Doug Nicolson looks at how the sport contracted in the winter of 1956 and how the two leagues merged into a consolidated division in 

Two Become One

Decline in the fifties

Speedway boomed in the immediate post war years, possibly benefitting from being one of the few spectator sports to run in the evening under floodlights, an innovation that was still to be introduced for football. In 1951 there were 36 tracks spread over three national leagues. However it was all downhill from there. The third division downsized progressively from National League 3 via the Southern League to become Southern Area League, a virtually amateur weekend league in 1954, although its more successful teams helped shore up NL2 which had borne the brunt of track closures in 1952 and 1953. By 1956 the sport was clinging on by its fingernails.

The winter of 1956/57 brought further bad news for speedway. Sir Arthur Elvin, Wembley’s chairman and largest stakeholder, died leaving the sport without a champion in the boardroom at this iconic venue. The remaining board members almost immediately elected to discontinue speedway. Poole and Bradford joined the Lions on the sidelines, the Pirates citing petrol rationing among their reasons for withdrawal. Division One was left with only four teams - Belle Vue, Birmingham, Norwich and Wimbledon – and Birmingham were not in good shape and were toiling to name a full squad. It was no surprise that the Speedway Control Board’s solution was for the seven Division Two teams - Coventry, Ipswich, Leicester, Oxford, Rayleigh, Southampton and Swindon - to be co-opted into the top – and indeed only - division of eleven teams.

 

1957 team strengths

With Bradford, Poole and Wembley riders all looking for new homes, a fair number of former NL1 riders joined former NL2 teams ahead of the new season. However there doesn’t seem to have been any real attempt at team equalisation or rider control as there had been in the immediate post war season. Anyway, with so few official meetings between sides from the two divisions in 1956, it would have been hard to establish any kind of guidelines – in the National Trophy only the NL2 winner got to race against the “big boys”. While Southampton had a comfortable 64-44 home win over Norwich, they lost the second leg at The Firs by a massive 77-31 scoreline, by far the Stars biggest home win of the season, suggesting there was quite a gap in standards.

Some former NL2 teams did far better than others in signing riders from the top league, notably Southampton and Ipswich. As well as Norman Strachan, Jimmy Squibb and Bill Holden moving along the coast from Poole, the Saints captured the headlines when Brian Crutcher, second in the 1954 World Final, joined them from the now defunct Wembley. The Witches got Peter Moore from Wimbledon, Cyril Roger from Poole and Jimmy Gooch from Wembley, the first two being recent World Finalists. Both these teams looked to be of comparable standard to the former NL1 sides but some of the others were less so.

 

Not riding in 1957

About 40 riders weren’t available for 1957. The most notable retirees were Ronnie Moore and Tommy Price. Birmingham were decimated by events in South Africa during the winter. Tragically their leading light Alan Hunt was killed in a track crash in South Africa in February while riding on unlicensed tracks there.  Buddy Fuller’s South African Speedway Riders Association had arranged tours to the Dominion for a number of years. However the South African Speedway Control Board decided they would take over and subsequently refused to licence the Fuller scheme, leading to all the riders competing under his banner riding “black” and being banned by the SASCB. This had practically no impact on the British riders in South Africa, but on returning home they found they had been reported to the British authorities, who initially banned them too. It looked like they would be unable to ride in 1957 and, while it was agreed that these suspensions would be held over until a full hearing could be arranged, the threat continued to hang over them as the season started.  Eric Boothroyd and Ron Mountford were the two Brummies caught up in this dispute. However their 1956 South African teammates, Doug Davies, Neil Mortimer and Arthur Duncan received no such leniency, being banned sine die by the SASCB and consequently they didn’t return to Britain. All of this left a huge cloud of woe and uncertainty hanging over the Brummies.

 

Britannia Shield

The season got off to an unusually late start, possibly due to the Easter weekend, the traditional starting time for a new season, falling really late in April, Easter Sunday being April 21. However the delay in starting may also have been down to waiting until petrol rationing had ended. It had been introduced in December 1956 following the Suez crisis and limited car users to vouchers for 200 miles each month, with business users getting a further 100, hardly enough to get you to an away meeting. It was only planned to last for four months but there were fears it could last longer - as it turned out it was rescinded in mid-May. These travelling considerations may have influenced the introduction of a new regional competition ahead of league racing. The Britannia Shield had two sections – North with Birmingham, Belle Vue, Coventry, Leicester and Oxford; South featuring Ipswich, Norwich, Rayleigh, Southampton, Swindon and Wimbledon. Apart from beleaguered Birmingham, the former NL1 teams had things very much their own way in this competition, with Belle Vue being clear winners of their section while Norwich and Wimbledon were first and second in the southern table.

League racing

Swindon offered little evidence that they would be league contenders, never mind winners, in their opening Britannia Shield meetings. Although they won at Rayleigh, they lost to “big guns” Wimbledon and Norwich at Blunsdon. However they pulled off a masterstroke by bringing Neil Street over from Australia in time for the league campaign. They now looked well up to the standard of the former NL1 teams – and that’s how it turned out. They went on an amazing unbeaten run, winning their first eight league meetings before rather surprisingly losing at Birmingham in late July in what turned out to be the Brummies final home meeting. Fourteen-day suspensions to Boothroyd and Mountford were the final straw and promoter Les Marshall pulled the Brummies out of the league. Fortunately Bradford were persuaded to take over their remaining fixtures. The Robins subsequently went on another unbeaten run - seven meetings this time – during which they avenged their early Britannia Shield home defeats with narrow wins at both Wimbledon and Southampton setting up pivotal home and away fixtures on successive nights against Belle Vue, which would virtually decide the league. For good measure Bob Rogers would challenge Peter Craven for the Golden Helmet at these meetings. Although the Robins lost at Hyde Road, their 63-33 home win was decisive in the final analysis, with the Robins edging out the Aces by a single point at the top of the table. Wimbledon and Norwich were third and fourth, although some distance behind, while Leicester were the only former NL2 side to finish above the ill-starred Bradford/Birmingham team. Sadly the Tudors didn’t reappear for 1958. The Hunters benefitted hugely from improved performances from new signings Jack Geran and Alf Hagon, with the former increasing his average from five to over eight, while Hagon added nearly two points to his figures. It was a season of toil for the remaining former NL2 sides but in many ways the survival of the sport was the most important aspect of the year.

 

 

Top riders

Unsurprisingly the former NL2 top riders found the going decidedly tougher in the combined league with Ipswich’s Bob Sharp and Bert Edwards and Rayleigh’s Jack Unstead seeing their averages fall dramatically. While Peo Soderman’s 1956 figure of 11.74, based on just a handful of meetings, cannot be considered to be truly representative, he dropped down to below 9.00 in 1957. However Bob Roger (Swindon), Dick Bradley (Southampton), and Ken McKinlay (Leicester) all made the top ten scorers’ chart in 1957, with Roger actually improving his figures by a point, quite an achievement. Southampton recruit Brian Crutcher also featured in this chart, giving former NL2 sides a fair representation. A number of former NL1 riders substantially increased their figures, notably Craven, Johnston and Lawson.  Other riders who upped their averages significantly were Jack Geran, (Leicester), Ron Clarke (Bradford), Cyril Roger (Ipswich) and Nigel Boocock (Bradford).

 

 

As a rule of thumb, former NL1 riders, as a group, barely improved their averages after league amalgamation while NL2 riders found their overall figures were around 10% less, although Oxford’s Roy Bowers joined Bob Roger in bucking this trend by increasing their averages by over a point.

Swindon had no less than three riders in the World Final – Bob Roger who finished eight with eight points, while George White and Ian Williams finished further down the score chart with four and three respectively. The big night drew a crowd of 50,000, generally considered disappointing when compared with previous finals but perhaps indicative of the trough the sport was in at the time.