Dick Barrie's
Speedway Website

My Speedway Involvement over the Decades

Well, a brief skim over it…..

After my schoolboy adulation of the sport, which continued from my first visit in 1949 through 'til the demise of racing at Glasgow White City in early 1954, I maintained passing interest in speedway from afar, with only a couple of visits to Motherwell in their last league season.

There were brief open-licence revivals at White City (1956) and Motherwell (1958) to keep me going - and during the second half of the '50's I raced cycle-speedway along with fellow speedway-lovers Bert Harkins, and the Christie brothers Peter and Norman - but only after the upsurge of Provincial League racing brought league speedway back to Scotland at Old Meadowbank did I get back to watching the real thing.

Even after a few years away, the unmistakeable aroma of Castrol R oil burning would hit me like a sledgehammer every time I went back. For that smell, I am truly an addict!

Bert Harkins went further than just watching the racing, and bought a bike from Jimmy Tannock. We used to haul it through to Edinburgh every Saturday night in the (usually vain) hope of Bert getting in a few laps at the end of the meeting. No training tracks or junior leagues in these days!

Eventually, Bert made the"official" second half and then the team at Edinburgh. Ian Hoskins reopened White City with Trevor Redmond as front-man in 1964 and the Hoskins family went further north than speedway had been before (or since) with an open-licence venture at Cowdenbeath in 1965.

I still have an original Fife Lions race-jacket from that year (No 4) somewhere. Any offers?

Around this time, when another cycle-speedway pal (Norrie Allan) who had been helping Bert in the pits bought his own speedway bike, I began to travel around with Bert and the Monarchs, re-fuelling his bike and doing some of the long-distance driving - and knocking over sheep - that goes with the sport. Lord, we had fun in these far-off days!

My next career-move was to fill in for that most-likeable of Canadians Don Cumming, behind the microphone at Hampden Park for a few weeks in 1970. This came about after promoter Les Whaley heard my efforts at a mike during a cycle-speedway international he was attending as guest of honour, earlier that year.

Don Cumming also provided me with an early television job, doing commentary on a Glasgow/Poole match from Hampden in 1971. Neither the match, nor the commentator, were very good!

In the autumn of 1970 I had assisted former Monarch Alex Hughson in setting up a wildly-successful speedway league in Rhodesia, and early in 1971 I was able to travel there to see the end-of-season racing at Salisbury, Gwelo and Bulawayo.

During the '71-'72 winter, Trevor Hay organised indoor ice-racing at several Scottish rinks, and it was at such a meeting at Kirkcaldy that Ken Taylor approached me to ask if I could "fill in for a few weeks" as announcer at Berwick, as Dennis McCleary needed some time off for family reasons. I agreed, and the few weeks turned into twenty years!

Having also begun writing programme notes as well as announcing at Glasgow and Berwick, and weekly articles for "Speedway Star", I was getting busy!

In 1976 I made a month's pilgrimage to Australia and New Zealand, watching speedway at Brisbane, Adelaide, Christchurch and Auckland - as well as visiting the tracks (when no meetings were taking place) at Mount Isa, Newcastle, Sydney Showground and Palmerston North. In the company of Anders Michanek and Jiri Stancl I also went to see the Showground trotting track at West Maitland, where Johnnie Hoskins had started it all off in 1923! I was a real anorak in those days!

In 1977, in addition to the above duties, I became enthusiastic about the idea of a Scottish Junior League, and took on the role of secretary. The following season my workload increased apace when I was asked to begin broadcasting on Radio Forth - but that's another part of this website!

I spent New Year of 1978 in South Africa, working at meetings in Cape Town and Johannesburg. SABC also hired me for commentary work on the indoor series from Milner Park.

Also in 1978, a significant step (forward or backward I leave you to decide) came about when my good friend Neil Grant suggested I purchase a radio microphone - very much the latest technology back then - and free myself from the strictures of the announcer's box. I suppose it was about then my relationship with fans visiting Berwick and Glasgow from places such as Edinburgh, Newcastle and Workington took a bit of a down-turn…..

Along with Lawrie Quayle at Exeter that year, I certainly pioneered radio-mike infield work - now every track has to have one, however good or bad, and however much or little he or she might contribute to meeting procedures!

Into the '80's and I got even more involved (all the while, of course, I never gave up my day job - never have!) with a weekly column in the "Daily Record" alongside regular radio reports on both Radio Clyde and Radio Forth about speedway - and a few television dates as well……..

In Los Angeles for the 1982 World Final, I was recruited by Dave Lanning as trackside interview man - collecting the late Kenny Carter's infamous "I had no chance!" complaint for posterity, as well as annoying the CBS network people by getting to Bruce Penhall first with my mike after his final winning race!

Other good TV moments came during Shawn Moran's Long-Track title win from Czechoslovakia in 1984 (although I was sadly required only to voice-over my commentary from London Weekend's South Bank studios) and an exciting England/Denmark test match from Cradley in 1985.

By the mid-eighties, I was working the Saturday-night shift at Belle Vue's fabulous old Hyde Road stadium - Stuart Bamforth had head-hunted me after too many pints of Scottish beer at Kenny McKinna's wedding - and adding the Cradley fans (the "Cabbage-Patch Kids") to the list of those who chose to moan about my words of love!

Being part of the Bamforth brigade brought me to Bradford for the big events, including the 1985 World Final, when I was so proud to work the infield and get a capacity crowd cheering and laughing. The following season, when we had the whole Odsal crown "doing the wave" during a World Best Pairs event also sticks out as a high point.

At the end of '86, with Belle Vue so-sadly winding down for the sell-off of speedway's greatest venue I was back with Berwick as well as for a pretty awful final year at Blantyre's Craighead Park. The following year however, I surprised even myself by handling the infield at Powderhall - it worked well, and we had fun - while the Tigers wandered off their Workington extinction.

So, in the autumn of 1987, Jimmy Beaton approached Neil Grant and myself to plead for our aid in saving his Tigers.

We didn't do too badly. We worked as an iceberg (Neil was the six-sevenths underneath that nobody saw, I was only the seventh, but visible, part) and recruited so many willing volunteers to help us out.

We persuaded the National League authorities to let us hold on to the (four) Tigers' rider-assets. Neil approached Glasgow's city authorities to get planning permission to build a track at Shawfield. He then designed and supervised construction of the circuit, using volunteer labour and buying materials with the proceeds of supporters' functions we ran throughout the winter months.

Meanwhile I negotiated with the sport's authorities to allow the club's revival. We both flew to Gran Canaria to make our presentation to the NL promoters at their AGM - to a mixed reception, at which new chairman Mervyn Stewkesbury, the Edinburgh guys, Tim Swales from Middlesboro and Berwick's Davie Fairbairn were our staunchest backers.

We got a provisional go-ahead. Neil redoubled his efforts to gain planning permission and pressed ahead with track construction. I used my contacts to engage the interest of Radio Clyde as sponsors - there never was a more-valuable deal, believe me! - and slowly things came together. Kenny McKinna and Phil Jeffrey were recruited to boost the riding strength. Spring arrived, the track surface was laid and a fence erected. Around this time, Jimmy Beaton reappeared (we had rarely seen him all through the long winter months) to take credit for his action in having begged Neil and I to save the club.

Well, it worked! 8,000 people came along to see what Radio Clyde had been shouting about, and most of them came back every Friday night throughout the year. The massive debts of the former Tigers club were paid in full after seven meetings, and from that moment on the club was in profit - Jimmy Beaton, who had poured so much hard cash into keeping the club afloat over the hard years, fully deserved such a handsome return on his investments.

Sadly, although Shawfield was making so much money, that wasn't enough for the man who was piling it up. Neither Neil Grant nor I took a penny in payment for what had been a labour of love for ourselves and our closest companions - a word or two of thanks would have been nice, but we didn't get that, either - and at the end of the year we were told we weren't required for the following season. So be it - but Shawfield, as a going concern, was never better-presented, and never as financially-viable, as in 1988. All the titles and trophies in the world don't pay the bills, especially in speedway!

However, at the league's AGM, our fellow-promoters did recognise our achievements, and Neil and I picked up the "Promoters of the Year", "Stadium of the Year" and "Programme of the Year" awards, which gave us a quiet smile. The programme award should be credited to Ian Steel, who did the work on that front, as well as being an excellent team manager (albeit another deposed from his job at the end of that year, as it happened).

Well, as one door closes, another opens. I retained my promoters' licence to work with Berwick -- where I had continued to handle infield duties, despite the Shawfield commitment -- and helped Davie Fairbairn construct his "dream team" (Mark & Sean Courtney, Andy Campbell, David Blackburn, David Walsh, Scott Robson and the fabulous Rob Grant) to memorably win the 1989 KO Cup for the Federation Bandits. More importantly, we upped the average attendance by nearly 50%

Next year it was all change (again!) with the Fairbairn family selling the club to Terry Lindon. I was asked (by the BSPA) to stay on and ease Terry into the swing of things, and the year went well enough. No titles, but attendances crept up to double the figure I had inherited at the end of 1988, and the season closed with the event I feel proudest of all my promotions - the Berwick Bonanza, won by David Walsh from a superb field in front of a huge October audience amid pluperfect presentation by the whole staff. The musical firework display at the end (Neil Grant again!) was quite fantastic.

When Terry Lindon called me to say he was taking Berwick into Division 1 for 1991, I was gobsmacked. He gave me two briefs - to get a worthwhile team organised, and to raise the weekly attendance to 1200 people. Well, I did both, I reckon - we brought in three of the previous year's World Finalists, won the Gold Cup and sent three Bandits to Gothenburg for the '91 World Final.

Unfortunately, Terry's computer business was no longer booming, and a few of his "business projections" for speedway weren't working out. In addition, the Bandits' on-track success put Swindon, not Berwick, at the bottom of the league and subject to relegation - unless Berwick could be removed by other means.

The former BL clubs circled the wagons, and under the manipulative chairmanship of Maurice Ducker, Berwick were put to the sword to save Swindon's top-league status. Terry Lindon was required to pay a crippling amount to be re-admitted to the Second Division, and the Bandits struggled through another season before again falling from grace at the close of play. Swindon, by the way, finished bottom of the upper strata again, and this time had to go down.

By that time, I was out of it. From the moment the old NL and BL amalgamated for the '91 season, speedway stopped being fun. I had extensive radio commitments, a full-time job and I wasn't getting any younger - I was ready to put my hands in my pockets and settle down to where I used to be - watching one meeting a week, with little further involvement!

Since then, I've done a few infield and announcing jobs with the Monarchs at their three recent venues, and for Peter Waite since he revived the Bandits at Shielfield Park. Now that Kenny McKinna has retired, we stand together in the pits at Armadale most Friday nights, and enjoy ourselves hugely. I plug the Forth 2 Monarchs' activities on my radio programmes and read "Speedway Star". I am back where I started in 1949, and loving it.

Speedway is still a lot of fun!