Setting the Scene

At the end of the 1974 speedway season in Scotland, there was an “as you were” feel about it, with the Tigers of Coatbridge going it alone in the New National League, while Berwick, some 120 miles away and just on the English side of the border, laid claim to providing the opposition for what were loosely termed local derbies against the West of Scotland outfit. This had actually represented an improvement in some respects for the Tigers, as following the transfer of the Coatbridge Monarchs’ licence to Wembley at the end of the 1969 season to North London, Glasgow’s days in the old First Division looked increasingly hazardous as, would you believe, the late and much lamented Halifax Dukes in deepest Yorkshire took on the mantle of providing local derbies for the much travelled Tigers, the most northerly outpost in British speedway. Now, this is not to say that these matches weren’t in all respects keenly contested,(they were), just that perhaps the missing link in all of this was having teams within a closer local proximity than that which had existed until 1967 when the Edinburgh Monarchs shifted location from Old Meadowbank to Albion Rovers’ ground in Cliftonhill, Coatbridge, before disappearing 400 miles down the road to Wembley for two seasons, before the Lions of Wembley ended their temporary reincarnation and disappeared from the scene. Co-incidentally, although a few years later, the word was that there might be a new pride of Lions about to form, and somewhat closer to home……

Newtongrange and Cowdenbeath briefly staged a series of matches at various Scottish locations up until 1973 on temporary licences on a challenge basis, but the prospect of a new, permanent, league side in the New National League for the start of the 1975 season was one which brought much anticipation to the Scottish speedway scene, given that for the first time in many years it was mooted to be a brand new, pukka, New National League team which would be racing out of a location never used before for the sport, and in a town with a decent catchment area and therefore possibly able to attract a decent crowd from its immediate locality-perhaps an important factor, given that other tracks, albeit on open licences, had failed to attract sufficient spectators to generate a financially viable audience in the preceding years.

Birth of the Paisley Lions

So. when the announcement was made that a marriage between Joe Thurley and Neil Macfarlane had produced a bouncing infant which would be competing in the NNL in 1975, in Paisley, within a stone’s throw of Glasgow, and racing as the Lions, the story generated considerable interest on both sides of the border. Thurley had already, and successfully, brought Birmingham (Brummies) back into the sport, indeed they would race in 1975 as defending NNL champions, while Macfarlane was already well-known as joint promoter/manager of the Glasgow/Coatbridge Tigers in recent years, stretching back to the 1960’s, so the management pedigree was already well established. In practice, it was the latter who would take the reins locally in terms of day to day functions, and fronting the club, while the southern half of the partnership would operate from slightly further afield, making trips to the venue as and when required, while working hard behind the scenes to help the development of their newest infant.

It was perhaps also felt at the time that the venue, St Mirren FC’s stadium at Love St, Paisley wasn’t a bad place to open a new track. At that time, a young, exciting football team was beginning to make waves in the Scottish League, led by a young manager by the name of Alex Ferguson. (Wonder what ever became of him?)Thus Saturdays at Love St perhaps became a more exciting venue, with at least every second of them  usually hosting first the St Mirren football team, followed not too long afterwards at 7.00pm by the Lions. This also gave the newly appointed track staff some interesting Saturday tea times, as when the football was ‘on’ between three and five o’clock, they therefore had only two hours to get the safety fence erected, as no football fan wanted to see the early afternoon activities with a solid wooden obstacle barring their view!

With the birth of a new team, much interest centred around who would occupy the seven race jackets to be filled by early April 1975, although with various former Scottish teams having included a fair sprinkling of riders from the Antipodes, it was a reasonable bet that the newest team to race out of Scotland might show a similar composition, and so it proved. While Macfarlane took on the task of constructing the new track, Thurley followed the well beaten track to Australia and New Zealand to recruit a mix of new, exciting talent and include some established riders to bolster the top end of the team, not to mention signing up a track manager with a name well recognised in Scottish speedway, namely, John Wells, brother of Alf, the former Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle rider, who also saw service with Berwick and Bradford.

The final group of riders signed formed a balance of combatants already well known to the British speedway public, while including a number of newcomers whose names were unknown to the majority, the mix therefore comprising an intriguing line up for fans to view across the length and breadth of the UK.  Brothers Sid and Mick Sheldrick agreed to make the drive from Blackpool up to Paisley each week, Cornishman Chris Roynon similarly put in the miles on the weekends to race for the Lions, while Thurley’s recruits included Kiwis Mike Fullerton, who had been a Bradford heat leader in 1973 and Bryan Townsend. 16 year old Stuart Mountford from Newcastle, New South Wales, who had already represented Australia at Test level, came over with high hopes of making the grade in the UK, Bob Baker, from Sydney who was signed for Birmingham but would double up at Paisley, while from Mount Isa, in Queensland, came Tom Davie and Burnett (Bernie) Foot, two exciting youngsters who were keen to try their hand in the slightly cooler climate in Scotland. Later in the season Alan ‘Doc’ Bridgett joined the squad from Stoke to comprise a truly cosmopolitan outfit, as local brothers Fred and Colin Caffrey from Glasgow joined the list of signed riders at Paisley, having recently enjoyed the fruits of attending Ivan Mauger’s Training School, courtesy of the Paisley promotion, prior to signing up for the NNL campaign ahead.

In the Beginning

So, as it got closer to the opening of the brand new, shiny track at Paisley, excitement built in the town and on opening night, on 5 April 1975, the promotion was rewarded for a huge amount of preparatory work, which’ on several occasions saw John Wells work all night to  ensure things would be just right on the night. Indeed, the inaugural fixture, against Thurley’s Brummies from Birmingham, was put back a week from late March just to be certain that all the little details were done and dusted, and the grand opening was witnessed by an attendance of 6,100 people, with Lions’ number one and captain Sid Sheldrick anxiously leading out a similarly nervous Lion cub on the pre match parade. Brummies captain Arthur Browning, who had doubled for the actor playing the part of the man in black for the Milk Tray adverts of the time, has his place in the history books as the first ever race winner, and the script for the evening was followed to the letter by both teams as a concerted effort by the home side saw them edge home 41-37 in a match where there was never more than a couple of points between the sides, and the fledgling Lions were on their way.

 

Season 1975-Highlights and Lowlights

The season itself was a mixture of the very good, and the not so good, with Lions serving up 13 home wins out of 19, while they never quite managed to break their away duck, the closest result being a 38-40 reverse at Bradford where they suffered the frustration of a 1-5 reversal in the final heat when it looked possible that they would get two league points on the board. There were some comments made about the narrowness of the track (more about one meeting, in a minute), but given the closeness of some home meetings, together with a total of 6 home reverses, it suggests that the away teams weren’t finding it too much of a problem, with enough passing to keep the entertainment up to a satisfactory standard. With the likes of Messrs Foot and Davie prone to last bend swoops around the boards, the action was rarely dull. When the high flying Newcastle Diamonds came a-visiting in the summer, the width of the track came into sharp focus. The visitors were expected by most scribes to race away with the match points, but an inspired performance by the home side, aided by a first heat match exclusion to Tom Owen, saw the speedway fraternity collectively shake its head in disbelief, as the Lions recorded a 46-30 win against all the odds. During the meeting, with Diamonds’ promoter, the late Ian Thomas demanding a width measurement on the 4^th bend. The incredulous promoter, himself noted for his knowledge of the rule book, was left speechless as it was announced that the measurement was exactly 25 feet in old money, the minimum acceptable width, after which the meeting continued to its unlikely conclusion.

It was only some 35 years later, at a Lions’ Reunion, that the full story emerged. Various rumours had circulated in that time, like the measuring tape had been the subject of a savage attack from a pair of scissors and then reassembled with sticky tape, but in actual fact, as promoter Neil Macfarlane “exclusively revealed”, several inches of the tape used had “accidentally” strayed up his arm, meaning that the final measurement included the distance between his wrist and his sleeve! So now you know!

Paisley also hosted in May the Festival of Paisley championship and, beginning a run of success which Coatbridge Tigers had during the two years of its existence, their skipper Brian Collins won the meeting, the main headline of the night being shared by the truly massive attendance of 14,873, the biggest crowd seen in Scotland for a speedway meeting in decades, while multi World Champion Ivan Mauger brought his gold plated bike to Scotland, then beating Exeter team mate Scott Autrey 2-1 in a match race series. Mauger was also due to play a part in the attempts to save the club in 1976/77, but more about that later. On the subject of the Tigers, the Lions never quite managed to put one over their deadliest rivals in their two years, although they did finish ahead of them in their home leg of a 4 Team Tournament in 1976-clutching at straws certainly, but a modicum of relief for Paisley fans reading this piece, for sure!

On another occasion, the PA system at the track suffered from a catastrophic EF (Engine Failure), but, rather than be forced to cancel the meeting and arrange for a mass issue of rain off tickets, the standard Get Out Of Jail Free card for speedway promoters, the promotion came up with the novel idea of arranging a lorry and putting on the back of it a hastily borrowed blackboard (not to mention a few sticks of chalk), and it spent the evening circumnavigating the track before and after races with riders’ names and heat results-perhaps not quite the same as having an announcer, but certainly inventive enough to ensure supporters didn’t have to leave early! Fortunately. Mr Macfarlane decided against the idea of singing to the crowd in the absence of music.

On the team front, Lions suffered a number of heavy defeats away from Love St, perhaps due in part to some of their new riders seeing English tracks for the first time, the worst being a 64-14 mauling at Derwent Park, Workington, when Kiwi Mike Fullerton saved some of the Paisley blushes with a second place late in the meeting, thus preventing what would otherwise have been a total 65-13 whitewash, a phenomenon which had not at that time occurred in an official league fixture.

Promoter Neil Macfarlane was never slow to grasp an opportunity to stage a “big” event, and in the summer of that year one presented itself. Local government reconstruction had led to Paisley falling within the major new area of Strathclyde in 1974, and in the summer of the following year he staged the Championship of Strathclyde to commemorate the occasion. Once again a bigger than average crowd watched the meeting, and the home fans were suitably delighted when one of “their own” raced away to pick up the prestigious trophy with 14 points. The name on the trophy was Sheldrick, but once again Paisley was demonstrating its ability to surprise the speedway world, as the winner was Mick, younger brother of Lions’ skipper Sid, the former having the meeting of his life to take the highest spot on the podium. And so, the first season of the new track ended, with a few highs and perhaps less lows, but certainly with enough having happened to look forward to a second season