Speedway 65, Custom House, the Home of the Happy Hammers!

It is April,1965, the year which was to see the West Ham Hammers Speedway Team enter the history books!  

Speedway is a spectacular sport, four riders (from a team of seven) in each race which are called heats, line up at the start, these Black leather clad heroes with their brightly coloured race jackets mounted on highly tuned, highly polished 500cc Motorcycles(with NO brakes) make a spectacular sight under the arc lamps of the race track.

They are at the starting tapes, the tapes go up, then away as one, the roar of both the crowd and the bikes are deafening as these motorcycle aces tear in to the first bend of the oval racetrack.

You expect them to crash as the move so fast, but no, out of the 2nd bend and down the back straight, each fan cheering for their favourite rider and team, comes the four riders.

Just over 75 seconds and four laps later, our team flash across the line, a 5-1 victory, and the old West Ham chant goes up, 2-4-6-8- who do we appreciate, H-A-M-M-E-R-S, Hammers!

It is a magical world for Speedway mad twelve year old.

Well thats what should happen!

But the first race of the season in the first match, against our South London rivals, Wimbledon, saw the Dons riders getting a 2-4 victory in the heat.

In 1965 it was decided to have all teams race in one league, the league was to be called the British League, and saw teams from England Scotland and Wales all racing together.

Despite losing the first of the thirteen heats of the first match, West ham were to become the First ever British League Champions, as well as winning the KO cup, speedway’s version of the FA Cup, and becoming London Champions, beating both our east London rivals Hackney, who rode close by at Waterden Road, E.15 and Wimbledon.

Speedway was an education as well as a sport.  

With all the various teams, you soon built up a good knowledge of the geography of Great Britain, your mathematics improved as you need to work out the score charts, league points, rider averages etc.

With riders from other countries like Sweden, Norway, Australia and the like, you learned the geography of the world, and finally your History.

People spoke of the likes of the great John S Hoskins, an Australian Showman who is credited for inventing the sport in Australia in 1923, they spoke of past Victories and past Champions, such as the victorious West Ham teams in the 1930, riders like Wilkinson, Atkinson, Stevenson, Bishop, Chitty, Young and the rest.

West Ham team was a mixture of experience and youth.

Our Captain was arguably the most famous of all Scottish Riders, Ken Mckinly.

He was backed up at No.2 by Sverre Harrfeldt, the many times Norwegian Champion, who had been signed by West ham in the close season from Wimbledon.

England Internationals, Norman Hunter & Reg Trott, backed them up.

Our young riders included the likes of Malcom Simmons, who was to become one of the top English riders and rode in the sport for over twenty years, Ted Ede, Brian Leonard, Tony Clarke and Australia’s Dave Wills.

West Ham went on to win the first match 46-31, with captain Ken getting the first of many 12 point maximum rides.  

By June, the Hammers were mid way in the league and slowly moving up, when tragedy struck.

On the 23rd June, West Ham raced against Belle Vue (Manchester), the match it self went well with the Hammers beating the Aces 44-34.  

The second half of the meeting was mixture of solo events and a junior team event to help the younger riders of both West ham and Hackney.

In the first heat, Dave Wills fell from his bike and was struck by another rider.

Lying injured on the track, the call went out over the stadium Loud Speaker System, `Number 33 to the pits`, we knew this was no ordinary accident; the Track Doctor had been called for. Soon the ambulance was called on to the track and Dave was lifted in to it, and away it went.

An attempt was made to continue the meeting, but our hearts were not in it, the rest of the nights racing were abandoned.

Dave died in St Mary’s Hospital, Stratford.  

I was standing less than 5m meters from were Dave crashed.

He was interned at the City of London cemetery at Manor Park.

The day of the service was 14th July……Five years later on the same date, the Hammers flag flew at half mast again.

Five members of the team were killed in a road cash in Belgium, returning from a mini racing tour of Holland.

The team was at a low point, and so were the fans, but the show must go on.  

July, August, September, the Hammers slowly piled on the victories.

August was an interesting month, my twelve birthday and three major matches.  

First, KO cup, Quarter Final, and guess what we drew those Dons again from Wimbledon.

Trailing for most of the match,  Ken & Sverre snatched a 5-1 Victory in the 14th Heat (KO matches were raced on a 16 heat format as apposed from the league 13 heat).

The Dons then got a 4-2 result in heat 15 and we went into the last heat 45-45.

Oly Nygren, Wimbledon’s Swedish captain (and it later years to become West Ham’s) sped into the lead and despite the best efforts of the Hammers, the final result was 3-3 heat result and a 48-48 draw.

It now meant we had to go to Plough lane, to face the Dons on their home track.

God must have been a West ham fan that night, the result went backwards and fore wards as first Wimbledon then West Ham took the lead.

With one heat to go, the score was the same as at West Ham, 45-45.

I think my throat is still sore, 42 years later, as we shouted our support in that last heat, the Hammers got a 4-2 victory and we were in to the semi-final.

On the 10th August we took on the Vargana Wolves from Stockholm in Sweden in an international match.

Another fantastic nights racing saw us draw with Vargana.

September arrived, World Championship time, this event was for the best riders in the world and was a solo event.

Held at the Empire Stadium which had been the home of the Wembley Lions Speedway team (which our manager Tommy Price had been the captain of), had a special interest for us.

As well as our captain Ken McKinlay, amongst the riders were three ex members of the 1964 team, Bjorn Knutsson (Sweden), who had been our captain, Bengt Jannson (Sweden) and Reg Luckhurst (England).

Bjorn won the world crown with 14 out of a possible 15 points, and as West Ham was his last team he rode for in England, we claimed him as a our 3rd World champion, joining Australia’s Blue Wilkinson and Jack Young.  

Sverre Harrfeldt won the London Riders Championship, which at the time was considered the most important Solo Trophy, second only to the world championship

October 1965, a month never to be forgot.

We had reached the Final of the KO cup and in a two-leg event against Exeter; we won at Exeter and took a 6-point lead in to our home leg.

We beat the Falcons by 30 clear points, and the first bit of Silverware was on the shelf.

The last home match, it was a London Cup match against Wimbledon.  

As Hackney had been beaten by both of us, we need to win against the Dons, for our second trophy. In another closely fought match, we beat them and added the London Cup to our shelves.

Now for the big one, although the home season had been completed, we had one more match, away to the Cradley Heath Heathens from Dudley in the West Midlands.  

We took 30 coaches of supporters to the match, but it was not that straight forward.

Owing to heavy fog in Birmingham our coaches got lost, and we ended up with two groups of coaches passing each other in the opposite direction down a clearway!

Our lead coach driver pulled in to a garage and we were lucky as a Police car was in there filling up with petrol.  

A quick explanation to a slightly bemused west Midlands’s policeman saw the might of the force spring in to action.

A Police car was sent to collect the other group of coaches we had passed, and then we were escorted one police car in front, and one behind straight into the stadium.

I dread to think what the Cradley fans must have been thinking as a mob of east end of London Speedway fans arrived with a police escort!

To win the league we had to beat Cradley, if not guess who would be Champions?  

That’s its, those Dons from Wimbledon. Sadly neither West Ham nor Wimbledon still has speedway teams, but when the old fans of these two great rivals meet, you can guess what year always crops up.

The great Sverre Harrfeldt scored a 12-point maximum, and if not for a problem in heat one where Ken Mackinly was a non-starter, Ken was also unbeaten.  

The Hammers won 31-47 and history was made.

It has been 35 years since the roar of Speedway bikes were heard in Newham, but in the first year Newham was formed, the Speedway Hammers did them proud.

And as Max Boyce used to say, I WAS THERE!

The photo show fans in the coach comming home from Cradley, I wonder were they all are?

The smiling kid in the Red and Blue bobble hat is...........ME!