Post by speedway_history on Apr 11, 2009 21:56:37 GMT 1
You made your debut for Belle Vue in 1954 in what were troubled times for speedway with stock-car racing being introduced to many tracks. What got you interested in the sport and made you have a go?
I learned to ride a speedway bike at Ernie Appleby’s track at Newton Heath, which was on an old tip a couple of miles from Manchester City Centre, on the Oldham Road. I would go there on a Wednesday afternoon (half-day at the shop), and I did ride in the Scottish Junior Championship in, I think, 1953, and I would have won it if I hadn’t fallen in the last race.
Ken Sharples came to see me ride at Newton Heath and said Alice Hart wanted to talk to me on a Monday afternoon……..I signed for Belle Vue on the next Monday afternoon! I broke the tapes in my first race at Hyde Road in a second-half race. I was riding very well and I was soon sent with Louis Lawson and Dent Oliver to ride for Belle Vue at Bristol. I fell off twice, but Jack Young, who was riding in the second half, also fell off twice, so I didn’t feel so bad about it. Jack Young went on to be the best rider I ever saw, Peter Craven included.
At this time there would be at least eight riders at Belle Vue trying to break into speedway, and when Bob Fletcher, Willie Wilson and George Smith committed suicide, there were always chances to show what you could do. Charles Cullam and Henry Long retired, so that was how I got a chance. Within a few weeks I had fractured my skull and it took me more than a year to get over it. Louis Lawson fractured his skull in, I think 1953, and he could recover his form afterwards. Louis Lawson was incidentally one of the most exciting riders ever to watch. Just brilliant!!!
I always went to Belle Vue on Wednesday afternoons to clean my bike, and one day there was to be a meeting in the Kings Hall, Belle Vue. The Kings Hall had wrestling twice a week, bug name stars like Frankie Laine and Nat King Cole came to sell out concerts, and of course there was the Belle Vue Circus every Christmas. So, this particular afternoon a little Aussie in tropical top and shorts, and a big hat with corks hanging from it, came and explained what Stock Car Racing was all about. Stock Car Racing opened to huge crowds, Johnnie Hoskins would have been in charge by then. Johnnie loved it because the stadium was full, and it had a tremendous atmosphere. When Stock Car Racing first came, we, the riders, didn’t mind, but then they had to put deep holes near the fence for the metal posts that protected the speedway fence. In time it did make the line along the fence on the straights much more uneven.
How I got into speedway………… I had been with my youngest brother a few times in 1947 before I did my National Service. In 1949 at Blandford Forum Camp, in I think Dorset, I had seen car racing 500cc engined Coopers. I fancied having a go and thought I could make some money at speedway and then have a go at racing cars. Once I joined Belle Vue, I never thought of cars again!!!
Don Cuppleditch’s retirement in 1955 saw you become a regular in the Belle Vue team and you finished the season scoring 25 points from your last two matches. Amongst your team mates were World Champion, Peter Craven, Ken Sharples and Ron Johnston……how did they accept the newcomer?
Ken Sharples was a great help to me, always explaining how to be a better rider. He taught me to two wheel into the turn, and how to turn back underneath another rider.
Peter Craven I had known for a couple of years. Peter was doing his National Service at a REME depot one mile from our shop, and he always came for a chat when he had his hair cut opposite our shop. I have always maintained that Craven came to Belle Vue when I fractured my skull. I had been going to Liverpool with Buck Whilley on a Monday evening………Buck rode for ‘The Chads’, and I had seen Peter and his brother Brian riding in the second half there. Peter was very prone to falling at this time.
Ron Johnston was very much an individual rider……he wasn’t living locally, so he really didn’t hang around the Belle Vue workshops like the rest of us did. We really did feel quite special being in the Belle Vue team.
You rode for the legendary Johnnie Hoskins at Belle Vue, and I think it’s fair to say he pulled a few ‘strokes’ in his time, and was considered quite a character. Do you have any memories about Johnnie which you can share with us?
Johnnie Hoskins……….He wrote a good programme, full of little ‘snippets’ which made it worth reading. The fans loved him, he always had time for them. He was one of ‘the old school’, and liked to see the track staff march out properly. He was very keen to think that the fans who’d paid to get in, had at least one or two very exciting races that they could talk about until they came again next week.
You were part of a British touring side organised by Buddy Fuller which visited South Africa in the winter of 1956/7 and ended up getting banned and fined for your troubles. What were the circumstances surrounding that, and do you think you were fairly treated on your return?
Buddy Fuller had ridden in England along with the Serrurier brothers, and so he took teams back to South Africa to ride there in the winter. One year Trevor Redmond was taken out there and I think he thought he could take a team out there and steal Buddy Fullers’ job. So Redmond took a team out there and he got the RAC to say that Buddy Fullers’ track were unlicensed. So, the team I was with, Alan Hunt, Eric Boothroyd, Jim Lightfoot, Jimmy Gooch, Nick Nicholls and Ron Mountford were banned and fined when we came home. All I thought afterwards was that was typical of New Zealander, Trevor Redmond. I never spoke to him again.
The 1959 season appears to have been your last at Belle Vue, was this by choice and what did you do after that?
In 1958 my brother and I had borrowed money from the bank to buy the business off our Dad. Although I worked very hard in the shop and didn’t have any holidays, the days I was away from the shop meant the others had to work harder. I had been married two years and we had a son and we had bought a house and I was also converting it into flats, so by 1959 there were lots of other things in my life, so I said I would give up at the end of that season. We worked together in the shop for nearly 40 years, but by 1961 I had three houses so I was very busy. I didn’t go to speedway again until the end of 1985. I never regretted leaving school to start work, and I never regretted giving up speedway, but I do sometimes think I could have done better if I had not so many other things in my life.
Many modern day riders ply their trade across Europe riding in the British, Swedish and Polish leagues as well as the GP Series…….how common was it for riders to travel abroad to race in your day?
In 1955 we were invited to go behind the iron curtain and ride in Poland by a Professor Lubinski who had been to Manchester University before the First World War No nobody went into Europe before this. They said there were 100,000 people in the stadium in Warsaw on a warm sunny afternoon in either late October or early November 1955. I have since heard the crowd was 102,000. I have quite a lot of cinefilm from this, and I am proud to know that we were the first there.
Peter Craven’s death in September 1963 was a huge shock to speedway in general, and naturally, being a former team mate of his it must have affected you more than most. Can you recall how you heard the news and your thoughts at the time?
Wilf Lucy, who was the engine man at Belle Vue after Bob Harrison went to Australia, and he lived just a few hundred yards away from us at Charlton-Cum-Hardy. He came knocking on the day to tell us that Derek Maynard had been killed, and then again when Peter died. Very difficult to believe it, but when someone falls in front of you, you have so little time to lay the bike down and if you can’t, your life is in the hands of the gods.
Peter Craven was such a lovely lad, without any malice or a selfish thought in his head. You can only think that “only the good die young”………it seems so unfair. I think how it would be now if we were all still alive, as old men and how pleased we would be to meet up.
Travelling up and down the country can be a nightmare nowadays, but before the advent of motorways it must have been far more difficult……… is there a trip which stands out as being a ‘nightmare’ and conversely you must have some amusing memories of the ‘lighter moments’.
I thought I was a good driver, but I learnt so much more from travelling with three or four cars or vans, travelling in a sort of convoy. I have known one get a puncture and all would stop to help. I enjoyed travelling together. Ken Sharples would say we will stop for lunch at a certain hotel or café….it built up team spirit. Coming back one Sunday from Norwich, Ken said we would stop for lunch….there he would say who got bonus points….I got two, so I had to pay for the wine……all part of travelling as a team. The only other thing I remember is when I would get into bed after an away meeting at about 3:30 in the morning; I couldn’t go to sleep because all I could see were headlights coming towards me. I never drive on motorways as they are now!!
Of all the tracks you visited with Belle Vue, which one stands out most in your memory, and why?
I liked West Ham, Liverpool, Norwich and of course Hyde Road. One night at Leicester I was unbeatable on a very wet track and I was the top scorer, but in the end the meeting was abandoned. There was also a meeting when I seem to think Belle Vue beat Coventry, at Coventry. From reserve I won two or three of the last few races, one with Sharples I think, and the other with Johnno.
We’ve heard the stories about Saturday nights in Manchester being all about a visit to the speedway, and then spending the rest of the night next door in the Fun Park……… were those days really that much fun, or has time clouded the memories?
Belle Vue Speedway was only a small part of the Belle Vue Showground of the North. Thousands would arrive at Longsight Station on special trains from all over the country. A very big Zoo, a Boating Lake, a Firework Island…… it was a magical place and I was always so proud to be a small part of it. It really is true to say that the riders from other teams really looked forward to getting into the funfair after the racing was over. I can remember Barry Briggs, Ronnie Moore and the other Wimbledon riders shouting to each other in the showers, “hurry up, you’re going to miss all the fun in the fairground”.
We’re spoilt nowadays with the advent of video recorders, and most if not all races are recorded and available on DVD. Is there one race of yours that you wish you could relive over and over again on DVD?
I remember beating Peter Craven in the first race of the night, in what turned out to be the fastest time of the night. Roy Nicol who did the videoing at Belle Vue, once came to our house and showed me a very grainy bit of 8mm film of a meeting at Belle Vue against Coventry, and I said I could recognise Craven but could not see myself. He said I beat Craven twice that night, but I don’t remember.
There has been much debate about the virtues of the GP Series against the traditional World Final. What are your views as a rider, and also as a fan?
There can be no comparison between the old style World Championship and the modern Grand Prix. Nowadays it’s like a circus, but having said that, I have really enjoyed watching meetings in Poland, Germany, Denmark and Norway………times are different now.
Your career in speedway was during some troubled times for the sport, and today it looks like we’re having to endure more of the same. If you had the power to change modern day speedway in this country, what would you do?
The huge crowds after the War were because people had been thinking only of the War and they needed some entertainment, but by the mid ‘50’s another generation was coming along, and times were changing. There were always riders who would have better engines or a better fuel than the majority, and there still is. If engines could be identical and sealed it might help. I would like to see concrete starting gates again. More time is now spent messing about at the gate than it takes to run the race. My brother David is the only person I know who would go and see Jason Crump riding around Belle Vue by himself…………every winner needs three other riders to make him look good.
Have you followed the sport since your retirement and if so, what period do you consider has been the best, and why?
No, for 25 years I had no time to think about speedway. But I’m glad to have got back into it again to see the very talented Moran Brothers, and to have been lucky enough to have known and ridden with the likes of Jack Parker, Louis Lawson, Peter Craven and Jack Young……….also to have been part of what really is the most famous Speedway team in the World.
I learned to ride a speedway bike at Ernie Appleby’s track at Newton Heath, which was on an old tip a couple of miles from Manchester City Centre, on the Oldham Road. I would go there on a Wednesday afternoon (half-day at the shop), and I did ride in the Scottish Junior Championship in, I think, 1953, and I would have won it if I hadn’t fallen in the last race.
Ken Sharples came to see me ride at Newton Heath and said Alice Hart wanted to talk to me on a Monday afternoon……..I signed for Belle Vue on the next Monday afternoon! I broke the tapes in my first race at Hyde Road in a second-half race. I was riding very well and I was soon sent with Louis Lawson and Dent Oliver to ride for Belle Vue at Bristol. I fell off twice, but Jack Young, who was riding in the second half, also fell off twice, so I didn’t feel so bad about it. Jack Young went on to be the best rider I ever saw, Peter Craven included.
At this time there would be at least eight riders at Belle Vue trying to break into speedway, and when Bob Fletcher, Willie Wilson and George Smith committed suicide, there were always chances to show what you could do. Charles Cullam and Henry Long retired, so that was how I got a chance. Within a few weeks I had fractured my skull and it took me more than a year to get over it. Louis Lawson fractured his skull in, I think 1953, and he could recover his form afterwards. Louis Lawson was incidentally one of the most exciting riders ever to watch. Just brilliant!!!
I always went to Belle Vue on Wednesday afternoons to clean my bike, and one day there was to be a meeting in the Kings Hall, Belle Vue. The Kings Hall had wrestling twice a week, bug name stars like Frankie Laine and Nat King Cole came to sell out concerts, and of course there was the Belle Vue Circus every Christmas. So, this particular afternoon a little Aussie in tropical top and shorts, and a big hat with corks hanging from it, came and explained what Stock Car Racing was all about. Stock Car Racing opened to huge crowds, Johnnie Hoskins would have been in charge by then. Johnnie loved it because the stadium was full, and it had a tremendous atmosphere. When Stock Car Racing first came, we, the riders, didn’t mind, but then they had to put deep holes near the fence for the metal posts that protected the speedway fence. In time it did make the line along the fence on the straights much more uneven.
How I got into speedway………… I had been with my youngest brother a few times in 1947 before I did my National Service. In 1949 at Blandford Forum Camp, in I think Dorset, I had seen car racing 500cc engined Coopers. I fancied having a go and thought I could make some money at speedway and then have a go at racing cars. Once I joined Belle Vue, I never thought of cars again!!!
Don Cuppleditch’s retirement in 1955 saw you become a regular in the Belle Vue team and you finished the season scoring 25 points from your last two matches. Amongst your team mates were World Champion, Peter Craven, Ken Sharples and Ron Johnston……how did they accept the newcomer?
Ken Sharples was a great help to me, always explaining how to be a better rider. He taught me to two wheel into the turn, and how to turn back underneath another rider.
Peter Craven I had known for a couple of years. Peter was doing his National Service at a REME depot one mile from our shop, and he always came for a chat when he had his hair cut opposite our shop. I have always maintained that Craven came to Belle Vue when I fractured my skull. I had been going to Liverpool with Buck Whilley on a Monday evening………Buck rode for ‘The Chads’, and I had seen Peter and his brother Brian riding in the second half there. Peter was very prone to falling at this time.
Ron Johnston was very much an individual rider……he wasn’t living locally, so he really didn’t hang around the Belle Vue workshops like the rest of us did. We really did feel quite special being in the Belle Vue team.
You rode for the legendary Johnnie Hoskins at Belle Vue, and I think it’s fair to say he pulled a few ‘strokes’ in his time, and was considered quite a character. Do you have any memories about Johnnie which you can share with us?
Johnnie Hoskins……….He wrote a good programme, full of little ‘snippets’ which made it worth reading. The fans loved him, he always had time for them. He was one of ‘the old school’, and liked to see the track staff march out properly. He was very keen to think that the fans who’d paid to get in, had at least one or two very exciting races that they could talk about until they came again next week.
You were part of a British touring side organised by Buddy Fuller which visited South Africa in the winter of 1956/7 and ended up getting banned and fined for your troubles. What were the circumstances surrounding that, and do you think you were fairly treated on your return?
Buddy Fuller had ridden in England along with the Serrurier brothers, and so he took teams back to South Africa to ride there in the winter. One year Trevor Redmond was taken out there and I think he thought he could take a team out there and steal Buddy Fullers’ job. So Redmond took a team out there and he got the RAC to say that Buddy Fullers’ track were unlicensed. So, the team I was with, Alan Hunt, Eric Boothroyd, Jim Lightfoot, Jimmy Gooch, Nick Nicholls and Ron Mountford were banned and fined when we came home. All I thought afterwards was that was typical of New Zealander, Trevor Redmond. I never spoke to him again.
The 1959 season appears to have been your last at Belle Vue, was this by choice and what did you do after that?
In 1958 my brother and I had borrowed money from the bank to buy the business off our Dad. Although I worked very hard in the shop and didn’t have any holidays, the days I was away from the shop meant the others had to work harder. I had been married two years and we had a son and we had bought a house and I was also converting it into flats, so by 1959 there were lots of other things in my life, so I said I would give up at the end of that season. We worked together in the shop for nearly 40 years, but by 1961 I had three houses so I was very busy. I didn’t go to speedway again until the end of 1985. I never regretted leaving school to start work, and I never regretted giving up speedway, but I do sometimes think I could have done better if I had not so many other things in my life.
Many modern day riders ply their trade across Europe riding in the British, Swedish and Polish leagues as well as the GP Series…….how common was it for riders to travel abroad to race in your day?
In 1955 we were invited to go behind the iron curtain and ride in Poland by a Professor Lubinski who had been to Manchester University before the First World War No nobody went into Europe before this. They said there were 100,000 people in the stadium in Warsaw on a warm sunny afternoon in either late October or early November 1955. I have since heard the crowd was 102,000. I have quite a lot of cinefilm from this, and I am proud to know that we were the first there.
Peter Craven’s death in September 1963 was a huge shock to speedway in general, and naturally, being a former team mate of his it must have affected you more than most. Can you recall how you heard the news and your thoughts at the time?
Wilf Lucy, who was the engine man at Belle Vue after Bob Harrison went to Australia, and he lived just a few hundred yards away from us at Charlton-Cum-Hardy. He came knocking on the day to tell us that Derek Maynard had been killed, and then again when Peter died. Very difficult to believe it, but when someone falls in front of you, you have so little time to lay the bike down and if you can’t, your life is in the hands of the gods.
Peter Craven was such a lovely lad, without any malice or a selfish thought in his head. You can only think that “only the good die young”………it seems so unfair. I think how it would be now if we were all still alive, as old men and how pleased we would be to meet up.
Travelling up and down the country can be a nightmare nowadays, but before the advent of motorways it must have been far more difficult……… is there a trip which stands out as being a ‘nightmare’ and conversely you must have some amusing memories of the ‘lighter moments’.
I thought I was a good driver, but I learnt so much more from travelling with three or four cars or vans, travelling in a sort of convoy. I have known one get a puncture and all would stop to help. I enjoyed travelling together. Ken Sharples would say we will stop for lunch at a certain hotel or café….it built up team spirit. Coming back one Sunday from Norwich, Ken said we would stop for lunch….there he would say who got bonus points….I got two, so I had to pay for the wine……all part of travelling as a team. The only other thing I remember is when I would get into bed after an away meeting at about 3:30 in the morning; I couldn’t go to sleep because all I could see were headlights coming towards me. I never drive on motorways as they are now!!
Of all the tracks you visited with Belle Vue, which one stands out most in your memory, and why?
I liked West Ham, Liverpool, Norwich and of course Hyde Road. One night at Leicester I was unbeatable on a very wet track and I was the top scorer, but in the end the meeting was abandoned. There was also a meeting when I seem to think Belle Vue beat Coventry, at Coventry. From reserve I won two or three of the last few races, one with Sharples I think, and the other with Johnno.
We’ve heard the stories about Saturday nights in Manchester being all about a visit to the speedway, and then spending the rest of the night next door in the Fun Park……… were those days really that much fun, or has time clouded the memories?
Belle Vue Speedway was only a small part of the Belle Vue Showground of the North. Thousands would arrive at Longsight Station on special trains from all over the country. A very big Zoo, a Boating Lake, a Firework Island…… it was a magical place and I was always so proud to be a small part of it. It really is true to say that the riders from other teams really looked forward to getting into the funfair after the racing was over. I can remember Barry Briggs, Ronnie Moore and the other Wimbledon riders shouting to each other in the showers, “hurry up, you’re going to miss all the fun in the fairground”.
We’re spoilt nowadays with the advent of video recorders, and most if not all races are recorded and available on DVD. Is there one race of yours that you wish you could relive over and over again on DVD?
I remember beating Peter Craven in the first race of the night, in what turned out to be the fastest time of the night. Roy Nicol who did the videoing at Belle Vue, once came to our house and showed me a very grainy bit of 8mm film of a meeting at Belle Vue against Coventry, and I said I could recognise Craven but could not see myself. He said I beat Craven twice that night, but I don’t remember.
There has been much debate about the virtues of the GP Series against the traditional World Final. What are your views as a rider, and also as a fan?
There can be no comparison between the old style World Championship and the modern Grand Prix. Nowadays it’s like a circus, but having said that, I have really enjoyed watching meetings in Poland, Germany, Denmark and Norway………times are different now.
Your career in speedway was during some troubled times for the sport, and today it looks like we’re having to endure more of the same. If you had the power to change modern day speedway in this country, what would you do?
The huge crowds after the War were because people had been thinking only of the War and they needed some entertainment, but by the mid ‘50’s another generation was coming along, and times were changing. There were always riders who would have better engines or a better fuel than the majority, and there still is. If engines could be identical and sealed it might help. I would like to see concrete starting gates again. More time is now spent messing about at the gate than it takes to run the race. My brother David is the only person I know who would go and see Jason Crump riding around Belle Vue by himself…………every winner needs three other riders to make him look good.
Have you followed the sport since your retirement and if so, what period do you consider has been the best, and why?
No, for 25 years I had no time to think about speedway. But I’m glad to have got back into it again to see the very talented Moran Brothers, and to have been lucky enough to have known and ridden with the likes of Jack Parker, Louis Lawson, Peter Craven and Jack Young……….also to have been part of what really is the most famous Speedway team in the World.