Mike Parker

Before the Provincial League

Ian Hoskins always believed in putting on a show and often had interval attractions. He had quite a few during his short open licence season at Motherwell in 1958, ranging from a display of model aeroplane aerobatics to midget car racing. The latter featured cars owned and driven by Mike Parker. It is likely that this was first time the two met and it is possible that Motherwell gave Parker the idea of staging non league speedway.

Parker held a public meeting with fans in Liverpool in April 1959, outlining his plans to bring speedway back to the city, which seemed to be well received. When his initial approach to the SCB was rebuffed, he simply ran “pirate” events, often a mixed programme of bikes, sidecars and cars at Liverpool, Bradford and Cradley. From this, he came up with the idea of a new division for junior riders. He put an advert in the Speedway Star asking for those interested in forming a Provincial League to come to a meeting. This got a good response and, after a winter of negotiating, a Provincial League of ten teams was sanctioned by the Control Board. It was by no means a rubber stamping exercise by the authorities as both Aldershot and Eastbourne were turned down. As well as having Liverpool, Parker reopened Stoke in partnership with Reg Fearman, who was to be his tutor on all things speedway.

Provincial League

While some teams followed the ideal of bringing on junior riders, others went for a far more experienced core. Rayleigh, Poole and Bristol were considerably stronger than the other seven teams and virtually had a separate contest between themselves.

Stoke had brought Reg Fearman, Ray Harris and later Ken Adams back from retirement and, riding in front of good crowds, were the only team to beat one of the “big three”, with a 37-34 win over Poole. In contrast Liverpool had a rough time. They lost their first six home meetings and, with Brian Craven, their only rider of note, injured, they brought in veterans Wal Morton and Bryce Subritzky, who led them to home and away wins against fellow strugglers Bradford and also subsequent home wins against Edinburgh and Sheffield. It was too little, too late, as this lack of success hadn’t gone down well in the ‘Pool and crowds suffered, such that they never reopened for 1961.

Undeterred, Parker opened Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Wolverhampton in partnership with Fearman, meaning that they now shared four tracks. Perhaps not unsurprisingly these three tracks along with fellow “newbie” finished in the bottom four. For 1962 it was onwards but perhaps not upwards for the Parker/Fearman empire. Charles Ochiltree certainly saw Parker coming when he persuaded him that, while Leicester wasn’t a viable NL side despite crowds of around 3000, the venue would thrive in the PL as the crowd level would hold up. Aye right! They rarely achieved half of this figure in a disastrous season. This possibly explains the antipathy to CO that Parker would later display at times, notably over stockcar issues.

Leicester wasn’t the only drain on their finances. Jess Halliday, the Bradford promoter, had had a tough time in relocating his side from Odsal to Greenfields. Problems with track construction led to Bradford failing to compete in 1961, with their riders going out on loan to Newcastle and Middlesbrough. Things didn’t go well when the Panthers got on track in 1962 and Fearman and Parker moved in to enable the club to see the season out, a move that didn’t seem to be one of their most astute decisions. Neither Bradford nor Leicester opened for 1963. Lessons were learned, notably to cut your losses and get out before things got even worse.

The end of a beautiful partnership

It’s hard to explain why Parker thought he could renegotiate the leases at Newcastle and Wolverhampton and put them in his own name, but this he did ahead of the 1963 season. Unsurprisingly Fearman was livid and started legal action and also asked the PL promoters to sack him from the chairmanship of the PLPA. The SCB got involved and said they would revoke the track licences for all Parker and Fearman tracks – Parker’s Newcastle, Wolves and Hackney; Fearman’s Stoke, Middlesbrough and Long Eaton – effectively half of the league. This brought a speedy resolution with Parker have to recompense Fearman for his share of Newcastle and Wolverhampton.

The pair clashed again early in the season when Parker’s attempt to sign Coventry’s Rick France on loan at Wolverhampton was rejected by the Rider Control Committee, leading Parker to accuse it of being run by Fearman. Undaunted, he went ahead and signed France when Ernie Baker was injured and the Committee promptly responded by saying that Wolves would be expelled from the league at the end of the season. Perhaps unsurprisingly the Speedway Control Board refused to sanction this suspension. All good stuff.

The league was a closely fought race between Mike Parker’s Wolves and Reg Fearman’s Stoke, with the meeting at Sun Street seeming to be the decider. The Potters won 42-36 and their fans celebrated as champions. However Wolves Bill Bridgett had lodged an appeal that John Mills had not been properly registered when riding for Middlesbrough, another Fearman track, in their home win against the Wolves. Exactly how he came to know of this isn’t clear but there was considerable “feeling” between the two camps. The appeal was upheld and a 40-38 defeat became a 38-35 victory, giving the Wolves the title, surely the only team ever to win a league with a negative race points’ differential.

NL/PL split

The SCB issued their plans for the 1964 season, the major point of which was that Wolverhampton, the 1963 PL champions would be lining up in the NL. “Not so!” said Wolves promoter and PLPA chairman Mike Parker, claiming it would increase their costs by over five thousand pounds over the course of a season. The rebuffed SCB came back with the idea that the ten PL teams who had completed the 1963 season would join with the six NL teams for one big league of sixteen. Again this was refused by the PLPA who had already laid plans of their own for 1964, with new tracks at Glasgow, Sunderland and Newport swelling their numbers, the latter two being new Parker tracks.

Parker suggested the NL should go and find new centres of their own. He also offered to send a PL select, the Provincial League Lions, to ride in meetings at NL tracks. This was refused by the SCB who stated that the PL would be riding “black” and that their riders would have their licences revoked. Both sides then took up entrenched positions that lasted all season

The “black” season

By mid May, Wolves were still toiling to field a full strength side, while NL riders were complaining about a lack of bookings and that the promised extra tracks had not materialised. May 22^nd was a pivotal day in the dispute. Wimbledon’s Bobby Andrews turned out for Wolves, scoring a maximum against a fairly weak Sunderland side. The following night he turned up at Coventry ready to race for Wimbledon. However both teams objected to riding either with or against him. After a forty minute delay, during which he was put under some pressure, Andrews agreed to withdraw from the meeting. Undaunted, Andrews turned out at Hackney a few days later for Wolves Southern League fixture there, but, while warming up his bike in the pits, he was served with an interim interdict to prevent him riding in the Provincial League. The following night Andrews turned out for Wimbledon at Oxford. Initially, the Oxford riders weren’t prepared to ride against him, but they were subsequently persuaded to by promoter Cyrille Melville. A few days later, a High Court judge sitting in Chambers upheld the interim injunction and extended it to September 29th. Mike Parker had little alternative but to accept this judgement, but said he would take the case back to court if Andrews was stopped from fulfilling his Wimbledon contract. For a couple of months, the matter lay dormant. Then the SCB announced Andrews was being fined one hundred pounds for riding on an unlicensed track. A bullish Parker claimed that if Andrews was made to pay, then he would give him rides at Wolverhampton, and he would return to the High Court to have the interdict overturned. Perhaps not relishing further legal confrontation, the SCB ruled that the fine stood and was payable at the end of the season.

If things weren’t great at Wolverhampton, they were even worse at Sunderland where a weak team wasn’t bringing in decent crowds. A huge crowd had turned out for the local derby against Newcastle but this was largely due to the number of free tickets given out in both Newcastle and Sunderland in the preceding days. After the Northern League meetings were completed, Parker reviewed the position and, while they did fulfill a couple of Provincial League fixtures, withdrew the Saints from the league. Colin McKee, Jim Airey and Gordon Guasco all went to shore up his Wolverhampton side, while Ken Sharples, just back from a lengthy retirement went to Newcastle, a vital signing and one that was pivotal in the Diamonds winning the league. Sunderland fans of the time still feel their side was sacrificed for his other more established tracks.

In contrast Newport was the success story of 1964, with the Welsh people turning out in huge numbers, despite a rather restricted track. Parker was in partnership with Foot and Knott, the latter bringing Alby Golden, Dick Bradley and Pete Vandenberg from their closed Southampton track. For whatever reasons, the partnership didn’t last beyond 1965 after which Parker assumed total control and installed Ken Sharples as his speedway manager. Parker’s time in Wales ended when he sold out to Pete Lansdale and Wally Mawdesley after the 1969 season had ended, by which time crowds had leveled out. If nothing else Parker was now shrewd enough to know when to get out.

Parker had brought speedway back to Hackney in 1963 after a thirty year absence. Track preparation had never been Parker’s forte, indeed the opposite was almost his trademark, perhaps believing a rough track made for better entertainment and some riders nicknamed the Waterden Road circuit “Agony Wick”. Others called the Newcastle home “Rough Park.” Parker persuaded Len Silver, whose car sales business was nearby, to pay £1000 for a half share in the promotion midway through the 1964 season. While the Hawks chased Newcastle all season and finished runners up, crowds were poor, meaning Silver had to stump up a further £1500 as his share of that season’s loss. Parker was all for closing the track down but agreed to sell his share for £300. While it seems that Silver had paid a high price for Hackney, he has no ill feelings over the matter and promoting at Hackney seems to have been the highlight of his speedway life.

The early BL years

Newcastle were rumoured to have been trying to sign Brian Brett but it seems doubtful that they would have got permission to sign him but things changed dramatically on Good Friday when Ivan Mauger sustained a badly broken ankle which was going to keep him out for some time. The Diamonds moved quickly to conclude a deal with Brett who would travel to Newcastle by train, getting the sleeper for his return journey. The arguments came later when they managed to retain him when Mauger returned, offering Goog Allan to the “pool” instead. Allan chose to sit on the fence for some time before eventually joining Cradley, significantly refusing to sign for Edinburgh on a night they were racing Newcastle with both Brian Brett and Ivan Mauger in their side.

Looking back, the best opportunities for British juniors in the early BL years were provided by Mike Parker…in Italy. Certainly the venture was more commercial than altruistic, but guys like Paul Sharples, Mick Handley, Alan Paynter, Maury Robinson, Peter Harris and Brian Oliver got far more rides and experience from the eight meetings that were run in Rimini in Italy  from mid June to mid July in 1966. There was brash talk about having further venues and forming an Italian League the following year. Unsurprisingly that came to nothing, although by then it may have been apparent that a second British league was the way to go

Second division brainchild

Mike Parker again proved to be a visionary. In the same way as his trial meetings in 1959 led to the formation of the Provincial League, so his brief season at Nelson in the autumn of 1967 was the forerunner for the new league. In some respects it was fortunate that he only operated a short season at Seedhill Road, running speedway fortnightly, interspersed with stockcars. The latter drew considerably larger crowds and no doubt subsidised the speedway. It is doubtful that a full season of speedway meetings would have been self supporting. There was considerable scepticism over his plans for a complete division. Leading Speedway Star journalist Eric Linden doubted that, even if the tracks could be opened, it was unlikely that the eighty or so riders, required to staff the new teams, could be found.

 By February eight tracks, Berwick, Eastbourne, Middlesborough, Nelson, Reading, Weymouth and Parker’s second strings at Newcastle and Newport, were being named as likely starters with the rumour mill also churning out Colchester, Bath, Barry and Maidstone as “possibles”. As it turned out neither Newcastle nor Newport actually came off although in hindsight Parker may be dodged a bullet as both Belle Vue and Kings Lynn subsequently ran up considerable losses in a bid to sustain two teams at the one track. Undaunted Parker switched his attention to Barry where the local football team played in the Southern League. He was certainly keen, indeed some may say desperate, to secure planning approval, offering to rent the stadium for three years and pay a percentage of the gate receipts to the council. Despite these major concessions his application was refused. It is perhaps ironic that Parker’s pioneers at Nelson and Crayford , like Liverpool before them, didn’t last the course and by 1969 were staging double headers to free up more dates for the more lucrative stock car meetings.

All change in 1969

The Parker empire was to change dramatically as the decade drew to a close. Things had got off to a rather difficult start. With most of the top line Swedes being banned, his tracks were badly hit with Newport and Wolverhampton missing out on Torbjorn Harrysson and Hasse Holmquist respectively and the allocated replacements were very much a down grade. Newcastle were handed an even worse deal. Ivan Mauger, now World Champion, had got his demanded move but getting a suitable replacement proved problematic, with Charlie Monk, Olle Nygren and Bert Harkins all refusing to move to Tyneside. In the end Garry Middleton was persuaded to go but his 1968 average (5.74) was only marginally more than half Mauger’s figure. Worse was to follow when it was obvious that Middleton had many Sunday bookings on the Continent and was likely to have a hectic journey to Newcastle for their Monday night home meetings. In the end a deal was brokered that sent him to Hackney with the Diamonds getting a season long guest facility. Tommy Sweetman moved from Hackney to Wolves who in turn released Cyril Francis to Newport. Erik Tillgaard Newcastle’s new Danish signing sustained severe throat injuries in a track crash after just a few meetings, ruling him out for the season. However he remained on his assessed 7.50 figure which meant Rider Replacement could be used. All these changes drained the fans enthusiasm, and possibly Parker’s too. He sold Newcastle to Allied Promotions and continued to divest his speedway interests, selling Newport to Wally Mawdesley and Pete Lansdale. He had opened Doncaster with the Stallions riding in the second division. After a good start, crowds dwindled at York Road, mainly due to the track being ruined by stock cars and again double headers were used to bring the season to an early end. It was no surprise that this operation too was sold, with John Berry and Joe Thurley being persuaded to pay £1500 and being told they could turn things around – he obviously remembered his dealings at Leicester. Like Leicester, the new promotion ran at a sizeable loss, believed to be around £14000, far more than their profit from a booming Ipswich that year, but they hit the jackpot by taking the licence to Birmingham for 1971.

Crayford closed at the end of the season, allowing the stockcars to run weekly and Nelson was soon to follow, with the Admirals transferring to Odsal after striking a deal with rights holder Les Whaley.

Thereafter

After a couple of years he sold his interests in Bradford to Jim Streets, leaving Wolverhampton as his only track. He opened Edinburgh in 1977 and enjoyed some good pay years there before selling out to Tom Cook in 1982 for a reported £30000, ending his speedway involvement, having sold Wolves to Dan McCormick a year earlier. He was a real pioneer, being the driving force behind the creation of the PL and the second division and although he seemed fated to miss out on the golden years, he was generally shrewd enough to know when it was time to sell a promotion and get out.