Dick Barrie's
Speedway Website

July 1949 - The Very Beginning of my Speedway Involvement

Most speedway afficionados can recall the first meeting they attended.

So where and when did it all begin for me?

Well it was high summer, 1949. We had moved that summer from the douce tenements of the Pollokshields district a few miles west on Glasgow's south side to Dumbreck, where the house had a garden, a bedroom of my own - and a speedway stadium just across the road!

My first visit to the White City was actually delayed a few weeks, because I had to go into the Victoria Infirmary to have my tonsils out - and the promise of lots of ice-cream and jelly were quite enough to keep my six-year-old mind away from the lure of roaring, racing motorbikes - until I got home again!

Speedway was a major spectator sport in the immediate post-war years, and comics and children's books all carried tales of the sport. As soon as I learned how close to the first home of Glasgow Tigers we were moving, I began my campaign to be taken to see it all live.

Finally, the designated Wednesday night arrived, and - in the company of my mother and aunt -- off we went. (Only much later did I realise they had been as keen as I was to see the new sport, with so many glamorous, leather-clad heroes to check out!). I was hooked from the off. It was Tigers v Giants, and the huge crowd reflected local enthusiasm for the derby.

The great Ken LeBreton was in the visiting Ashfield side, as were Gurtner, Harding, Alec "Farmer" Grant (who I met, and got to know quite well, years later) and Willie Wilson - who fell off at the start of one race, to my childish delight. Willie (a very nice man, with a lovely smile) came back into the game, albeit briefly, as Starting Marshall at Love Street, Paisley, in 1975.

The Tigers had the old guard of Lowther and Crowther, plus my first hero Junior Bainbridge and Gordon McGregor, the first Scottish-born post-war star. Ken McKinlay was at reserve.

Tigers won, and I went home, happy and hooked.

Throughout the remainder of the 1949 season - on reflection, probably no more than ten meetings, although at the time it seems to drift on forever, usually in sunshine (although there was one very wet Wednesday I recall, when Fleetwood Fliers were grounded on the wrong end of a record score!).

I became speedway-daft. Every magazine had to be bought, devoured, clipped and stuck into my album. I learned to fill in a programme before I could write anything sensible at school. I knew the name, and team, and probably the riding number of every rider in each of the three National League divisions.

Late in the year, I was taken - in the upstairs front compartment of a Glasgow tram - to Ashfield, to see a big meeting, although exactly what it was now escapes me. I recall more of the tram ride than the meeting! LeBreton was there, of course, with a huge white peak on his helmet. The place was packed, and a shy 6-year-old had difficulty seeing all the action.

That night, well over 50 years ago, remains the only time I have ever been at Ashfield - the present-day Tigers, by opting for a Sunday race-day, clash horribly with my broadcasting schedule, and I haven't made it to a modern meeting.

Sadly, within a fortnight, there had been a tragedy at Ashfield, when a bike or bikes went over the fence into the crowd with tragic results. Giants' veteran skipper Norman Evans, although not involved in the initial incident, suffered a career-ending injury when he ran onto the darkened infield to avoid the melee, and crashed into the tractor!

So went my speedway baptism in 1949 - in many ways as vivid to me today as it was back then.