A Look Into Histories 2

A LOOK INTO HISTORY TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FIVE

THE FIRST OF FIVE FOOTBALL GROUNDS THAT SHARED WITH SPEEDWAY

Since 1928 and certainly after 1945, football and Speedway were the top spectator sports, with 60,000 regularly attending Wembley Lions and many clubs shared facilities of grounds that were, in many cases in badly need of a major repair. The building of all seater and modern stadiums in the 1980/1990’s put paid to sharing and none exist now. For 284-289 I am writing about five particular Speedway teams that I can back up with their last ever programmes, Wembley: West Ham: Nelson: Romford and Hampden Park, Glasgow. Many other ground shares existed and just a few were, Ashingdon, Barrow Holker Street, Berwick, Celtic Park, Craighead Park, Glasgow( Blantyre Celtic) Cowdenbeath, Edinburgh Old Meadowbank (Leith Athletic), Fleetwood, Halifax, Hastings, Lea Bridge (Clapton Orient), Newtongrange, Paisley, Stamford Bridge and White City London.

Wembley Lions Speedway.

Wembley Lions operated from 1929 until closure in 1971 at the old stadium of 378 yards and from 1946 to 1953 excepting a success for New Cross Rangers in 1948, won successive League Championships, thus were considered the elite. They operated until 1956 but withdrew prior to 1957 season owing to the death of Sir Arthur Elvin, the Chairman of Wembley Stadium. In 1948 many Home meetings were held at Wimbledon because of the Olympic Games. They returned in 1970 but only for two seasons owing to other events held at the venue.

Our Match Programme is for the final home match of Wembley Lions Speedway at Wembley Stadium and was the Simpson Motors Invitation Spectacular on October 2nd with the final League Home match being v Wimbledon prior to that on September 25th. Wembley Lions only lost three times at Home, Belle Vue (The Champions), Poole and Coventry but were woeful away with a meagre three wins, at Hackney, West Ham and Oxford so ended up mid-table. The result of the Silver Dollar Handicap couldn’t have been tighter, at 40-38 to Wembley Lions with Christer Sjosten winning all his four races and the last Wembley scorer, a single point in the final race going to Sverre Harrfeldt. The actual Wembley Speedway final match, though they may not have known it at the time was at Hackney Wick in the Silver Dollar Handicap on Friday October 22nd 1971. Hackney Stadium would eventually be bulldozed to make way for the Olympic Park in 2012.

The very last Speedway match at the old Stadium was the 1981 World Final which I attended and won with a master class by Ole Olsen. Greyhound racing continued at this venue until Friday December 18th 1998 when plans were revealed for the stadium rebuild and the sport that had been responsible for its survival for decades was not included in the plans of the new stadium that we now know.