With the fixtures for the coming season just released ,a look  at the sometimes weird scheduling of meetings in the early BL years, and some of the imaginative travelling arrangements too.

 

Fixing fixtures

The formation of the BL in 1965 brought fixturing into sharp focus, particularly for former NL teams for whom away meetings were almost exclusively one off trips, with nothing the following day. The few cases where NL teams were required to ride on consecutive nights in 1964 were generally down to the rearranging rained off meetings, rather than the original scheduling.

With the far more extensive BL fixture list, there was now a balance to be struck between reducing travel and the effect the wear and tear of consecutive nights had on men and machines. Bike problems were far harder to remedy on the road, rather than in your own workshop.

 

Round trips to Scotland

As Glasgow had switched to Friday night racing in the middle of the 1964 season, long after the fixture list was drawn up, the 1965 fixture list was the first opportunity for teams to go to both Scottish outposts in the one weekend. Surprisingly comparatively few teams adopted this solution, particularly as many of the former PL teams were in the habit of arranging tours down to the West Country taking in Exeter and St Austell on consecutive nights. Newport gave a “tartan tour” a go but never felt compelled to repeat it, suggesting they didn’t feel it was a great idea. Swindon qualified to meet Glasgow in the KO Cup quarter final and pinned that fixture for the night before their league meeting at Old Meadowbank. Wimbledon had an early season league meeting at Glasgow and, concerned about how their guys would cope with the home meeting at Plough Lane on th4e following evening, booked them on the sleeper back to London. Glasgow co-operated fully, running the meeting in record time to allow the Dons to get into Glasgow Central in good time to get tucked into their bunks. However it didn’t quite work out like that as Olle Nygren organised a card school and by the time the train was clattering into the Home Counties he had relieved most of his colleagues of their Glasgow points’ money! Rather than repeat this “Las Vegas on Rails” in future years the Dons opted for the Glasgow on Friday, Edinburgh on Saturday self drive option the following year.

Problems with rained off meetings saw both Hackney and Oxford being required to return to BOTH Scottish tracks as the 1969 season wound down, the Monarchs having now relocated to Coatbridge, while the Tigers were now ensconced in the huge Hampden Park arena. With possible dates in short supply, the Scottish promotions came up with the novel idea of running two double headers on the one weekend, with the Hawks and Cheetahs doing their stuff in Glasgow on the Friday before making the short trip to Coatbridge the following night for a repeat double header.

 

Who agreed these crazy fixtures 

It probably seemed a good idea for Edinburgh to go on a summer tour down south to Exeter, St Austell, Poole and Plymouth in 1961, getting these fixtures out the way in one fell swoop, but the night after Plymouth the Monarchs were facing Poole in Edinburgh, a mere five hundred miles away, the longest journey in British speedway. The good news was that by leaving immediately after the meeting they would pass straight through the notorious Bristol bottle neck in the early hours of the morning, although there would be other traffic blackspots further north to be dealt with thereafter.

As expected the Monarchs were on the end of fairly comprehensive defeats at both the County Ground and Wimborne Road, with Willie Templeton blowing his engine to pieces and Dick Campbell sustaining slight concussion after crashing at the opening fixture. Most of the riders then rode in a challenge meeting at St Austell between Scotland and the Overseas, before heading to Poole. The Edinburgh program records “The Monarchs reckon they could have won at Plymouth had they had fresh machines… …The bikes were only makeshift in power following a hasty visit to the Southampton workshops on Thursday” (the only free time in the tour). It also states that the meeting was run in a sea mist and that visibility got progressively worse. It can’t have been much fun crossing Bodmin Moor that night. The Monarchs bus pulled into Old Meadowbank just after 5pm, leaving just two hours to freshen up and get prepared for their tough encounter with Poole who had been leading 19-11 when the earlier attempt to run this fixture had been abandoned. The Monarchs were in a state of disrepair, with the track spare badly wrecked Doug Templeton’s engine also in pieces, the program writer wistfully concluding “the tour of four meetings in five days was too much of an ordeal for both riders and machines”. Despite all this, the Monarchs made a fair fist of it, getting a 39-39 draw despite conceding a 5-1 in the final race.

However the story doesn’t end there. Just two nights later, on Bank Holiday Monday they were back on the road - to Rayleigh of all places, the thick end of four hundred miles. On a night George Hunter’s bike was not up to scratch, they lost 40-38 ending a week’s travel that would never be repeated. Appropriately the following week’s program had a cartoon showing Ian Hoskins in bed!

In fairness to Hoskins, who was undoubtedly the main mover in these fixtures, Edinburgh’s fixture list was being squeezed at the time, possibly due to the lack of floodlighting. A double header had already been penciled in at the end of the season, so there was little in the way of alternatives available. Interestingly, the meeting at Rayleigh was described as “the final match to be staged at the Rayleigh track”. While this didn’t prove to be the case, there certainly was no more racing there for a couple of years.

 

And these too

Some crazy planning saw Glasgow’s Scotland v England test being staged mid way through Tigers southern tour of Long Eaton, Oxford and Cradley in the early summer of 1965. To make matters even worse, Newcastle had their Scotland v England test on the preceding Monday, meaning that the schedule for Charlie Monk and Willie Templeton read

Monday – Newcastle

Tuesday – Long Eaton

Wednesday – Glasgow

Thursday – Oxford

Friday – free!

Saturday – Cradley

Sunday – free

Monday – Exeter in a Bank Holiday morning meeting

Oh by the way, Charlie Monk had the Wimbledon Internationale in the evening following the Exeter meeting! It surely would have made more sense to reschedule the Long Eaton meeting for the day after the Exeter meeting, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing! However the schedules of yesteryear make the travel arrangements for the current crop of riders who fly between Poland, Sweden and the UK look like a picnic!

 

Seemed like a good idea

Exeter announced that they had taking a standing booking at a local hotel, so that, should their Monday night fixture be rained off, the visitors would stay over and try again the following night. This seemed an eminently sensible plan, particularly as their first rain off in their inaugural BL season was against Edinburgh, the furthest flung visitors of the season. What a saving could be made. However, it didn’t happen as the Monarchs were due at Long Eaton the following night. A couple of months later, they did get the chance to implement their plan when Swindon were duly rained off and stayed over. A couple of years later, Newport similarly availed themselves, but again they were comparatively local visitors. For the rest of the 60s Exeter seemed to have enjoyed remarkably good weather and they had no more “sleep overs”.

A couple of other tracks followed the Exeter model, with Long Eaton getting Kings Lynn to “come back tomorrow” in early October 1967. Newcastle were the league’s rain off champions in 1969 with no fewer than seven home meetings falling victim to the rain, but only Glasgow, their nearest opponents other than Coatbridge, returned the next night. Hardly a great saving However the principle remains, certainly for far travelled sides, but nowadays with riders doubling up and riding in foreign leagues, its application may be limited. Berwick’s Saturday night GP qualifier was rained off in 2014 and the knock on effect of restaging it Monday night was felt in leagues all over Europe.

 

Oh no four in a row!

Glasgow’s storied 1968 season started off on a high note when they pulled off an away win at Kings Lynn before March was out, but really it was all downhill thereafter! The Tigers had got the rawest of raw deals from Rider Allocation that year, and unsurprisingly crowds fell. However the meteoric rise of Jim McMillan, aided by the return of Alf Wells saw them ride out the storm. Tigers had a southern tour in late August, going to Poole and Oxford on Wednesday and Thursday before returning home to race fellow strugglers Kings Lynn. West Ham found they had a “blank” date on the Tuesday and drew a “blank” in their attempts to bring forward a BL fixture, Swindon and Oxford declining to come. They rather tentatively approached Glasgow to fill the breach by visiting Custom House at the start of their tour. Dave Lanning was well pleased, and possibly a bit surprised, when Les Whaley agreed to this proposal, giving his side four meetings in four days. Lanning described Glasgow as ”certainly not one of the British League’s most fortuitous outfits but one of the most helpful and co-operative we have encountered this summer….A very helpful and noteworthy gesture and one we will not forget” The Hammers certainly won’t have forgotten this night easily as Ken McKinlay and Stan Stevens collided in heat five putting both out the meeting, ultimately costing West Ham the meeting. So may be Tigers got their just reward for their co-operation, with their surprise 42-36 win. It was a tired Tigers team that saw off Kings Lynn at the White City with a comfortable 44-34 win. Promoter Whaley paid tribute to them saying that the way their bikes stood up to the arduous schedule was an outstanding feature with only had one minor breakdown over the four meetings.

Tigers would later embark on a four in four nights tour in the Coatbridge era, when famously one of their riders is reputed to have fallen asleep in the pits