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Book recalls glory days of speedway tracks

Thursday, 16 April 2009

IT may come as a surprise to a lot of people to be told that in years past, the sport of speedway racing in Dublin was capable of drawing crowds in excess of 20,000 at various tracks around the city. ‘A History of Speedway: The Dublin Experience’, by Northside author George Kearns, details the history of the sport in Dublin and provides a record of most of the speedway meetings that took place in the capital during the 20th century. Back in the ’50s there were four main speedway tracks in Dublin - Shelbourne Park, Harold’s Cross, Chapelizod and Santry. “The late 1940s, throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s was a very popular era for Dublin speedway,” says George. “Shelbourne Park Greyhound Stadium was one of the more popular venues for the sport and crowds of some 20,000 people would pack into that venue every Sunday afternoon to watch their team. “Shelbourne Tigers would take on, and more often than not, beat the best teams that British clubs could muster.” During the 1950 season, British clubs were queuing up to be the next team to cross the Irish Sea to take on the Shelbourne Tigers with a view to being the first to tame them. The other two tracks at that time were Santry and Chapelizod and they also enjoyed great turnouts for their Wednesday and Friday night race meetings. George, who is originally from Irishtown, which is close to Shelbourne Park, says he wrote the book because he attended many of the speedway meetings and loved the sport. “I also thought I’d write the book simply because nobody else has ever really written about the sport in Dublin and how popular it became,” he says. Speedway racing went through a revival of sorts in the early 1970s with Shelbourne Park once again proving to be a popular track and British clubs continuing to send over teams to race on Sunday afternoons. A practice speedway track was also established at a former trotting track at Portmarnock and there were plans to hold full race meetings at this venue but these never materialised. One very interesting fact that George has managed to establish in his meticulously researched book is that speedway racing could in fact have its genesis in Dublin. “It is a claim of many that speedway was invented in a New South Wales town called Maitland in 1923 where hundreds of spectators turned up at the local sports ground to watch a motor cycle race take place on an oval grass trotting track,” says George. “However, through extensive research, I’ve found that a similar motor cycle race took place in Ashtown, Dublin, on an oval cinder trotting track in 1902 which also drew large crowds of spectators. “This race would surely pre-date all other such happenings across the world. “In light of Irish emigration around the world, it is quite possible that someone who was present at that race meeting may have found themselves living in Australia at a later date and may well have passed on what they encountered at Ashtown.”