The Pattreiouex Tobacco Company advertises their
Trawler Critic Club Member cigarettes on these cards.
My thanks to David Pipes for supplying his set
of cards from 1930. Senior Service used an artist for their 1929
set but for 1930 they used photographs of the riders. The
photographs have fogged out all the backgrounds which although it scores
for artistic merit it has lost us unique historical record of what was
going on in the pits etc.
Card 1 British Jack Barber
The bike picture shows the Douglas had a gear
lever mounted on the fuel tank. Speedway bikes in later years did
not have gear boxes. I understand Douglas riders selected 2nd gear
and never changed gear at all in a race. They must have been
slower in starting a race than the Rudge but appear to have had more
power around the bends
Card 2 British Broncho Dixon
Card 3 British George Greenwood
Card 4 British Frank Charles
Card 5 British Ham Burrill
Card 6 British W E Platts
Card 7 British Squib Burton
Card 8 British Syd Jackson
Card 9 Australian Syd Parsons
Card 10 British Eric K Langton
Card 11 Australian Jack Chapman
Card 12 British Arthur Sherlock
Card 13 British Joe P Abbott
Card 14 British G B Crawshaw
Card 15 British George Wigfield
Card 16 British Arthur Atkinson
Card 17 "Put Your Feet Up"!
Card 18 "Can You Do This"!
Card 19 "Laying Her Over"!
Card 20 "Down But Not Out"!
Card 21 "How Did That
Happen"
Card 22 British Jack Barnet
Card 23 Irish Fay Taylour
Card 24 British "Buster" Frogley
At 15 stone Buster would be too heavy in the
modern sport. I presume that as he was successful in 1930 that his
Douglas had plenty low down torque to get him moving with the lighter
riders
Card 25 British Eva Askwith
Card 26 British Roger Frogley
Card 27 British Colin Watson
Card 28 British Eric Spencer
Card 29 Australian Billy Galloway
Card 30 Australian Frank Arthur
Card 31 Australian Cyclone Billy Lamont
Round The Fence Lamont would have been my kind
of rider. The card says he is usually mounted on an AJS.
AJS's were used in the mid 1920s in Australia but surely by 1930 the AJ
had been pushed out by Douglas and Rudge machines in the UK.
Card 32 Australian Vic Huxley
Card 33 Australian Max Grosskreutz
Card 34 American Lloyd "Sprouts" Elder
Card 35 British Ivor Creek
Card 36 British Billy Dallison
Card 37 British Jim Kempster
Card 38 British Skid Skinner
John Skinner says: My namesake Skid Skinner, although no-one
has ever called me "Skid" ! I pushed a pen in the civil
service whilst Skid also rode Wall of Death!
Card 39 British Del Forster
Card 40 British Tommy Hatch
Tommy was a devotee of Scott motorcycles.
You can see from his photocard the top half of his bike. Scotts
were water cooled two-strokes and a race between four of them would have
been deafening
Card 41 Australian Charlie Spinks
Card 42 New
Zealander "Stewie" St George
Card 43 British Alec Jackson
Card 44 Jack Parker (British) Ron Johnson Australian)
Card 45 British "Ginger" Lees
Here we see Ginger modeling the best race wear
available in 1930. His Leathers looked stylish but wouldn't have
protected him much in a crash and the pudding basin helmet wouldn't
protect the face or back of the head. This was before the age of
plastics his helmet was made of cork.
Card 46 British Arthur Franklin
Card 47 British Eric & Oliver Langton
Argentina has been involved in speedway since
the beginning and we still see the odd Argentinian rider in the UK today
Card 48 British A W Jervis
Card 49 British Dusty Haigh
Card 50 Australian Dicky Wise
Card 51 British Frank Varey
Another devotee of the water cooled two-stroke
Scott. Frank was a Scott "Works" rider before the term was coined.
The Scott was red and Frank rode in Argentina in a red jersey. The
Argentinian fans called him "eldiablo rojo"
the Red Devil
Card 52 British Clem Beckett
Clem joined a fairly large group of UK nationals
that in the later part of the 1930s volunteered their services to fight
in the Spanish Civil War. He was killed in action as if speedway
wasn't dangerous enough for him.
Card 53 British Walter Hackney Hull
The write up on Walter's card praised him but as
often is the case a rider fails to achieve what he should have done.
Card 54 British Chun Moore
An excellent set of 54 cards from 1930.
Some famous names and some not famous. My thanks to David Pipes for
sending me these scans. I think cigarette cards like these are an
excellent source of information from their era and I am really pleased
that so many card owners have sent me their card sets for display on the
website
