Becoming a Family Affair
In 1987, Barrie took his firstborn son, an energetic two-year-old named Simon, for his first taste of Speedway at Waterden Road. Hackney Wick Stadium hosted the recently renamed Hackney Kestrels, changing from the famous Hawks name in 1984. The Kestrels took on Cradley Heath in the League Cup, and the Kestrels had a new youngster in his debut season riding at number two that night. You might have heard of him; he went on to win the British championship three times and won the world championship in 2000, the infamous Mark Loram. It won't shock you to learn I don't remember much about this match; however, Dad told me the stories.
It was a comfortable win for the Kestrels; despite some stern resistance from the Heathens heat leaders Erik Gundersen and Simon Cross, the visitors sorely missed Jan Pedersen who's guest replacement John Jorgensen could only muster 2 points from 4 outings. Kestrels had a more evenly balanced side compared to the top-heavy Heathens. Simon Wigg, Andy Galvin, and Allan Johansen scored 10 points each, adding to the 13 the rest of the team scored. They had enough in the tank to cover through rider replacement for the absent Roland Danno.
Barrie was 19 when he was first introduced to the sport, 23 years later, I was introduced to the sport whilst I was still in nappies. It was inevitable that my brother and I would grow up obsessed with the sport our Dad loved before us.
My first independent memories of Speedway are from the early nineties; I have a vague recollection of being very wary of the tree's around Ipswich, watching for Witches who might descend on me and steal me away! I also remember going over to Rye House one Sunday afternoon in the heat to see the Rockets take on the Long Eaton Invaders. Aside from these, the earliest specific speedway memory I recall is from 1994, when Poole Pirates won the league at our local track, Arena-Essex. I'm not sure why, but I've always clearly remembered watching Craig Boyce, Lars Gunnestad, Jason Crump, and Steve Schofield, amongst others, celebrate from the balcony with 'we are the champions' blaring over the P.A. system has always stuck with me. I've always had a soft spot for the Pirates, and this may be why, although it's more likely the nine-year-old me just loved a team called the pirates.
The area I grew up in was nice, but the school wasn't outstanding, and the behaviour of the local kids reflected this. The kids, in turn, weren't being appropriately disciplined at home which, was making teachers jobs that much more challenging. Growing up around Speedway made me different to the other kids at school. Whilst they were all planning their weekend nights at the pub or messing around on street corners, I'd set off with Dad and my younger brother Martin to watch Arena-Essex, Rye House, Eastbourne or somewhere further afield if it was out of school term time. We would try to visit every track in the country during the season. Some of my fondest memories are of our Northern tours, going to Hull Wednesday night, Sheffield Thursday, Edinburgh Friday, Berwick Saturday, Glasgow Sunday, then on to Belle Vue or Wolverhampton on the way back to London. Spectating Speedway became our way of life. Travelling 300 miles in one day to watch Swindon or Poole seemed normal to me, a familiarity I'm sure many other speedway fans share.
3 Tracks to Call Home
There are 3 tracks in this country that stand out from all the others for me, these are the tracks I call my home on the shale.
We've always lived on the North East side of London, our local tracks have always been Rye House and Arena-Essex. I did love Rye House but I had many jobs requiring me to work Saturday nights and Sundays, this prevented me from attending a lot of the time. I wasn't as keen on Arena Essex, mainly because we were so far away from the action on the grass banks. I always found it strange how many experienced top speedway riders could come to Arena-Essex and struggle to ride the place, after I started riding I understood the problem! The bends were very tight relative to the length of the strength, in particular, it would catch out the Pols who learnt their trade on the bigger sweeping circuits on the continent. I joined the club's track staff in 2007, it made sense as I would often frequent the circuit, the draw of top-flight Speedway along with proximity always gave the hammers an edge over any other track. When my younger brother and I took up Speedway we would often travel to Lakeside to drop off engines and pick up spares from our supplier Tommy Nicholls at RTN Racing (Father of 7 times British Champion, Scott), you supplied the spares for the Hammers at the time. In the early 2010s, Lakeside would often host practice days with Gentleman George Barclay and Hammers promoter, Jon Cook. My brother and I would both turn out for the young hammers in 2012 alongside British Champion Adam Ellis and National league rider Jack Kingston. Later we would regularly work with Russell Paine of Ride'N'Slide speedway experience days, although this was at various tracks, not just at Purfleet. It was never my favourite track but it was the track I spent so much time there I couldn't help but love the place. So many key memories I'll never forget, the knock out cup final in 2009 against Coventry, The Rico memorial meeting 2012, the final meeting at home to Glasgow in 2018. I took both my kids to their first speedway meetings to Lakeside, not that they'll remember, similar to my two-year-old self! I was devastated when they closed and so emotional on that last night, I finally understood how Dad felt when Wimbledon closed.
In the late 1990's I started to really enjoy watching Speedway at the East of England Showground, the noise as the riders rushed past was great, the view was fantastic from the top of the grandstand and the standard of racing rarely disappointed. My love of the Showground meant I had an affinity for Panthers, by the time Peterborough won the Elite League title in 1999 I was a fully-fledged fan of the Panthers. I've never followed Peterborough specifically and when I go to watch Speedway, I will generally choose a match that looks interesting over watching Peterborough just because it's the Panthers, like my Dad before me with the Dons. As a kid, it was always my dream to ride the Alwalton circuit and It was probably my proudest moment on a speedway bike when I turned out for the Peterborough Thundercats in 2012. I got my chance after I first rode for the Thundercats at my local track Lakeside scoring 5, the manager was impressed so I got the nod to ride again and finally rode at the East of England Showground.
The third track I'm going to talk about is different in many ways from the first two, largely because many fans will have never heard of it. I'm talking about the home of the Romney Falcons, Lydd Speedway. Situated on the South Coast not too far from Dover, Lydd is a practice track on a private farm and has never been recognised by the speedway authorities. For you to understand my affinity with this quaint little circuit, I need to delve into my time riding Speedway.