While away defeats are often expected fans are less sanguine about losing at home, with big home reverses leading to the inevitable inquests. Doug Nicolson looks at some sore nights in

Black Nights

 

Causes

We’ve all had the proverbial bad day at the office when a series of small things go wrong culminating in a horrendous day - and speedway teams had such nights too. Away from home it was often just put down to “one of these things” but with few supporters present it was usually forgotten. However home defeats were more visible and considerably more was often made of it. Unexpected changes in track preparation were always likely to put off the home team more than the visitors. Often outside agencies were involved. At Hampden, the football authorities decided to lift the entire pitch to install new drains and returf the whole pitch. Track preparation time was severely limited and there was a constant stream of trucks and heavy plant, which really knocked chunks out of the track surface, particularly at either end of the home straight where the access ramps met the track. The entry to the first bend was the most problematic. Things were made worse when, with a big crowd expected for the Scottish Cup final, workmen unloaded surplus shale off the terracing back onto the track the day before the meeting, leaving the track in disarray and leading to a sizeable defeat. Exeter had similar problems with their track being used as a temporary car park and ending up resembling a ploughed field.

Injury or other absences were also major factors in home defeats. In the times when the loss of middle order riders could not be covered by rider replacement, their absence was often more problematic than a missing heat leader for whom the facility usually provided adequate cover. The worst case was an injury on the night, particularly to one of your top riders in an early race, leaving his rides to be taken by your reserves or, in more extreme cases, tactical substitutes. The idea of the Immediate Injury Replacement was still years away.

 

Newbies problems

Newly opened clubs were always going to be a bit vulnerable at home in their early years as they built their team up. While Peterborough made a respectable start to speedway life, they struggled against the might of Ipswich, with the all conquering Witches handing them their biggest ever NL defeat (48-29) in 1971.

Weymouth returned to Radipole Lane after a six year hiatus. Nicknamed the Wizards, they were unable to weave any spells when champions elect Birmingham bowled up in Dorset in mid September 1974 and racked up a huge 58-20 win.  Mildenhall had a traumatic start to their inaugural NL campaign in 1975. Losing their first home meeting to Scunthorpe was indicative of the struggle to come but possibly not to the extent of the 55.5 – 21.5 mauling by Stoke a few weeks later. However the management didn’t panic and a convincing win a fortnight later over Teesside helped them turn the corner and by the seasons end they had moved off the bottom of the table. The boot was on the other foot when they travelled to Barrow in 1978 for the Flyers opening meeting at their new Park Road home, spoiling the party with a massive 58-20 win.

 

 

Signings stimulus

Sometimes a really bad home defeat actually proved beneficial as it prompted the home promotion to redouble their efforts in strengthening the team.

Berwick’s opening was greeted with widespread amazement that the small far flung town could support a speedway team. After a slow start, crowds began to flock in, although the team had a rather more protracted development. With Bill McMillan and Brian Whaley, the mainstays of their first year campaign, emigrating, the team looked decidedly weak for their second season, something borne out by a massive 54-22 home defeat by Crayford, in response to which the team signed Maury Robinson who helped right the ship. An injury crisis the following year saw an equally devastating home defeat at the hands of Rochdale (26-51). Again it stirred the promotion into another signing and what a coup this turned out to be - none other than Doug Wyer, arguably the greatest Bandit of all time. 

Scunthorpe was another example. After a fairly successful Open Licence season of about a dozen meetings in 1971, they were admitted into the second division and it was a season of toil for the Saints, finishing thirteen points adrift at the bottom of the league. The KO Cup was a disaster losing 59-19 both home and away to Crewe, and, while it should be noted that the Kings ran up similar scores at Earle Street against the likes of Birmingham, Eastbourne and others, their home defeat was much harder to swallow. 1973 didn’t look like being any improvement with numerous early heavy defeats on the road and more worryingly a large defeat by Boston in a challenge match at Quibell Park. Things came to a head with another 59-19 home thrashing at the hands of Peterborough in the league, their biggest ever home defeat, and the promotion got their act together, signing both Ken McKinlay and Ian Hindle who helped take the Saints off the bottom of the league.

Exeter had a poor start to their 1973 campaign, drawing with Ipswich at The County Ground before a massive 50-28 hammering by Belle Vue. A further home defeat the following week when Bob Kilby was injured in his first race, led the Falcons management to take decisive action and they went right to the top signing world champion Ivan Mauger, ushering in a golden era still remembered in Devon to this day.

 

Red hot mail bag

Home defeats were very much a rarity for Glasgow during the early years at Hampden and Tigers fans took defeats quite badly during the 1971 season, certainly judging by the number and tone of letters submitted in their aftermath.

While the criticism following Poole’s narrow win at Hampden was quite muted, King’s Lynn’s surprise 43-35 success in early June provoked the biggest postbag of the year. and five were published. The over watered track and mechanical gremlins were the main topics, with only one scribe actually wanting to drop poor performers. However when Belle Vue rode into town in early September, and, it has to be said, rode all over the Tigers, the postman’s bag was glowing red-hot. The main letter ran to nearly a full column with comments “We are all agreed that this is the worst set of second string riders we have ever had” …”when are we going to replace these riders”… “I can’t see the support taking much more of this at Hampden”….”I don’t want to see speedway fold in Scotland” All stirring stuff, even if it did miss the point that Belle Vue had won eight away league fixtures and were runaway league leaders. It also chose to ignore that Doug Templeton had scored seven in the fateful meeting, and that Bill McMillan had retired during it – so obviously he was going to be replaced fairly soon.

 

Bad day at the office

Arena Essex started life with a fairly strong team although they needed a few meetings to settle into their unusual surroundings. Not having a safety fence took a bit of getting used to. Everything went wrong when Milton Keynes came visiting for one of the first NL meetings at Purfleet. The Hammers got off to the worst possible start conceding an opening heat 5-1 with Alan Sage suffering an engine failure and Martin Goodwin falling but remounting for the third place point. The next two heats were no better, leaving them twelve points down after only three races. Goodwin fell again in his next outing, struggling with the heavy track and didn’t take either of his two remaining rides as the Hammers lost 47-31 – a bad day at the office.

 

Tigers’ sad last nights

Tigers’ final nights at Hampden and Coatbridge were pretty poignant not helped by getting skelped by the visitors. The 1972 season had been dismal culminating in Svein Kaasa being killed in a track crash. Sheffield had succeeded in their appeal against the referee refusing to allow a late arriving Bert Harkins to ride in their BL meeting and the restaging was to be the second leg of a double header, after the Oxford meeting. It dragged on badly and some fans, who stayed to the bitter end, were reported to have had to walk home. Those who left for last buses certainly didn’t miss much. Sheffield won by a staggering 50-28, Glasgow’s largest ever home defeat in the BL – not a great end league racing at Hampden.

Five years later, and the Tigers, now in the NL, had been served with notice to quit Coatbridge by their football landlords. The evening was indeed sad with visiting Eastbourne winning 46-32, equalling Tigers worst defeat at Cliftonhill. The Eagles went on to win the league by a mile. Albion Rovers introduced greyhound racing immediately after the Tigers eviction and went on to plumb various depths of futility in the lowest Scottish football league. No doubt they would later regret giving speedway the boot.

 

Top half bad nights

Unsurprisingly most teams finished in the lower reaches of the BL when they suffered their worst ever home defeats, although Reading’s fourth place in 1979 was marred by the 46-32 tousing by league winners Ipswich. Three other teams finished fifth in the year they suffered their worst ever home defeat. Belle Vue were pasted 53-25 at Hyde Road in 1977; Coventry lost heavily to Cradley to the tune of 52-26 in 1981.

 

BL worsts

The record books show that Oxford had a record breaking year in 1986 when they were undefeated in all BL meetings, winning all ten away fixtures. With a number of meetings being rained off, October was an unusually busy month for most teams and Swindon had five home meetings that month. Out of contention, the Robins were probably just happy to get the meetings run but weren’t quite so happy when the all conquering Cheetahs handed them a huge 21-56 defeat – and it’s always worse when it’s at the hands of your local rivals, who have a large number of their fans with them. The same fate befell Hackney who fared only marginally better going down 22-56 to Wimbledon in 1979, a year in which the lost no fewer than 8 of their 17 home meetings.

While Cradley weren’t quite as dominant as the 1986 Oxford team, they still managed to win 26 of their 28 BL fixtures in 1983. Not only did they hand Eastbourne and Leicester 22-56 hammerings, they also restricted no fewer than four other teams – Belle Vue, Hackney, Poole and Swindon - to less than 30 points while visiting, quite a feat.

Swindon showed the rollercoaster nature of speedway fortunes by bouncing back from their 1986 humiliation by Oxford to go to King’s Lynn the following year and hand the homesters their biggest defeat of 23-55.

 

Worst season

Workington had a truly traumatic season in 1980, winning just two of their 19 home league meetings, with only narrow wins against Canterbury (40-37) in the middle of the summer and Milton Keynes (40-38) in their final fixture, stopping a whitewash. Scunthorpe and Milton Keynes in 1979 and 1981 respectively did only marginally better by managing four home wins, double the Comets low water mark.

 

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