Lost tracks
Gone, not forg
PEEDWAY has always been a relatively unstable sport, from the Klondike-style gold rush when it was known as dirt-track racing in the late 1920s.
SIt was, in many cases, a getrich-quick enterprise that attracted more than its fair share of unscrupulous gamblers, who scarpered as soon as they realised that not every speedway track was going to be a diamond mine, a money tree for those who opened tracks wherever they could.
Over the years, tracks have come and tracks have gone. Sadly for speedway, it’s been much more of the latter in recent times. In a special feature, we take a look at the 20 circuits that have been lost to the sport since the beginning of the 21st century
There were those who operated under the Auto-Cycle Union’s Track Racing Committee or with one day licences granted by their regional ACU Centre but scores of other ‘businessmen’ or
‘entrepreneurs’ simply found somewhere that bikers could race each other, caring little for organisation or the welfare of either riders or spectators.
Clubs, teams and tracks have come and
ACTIVE TRACKS 2023 LOST TRACKS
BELLE VUE Kirkmanshulme Lane BELLE VUE National Speedway Stadium BERWICK Shielfield Park BIRMINGHAM Perry Barr Stadium BUXTON Hi-Edge Raceway CARMARTHEN United Counties Showground COVENTRY Brandon Stadium EASTBOURNE Arlington Stadium EDINBURGH Armadale Stadium EXETER County Ground GLASGOW Ashfield Stadium HULL Craven Park IPSWICH Foxhall Stadium ISLE OF WIGHT Smallbrook Stadium KENT Central Park KENT The Old Gun Site KING’S LYNN Adrian Flux Arena LAKESIDE Arena-Essex Raceway LEICESTER Paul Chapman & Sons Arena MILDENHALL Mildenhall Stadium NEWCASTLE Brough Park NEWPORT Queensway Meadows OXFORD Oxford Stadium PETERBOROUGH East of England Arena PLYMOUTH The Colosseum POOLE Poole Stadium READING Smallmead Stadium REDCAR South Tees Motorsports Park RYE HOUSE Hoddesdon Stadium SCUNTHORPE Eddie Wright Raceway SHEFFIELD Owlerton Stadium SOMERSET Oak Tree Arena St. AUSTELL Claycountry Moto Parc STOKE Loomer Road SWINDON Blunsdon Stadium WEYMOUTH Wessex Stadium WIMBLEDON Plough Lane WOLVERHAMPTON Monmore Green Stadium WORKINGTON Derwent Park WORKINGTON Northside gone over the 11 decades from what most people accept as the first British meeting at High Beech on Sunday, February 19, 1928 to the current day as a new season looms.
Only one club – Belle Vue – has remained open and operative throughout the sport’s turbulent lifetime.
The first meeting (at what became commonly known as Kirkmanshulme Lane when speedway returned there in 1988) was on Saturday, July 28, 1928 at the greyhound track that had been built within the confines of what had first opened as a small amusement park in 1836. It was on 35.75 acres of land between Kirkmanshulme Lane to the south and Hyde Road to the north in the Newton suburb of Manchester.
John Jennison, who had previously opened the grounds to his home in Stockport to the public, leased the land, which included what was called the Belle Vue Tea Gardens, for an initial period of six months and, after being granted a 99-year lease, he began creating a zoo and other crowd-pulling attractions.
It grew into something far more impressive and would be renamed Belle Vue Zoological Gardens. A massive entertainment complex, with a zoo, an amusement park, exhibition halls, lakes, that was a Mecca to day trippers and holiday visitors, certainly from all over the north of the country.
Within the complex were two stadia: one was an athletics stadium, close to Hyde Road, that was built in 1887 and the other, adjacent to Kirkmanshulme Lane, the greyhound track, which was the first of its kind in England, and opened in 1926.
The London-based International Speedways Limited were the first promoters, taking advantage of their intimate relationship with the Greyhound Racing Association who had a lease to run the dogs.
n THOSE stadia highlighted in red have been demolished or lost to speedway
Number of tracks in 2000 28 Competing teams in 2000 33 Number of tracks in 2023 19 Competing teams in 2023 24
n IN the 2000 season, there were 9 Elite League teams, 14 Premier League and 10 Conference League. In the CL, Glasgow Ashfield, Newport, Peterborough and Sheffield all used their senior team’s home track, whilst Boston raced home meetings at King’s Lynn.
n OTHER operational tracks: Buxton, Duns, Lydd.
The new owner of Belle Vue Zoological Gardens, John Henry Iles, had ambitions to turn the relatively low key grounds into the entertainment capital of the country and added a plethora of exciting new rides, including the famous ‘bobs’ which towered over the first and second bend of the Hyde Road track.
The North Manchester Motor Club, who
16 speedway star March 18, 2023
