Speedway in the United Kingdom

The sport of Speedway in the United Kingdom has changed little since the first meetings in the 1920s. It has three domestic leagues, its own Speedway Grand Prix and an annual entry into the Speedway World Cup.

Several meetings have been claimed to be the first in the UK. The meeting at High Beech on 18 February 1928, a meeting organized by R.J. Hill-Bailey of the Ilford Motor Cycle Club which attracted an estimated 30,000 spectators, is often described as the first British speedway meeting. There were, however, also meetings in 1927 in Camberley in Surrey and Droylsden in Manchester. Despite being described as 'the first British Dirt Track meeting' at the time, the meeting at Camberley on 7 May 1927 differed in that the races were held in a clockwise direction. Races at Droylsden, the first held on 25 June 1927, were held in an anti-clockwise direction and this meeting appears to have a strong claim to be the first Speedway meeting in the UK, but it is generally accepted that the sport properly arrived in the UK when Australians Billy Galloway and Keith McKay arrived with the intention of introducing Speedway to the Northern Hemisphere. Both featured in the 1928 High Beech meeting.

It is probable however that the first speedway meeting in the UK to feature bikes with no brakes and broadsiding round corners on loose dirt, probably the main tests of real speedway, was the second meeting held at High Beech on 9 April, where Colin Watson, Alf Medcalf and 'Digger' Pugh demonstrated the art for the first time in Britain.

The sport boomed in the early days with new tracks opening in England, Scotland, and Wales. Notable pioneer venues of 1928 were Stamford Bridge and Celtic Park. The sport contracted in the early 1930s but revived just before the war. A few tracks, notably Belle Vue, Manchester operated in these dark days and the end of the war signalled activity at a number of tracks such as Perry Barr in Birmingham, Odsal Stadium in Bradford, Brough Park in Newcastle, Owlerton in Sheffield, Cleveland Park in Middlesbrough and White City in Glasgow.

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