A look at Edinburgh's tour of Poland in 1965

Polish tour plans

ROW Rybnik of Poland were a big draw during their UK tour in July 1965, riding in seven meetings in ten days and winning four of them – at Long Eaton, Wolverhampton, Cradley Heath and Poole, the latter by a staggering 52-26 scoreline. As part of the deal that brought the Poles over, the BSPA were required to send a team over for a late season tour in Poland. It seemed pretty obvious that any BL side would need some strengthening, particularly as the Poles had done likewise with the team they sent. However most teams still had a number of league fixtures to fulfill in October. The first plan was that an Edinburgh/Glasgow select would fly out from London on Saturday October 9. Glasgow were due to be at Hackney the night before, the same night that Edinburgh would have completed their home fixtures. Trevor Redmond, the Glasgow promoter would oversee the travel arrangements. The composite side would be headed up by Charlie Monk and George Hunter who both had had outstanding seasons and consequently would be a big draw in Poland. They would be backed up by Bernt Persson, Henry Harrfeldt, Doug and Willie Templeton, Colin McKee, Nils Paulson, Bluey Scott and possibly Maury Mattingly – a fairly experienced squad. But then the rains came in Glasgow. The Sheffield and Halifax figures were rescheduled for October, meaning Edinburgh would have to go it alone although they would be augmented by Ray Wilson and Norman Storer of Long Eaton and Jon Erskine and Geoff Penniket of Newport.

Since the last time

The importance of this tour shouldn’t be understated. There had been previous tours to Poland but they were before the Cold War had been further intensified by the Cuban Missile crisis. Journeying behind the Iron Curtain was certainly a step into the unknown in sporting, cultural and political spheres. In 1960 an England team had lost a three match series 2-1 despite the late Peter Craven going unbeaten and rather unusually for test matches taking a tactical ride in the two defeats, scoring 21 point maxes in the process. These meetings had been staged over two weekends with the riders flying in for them but Monarchs would be living in Poland and travelling some fairly significant distances by bus on roads that left a lot to be desired. Despite the often generous Polish hospitality it would be a real test of character.

Pre departure panics

Ian Hoskins would tell you that the worst part of the tour was all the preparatory work before leaving. He spent days chasing up his riders to make sure they had their passports and visas in order. Fortunately he took the precaution of actually inspecting these documents as George Hunter presented him with a Visitors Passport that wouldn’t have been valid or travelling behind the Iron Curtain. Fortunately there was still time for Hoskins to complete the necessary paperwork and take it to the government offices in his Glasgow hometown to ensure Hunter got the correct documents. While that was one crisis averted, Hoskins plans to have a new set of team colours available for their trip came to nought when they got lost in the post. The ever resourceful Hoskins looked out the set of white jerseys previously used by England in the test meetings in Scotland, which certainly smartened up the appearance of the well worn race jackets. Bernt Persson seemed well impressed with the jerseys and this was the start of him wearing a white jersey while racing.

Where’s our bikes?

There were problems with the fight out to Poland and the party arrived early on the Sunday morning some eight hours behind schedule. They then had to face the rigours of a 200 mile bus trip from Warsaw to Wroclaw for the afternoon meeting with Sparta. Worse still their bikes hadn’t arrived. Their hosts managed to come up with seven usable bikes although only two were really of the required standard and needless to say they were used extensively throughout the meeting. In the circumstances the 44-34 scoreline was a moral victory with Ian Hoskins saying he was sure they would have won had they been mounted on their own bikes. As it was George Hunter, Doug Templeton and Ray Wilson all managed heat wins and ensured no homester recorded a maximum.

Trevor Redmond pulled out all the stops to ensure the Monarchs bikes were delivered to Gornik for the meeting with ROW the reigning Polish champions who had been virtually unbeaten in Polish domestic meetings. Unsurprisingly the home side ran out convincing 52-26 winners although Bernt Persson and Ray Wilson deserve credit for taking the fight to the Poles with scores of ten and seven respectively.

Close in Gorzow

Possibly the best performance of the tour was in Gorzow, where the Monarchs were just six points down after ten heats and had seen George Hunter set up a new track record while beating Andrei Pogorzelski. Any hopes of winning were dashed when Persson broke down when leading heat eleven and Erskine and Penniket suffered broken chains in the last two heats

Got anything to eat?

Polish cuisine was certainly the main topic of conversation amongst the tourists, with Geoff Penniket and George Hunter in particular gaining a healthy respect for British fare! Neither could be said to be fussy eaters. Hunter was known at the ”Spam Kid” in his early Old Meadowbank days following his liking of rolls filled with this delicacy, while Penniket gave a cooking demonstration in one hotel showing how to fry sausage and eggs, but to no avail as boiled sausages were served for the following mornings breakfast. By mid tour most were feeling hungry, some a bit homesick. Hoskins decided to rotate his squad by dropping the two lowest scorers for the following meeting, a policy generally accepted by the party.

Wot, an exclusion for tape breaking?

The Gdansk meeting was probably the most fraught of the tour with the steward being at the root of most problems, although George Hunter had strained relations - and the tapes -  to breaking point by breaking the tapes in three consecutive races. Normally an exclusion offence, the Poles had been unduly lenient to him but eventually excluded him at the fourth occurrence, although Monarchs maintained that he wasn’t the culprit on this occasion. Throw in a bizarre incident when Jon Erskine fell heavily after running into a fallen Pole and the race continued for a couple of laps with both on the track. The race was finally stopped and all four were allowed in the restart. It was that kind of night.

The party’s over

Ray Wilson and Bernt Persson were mounted on ESOs and revelled on the large Bydgoszcz track scoring fourteen and ten respectively in a 45-33 defeat. This underlined the need to have the right equipment for the Polish tracks, a lesson that wasn’t always heeded on further visits. If Bydgoszcz had been a pleasurable meeting, the opposite was true of Krakow, where the locals drafted in Woryna and Tkocz as guests. Really they shouldn’t have bothered as the Monarchs never got to grips with the track described as a “ploughed field” and suffering a bit from “demob fever” weren’t prepared to take any risks on this final meeting. A lengthy and unpleasant drive back to Warsaw was particularly arduous with the driver again managing to get lost. The eve of departure reception held by the Polish Motor Federation was quite a party with vodka, vodka and more vodka. After a great night, none of the riders were prepared to go to bed in case they missed their 4am alarm call for their fight home.  

A Hackney side  managed a brief tour to Poland for meetings at Gdansk and Leszno in 1980 but really it was no more than a long weekend. Jim McMillan was guesting for the Hawks on this trip and buddy George Hunter had no doubt put him well in the picture about Polish cuisine, so the party knew to take more than a packed lunch with them. Despite this, Sean Willmott had to withdraw from the last meeting after being sick in the pits. He was warned.