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Post by coombes on Apr 3, 2020 14:49:45 GMT 1
PART ONE
Close Season Action
Unlike the previous winter, there was no training track at Coatbridge during this close season. However there was plenty of alternative action for the fans. On 2nd January there was a long track meeting at Motherwell and it may well have been instrumental in persuading the BSPA that the Motherwell promoters would be fit and able to stage speedway racing at the venue – wrongly as it would turn out! The long track event featured Barry Briggs, Ivan Mauger and Don Godden, all proven and experienced long track experts who pitted their skills against various locals, some being little known second halfers. Unsurprisingly many races were very strung out given the wide disparity in the skill levels. Still it was a pleasant way to have the last traces of a New Year hangover blown away.
A week later the first of a series of ice racing meetings was held at Murrayfield Ice Rink in Edinburgh. It attracted a capacity crowd and the meeting had to be held up for over half an hour while they filed in. The racing itself was a cross between cycle speedway and roller derby, but on ice! It had a certain novelty value but crowds fell with each successive meeting and the experiment wasn’t repeated the following year. However it was probably the only bright spot in a singularly dark time. The miners’ strike had so reduced the supplies of coal held at power stations that electricity had to be rationed. By rotation your local area had scheduled power cuts that meant you were in the dark and in the cold shortly after nine o’clock at night. To add to the gloom, Harry Nilson’s turgid and depressing “Without You” topped the charts for five consecutive weeks – not a happy time at all!
The End of Two Dynasties
Two famous speedway families ended their association with the Tigers before the season started. It has to be said that most fans were pretty indifferent to these departures. The Hoskins family, Johnnie and Ian, sold their shares in the Tigers promotion to team manager Neil MacFarlane. Tigers’ fans were delighted that Neil, a Tigers man through and through, was now a director. Only a few were concerned that men as experienced in speedway as the Hoskinses had seen the writing on the Hampden wall and decided it was a good time to get out.
The Templeton brothers, Doug and Willie, announced their retirement, although they would quickly sign for second division Berwick shortly thereafter. Fans had been critical of the Templetons’ performances, particularly away from home, during the 1971 season and again were unconcerned about their departure. However the fans were to change their tune after the season was just a month old!
Team building Plans Go Astray
The Tigers promotion obviously had plenty notice of the Templetons’ departure and had planned to bring in Wayne Briggs and Brian Collins as replacements. Wayne was allocated to Glasgow by the Rider Control Committee but could not be persuaded out of retirement. Brian Collins ended up at Poole. Tigers were allocated Paul O’Neill and were given a foreign rider permit to cover the other vacancy. The season was a couple of weeks old before they signed Kjell Gimre, an unknown Norwegian rider, who had had trials at Exeter but had not been offered a team place – may be there was a clue there!
By mid May, O’Neill and Gimre were struggling badly and both had averages well under three, roughly half of what the much criticised Templetons had achieved the previous year! Yes, you don’t know what you’ve got till its gone!
Opening Meeting Disappointment
This years’ opening night was a real disappointment on just about every front. First, the program looked pretty austere. The cover no longer had a photo but instead had a red thistle superimposed on a Saltire, hardly an inspiring design. The printing throughout was now in black whereas it had previously been blue, making it seem quite gloomy. However, the fans main gripe was that the price had been increased fairly steeply from seven pence to ten pence, although to be fair to the promotion, this increase was to avoid raising admission charges. However, it was now twice the price that it had been just eighteen months ago.
On entering the stadium fans were aware something was missing. No music. A local resident had complained to the council during the winter and music was now banned. Les Whaley was planning to appeal this decision but that would be a few weeks off – so far so bad.
When the racing started things went from bad to worse. This was the grand opening challenge, and after six heats Glasgow were 26-10 down to the visiting Sheffield. Surely no one loses their opening challenge match. It is not known what was said in the pits but Glasgow made a comeback that even Lazarus would have been impressed by! However only the most gullible of fans could have believed it was for real.
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Post by benbulben on Apr 3, 2020 15:14:58 GMT 1
Thanks, coombes. I remember going to that long track meeting at Motherwell because on the way home my car broke down just before Celtic Park and i had to walk home to Maryhill ! Think that year saw our fortunes go on a downward spiral...Coatbridge, Craighead Park, Derwent Park before the graph started pointing north.
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Post by coombes on Apr 3, 2020 19:17:19 GMT 1
Funny you should mention car problems Benbulben. I celebrated New Year in Berwick and was driving back along the M8 going to Motherwell when my exhaust blew just beyond the manifold. My very rusty Austin 1100 sounded like a Grand Prix car and had the pulling power of a Scalextric equivalent. I had numerous Speedway stickers in my back window and unknown to me about four cars fell in behind me in the hope of following me to Motherwell. Despite barely managing 45 mph my followers were reluctant to pass me but I took a wrong turning in Motherwell and had to do a U turn in the town, along with my followers. Goodness, it was cold that afternoon.... or was that just the hangover?
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Post by coombes on Apr 4, 2020 9:22:39 GMT 1
PART TWO
Tigers on TV STV were again looking for a sport to show on the Saturday afternoon of the (English) FA Cup Final, which the rest of the ITV region would be receiving. They chose the Tigers v Poole meeting. With Dick Barrie sharing the commentating duties with STV’s Alex Cameron, time keeper Stan Gardner took over the announcing role, while I was co-opted to mark up a program for Alex Cameron and generally keep him informed about what was going on. He seemed well impressed by my description of John Langfield as “colourful and controversial” and used it on more than one occasion! My fee for being his assistant was two guineas - £2.10 – not enough to persuade me to give up my day job! The meeting itself was fairly drab, although thankfully blessed with a dry, bright night. The Tigers won by a large margin, one of the biggest of the season, but it didn’t really provide a good advert for the sport, and no improvement in crowd numbers was experienced in the weeks that followed.
Tigers fans watch TV …. In Brierley Hill High Street Tigers’ fans travelled down to Cradley for the league meeting there during the Glasgow Fair fortnight. The supporters’ bus arrived in early afternoon and most fans spent a few hours wandering about the town centre. Just after 3.00pm ITV’s “World of Sport” program was featuring the England versus New Zealand World League fixture and a local TV showroom had a television showing this in is window. A few Tigers fans gathered to watch and within a few minutes their number was swelled to quite a crowd. Undaunted, the manager invited us in and turned on a few more sets and turned up the volume too – what a gentleman!
Wet! Wet! Wet! The Hampden track had an enviable reputation of draining really well and few meetings had been rained off in the preceding three years. However this was to change, with an incredible three meetings out of five being cancelled in May. The first actually got started and visitors Sheffield were leading by ten points at the time of the call off, obviously home fans weren’t too disappointed by this! Two weeks later and the meeting against Oxford was the next victim without a wheel being turned. Les Whaley was incensed by this, writing in the following week’s program “ The rain ceased at 6.45 and by 7.00 the track was cleared of puddles. The referee declared the track fit, not only for RIDING but for RACING. However certain riders had made up their minds that they were not going to ride, and that was that. It is situations like these, which make me think I must be mad to promote speedway. You, the supporters, are the ones who have to suffer!” George Hunter seemed to take the view that on a wet night the best course of action was to cancel the meeting and restage it later when the weather might be better. With Jim McMillan and Charlie Monk readily backing him up, the promotion were up against it. Hunter certainly was a pragmatist. At a Motherwell long track meeting there was considerable rain, but, when it became apparent that the meeting would not be restaged at a later date, he, and indeed all the other riders, got on with riding without any complaint. A couple of weeks later, the World Championship qualifying round was the next victim but this time all parties seem to accept the referees decision.
Flaming June Supplies of new JAWA bikes were delayed at the start of the 1972 season and it took until mid May for Jim McMillan to take delivery of his new bike. However just over a fortnight later, his lock up went on fire and he lost all his equipment and riding gear – and none of it was insured, in all about £3000 worth went up in smoke. Tigers’ fans had a collection for him and a number of English fans kindly sent donations too, but it was still a huge financial blow and it would take him until mid summer to get all his equipment and gear just the way he wanted it.
Belle Vue Banter In early June, the Tigers put up a determined show at Belle Vue in a KO Cup tie before going down 41-37 in a last heat decider. Tigers certainly gave the Aces a real fright and things were decidedly fraught before the last heat decider, so much so that the Belle Vue announcer was fined £2.00 by the referee for disparaging remarks made about the Tigers prior to the race. Tigers’ fans seem to have missed these remarks. They were too busy singing an amusing little ditty about a Belle Vue rider who it would seem “walks like a woman and wears a bra”! In these days “PC” stood for Peter Collins not “politically correct”!
Jim Beaton’s Crash A week later, Les Whaley’s Bradford travelled to Berwick for a league match. A heat three crash saw Jim Beaton sustain such severe injuries to his right arm that the surgeon initially recommended amputation. It is a tribute to the surgeon’s skill and Jim’s determination and perseverance, that. after many operations, he would make a track comeback some years later, despite limited movement in his arm. Feelings were running high after this incident and it would lead to a major rift between Glasgow promoters Les Whaley and James Beaton in the coming weeks. This would greatly impact on the Tigers promotion.
Motherwell Fiasco A couple of days later, Motherwell staged their first, and as it turned out only, challenge match, when the local Golden Eagles lost to Teesside. The meeting, promoted by the stadium owners, was a complete fiasco. The speedway track was separated from the low rise terracing by no fewer than three circuits, - a trotting track, a unkempt circuit, said to be intended for a motocross track, and a tarmac stockcar track. The speedway track had a board fence, which hid large parts of the track from the spectators view! By the second heat, most of the sparse crowd had clambered onto the stockcar track to view the racing from there. The track was soft and deep and precluded any meaningful racing. Unsurprisingly, no further meetings were ever staged.
British Semi Final Bobby Beaton and George Hunter travelled to Leicester for a British semi-final, although Hunter,as first reserve may not have expected to take any real part in proceedings. However, Beaton and Howard Cole were involved in a nasty heat one crash and neither took any further part in the meeting. Hunter replaced Cole in all five of his programmed rides and gained sufficient points to qualify for the British Final… or so it seemed! The following day, it was announced that Hunter was ineligible. His appeal against this decision was being supported by the Tigers promotion.
Hunter appeal On July11th, Les Whaley travelled down to London to present George Hunter’s case against the SCB ruling that he was not eligible to qualify for the British Final. He argued for over an hour, but the Control Board maintained that the referee had been wrong to allow Hunter to replace the injured Cole in the rerun of heat one, and were adamant in refusing Hunter’s appeal. Whaley would write in his program column “I was amazed to find them (the SCB) admitting that a referee could be wrong”
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Post by coombes on Apr 5, 2020 8:51:59 GMT 1
PART THREE
Golden Helmet Run, but not at Hampden Jim McMillan beat Terry Betts at Kings Lynn to annexe the Golden Helmet. Unfortunately the next three fixtures were all away from home but Jim did a sterling job in making successful defences against Edgar Stangeland at Newport and Geoff Curtis at Reading. Hopes of a defence at Hampden were dashed when Christer Lofquist narrowly beat him at Poole, a pity as some Golden Helmet races at Hampden would have given the supporters a lift.
No music and no news The city magistrates upheld the earlier decision to ban the playing of music during meetings, dismissing Tigers heart felt appeal. This was a real blow as meetings really seemed to drag on without any music and it really deflated any atmosphere in what was already proving to be a downbeat season. There was more bad news, this time from the Evening Citizen, Glasgow’s evening newspaper, which had produced a Speedway Special Edition every week since the sport returned to Glasgow in 1964. It had a special front page devoted to speedway, generally with little editorial and with many often quite dated photographs, but it was still very much part of “speedway night”. It always amazed me that a special print run of this nature could prove economic. Sadly, sales were dwindling and it reluctantly decided to cease production of this special edition, yet another indicator of speedway’s downward spiral at Hampden.
More Rain The visit of Hackney brought yet another wet night, and yet again the usual suspects weren’t prepared to race despite the referee ruling the track rideable. The promotion, reportedly, were prepared to track four juniors in their place. Fortunately it never came to that as Hackney also decided against riding. A disgusted Les Whaley wrote in the program “Well, once again a rained off meeting and this makes four rained off meetings out of eleven. Riders blandly decide they are not going to ride despite the referee’s decision that the track is rideable, so how long do they think that a promotion can keep a track open under these circumstances. Last Saturday I attended Halifax speedway where conditions were exactly the same as for our Hackney. This meeting started at 7.30pm and continued to the end, completing a total of 24 heats. ”- obviously disenchanted with life as a promoter.
Les Whaley Leaves Like the previous year, Les Whaley seemed to opt out of running the Tigers after the Glasgow Fair break, the last fortnight in July. Neil MacFarlane wrote the program editorial from the beginning of August, but made no mention of Les’s absence. A couple of weeks later, observant fans would have noticed that the Whaley name was no longer included in the Directors listing in the program. Again, no reference was made to this and it was not until mid September that fans were told that Jim Wallace had bought Whaley’s shares. It is believed that the rift with James Beaton following incidents at the Berwick – Bradford meeting, together with his disillusionment over rained off meetings, and the weekly travelling from his Yorkshire base were the major factors in his decision to sell up, although, like Hoskins earlier in the year, Whaley may well have concluded that Tigers days at Hampden were numbered.
So Does George Hunter Unlike 1971, George Hunter was not a settled Tiger. Indeed some would argue he was both unsettled and unsettling. He had personal reasons for wanting to be based in the Midlands and was always the first to push for a rained off decision. His controversial elimination from the World Championship couldn’t have helped either. Things came to a head when he was excluded for tape breaking in heat twelve of the Tigers versus Coventry meeting in mid August. Tape exclusions were hardly an unusual occurrence for Hunter and, from memory, this one didn’t look unjustified. It is a bit hard to understand why he got so worked up about it. Certainly, had he won heat twelve, as the form book would have suggested, he would have been joint top scorer along with Bobby Beaton and eligible to challenge Ole Olsen for the Golden Helmet, but it is not known whether this was a consideration. Hard words were spoken in the pits over the referee turning down Tigers claims for his reinstatement, and ultimately it led to him demanding a move. The promotion agreed to this instantly, and were to claim in the program that George’s actions of late have been undermining team spirit. Somewhat controversially he was SOLD to Wolverhampton. The intention was to buy a replacement, although whom and from whom was never clear. It seems unlikely that any Second Division starlets could have been persuaded to come north of the border. Andy Meldrum made several appearances in second half races and even rode a few meetings for Tigers, but never actually signed for Glasgow.
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Post by coombes on Apr 6, 2020 9:14:09 GMT 1
PART FOUR
No Rosenkilde but we do get Kaasa At the end of July, Tigers released Kjell Gimre in order to sign Preben Rosenkilde. Gimre’s release was certainly no surprise. His average was just over two and many felt the promotion had been more than patient in giving him an extended run. “Benny” made his debut at Hackney, a track for whom he had previously ridden. If his failure to score in four starts was disappointing, then worse was to follow. The DMU banned him from riding in Britain, after an incident at a meeting in Denmark. Tigers then turned to Svien Kaasa, a young Norwegian, who won his debut race at Hampden in the meeting against Ipswich.
World Final High spot Possibly the only bright spot in an otherwise truly dreadful season was Jim McMillan’s qualification for the Wembley World Final, albeit as first reserve. This truly caught the Glasgow supporters’ imagination and over a dozen supporters buses were booked to travel to London. Most supporters had bought tickets for the terracing high up on the third bend and they raised the roof when Jim took two rides in place of Barry Briggs who was taken to hospital with severe hand injuries following a second race crash. Definitely the highlight of the season and possibly the most iconic moment in Tigers history. Certainly one that will never be repeated.
Double Tragedy While Jim McMillan’s Wembley appearance gave the club a boost the events of the final weeks of the season were to leave both the supporters and the promotion completely shattered. Svien Kaasa crashed in heat eleven of our meeting against Swindon. As crashes go it didn’t look particularly bad. Mid race, Svien was attempting to pass Martin Ashby as they raced into the first bend. As Ashby began sliding his bike, the gap Svien was going for disappeared and he clipped Ashby’s back wheel and was thrown head first into the fence. He was taken off, face down, on the stretcher trolley. The meeting continued and it was only at the end that a distraught Neil MacFarlane announced that his injuries “had proved fatal” A truly horrible feeling descended on the crowd. Everyone wanted to get out of the stadium quickly but also quietly and without jostling. Once outside no one wanted to leave. People were milling about aimlessly. Guys that I thought were pretty hard were sobbing their hearts out. It was a truly desperate night.
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