This article, the first of two parts, was published in the South London Press on Friday June 7, 1991 to coincide with the closure of Wimbledon Speedway.

Wimbledon Feature Part 1

The headlines read:  Small crowds and huge losses mean that for Wimbledon Speedway it is the...

End of the Roar!

Wimbledon Stadium staged its final speedway meeting  this week - after a colourful history which stretches back 63 years. In today’s South London Press John Hyam - who went to his first speedway meeting in 1946 - looks back at the magical moments which helped make Wimbledon one of speedway’s top clubs.

The final part of his special feature will be in Tuesday’s paper.

 THE lights dimmed on a south London sporting tradition this week when Wimbledon staged its last speedway race.  After 63 years - interrupted on by World War Two between 1939 and 1945 - the tapes have risen for the last time at Plough Lane.  Wimbledon was the sport’s oldest surviving speedway stadium - although fittingly perhaps last Wednesday’s visitors Belle Vue are speedway’s oldest club.

Both teams can trace their origins back to 1928, when the sport which started in Australia, then spread to this country.  But although Belle Vue started a few months before Wimbledon, they moved to a new stadium in Manchester a couple of years ago.

During the 1980s Wimbledon’s future was threatened on a handful of occasions, but the sport survived.  This time though there is no knight in shining armour poised to bring a speedway salvation at Plough Lane.   At the end of the month, the club will start racing on either Fridays or Sundays at Eastbourne - a track owned by 1960s Dons’ rider Bobby Dugard.   The Dugards have had links with Wimbledon since 1946, when Bobby’s father Charlie had a brief spell in Dons’ colours.

Ironically, Charlie’s Wimbledon career ended when he crashed with West Ham rider George Bason. The accident left both men with broken legs and happened only after they had been involved in an exchange transfer deal. For a couple of days before being sent home, they were in adjoining beds at nearby St George’s Hospital.  In the late 1970s, Bobby’s younger brother Eric had a brief spell in Wimbledon colours - on loan from Eastbourne, which had been bought freehold by Charlie in 1947.

Bobby has given Dons a special low rent to continue operations at the Sussex track and they will be known as ‘Wimbledon at Eastbourne’ until the end of the season.  The long term future of the club depends on how things work out during the next few months.  Wimbledon’s current troubles are a long way from the many years of speedway that has thrilled, delighted and amazed followers of the sport.

Some will say the rot at Plough Lane set in when spectacular young Swede Tommy Jansson was killed while competing in his homeland in a mid-1970s World Championship qualifying round.

Courtesy John Spoor

Tommy was a real personality who drew the fans, and after his death much of the magic and attendances went out of meetings at Plough Lane.

 There are others who will see speedway’s decline on the decision to switch from the high standard British League, with its colourful international stars, to the more domesticated National League in the mid-1980s.  On the other hand, had the club not lowered its standards then, there may not have been a further six seasons of racing at Plough Lane.

Tommy Jansson’s death though was, in my opinion, the beginning of the end for speedway at Wimbledon - even if it took  some 15 more seasons for the end to finally arrive.  Tommy is not the only Wimbledon rider to have been killed on the track.  Back in 1937 Reg Vigor, who had been on loan to Wimbledon’s nursery track at Bristol, died in a horrific smash and in 1952, Italian-American Ernie Roccio, a great crowd pleaser was killed at West Ham.

Wimbledon have had links with American speedway riders since the mid-1930s, when Miny Waln and Byrd McKinney briefly raced for them in 1937. Then came the legendary Wilbur Lamoreaux, one of the sport’s all-time greats. He was later joined by New Yorker Benny Kaufmann - who could race as fast as he could talk!

Also another familiar figure around Plough Lane in the late 1930s was the dapper little Texan with the Spanish-sounding name Manuel Trujillo, who is still regarded as one of speedway’s most spectacular ever riders and, unlike his fellow North Americans who pioneered the now conventional foot-forward style, Trujillo leg-trailed more spectacularly than anyone else.

 When speedway restarted in 1946 after the war, riders were pooled and Wimbledon were allocated Oliver Hart, whose leg-trailing broadsiding skill was enough to lift one’s heart into the mouth.   Lloyd Goffe was another of the great, spectacular leg-trailers who carved a niche in Wimbledon colours in the post-war seasons, before moving on for spells with Harringay and St Austell.  In 1947, Hart moved on to Bradford in a three-way transfer that took Australian Bill Longley back to his pre-war club New Cross and their star Les Wotton to Wimbledon.

Originally published in the South London Press, on Tuesday  June 11, 1991:

Wimbledon Feature Part 2

By John Hyam. The headlines read:

End of the Roar!

John Hyam takes a final look back at the personalities who have graced the Dons' track

In its 63 years at Wimbledon Stadium, speedway produced many colourful personalities - some were big stars, others just honest-to-goodness personalities.  One such personality was post-war Dons’ rider Phil ‘Tiger’ Hart, who was born in nearby Balham and went on to become a millionaire.  In 1926, aged 16, he emigrated to Australia, saw speedway and took up the sport. He was with the first wave of Australians to arrive in Britain in 1928, and when England versus Australia tests started in the 1930s, Hart was selected for Australia - until somebody pointed out that he was an Englishman.  His spell at Plough Lane was brief, and he spent most of the pre-war years racing for tracks in the Midlands.  In 1948, Wimbledon paid Birmingham £1,000 for his transfer, but tragically in his first race back at Plough Lane, Hart crashed, broke his leg and retired from the sport.

Vic Duggan was an Australian who many claim was his country’s greatest ever rider, although he never won the World Championship. While his greatest triumphs were at another departed London track, Harringay in the mid-1940s, he started his British career with Wimbledon in the immediate pre-war seasons.

This is Wal Morton and Geoff Pymar in 1957

Ivan Mauger was another of the sport’s greats who started at Wimbledon as a 16-year-old in 1956.  It was only six years later when Mauger returned to ride for Newcastle that he started showing the form which was to make him one of speedway’s great world champions.

Ronnie Moore was another New Zealander who won the world championship. He came to England in 1950 with his father Les, also a rider.  Les failed to impress in trials at Plough Lane, but Ronnie became the club’s first world champion and one of Wimbledon’s best-loved stars.  While Les failed to get a Wimbledon place, he did form a unique team partnership with Ronnie at Shelbourne, on the outskirts of Dublin, which was Dons nursery track in the 1950s.

It was from there that Wimbledon found an outstanding Irish star in Dominic Perry - who quickly became known as Don Perry.

Shelbourne was also the training ground for another young New Zealander, Barry Briggs in the 1950s. Like Moore and Mauger, he also became one of speedway’s great world champions.  Another New Zealander who made a terrific impact on the sport in this period was Geoff Mardon - fittingly described as an ‘uncrowned world champion.’

In pre-war years - from 1929 to 1939 - in what was then the National League, Wimbledon made little impact on main events and only won the title once.  But in the 1950s and 1960s came their greatest run with seven championships over an eight season period.

Wimbledon’s move to Eastbourne in early 1991 has a parallel to 1948, when their own track temporarily based a ‘foreign team.’  It was the year of the Olympic Games, and for six weeks Wembley raced their home matches at Plough Lane.

In the heady post-war years, London derbies sustained speedway and Dons, who raced on Mondays, had regular away matches at West Ham (Tuesday), New Cross (Wednesday), Wembley (Thursday) and Harringay (Friday). The only ‘out of town’ matches were on Saturday, either at Belle Vue (Manchester) or Bradford.

Americans have always been popular at Wimbledon. In later pre-war years it was Wilbur Lamoreaux and Benny Kaufmann. In post-war seasons there was Ernie Roccio, Brad Oxley, Gene Woods and Bobby Ott. And pre-war came Canadians Goldie Restall and Crocky Rawding, while their fellow countryman the formidable Jimmy Gibb was a Don in 1949 and 1951.

Mind you, there have also been great English riders of world standard at Wimbledon. Post-war favourite Norman Parker for instance who in 1939 had been at Harringay with his brother Jack.   The latter was the big post-war star at Belle Vue and his tussles with Norman in the early post-war match race championship races were epic, no-quarter given events.

Stylish Midlander Alex Statham, another pre-war Harringay star, the Buckinghamshire farmer and publican Ron How who won his laurels in the 1950s, coupled with  Bobby Andrews, Cyril Brine, Split Waterman and Dave Jessup are others accepted as top stars.