Ashington, a small town in Northumberland about 15 miles north of Newcastle, staged speedway briefly, very briefly in 1972. The  football club were founder members of the Northern Premier League  in 1968, when the club finished third-from-bottom and resigned due to the costs of being in the league. They spent a single season back in the Northern Alliance, before joining the Northern League in 1970. In 1973–74 they reached the semi-finals of the last-ever FA Amateur Cup,  losing 3–0 to eventual winners Bishops Stortford  in a replay. A track of 400 yards was fitted around the football pitch. Geoff Brownhut had run stock cars in 1971 before speedway was considered for 1972, alternating fortnightly with the cars.

Promoter Geoff Penniket wrote in the programme for the opening meeting against Birmingham on April 5, 1972, that he was most disappointed that his track, along with Barrow, Chesterton, Motherwell and Newtongrange, had been refused a league licence. Looking back it was probably just as well as it was unclear where sufficient riders could have been found to staff these new sides. Trying to put a positive spin on things he went on to declare that the advantage of the open licence they had been awarded meant that they didn’t have to race the poorer and unexciting Division 2 sides! A look at the fixture list showed that it was planned to intersperse fortnightly speedway challenge meetings with stock cars in the intervening week. The speedway fixtures featured Birmingham, Workington, Berwick, Northumberland Open, Motherwell, Barrow, Sunderland, Ellesmere Port, Boston, Scunthorpe, Crewe and a four team tournament against unnamed opponents.

From this it could be deduced that Eastbourne, Romford, Rayleigh, Peterborough, Hull, Teesside and Sunderland were considered poorer opposition!

Rather pushing credulity beyond reasonable limits, he went on to claim they had signed “permanently” Ian Armstrong from the Shelbourne Tigers of Dublin and also Dave Thomas who apparently had ridden for Wimbledon and Wembley, though he was only to ride in the second half.

The team lined up Roger Mills and Geoff Bouchard (both Long Eaton), Jim Ryman and Carl glover (both Boston) and included Roy Young and Colin Meredith as well as signing Armstrong, who was scoreless in two starts. They lost 33-45 to a full-strength Birmingham side. Not a bad performance but the track cut up badly.

Ashington : Glover 10; Young 7; Ryman 6; Meredith 5; Bouchard 3; Mills 2; Armsrong 0:

Birmingham : Gardner 9; Browning 9; Major 7; Shearer 7; Corradine 7; Bailey 5; Wilkinson 1:

Problems with the track may have led to the next meeting, against Workington on April 19 being held over but it seems they expected the next challenge against Berwick on May 3 to go ahead….. but Berwick apparently didn’t want to ride and late advice meant it was too late to call in another team. So far so bad. May 17 saw the Northumberland Open being won by Phil Crump with a 15 point max but again both the track and attendance were poor. Andy Meldrum of Berwick rode but the programed Doug Templeton didn't and was replaced by Bobby Campbell of Barrow.

Top scorers 

Crump 15; Ryman 14; Glover 13; Sansom 10; Meldrum 9; Campbell 8; Watkin 8;

A contemporary report recalls "an unbelievable number of riders pulled out of their rides, the track was appalling. The programme was a mess due to the alterations that were made. Definitely the worst speedway track I have ever seen! "

Experienced riders like Russ Dent and guys like Jack Millen retired from races along with others but an undeterred Phil Crump won all his races generally two seconds faster than anyone else. Crump finished up the track record holder with a time of 74.0.

With two decidedly low grade meetings up next against fellow open licence tracks Barrow and Motherwell, neither a drawcard, it is perhaps no surprise, that the speedway enterprise was pulled in favour of the stock cars.

Motherwell had similar problems and didn’t get off the ground, just one home meeting on a poor track while Newtongrange managed just four meetings before they too pulled the plug. Looks like the Speedway Control Board made the right call in not awarding league places to these speculative ventures