A Look Into Histories 2

A LOOK INTO HISTORY TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY EIGHT

ROMFORD SPEEDWAY AND FOOTBALL AT BROADLANDS

In December 1968, rival companies became interested in promoting speedway at the Rochester Stadium in Kent. In January 1969, the stadium owners agreed to holding speedway and the British Speedway Promoters issued a licence. The team who would be known as the Rochester Bombers, would consist largely of the disbanded Weymouth Eagles team.
Rochester Bombers started their league campaign at the beginning of the 1969 British League Division two season but the Kent council suddenly ruled against permission to use the facility for speedway, despite the Rochester Town Council being in agreement with the speedway. The club promoters Wally Mawdsley and Pete Lansdale started to seek a new venue. The last fixture with the team known as Rochester was on 10 May 1969. A new site was found within a month at the Brooklands Stadium, Romford and the team changed their name to Romford Bombers and the opening fixture on 29 May, saw 3,000 spectators attend. The team finished the season in a respectable third place.
The team spent two more seasons in the British League Division Two, finishing in eighth and twelfth places respectively.
The promotion was quite successful but after complaints from the start, it took a local resident to obtain a court order closing the track due to noise pollution. The promotion transferred to the West Ham Stadium and renamed the team the West Ham Bombers for the 1972 season but were forced to close in May of that year due to its demolition prior to the building of 200 houses. Their place in the league was taken by the non-league team running at Barrow-In-Furness, who later renamed themselves as the Barrow Bombers.
Our Match Programme, upped from 5p to 10p is for the last ever Speedway meeting at Brooklands Stadium, the first leg for the Essex Gold Cup v Rayleigh Rockets on Thursday 30th September 1971, Maurice Morley wrote in his “Retrospect” page that it was with sadness in his heart that he was writing his notes and thank so many people but specially the Supporters. There was a lot to say about the hope of saving the club but it was not to be with the licence going to West Ham. Unfortunately, Rayleigh were party poopers and won 41-36. The Final Race, 13 was won by Brian Foote of Romford and, after the interval in the Brooklands Farewell Trophy Final, it was Foote again who won with Stan Stevens and Ian Gills behind. A page followed where fans were asked to send their “troubles” to the Council, all in vain. Peter Oakes added his piece and on the back cover in the article “End of an Era” there was always hope of a new site and some reminiscing but the sting in the tale for all those loyal supporters was a Notice saying “ The taking of photographs in the stadium is strictly prohibited”. What a shame they were denied an opportunity to preserve such memories !
Romford FC’s home ground was Brooklands and had been so since 1929 when joining the London League. In 1948-49 they reached the Amateur Cup Final losing 0-1 to Bromley. They latterly became members of the Southern League, one step from the Football League to which they applied several times without success. Brooklands always looked a Football League ground and in the year of the Speedway closing, Romford FC were 11th of 22 in the Southern League Premier Division at the close of 1971-72 which saw Hereford United promoted despite finishing second to Chelmsford City. Romford’s final game at Brooklands was v Salisbury on 19th April 1977, a programme full of hope in moving to Oldchurch Park but it was not to be and the stadium was demolished with the stand going to Canterbury City.