While riders nowadays fly all over Europe each week Doug Nicolson remembers Maury Mattingley who not only flew on the track but flew to his home meetings too

 

Maury Mattingley was born in 1923 in Totton, a village about a dozen miles miles from Southampton. Following the war, when he saw service in North Africa, Greece and Italy, he bought a speedway bike and attended some training schools run by Jimmy Squibb. He got second half rides at Southampton’s Bannister Court track in 1950 and broke into the Saints team in 1952 riding in over thirty meetings for them in the Southern League, the third tier in speedway at the time. It is hoped he cherished the joys of a home track barely 20 minutes away in his six seasons there. During this time speedway had contracted to just one league of ten teams. However, things changed fairly dramatically when he joined Coventry in 1958, a journey of about 130 miles. After three seasons at Brandon, he lost his team place as NL teams had dropped from eight a side to seven. He gained Control Board agreement to dropping down to the PL, joining Plymouth, giving him a slightly longer journey for home meetings. He married Rosita, also a keen motorcyclist, in 1961 and, if she couldn’t get the afternoon off travel with him to Devon, she would ride down on her motorbike. However, they reversed roles for the journey home. He was a top scorer in the lower league and moved to Wolverhampton in 1963 following the demise of the Devils. Travelling to this home track had again increased, now almost 160 miles.

Joining Glasgow

Maury had been a prolific scorer at Edinburgh’s Old Meadowbank, and he rounded off 1963 by taking the Scottish Open title there. Trevor Redmond was transferring his St Austell licence up to Glasgow for 1964 and unsurprisingly most of the Gulls weren’t interested in the long trek to Scotland, although Redmond somehow got Chris Julian to make the lengthy trip from Cornwall every week. It would seem that the persuasive Redmond had also got Maury to agree to sign for Glasgow, offering him the option of flying up from Heathrow, with Glasgow airport barely ten minutes from The White City track. The Speedway Star suggested that Ray Cresp, a Gull in 1963, would be going to link up with Mike Parker’s Wolverhampton so possibly a swap deal had been brokered. When Cresp chose not to go “black”, preferring to join the newly opened West Ham in the NL, it seems that Jon Erskine, a Redmond asset from his time at Neath, was sent to Parker who directed him to his newly opened Newport. Maury would have two bikes with one being kept in Glasgow. No problem here as he was a renowned frame maker with his MaurMatt tradename.

Flying high

Flying was considerably different in these simpler times, being virtually show up and go and there was a fairly liberal interpretation of hand luggage rules, with Maury being famed for showing up with a frame, forks or engine parts and sometimes all three. Things were equally relaxed about smoking on flights and Maury had the misfortune to be sitting beside a passenger who chain smoked a fairly pungent cheroot, leaving him feeling decidedly green on the night of Tigers opening meeting. It certainly didn’t show in his riding though, scoring ten paid eleven, losing out only to Middlesbrough’s Bluey

Scott, who himself doubtlessly revelled in the short journey from his Lanarkshire home. Maury also set up a new track record of 78.6 in the opening heat, Tommy Miller’s time of 76.0 being discounted as it was achieved on the now banned larger wheel.

 

Where’s my bike?

With Maury flying up to Glasgow, having meetings on consecutive nights posed a logistics problem as he had a bike in Glasgow but no car. After the opening meeting, Tigers were due at Sheffield the following night and Maury was due to travel down with promoter Redmond with Bruce Ovenden taking his bike in his van. Unfortunately Bruce’s van broke down and while he subsequently hired a replacement car, he didn’t arrive until heat seven by which time Maury had had two unproductive rides on a borrowed bike and in borrowed leathers.

 

Fluid nationality

Belle Vue had been included in the draft fixture list for 1964 in the expectation that they would join the PL. When this didn’t happen, Exeter, Glasgow and Newport decided to stage an international four team tournament featuring Scotland v England v Wales v Overseas to fill their blank week.  All three meetings were to be staged in the one week but, when the Exeter meeting was rained off, the meetings were treated as “stand alone”, which was probably for the best as riders adopted and swapped nationalities with some abandon. Maury, along with Chris Julian and Maury McDermott, was programmed to ride for Scotland at Exeter with the two Tigers reverting to England for the meeting at the White City, just two days later. Meanwhile down at Newport, Maury again became a Scot in a quartet, which included Les McGillivray and Vic White. Exeter’s rearranged leg saw Maury again ride in England’s colours. He also got three caps for Scotland in the five match test series against England that summer but in 1965 the newly instituted Control Board reinstated more stringent criteria for international selection and Maury reverted to being English, although he did manage a final Scottish “cap” in 1967 when the Scots were struggling so badly to field a side that the injured George Hunter was picked as a reserve.

Only two did it

Newcastle came to Glasgow in May 1964 with Ivan Mauger boasting an unbeaten record in Northern League meetings. Mauger captured Maury’s track record when beating Charlie Monk in heat three, handing the Tiger his first defeat in a home league meeting. However, when they met in heat seven, Maury made a great gate and held off Mauger for three laps before the Kiwi fell. This proved to be Mauger’s only defeat in the entire Northern League programme. Maury went on to compile a full maximum, one of only two that would be scored against Newcastle all season, Colin Pratt being the other.

As top scorer, Maury challenged Ivan Mauger for the Silver Sash but like so many others before him and indeed after, he had to give second best to the high-flying Kiwi in the match race. A couple of months later it was his wife’s turn to take part in a match race challenging Mary Mansfield for the “Queen of Cinders” title at Hackney on the night Tigers were there in a PL meeting. She too was unsuccessful in her bid.

Missed you

Maury was a bit of a talisman for the Tigers and was certainly missed when not riding for them. Flights from London on a late Friday afternoon could be problematic and he missed a few of them due to fog which precluded him riding in the Scotland v Rest of the World meeting in 1964 and Tigers BL meeting against Sheffield at the end of the following season, while he was unable to get on two flights with his standby ticket on the May weekend when Wimbledon were the visitors. With his business commitments mounting promoter Redmond excused him from a few meetings including the narrow defeats at home to Oxford and away to Long Eaton – and how he was missed. Had he been riding Tigers would surely have won these meetings and the eight league points dropped would have taken them up to fifth place and would have been their highest ever placing in their history in the top sphere.

Not so lucky

While Maury may have lived a charmed life in avoiding injury during his career, he was less fortunate at avoiding mechanical mishap during his time with Glasgow where he seemed to have a knack of finding “dud” magnetos. Often the team could cover for his off nights but there were times when league points were dropped while he sat in the pits with a sick motor. Promoter Redmond reviewing the season in his notes for the final meeting of 1966 ruefully remarked “as always, he seems to be dogged by motor trouble just when he settles into a run of consistent form”

He had an unusual reason for missing his first four rides in the Scotland v England test match at The White City in 1966 as Tigers teammate Jonny Faafeng, who was bringing his bike back from the previous night’s challenge match at Middlesbrough, turned up late because his watch was three hours slow.

He was helping Poole out in 1968, having ridden in two meetings for them when he sustained broken ribs in a track crash at Exeter and, as he was by then forty-five, decided it was time to make his retirement permanent.

Edinburgh specialist

Maury really liked the Old Meadowbank circuit and it showed in his scores there, particularly in the Scottish Cup ties, meetings in which he really revelled, scoring double figured totals in these nights. His finest moment, however, was Tigers last BL meeting at the venue in 1967 when his ten points were pivotal in the Tigers possibly surprise win there. He rounded off a fine night, winning the trophy final.

Wet farewell for Trevor

Cradley had made three abortive visits to Glasgow in 1966 and returned for a fourth try on the night of the final meeting. Again, it was raining and any prospect of completing the meeting vanished in a downpour of biblical proportions during the running of heat eleven, the time for which was charitably given as 90.0 seconds. The meeting was promptly abandoned and with no sign of the rain relenting Maury and Trevor Redmond went out for a farewell speech and song. What troopers. They were seriously soaked and needed to be rung out before going into the dressing room.

New broom

Danny Taylor took over the promoter’s reins from Trevor Redmond in 1967 and when he heard of the SVEMO plan to allow young Swedes to race in Britain decided to release Maury and apply for a Swede, no doubt reckoning that the Swede’s airfares would be offset by the savings on Mattingley’s weekly flights from London. However, his planning went awry when he heard from Bluey Scott that he had injured his back in a track crash in Australia and would not be fit enough to return. In a long phone call, in which an ample portion of humble pie was no doubt consumed, he persuaded Maury to return for the Tigers in 1967.

 

Early season problems

Maury’s preparations for the new season were less than extensive. Indeed, it was only on the eve of the first meeting that he actually cleaned his bike from the dirt of the last meeting in October and ensured it would start. Despite this haphazard maintenance ne was in fine form in the opener at Hackney, scoring 10 as the Tigers drew 39-39. Sadly, the same wasn’t true of the first meeting at The White City when he blew a motor and pulled out after two rides. He also pulled out of the following night’s Scottish Open in Edinburgh, returning home to carry out repairs. Things didn’t go any better the following week, when he was delayed when flying up from London and had to miss his first ride while his replacement engine was fitted into his bike. He scored well in his three rides, but his engine again blew in his second half ride. Distraught at the costs he had incurred he announced that he couldn’t afford to continue in speedway and was retiring.

Taylor again used his powers of persuasion in another long phone call geeting Maury to agree to give it one more go, a master stroke as Tigers were due to visit Old Meadowbank . It paid off with Maury spearheading a historic Tigers win . Pictured below is heat one of that meeting with Maury about to blast through to join Willie Templeton