Doug Nicolson looks at teams who have moved home either on a short term or more permanent basis in

 

Moving Home

Moving house is reckoned to be one of the most stressful times of your life and it’s not much better when your favourite team is moving track. Some moves are permanent while others are hoped to be only temporary while a better alternative is concluded, although this often a dead end.

 

Bridging the gap

This seems to have been a Scottish thing, possibly reflecting the Scottish system of house sales of the time. A deal was struck and it was binding on both parties in terms of price and entry date – no messing about, no chains, no gazumping. However if you couldn’t align the dates for both sale and purchase, you could end up with two houses, or none, with the latter meaning you were looking for some form of temporary  accommodation to bridge the gap between the two entry dates – and so it proved for Berwick, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Berwick

Berwick’s last meeting at Shielfield was on September 6, 1980, when they staged a double header against Peterborough, a National League fixture, and Mildenhall, a KO Cup semifinal tie. The fact, that they were staging a double header when the season had about eight weeks to run, suggests that relations with the landlords had broken down to such an extent that a temporary extension of even a couple of weeks couldn’t be agreed. The programme cover, a cartoon showing Bandits’ riders pushing a handcart towards Newcastle, leaving a broken down Shielfield which had a “condemned” sign over the entrance, neatly summed up the situation. Newcastle would ultimately be the track where they finally won the KO for the first time after being beaten finalists on three previous occasions.

Berwick had decided to build a track at an out of town site. However there was little prospect of it being ready in time for the start of the 1981 campaign and the Bandits management made plans to ride elsewhere. Barrow’s Park Road was chosen to be their temporary home. It was well into April before this was finalised and disappointingly their first meeting against Stoke was rained off. While their 4Team round was staged the following week, the rain gods returned for the next attempted fixture against Boston. So far so bad. After this protracted start it was perhaps not altogether surprising that crowds were poor for the next four meetings which culminated with a 53-42 KO Cup win against Newcastle, a lead they successfully defended at Brough Park. No further home meetings were staged at Barrow, and they moved up the Cumbrian coast to stage the second leg next KO Cup tie against Weymouth at Workington. The Bandits had taken at draw at Radipole Lane, and a six point win meant they again progressed to the next round.    

This success probably gave them encouragement to carry on and a deal was done to race at Glasgow’s Blantyre track on Saturday nights. While not ideal, it would have allowed them to see the season out. With no home track advantage, it was not surprising that results there were mixed. However, Edinburgh protested that Berwick shouldn’t be allowed to race in Glasgow, claiming it would impinge on their attendances. Even today, it seems strange that this argument was accepted. Both Edinburgh and Glasgow rode on a Friday night and Berwick raced at Shielfield on a Saturday night. This had been the situation for the five years since Edinburgh reopened and it was never clear how Edinburgh could be disadvantaged. Incredibly the Edinburgh protest was upheld and Berwick were forced to withdraw from the league. However the Bandits were prepared to continue their cup quest. Despite being twenty one points down to Boston, they staged the return leg at Newcastle. This was easier said than done. It was at the third time of asking that they managed to race. A huge 64-32 win at Brough Park put them into the final….against Edinburgh! Sadly, with just about all the neutral fans in the country willing them to win, there was no happy ending as Edinburgh ran out convincing 101- 89 victors on aggregate. However some very good news came during the winter. Planning consent had been granted for their new track at Berrington Lough. After many adventures, both very good and very bad, they would return to Shielfield some ten years later. What goes around, comes around perhaps.

Glasgow

Glasgow’s time at Craighead Park (1982 -1986) was a downward spiral, although, at the time, it was masked to some extent by arch rivals Edinburgh finishing bottom of the league in successive seasons in 1984 and 1985. What couldn’t be hidden, however, was the fact that Edinburgh’s Powderhall was an excellent venue and one of the best in the league. The opposite was true in the west of Scotland, where the spartan facilities would deter all but the most committed of followers. The Tigers were hanging on by their fingernails. Crowds weren’t great but the sport was sustained by the small but devoted band of supporters and Jimmy Beaton’s generosity and ingenuity. The team travelled south for away meetings in a Beaton’s bus, with the Cumbrian group, Steve Lawson, Andy Reid and Geoff Powell joining near Carlisle. A number of supporters would also make the trip and never seemed downhearted no matter the size of the almost inevitable defeat.

There were rumours of the much needed move to a better location, hopefully close to central Glasgow. These included Firhill, the home of Partick Thistle FC – never really likely as there was insufficient room into which to squeeze a track - Scotstoun Showground, a council owned facility with an ash running track – local residents in this fairly well to do area would surely have scuppered any application – and even talk of a new home on the site of a disused coal bing on the Glasgow side of Blantyre.

Then, in the close season of 1986/7 it was announced that the Tigers would be moving to Roseberry Park in Rutherglen in Glasgow. This small stadium was mainly used for juvenile football. However, there seemed to be considerable red tape to wade through, and it was hoped that delays were not going to be too long.   By late April it was obvious this wasn’t going to be the case, and Tigers opted to stage their home fixtures at Workington’s Derwent Park, which had last seen racing in 1981.

It is not known if it was hoped that this would just be a temporary measure until planning approval was received but it certainly was the last card in the pack. Basically, track staff, who could get the afternoon off, would travel down to Workington on a Beaton’s bus that would leave Glasgow around lunchtime, and they would then have a few hours to prepare the track for that night’s meeting. At best, things might just about hang together. However, extensive road improvements were being carried out on the A74, the Glasgow to Carlisle trunk road and, with single lane working, lengthy delays were to be expected. Meetings were generally run on a pretty rough track, which didn’t please visiting sides, most of whom took the pragmatic view that they would be better to ride and complete the fixture to avoid a return trip. Critical referee’s reports were the norm.

Things came to a head in mid September, when Wimbledon sent a strongly worded protest about their meeting. The BSPA acted quickly and expelled the Tigers from the league Like fellow renters Berwick, the Tigers had failed to complete a league season at their adopted home. There must be a moral there somewhere. However like Berwick, the close season brought great news. The Tigers would be returning to Glasgow, to Shawfield no less, just a stone’s throw from their projected base at Roseberry Park.

Edinburgh

With their long term Powderhall home being sold, the Monarchs had hoped to relocate to Armadale but, like Berwick and Glasgow before them, they found that the wheels of the planning process grind exceptionally slowly. If things weren’t looking good for Monarchs fans, then it was even worse for those of a Glasgow persuasion. Their team was in liquidation. Monarchs had a team but not a track, while Shawfield was a track without a team. There seemed an obvious answer, take the Monarchs to Shawfield until Armadale was secured. For the venture to break even, it was hoped that nearly all the Tigers fans would continue to come to Shawfield and that a huge number of Edinburgh fans would travel through each week. A big ask on both supports. Many Glasgow fans considered that Edinburgh were squatters, and were less than welcoming to the home team. Meetings were held in an unpleasant atmosphere, which couldn’t have inspired the home team. The promotion must have lost a fortune, which possibly convinced them to join the newly formed Premier League when the combined league returned to its two traditional divisions. Fortunately planning consent for Armadale was received in good time for them to set up their home there.

 

A couple of nights away

Wembley staged a number of home meetings at Wimbledon when their Empire stadium was being used for the 1948 Olympic Games. They repeated this, briefly, to get their 1971 season underway, as the football authorities had been adamant that their pitch was not to be lifted for the speedway until after the FA Cup and Home Championship internationals were played in May. This intransigence would later end any possibility of league racing there. The Lions raced Belle Vue at Newport, on a night when the Wasps were at Wolverhampton.

While staging a league meeting or two on another track isn’t hugely unusual, staging your home leg of the KO Cup Final certainly is.  And it has happened twice, not counting the Berwick cup final mentioned earlier – and both were against Peterborough. Rye House raced them at Arena Essex in 1992, while four years later Wolves took them on at Long Eaton.

 

Our forever home – or may be not

Romford – West Ham – Barrow

Rochester Bombers have the unwanted distinction of being “bombed out” of their home base before they even managed to stage a home meeting – almost like being gazumped.  However they did manage to race a couple of away challenge meetings. Highly unique. They moved swiftly to conclude a deal with Romford FC to run at their Brooklands home. Looking at footage of racing at Romford, shows just how close the track was to neighbouring houses, and why some residents complained of having speedway in their back garden. The promoters fought a valiant rearguard action against protest groups, even getting the local police to admit that the speedway actually helped keep troublesome teenagers off the streets. It was a pretty bitterly fought battle, setting neighbour off against neighbour and splitting families too. One supporter of the time recalled two of his uncles being on opposite sides of this dispute and refusing to talk to each other for some years after the Bombers got their marching orders. With the 1972 season fast approaching, the promotion tried to buy time in finding a new long term home by agreeing a deal to have a last hurrah at West Ham’s Custom House stadium, which had already been sold for redevelopment. The Bombers became the West Ham Bombers with their racejacket incorporating the famous crossed Hammers into its design. However hopes for a full season were dashed when the demolition date was brought forward to early summer. Once again they had been ousted and once again they were looking for a new home. The none too handily placed Holker Street stadium in Barrow, a mere three hundred miles from Custom House, was their new home, amalgamating with the non league “Happy Faces”. While the league side retained the Bombers nickname, they did agree to adopt the locals colour scheme of blue and yellow, while unsurprisingly the dropped the Hammers emblem from their new racejacket. It was again another story of woe, with the margins between the football pitch and the speedway track being a constant source of aggravation. Barrow FC failed to get re-elected to the then fourth division of the Football League and could only secure entry to the Northern Premier League by agreeing to remove the speedway track. Somehow, despite this ruling the Bombers  managed to hang in there and continue racing through to the end of the 1974 season, although it has to be said that by the latter stages the track was very narrow and the bends almost square.

 

Greater London property developers

Crayford re-opened in 1975 after a brief three year sojourn in the debut years of the second division and the Kestrels enjoyed an unbroken run of nine seasons before they perhaps surprisingly announced they were decamping to the now vacant Hackney for the start of the 1984 season. It would later transpire that the stadium owners had done a deal with Sainsbury’s who intended to build a supermarket on the site. The Kestrel name was retained and the team enjoyed some very successful years in the latter years of the Back Track period, with their league title in 1988 being their pinnacle.

Curiously Arena Essex opened in the same year that the Kestrels moved to Waterden Road. They were the spiritual successors to West Ham and readily adopted the Hammers nickname and colours. Having won the divison two championship they were promoted to the top sphere in 1992 but the promotion moved the licence to the modernised Hackney stadium for 1996, with no real recognition of their past pedigree – the new team was named London Lions and the forsook their traditional red and blue colours in favour of blue and yellow. The move was possibly doomed from the outset as the stadium was already in receivership when the season started. Crowds didn’t meet the hoped for levels and the club folded at the end of the year.

 

 Good long term homes

If the foregoing tales of woe seem disheartening, then perhaps Lakeside fans would like to be reminded of moves that were hugely successful, possibly none more so than Long Eaton’s move to Leicester where the Lions enjoyed a lengthy stay at Blackbird Road.

When Rayleigh were served with notice that their stadium had been sold to the developers, they went in search of a new home for 1974. Their first choice was Southend Greyhound stadium but it came to nought, leaving two venues under consideration – Crayford and Rye House. However planning permission for the former had lapsed and the Rockets moved to Rye House, where they were to enjoy a golden era on the late 70s.

Poole went bankrupt fairly spectacularly at the end of the 1984 season when the bank put Poole Stadium Limited into receivership, meaning it was the end for Poole Pirates. However their stadium - and reported crowds of “only” 1900 - was still a prime venue and it was possibly no great surprise when the Wildcats from Weymouth moved into the empty nest. After two years of successfully operating in the National League, finishing up as league runners up on both occasions, these Wildcats finally changed their spots, reverting to the Pirates moniker, and, under the skull and crossbones, have enjoyed success from that day to this.