Rams appeals to the League for
admission, it is reluctant to do so due to the distance
from Newcastle. ( In fact about 5 miles. ed ). The above proposed
challenge meetings would appear to be a compromise. The Edinburgh
correspondent of the magazine revealed talks were held in 1948
regarding Test Matches with Newcastle.
Sep/Oct 49 This issue reported
the first meeting between Scottish and English clubs. The meeting was held at Wallyford
(Edinburgh), the result was a win for Newcastle
Edinburgh 49 - Newcastle 58.
Oct/Nov 49 This issue carried a
report of the return meeting. The result was a win for Newcastle 73
- 52.
It commented that the Newcastle
track had an automatic starting gate ( see photos ed ). Home rider
Alex Temple broke a toe colliding with it! The steward
was home
official Chris Higgins, and police were in attendance to control the
large crowd. Home stars were then lost to the sport, Billy Bird
(conscripted and Jack Parker (retired).
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| Evidence of Cycle Speedway on Tyneside in 1948 |
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Wilbur Lamoreaux
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Courtesy of Barrie Braidford |
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Billy Smith, Wilbur Lamoreaux and Jim
Parker |
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Newcastle v
Wallyford Aces |
Captured by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle is the opening
meeting at the track just a hundred yards west of the speedway track at
Brough Park. The Fossway can be seen at the left of the picture.The
meeting was The Newcastle Ns v Wallyford Aces from
Edinburgh and was held on 26 September 1949 and won by Newcastle 73-51.
It is believed a second meeting was held on the same day. |
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Newcastle Heading for a 5-1 |
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"More action from the start. Not sure of the opposition, one of the riders
still wearing his tie!" |
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A view of the pits area. Standing on the left smoking a cigarette is Alby
Hiscock. He is the brother of well known speedway and cycle speedway
supporter Jackie Hiscock from Byker. |
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The above meeting as seen from an Edinburgh perspective as printed in the
Cycle Speedway Gazette |
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| The Newcastle Harts |
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Photo Courtesy of
George Ince |
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Yes the spelling of the teams nickname Harts is correct.
This photo is from the 1940s.
John Skinner's uncle George Ince
is in the centre. I believe the team was named the "Harts" after Georgie's speedway hero, Oliver Hart. The name also fits with the
Diamonds as a playing card suit
This is the Harts Cycle
Speedway Team from the 1940's. Left to Right: unknown, Billy Miller, Billy
Bird, with George Ince in the middle wearing a tie. Anyone recognise any of the
lads faces?
Jim "Nosey" Parker has been in touch That's Jim in
the white Jersey. he says George Moody is the first on the left, He became a
Jeweller and lives in Felixstowe, The little one in front is Alex Temple who
emigrated to South Africa. Far right is B Gill
If you recognise yourself or anyone else in the photo please email
me Keith |
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Barrie Braidford's Photos |
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Late 1940s -1950 |
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Courtesy of Barrie Braidford |
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Byker Quarry |
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1950 |
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Courtesy of Barrie Braidford |
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Edinburgh rider riding a girls frame! |
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Courtesy of Barrie Braidford |
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Jim Parker Newcastle v Edinburgh Sep 1949 Byker Quarry. I
wonder what the electrical appliance was, could it have been an
amplifier for the microphone Jim is using? |
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Courtesy of Barrie Braidford |
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Keith has obtained a number of 1950 photographs from Barrie
Braidford. Barrie is the uncle of Jim Parker who features on
most of these pics. I believe Jim is far right on the above
pic |
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Diamonds Resting |
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Courtesy of Barrie Braidford |
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Tunstall Avenue Track |
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Courtesy of Barrie Braidford |
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George Moody sliding, Jim Parker arms out. This was at the
Tunstall Avenue track |
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Courtesy of Barrie Braidford |
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Jim Parker training at Tunstall Avenue track |
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Bradford v Newcastle |
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1950 |
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Courtesy of Barrie Braidford |
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Grange Leopards Bradford v Newcastle Magpies August 1950 |
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Jesmond Vale Track |
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1950 |
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Courtesy of Barrie Braidford |
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Jesmond Vale track May 27th 1950 Jim Parker left |
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Courtesy of Barrie Braidford |
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Jesmond Vale track May 27th 1950 |
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South London v Newcastle
1950
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Easter 1950 saw a Newcastle team ride three meetings in South London. Jimmy
Smith has managed to track down a former rider, Dennis Daniel who was
present at the meetings and has let us have copies of photos and press
cuttings from the series. Other photos from the same time are from the
collection of former Newcastle rider from the 1940s and manager from the
1960s, Jackie Hiscock. |
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Jimmy Smith's Photos |
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1950
Newcastle tour of South London |
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Newcastle Racing in South London |
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1950 |
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Peckham Stars v Newcastle |
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Courtesy of Jimmy Smith |
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Ray Braddon, Vic Winter, Henry Brand, A Palmer, Joe Goody, Jacky Lunan,
Terry Vintner, G Luck
South East London Test team v Newcastle
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Newcastle riders, officials and supporters at London Euston Station prior
to the Test Matches |
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Press cuttings from the three meetings. Although Newcastle lost all
three they put up a decent performance from what were probably more
experienced riders |
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2 bikes belonging to Newcastle local league rider Jackie Hiscock around
1949 |
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Team photo of Troy Town Woodpeckers at the home of the Cardinal
Monarchs, one of the tracks that hosted the Test Matches
Troy Town Woodpeckers circa 1951 at the Cardinal Monarchs track.
Left to right. Cyril Cooper, Johnny Last, Brian Jarrett, Maurice Rowland,
Harry Rowland, Dennis Daniel, AN Other, ? Reeves, Miss AN Other
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The young lad
in the light-coloured jersey holding the handlebars – Dennis
Daniel – spectated at that South London v Newcastle Test Match at
the Cardinal Monarchs’ track in 1950, and provided some of the
newspaper cuttings and photographs in this section. Just enough of
the track can be seen to show that it was a typical post-war
bomb-site strip, where one side of a London street had been
flattened in a bombing raid and the ground commandeered by the
local kids to make a cycle speedway circuit.
The film
“Skid Kids” featured teams from two similar tracks just a short
distance from Cardinal Bourne Street – Bermondsey Greyhounds and
Ruskin Flyers, and Dennis Daniel was there too – he did some
stunt-double racing in the film, but reckons that his efforts all
ended up on the cutting-room floor. It’s hard to tell, however, as
all the riders were wearing helmets and face-masks. |
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| Peckham Stars |
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| Courtesy of Les Gustafson |
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| This is the track of Peckham Stars at
East Surrey Grove which was the venue for the third test in the
series versus Newcastle. The track of the Cardinal Monarchs
hosted the First Test and the Second Test was at Depford, near the
river |
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More From
The 1940's |
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Les Gustafson has collated the latest
information we have on the early years of the sport. |
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Although,
inevitably, the focus of post-war Cycle Speedway was Newcastle – the
known tracks were within a stone’s throw of Brough Park Speedway Stadium
, and one of the teams was called Brough Park Eagles – there was
activity of a sort throughout the North East. |
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unlikely centres just after the war would have to have been Seaton
Delaval. The Cycle $speedway Gazette of Autumn 1948 (the Speedway
Gazette of those years had a section devoted to the pedal-sport variety)
mentions the Seaton Delaval Rams (wonder if they suffered from the
Seaton Delaval Ram’s Head curse in their matches ?) and their proposed
Winter League encompassing teams from Byker, Team Valley and Bensham
(Gateshead). |
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| The Cycle Speedway
Gazette was where teams and riders could make contact with each other,
and that Autumn 1948 issue included a plea from a Forest Hall resident
for a Newcastle Association, and in the January 1949 edition there was a
brief Directory of Teams, which included Billingham Hornets from County
Durham. So far, little is known about activity on either bank of the
Tees just after the war, although with the sport in existence on
Tyneside and then just down the A1 at Catterick Army Camp, it would not
be unreasonable to expect racing on Tees-Side too. The Billingham
Panthers appear in the list of teams in “Fifty Years of Cycle Speedway”,
but there is no clue to the period in which they may have existed, so
Billingham Hornets is the only team we can confidently associate with
this era. |
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| In the
November/December 1950 edition of Amateur Cycle Speedway magazine there
is an invitation from a Ken Aleringham of 47 Garnet Street,
Middlesbrough, for any interested rider to join his team. Unfortunately,
he does not give the name of his team, nor of any other teams which may
have been racing at that time in the area. |
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mention of the bomb-site track in South Shields has been amplified with
the help of Cycle Speedway’s Archivist-in-Chief, Dave Hunting, who
supplied pages from the Cycle Speedway Annual of 1951/52, including the
Directory of Teams and Tracks, which listed five teams on Tyneside –
three from Newcastle, one from Wallsend and one from South Shields,
giving the track address for the latter club as River Drive. River Drive
is the road which loops around what was the bomb-site cited as the track
location in the internet piece. The South Shields Secretary was named as
N (Norman) Carney, who lived near the seafront in South Shields (not far
from The Leas where the track was in 1965). |
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| A South Shields landmark close to where the River View bomb-site track
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unfortunate fact: when the 15/16 year olds in Newcastle and South
Shields started their racing in 1965, they were not only unaware of each
other but also of their post-war predecessors - yet much of the old
information now on display on this site was available then, and memories
would have been sharper too. These days we depend on the memory banks of
a trio of Newcastle riders from that earlier era – Archie Cooper, who
was in the Newcastle team which raced in South London, Jack Hiscock, who
provided the photos in the Catterick section of the site, and John
Robson, who doesn’t remember the River Drive track in Shields, but does
recollect a track at Simonside, near the South Shields football stadium
at Simonside Hall (which must have been in 1951 (?), after the football
club moved to that site, and may well reflect the fact that the River
Drive track was no longer available due to redevelopment of that area). |
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Wartime bomb damage to the centre of South
Shields. The bomb-site Cycle Speedway track is just to the right.
River Drive stretches away towards the bridge in the background |
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There must have
been contact between Newcastle and South Shields, as Norman Carney is
shown as a member of the Brough Park Eagles team which raced in the
early meetings at the new Catterick Army Camp circuit in the Summer of
1950. The track had been built by Army Engineers at the Camp’s Peronne
Sports Field and the Catterick Lions were able to draw on riders from
existing teams doing their National Service there. They were from far
and wide - the Tarrant brothers and Kid South from London, Glaswegians
Norm Whitfield and Bob Devine, Doug Wotton from Bristol and Eric Ashby
from Norwich, to name but a few. The star of the first meeting on 1st
July 1950 was nineteen-year old Doug Wotton from Whitby Lions, who
scored a fifteen-point maximum in Catterick Lions’ win over Newcastle’s
Brough Park Eagles, and also set the track record. Doug – now eighty
years of age – remembers the away trips to Newcastle, Scotland and
Bradford, and that the Lions entered their second season in 1951, but he
was posted to Germany in August of that year.
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This highlights the
drawback of a team made up of National Servicemen - they were liable to
be posted away at any time, or else complete their 18 months/two years
of conscription and then return home. Norman Whitfield was also posted
to Germany, and Bob Devine – one of the guiding lights of the Lions team
– was back racing in his native Glasgow in 1952 for Pollok Stars, so it
may be that Catterick Lions had a relatively short life-span.
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Les Gustafson says: Further research in the British
Library Newspaper Archive has answered some of the questions
raised in preceding paragraphs and in Edmund Hall's section. In an
article dated 16th March 1950 in the 'Shields Daily/Evening News'
the paper's Cycling Correspondent Jeff Gauntlett listed some of
the teams competing in the NACSA-affiliated Northumberland and
Durham League - Aces, Diamonds, Byker Red Stars, South Shields,
Bensham and Wallsend (Wallabies), so it is clear that clubs from
both sides of the Tyne were racing against each other in matches
over 16 heats, on tracks of length varying between 75 and 120
yards. With 'News Chronicle Trophy' events on the horizon, teams
were invited to send entry applications to Jeff himself or to
Northumberland Control Board member E. Hodgson (the same Ernie
Hodgson who was the winner of the 1949 Individual Championship at
Wallsend, as evidenced by the mention of his address in Alfred
Street, Byker).
The article continued by mentioning that limbering up for their
London visit between 7th and 10th April the Newcastle Test Team
would be racing against 'The Rest' at the Byker track on Sunday
March 19th. A return visit to Tyneside by a London team was
scheduled for the Whitsun week-end (or during the August Bank
Holiday, depending on which of two articles on the subject was
correct), but it is not clear whether the return fixture took
place at all.
One of the teams not mentioned among League members was
probably the Northside Flyers, the club run by Jack Hiscock's
brother Alby, who took on the Diamonds in the 'New Chronicle'
Regional Round, losing by 55-35 at the Diamonds' track in Jesmond
Vale (the Flyers raced at Woodside Avenue, off The Fossway - both
track addresses listed in the 1951 Cycle Speedway Annual). The
Diamonds subsequently went down to defeat by Grange Leopards of
Bradford in the following round. The Wallsend club were listed in
the 1951 Annual at Holy Cross, with Secretary I. Hall who had been
a member of Wallsend Wasps in 1949, so there had either been an
amalgamation with Holy Cross Demons or else a take-over of their
track for the 1950 season.
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Whipps Cross Comets |
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Alan Stevens says: The guy on the left is Malcolm Brown he
graduated to the real thing and rode for among others the
Leicester Horseshoes. The Whipps Cross Comets were pretty
big around the East End of London, Johnny Brown on bike was mates
with many of the Wolves riders. I am second from right.
I have lived in California the last fifty years.
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