Interviews
BACKTRACK ARTICLE ON HISTORY OF SCUNTHORPE FROM 1971 TO 1985:
The following article comes from is from Issue 49 (March-April 2012) of Backtrack – The Retro Speedway Magazine For The Fans Of The 70s And 80s. It was written by Rob Peasley, who is also the Press Officer for Scunthorpe Speedway. It features interviews with Brian Osborn, Andrew Skeels, Nicky Allott and Rob Godfrey.
Subscriptions to Backtrack are available at:
http://www.retro-speedway.com
A LIST of bare facts regarding the incarnation of Scunthorpe Speedway which lasted from 1971 to 1985 can make rather grim reading:
• Only one top-half-of-the-table finish in thirteen completed National League seasons (fifth out of 18 teams in 1983).
• Finishing eight times in the bottom three, including two wooden spoons in 1972 and 1979.
• Failing to win a single Knockout Cup tie on aggregate – being eliminated from the tournament at the first attempt in each of the 13 years they entered the competition.
• A bizarre situation where the Scunthorpe Saints riders walked out of a meeting in 1976 – on their own track! Visitors Rye House were willing to continue.
• Racing a turbulent 1979 season in a half-completed Ashby Ville stadium, after the team left their original Quibell Park home due to disagreements with the athletics club.
• Not scoring a single National League point in 1979 until September 16th. On that date, the Scunthorpe Stags beat Weymouth 44-34 – having lost their previous 23 league matches that season.
• Not one single club honour.
• The club failing to see out the 1985 season, folding in mid-May.
It all points towards one conclusion – that Scunthorpe were the Cinderella club of the Backtrack era.
However, success isn’t everything. Andrew Skeels was a Scunthorpe supporter from the age of nine in 1973 – and these days is the Deputy Editor of the Speedway Star.
He points out: “Speedway was something exciting and different for the people of Scunthorpe.
“I was also a football fan and Scunthorpe United were equally as rubbish, so I think the people of the area had the mindset that the winning wasn’t the be-all and end-all.
“These days in sport it is – everything is so results driven. For instance, a football manager can get sacked for losing a couple of matches.
“But it was different back then. Of course, the fans wanted the team to do well. But we were a small town club with a small fan base, and we accepted that.”
A passion for speedway was planted in the hearts of many in the North Lincolnshire town and would eventually lead to an altogether more successful resurrection of the club in 2005 (see separate story).
Over four thousand fans flocked into the plush Quibell Park venue to see the first ever speedway meeting in Scunthorpe on May 3rd, 1971.
Over 200 tonnes of shale were laid on top of the running track to accommodate speedway – with speedway and athletics to share the same track.
The Saints were 39-38 victors over Hull in the Humberside Trophy, and commenced a series of challenge matches that would see out the summer.
Scunthorpe entered the second division in 1972, but found the going very tough, ending up stone last in the league.
During that season, rider Brian Osborn found himself moving from one side of the fence to the other.
Osborn recalls: “I got injured riding at Quibell Park. Ivor Brown and Vic White were the promoters, and Ivor persuaded me to be the team manager. I enjoyed that – it was much easier telling people what to do rather than doing it yourself!
“Ivor was already getting a bit fed up. He wasn’t making any money from it, so I was talked into taking over as the promoter.”
Osborn pulled off a coup in 1973, when he persuaded legendary Scot Ken McKinlay, a former World No. 5, to ride for the Saints, two weeks short of his 45th birthday!
“Ray Watkins smashed his thigh prior to the start of the season and it left us dreadfully weak.
“We needed a superstar and Ken was available. He said ‘yes’ a little half-heartedly, simply because I don’t think he really wanted to drop down to the second division.
“Ken piled on the points, and was great with the other riders. He would tell them: ‘You’ve got to gate out of the gate first. If you do that, you’ve got every chance of winning’.”
Osborn explained some of the problems experienced in staging speedway and athletics – not usual bedfellows – on the same track.
“The track needed a lot of work on it every week. We had to tyre pack it to get it hard enough.
“The athletics people wanted the track for themselves – they didn’t want speedway there. But before the speedway went there, the athletics track was in decay and underused.
“They used to get around six people to watch the athletics training. For those six people, we had to take down and put up the safety fence every week!
“We had problems in getting rid of water on wet days, because the circuit was almost flat. The water would just lay on the track, it didn’t drain.”
Andrew Skeels says: “There were various rucks with both the athletics people and the council over the whole period at Quibell Park.
“I don’t think the track was a favourite with many riders. It was one of the longest tracks in the country, but it was flat and narrow.”
Scunthorpe were not the most attractive visitors, and Eastbourne promoter Bob Dugard slammed the Saints prior to their visit to Arlington in 1977.
Skeels recalls: “Bob decided he couldn’t charge full admission for us, so he halved the prices, and said that was all we were worth. He said that to the press, so got into hot water, but you couldn’t really disagree with what he was saying.
“From what I recall, that led to us signing Arthur Browning, so it had the desired effect!”
Osborn explains that the strength of the Scunthorpe side was a question of economics.
“It was a financial struggle at times”, he admits. “I would make a little bit of money one year, but lose it the next. I didn’t come out of Scunthorpe speedway with a penny.
“It was a period of high inflation and high unemployment. There wasn’t enough money in people’s pockets. If you’ve got a pound in your pocket, do you spend it on food or do you spend it on entertainment?
“Scunthorpe was a three-shift-town at that point. I think its population was around 70,000 people, and because of the shift patterns, you ended up with over half of those ruled out straight away as potential supporters.
“We didn’t have a major sponsor putting thousands of pounds in each week, so we had to put out a team we could afford. Money was tight – especially in the Scunthorpe area.”
Osborn also had a further problem: the council could actually call off meetings due to the lease agreement. More than once, against Osborn’s wishes, a meeting was called off at lunchtime only for the evening to prove to be glorious weather.
The clashes with the athletics people eventually led to Osborn and new promoting partner, Ted Hornsby, looking for a new venue. Eventually they were allocated a piece of land by the council – and work started on Ashby Ville.
Osborn admits: “I didn’t really want to move. I realised from the off that it was probably financial suicide.
“I was up at the Ashby Ville site every day for seven months from around 8am to 9-10pm. I can’t even start to measure the number of man hours we put into building the place.”
Skeels says: “Most of the work on the new stadium had to be done on a shoestring budget. We were late opening for the 1979 season.
“Calling it a stadium was a misnomer. Ashby Ville was the forerunner of building a track in a field. Most promoters in the 70s and 80s would find an existing dog track or something along those lines. There weren’t many who started from scratch.
“I think the problem was that no-one really had a full idea of what was required. In some ways, it was a total miracle that they got Ashby Ville up-and-running at all.”
No sooner was the new stadium open, than the Scunthorpe license was suspended by the SCB who demanded improvements to the track.
The newly-renamed Stags eventually finished their season, after running a series of double-headers throughout September and October. Arthur Price, signed as No. 1, struggled badly and his averaged halved (Arthur’s full story is in Backtrack issue 48).
Osborn recalls this highly stressful season: “The Control Board were on my back, telling me we had to run. They said: ‘You will run or you will lose your license.’ Taking a year out wasn’t an option.
“It was a very difficult year financially. I was losing money hand over fist.
“The stadium wasn’t what I wanted. It needed a grandstand and bar. We looked into it and priced it up, and we couldn’t afford it.”
The 1980 season started with a major shock – as the Stags were early league leaders!
Skeels remembers: “The start of that year was unbelievable. We won at Workington first. Obviously Workington in 1980 were even worse than Scunthorpe in ’79, but we didn’t know that at that point.
“We then won away at Stoke. Rob Woffinden quite often used to talk about that one. He was still a youngster, and he and Arthur Browning were out in the final heat, needing a 5-1 to win. Rob popped out of the start, with big Arthur tucked behind him, having to cover the whole track to keep the Stoke boys at bay. We got the 5-1 and we went top of the league.”
Scunthorpe eventually finished 1980 in thirteenth place out of 20 teams, thus equalling 1975 as their best season to date.
Osborn left the club in mid-1981, selling his shares to Ted Hornsby and Richard Judge.
“We had a big barney and I got out. I’d had enough.
“I spent ten years as promoter of the club. I love the people of Scunthorpe. They took me to my heart. I still have a lot of friends in Scunthorpe, even more than 30 years on.”
1983 finally saw the fortunes of the club take a turn for the better. Nigel Crabtree led a Stags side which went through their league campaign with a 100% home record, and finished fifth in the National League. It was followed by a tenth place in 1984 – the club’s second best season.
However, improved results did not bring improved crowds, with the Ashby Ville stadium seemingly the biggest stumbling block in attracting paying punters.
Skeels says: “We used to stand on the third bend on a mud bank. You’d never get away with that these days. There was a shed with the ref’s box, but apart from the pits on the second bend, the rest of it was just mud banks.
“I moved down to London to start my journalism career. In 1983, I landed a job working on the Speedway Star.
“I got to know a few of the riders, such as Rob Woffinden, and went to away matches with them. It was in the days when the riders would have the bike on a rack on the back of the car, and go off in a convoy to the meeting. They were great days. I loved it.”
Tony Nicholls came in as co-promoter alongside Richard Judge in 1984, and was then in sole control in 1985 – a season that Scunthorpe would not complete.
So what went wrong?
Skeels reflects: “I remember coming back from an away match at Stoke in April, in the car with Rob Woffinden and Tony Nicholls.
“Nicholls said it was getting a bit desperate. But at the time, you took it with a pinch of salt because you’d heard so many times before.
“We had Eric Boocock in as team manager in ‘85, and Steve Finch came in as an established rider. And Tony started making improvements to the stadium. Maybe he was spending too much money out.
“I got roped in to do the programme, which was by far the best in Scunthorpe’s history. By today’s standards, it was rubbish, but it was good for then. But, with hindsight, the bill for the programmes would have been higher than before.
“I think it was done with the best of intentions. Tony thought if he spent money on this and that, it would help improve the crowds, but it didn’t work it that way.”
Nicholls was losing around £600 a week – a loss that could not be sustained. A few days after a 40-37 home win over Peterborough on May 13th, Nicholls withdrew the Stags from the National League.
And that proved to be the end of the sport at Ashby Ville.
So what of the stadiums today? Ashby Ville is long gone, with the land having been turned into a retail park. But Quibell Park is still operating, hosting both athletics and cycling.
NICKY ALLOTT INTERVIEW
FAST-STARTING Nicky Allott gave the success-starved Scunthorpe fans something to cheer about when he took National League kingpin Tom Owen to the third and final leg of the Silver Helmet in 1978.
After a series of high-scoring performances for the Saints, Buxton-born Allott was nominated as the September challenger for Owen’s helmet.
Allott takes up the story: “He beat me in his home leg at Newcastle, although I got my own back by beating him in Heat 1 of the following Newcastle v Scunthorpe match.
“But we went back to Quibell Park the following day and I got the better of him (2-1).
“That took the competition to a third leg. I was hoping we’d end up at somewhere like Stoke, which was similar to the Scunthorpe track, but instead it went to Milton Keynes. That favoured Tom Owen, as it was a small track along the lines of Newcastle.
“I fell off while leading the first race and, before I’d even got the bike back to the pits, we were put on two minutes for the second race, so that was my chance gone.
“But I was one of only two riders to take Tom Owen to a third leg over the course of the whole season. Steve Finch was the other.”
Owen had won 14 successive Silver Helmet races, before tasting defeat to Allott in the first race at Quibell Park, and won 27 out of his 31 races that season – a remarkable season long domination of the competition.
1978 proved to the highpoint of Nicky Allott’s career.
He was an almost unstoppable force around his Quibell Park home circuit and scored ten full maximums on his way to a 9.33 average from 38 National League fixtures. It gave something the Saints something that they lacked in most seasons – a genuine No. 1 rider.
“I had a great season that year”, says Nicky. “Not only was I knocking up the points for Scunthorpe, but I also had my best season for Sheffield in the British League, as I was riding for them most weeks as their No. 8.”
He finished the season on a figure of 6.44 for Sheffield – just behind third heat-leader Bernt Persson.
Allott is part of a speedway dynasty that started in 1928 and lasts to this day.
“My uncle (Tommy) was one of the first speedway pioneers in this country – he rode in the first very season of British Speedway.
“My dad (Guy) started riding in the late forties and carried on riding until 1962, when he fell off the tractor during the victory parade at Sheffield and was injured. He then became one of the top tuners in the country – doing engines for Ivan Mauger, Ole Olsen and Ove Fundin, amongst others.
“I was mascot at Sheffield when I was 7 years old, so I guess it was a natural thing that I became a speedway rider.”
Allott rode in his first second half at Sheffield at the age of sixteen, and ended up making a handful of appearances for second division Hull and Crewe in 1972.
The 1973 season was a write-off after Nicky was sidelined by serious injuries sustained in a road accident.
“I crashed a mini pick-up into a tree”, he recalls. “I broke my leg, arm and jaw. I was in hospital for three months and I didn’t ride again until the following season.
“The following year I went to Ellesmere Port for a second half, but they wouldn’t give me a ride. I went again the next week, got a ride this time and won it.
“I had another good second half the following week, and then Gerald Smitherman crashed and broke his leg, and I took his team place for the rest of the season.”
After two seasons riding for the Gunners, Allott moved up to ride full-time for Sheffield in 1976.
“It was tough”, admits Allott. “It was probably too early, but I learnt a lot, and it benefitted me when I dropped back down to ride for Scunthorpe the following year.
“I liked the track at Quibell Park. It was big and flat and quite bumpy, but once you learnt your way around, it was quite easy.”
Allott was No 1 at Scunthorpe in 1977 & ‘78.
“I moved back up and rode for Sheffield in 1979. It was probably a mistake. I should have stayed in the National League. But you have to give it a try, or else you never get any better.
“I then returned to Scunthorpe in 1980, who were now riding at Ashby Ville. It was not quite as much to my liking at Quibell Park. It was a bit harder to ride, but it was alright, once you got the hang of the track.
“Arthur Browning was one of my team-mates. He was a good rider to have in a team. If ever there was any trouble, he was a big lad and could sort the problem out.
“I used to get on well with Phil White; we used to travel together to meetings. He now flies an aeroplane for a living!
“I remember helping out Rob Woffinden when he first started. I used to stay back after the meeting and show him a few basics, such as how to start.
“Rob later went on to become a heat-leader at Scunthorpe, and his son, Tai, is now one of the best British riders in the business. It’s a shame that Rob lost his fight to cancer and is no longer around to see Tai doing so well.”
Allott’s 1981 season ended prematurely thanks to a knee ligament injury – a season in which he and the emerging Kevin Teager were Scunthorpe’s top men.
“I had an accident at Leicester while guesting for Poole. I was leading a race, but fell off. Two of the riders went past, but the other went over my leg. I did the ligaments and was in plaster for six months.
“I didn’t ride a bike until a week before the 1982 season, when the plaster finally came off. I went to Scunthorpe seven days on the trot and rode all day, just to try and get fit.
“I didn’t start the season at all well, and after a few weeks, I moved to Long Eaton. I just needed a change.
“I did return to Scunthorpe at the start of 1984. But I struggled and then quit.
“You get to stage in your life, when you think: ‘I don’t want to be doing this anymore’. When you’re thinking like that, then it’s time to give up. My son Adam was born in 1983, so it was time to start earning a steady living.”
The Allott family speedway story doesn’t end up there, because Adam Allott has also given speedway a go (not to mention the fact that Simon Stead is Nicky’s nephew).
Nicky says proudly: “I think Adam is the only third generation rider to have ridden for the same club as his grandfather and father. We all rode for Sheffield.”
Adam’s career has been dogged by injuries, and he is taking a year out from speedway in 2012 to try his hand at short-track.
Nicky Allott has worked for the family business, Guy Allott Motorcycles, since his retirement from speedway.
THE SECOND COMING
The Eddie Wright Raceway in Normanby Road has been the new home of Scunthorpe Speedway since 2005 and promoter Rob Godfrey admits: “It is built from what I learnt of the failings of Ashby Ville.”
A Scunthorpe fan since the age of 10, Godfrey’s stepfather – a friend of Ted Hornsby – used to be a pusher at Quibell Park. Later on, Rob was the colour marshal at Ashby Ville and spannered for both Julian Parr and Rob Woffinden.
Godfrey reveals: “I remember as a kid bunking off school, and going down to the Ashby Ville site. We were always doing something up there.
“The steelworks had built a big Boss plant. They put up hundreds of workers up in a temporary portacabin village and it was left behind afterwards. We recycled all the bedsteads, welding them together. We used everything we could for the stadium.
“There were two main problems with Ashby Ville – in my opinion. Firstly, it was built in too much of a hurry. Everywhere you walked, there were bricks hanging out. On turns 3 and 4, there was mud banking there, where you could have fallen off and broken your neck. In today’s modern world, it would not get past health & safety.
“Also the rent they negotiated at Ashby Ville was far in excess to what they could sustain. To take a current example, it was a Newport scenario, with a ground rent so high that it was almost impossible to break even.”
Godfrey walked away from speedway at the end of 1982 “to avoid becoming a speedway bum” as he puts it. “There was no money in speedway and I had to learn a trade”, he explains.
But, some 20 years later, he caught the speedway bug again after chancing on a meeting at Trelawny during a family holiday in Cornwall. And he set about returning speedway to Scunthorpe.
“My first thought was a return to Quibell Park. It’s a fantastic venue. If you could get a speedway track in there, you could stage Grand Prix rounds, it’s that good.
“But these days, there are houses all around it. You’d be restricted to one meeting a week, and there would be so many stipulations.
“So I needed to get my own piece of land from the council. One of the major obstacles in getting speedway back was that I was dealing with the same councillor who shut Ashby Ville. I had to convince him that I was committed to the exact opposite of that stadium. It took about a year to win the council over, and to get a good deal on the rent.”
Godfrey wanted to do two things – create a clean, multi-purpose stadium, and gain some long overdue track success for Scunthorpe Speedway. And he achieved both.
“I didn’t want the muddy banks of Ashby Ville. I wanted grass, with no trip hazards.
“I also knew what I wanted for the track. I knew Somerset and Sheffield were fantastic tracks, so it’s based on those. I wanted a track that would provide entertainment and entice people into the stadium.
“It was also in the plan right from the beginning to have stock cars in as well – they were included in the planning application. I eventually brought them in 2009 to supplement the speedway income, investing in both a stock car fence and a speedway air fence.”
When Godfrey reintroduced the sport to Scunthorpe, he deliberately chose a new nickname – the Scorpions.
“It had to be something new for the new era, because the Saints and Stags were associated with unsuccessful teams.
“We soon shrugged off that tag. In our first year in 2005, we avoided finishing bottom of the Conference League – and then for the next two seasons, we won practically everything in sight!
“However, once we moved up into the Premier League, and needed a name for the Conference League (our second team), it was nice to bring back the Saints. The stick man is easy to market.
“And now our Midland Development League team is called the Stags, so both old names are back.”
SCUNTHORPE: THE VENUES
1. QUIBELL PARK
Location: Quibell Park, Brumby Wood Lane, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire.
Track length: 402 metres.
Track record: 76.8 seconds (Keith Evans 24/5/76, John Jackson & Phil Collins both 18/4/77, Nicky Allott, Phil White, Bob Garrad & Kelvin Mullarkey all 14/8/78).
First meeting: Scunthorpe 39 Hull 38 (Humberside Trophy, 3/5/71).
Last meeting: Scunthorpe 37 Eastbourne 41 (National League, 16/10/78).
2. ASHBY VILLE
Location: Ashby Ville Stadium, off Queensway, Ashby, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire.
Track length: 315 metres.
Track record: 63.3 seconds (Andy Buck 11/9/84).
First meeting: Scunthorpe 38 Middlesbrough 40 (Challenge, 6/5/79).
Last meeting: Scunthorpe 40 Peterborough 37 (National League, 13/5/85).
3. EDDIE WRIGHT RACEWAY
Location: Eddie Wright Raceway, Normanby Road, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire.
Track length 285 metres.
Track record: 55.50 seconds (David Howe 29/7/11).
First meeting: Scunthorpe Telegraph Trophy (27/3/05). Winner: Danny Norton.
KEVIN TEAGER INTERVIEW
The following article comes from is from Issue 50 (May-June 2012) of Backtrack – The Retro Speedway Magazine For The Fans Of The 70s And 80s. It was written by Rob Peasley, who is also the Press Officer for Scunthorpe Speedway.
Subscriptions to Backtrack are available at:
http://www.retro-speedway.com
A PASSION FOR RACING
KEVIN TEAGER has a passion for racing motorcycles which has lasted to the present day.
When Teager isn’t travelling around Europe, defending his European Veteran Longtrack title, he is back in England, either riding for the Blast From The Past troupe, or maintaining his growing collection of restored speedway bikes, which he keeps at Mark Loram’s farm in Suffolk.
And now the 53-year-old is looking to pack in the day job, serving as a Prison Officer at Warren Hill Young Offenders Institution, to start a new life in Germany with his partner Nikki. It will move them much closer to much of the racing that Kevin is also involved in these days.
Kevin’s passion for speedway started on the Foxhall Heath terraces in the 1970s.
He told Backtrack: “A friend of mine took me along to Ipswich Speedway, and we became supporters every Thursday evening.
“We used to roll around on these Bantam bikes around the fields. It developed from there. I dabbled at a little at grasstrack on a 250cc bike. That only lasted for a couple of meetings or so, because what really interested me was speedway.”
Teager first rode at the Ipswich practice day in 1977. The following year, the Anglia Junior League (AJL) was launched.
AJL matches were held over three races and tended to take place right at the end of the evening, after a 13-heat first half and the rider of the night competition in the second half.
Ipswich romped to the 1978 AJL title, with a team consisting of Andy Hibbs (11.00 average), Mark Bilner (9.33), Tim Hunt (8.80), Kevin Teager (8.13) and Carl Squirrell (8.00).
“Those were good days”, Teager says. “There were so many of us youngsters in the Ipswich second halves, all vying to try to get a reserve position with the Witches.
“John Berry already had a good record at finding homegrown talent, which had started some years earlier with John Louis and Tony Davey.”
Teager made two British League appearances for the Witches in 1978, in away meetings at Halifax and Bristol. He was ready for regular league action, and that opportunity came at National League Scunthorpe.
Teager recalls: “Brian Osborn was the promoter at Scunthorpe. He lived just outside Ipswich, so we knew each other. Brian wanted a few new faces up there, to gee everyone up and asked me to come up, to see if I could get into the National League team.
“I vaguely remember riding a couple of times at Quibell Park, but that closed to speedway at the end of the 1978 season.
“Brian went ahead and built Ashby Ville, which was just opposite the steel works. That became my home track for several years.”
A few weeks into the 1979 season, Teager bagged a regular place in the Stags’ 1-7. It was a highly unsettled season for Scunthorpe, with Ashby Ville opening late, and then being closed down for a spell by the Speedway Control Board, until a series of improvements were carried out to the stadium and track.
But none of that affected the eager young Teager.
“I went to Ashby Ville for the very first practice day and I just fell in love with the place,” he reveals.
“It was a natural racing track for me. Sometimes the surface wasn’t brilliant, but I liked it. Sometimes I was beating people I shouldn’t be up there, because the track didn’t faze me but it did them.
“It was a bit basic. If you went over the white line, you went for a motocross ride! But it just clicked for me.
“Ashby Ville was like a home-from-home. I guess it was because it was a brand new track and I was a rider who hadn’t long since come into the sport.”
It didn’t take Teager long to improve. He went from a reserve in 1979 to a second string in 1980 and then heat leader in 1981.
And when Nicky Allott was injured mid-season in 1981, Teager found himself elevated to Scunthorpe’s No.1. It was a role he took to with some gusto, rattling off three successive maximums around Ashby Ville in August and September.
Teager remembers fondly: “There were a great bunch of people up there.
“Sadly, Rob Woffinden is no longer with us (he died from cancer in 2010). But Rob and I grew up together in the Scunthorpe team.
“We started off vying for the No.7 spot, and then for a while, we were riding at reserve together, before we both progressed up the ranks.
“I used to travel alone quite a lot, but if I was going to Scotland, I would pick up Rob at the Scunthorpe junction, and take him up to Scotland. We had some good times together.
“Brian Osborn was doing his best on limited funds at Scunthorpe. His co-promoter was Ted Hornsby, who was the landlord at the Brown Cow pub. But, bless him, Ted wasn’t very well.
“They were difficult times for Scunthorpe, and the scoring of the team wasn’t up to par a lot of the time. But, for me personally, I was having a good time, because I was on the up.
“I still used to get the odd outing for Ipswich. John Berry tended to use me up north, if he was having problems.
“He’d get hold of Brian or Ted at the Brown Cow and tell them: ‘Tell Kevin to get to Belle Vue’ or wherever it was.”
Although Teager did occasionally stay in Scunthorpe, he spent the majority of time commuting up to Lincolnshire for home meetings.
“I lived in a little village the other side of Ipswich, called Tunstall, when I was single, and then moved to Hollesley once I got married. It was a fair old trek to Scunthorpe.
“It was a good five hour journey. I’d leave at lunchtime and get there around 5.30pm.
“I had two ways of getting to Scunthorpe. There was what I called the back way, which was through Thetford, King’s Lynn, Boston and then onto Sleaford, Lincoln and into Scunthorpe that way. Or I could go to Peterborough, get on the A1 there, go up to Grantham, and then shoot across.
“I nearly put in a ditch in Boston once, because I feel asleep at the wheel. After that, I tended to use the A1 more, because that was a bit safer.”
After four very happy years at Scunthorpe, Teager left the Stags at the end of the 1982 season.
He explains: “The rider pay scales were standardised. Every rider was, supposedly, paid the same amount of points money and start money. If you were a heat leader, you got a little bit more than a second string, and in turn the second strings got a little bit more than the reserves.
“Scunthorpe couldn’t find me enough sponsors to bump up the money. Terry Russell and Peter Thorogood had wanted me to go to Crayford for a couple of seasons, because I always went well there and scored a hatful of points.
“Terry Russell phoned me up when the pay scales came in, and said: ‘Come and ride for me. You’ll get paid the same, and you’ll have to travel a lot less distance.’
“And they had tyres, oil, fuel; little bits of sponsorship that weren’t available at Scunthorpe. It was a sad move, but one I had to do financially, because I couldn’t afford to continue travelling to Scunthorpe for less money.”
It started a nomadic few years for Teager.
“I did start to move around tracks quite a lot from that point, mostly due to circumstances out of my control.
“I had a reasonable year with Crayford in ‘83, riding alongside Barry Thomas, Paul Bosley, Trevor Banks and Alan Mogridge.
“Crayford Speedway closed down at the end of the year. But, luckily, Terry got into Hackney and took more-or-less the whole team with him.
“It was a good bunch of riders; we had the nucleus of a very good side. I had a good crack during my two years for Crayford and Hackney – they were good times.”
The Kestrels won the 1984 National League KO Cup. But the dreaded points limit decreed that a rider had to go for the following season. It proved to be Teager.
“My average dictated that I was the one who moved on from Hackney. Terry arranged for me to go to Wimbledon for 1985, I didn’t have much say in that move.
“I enjoyed riding for Wimbledon. But I had a few injuries and engine problems there, and I really started to find it a financial strain.”
Worse was to follow for Teager when he was involved in a second half crash at Boston in May 1986.
“I broke my back. It was an accident with Nicky Allott. It was a couple of years since he’d lost his team place at Scunthorpe (he’d never been the same since a bad leg injury in ’81), and he was having a ride or two in the second halves at Boston when he felt like it.
“As always, Nicky jumped out of the gate, but almost stopped when he got to the first turn, and I ran into the back of him.
“We both capitulated over the fence. I broke two vertebrae, but luckily they were what they call stable breaks, so it wasn’t too serious. But it was the final straw for me as far as speedway was concerned.
“Subsequently I got a job in the prison in the village where I was living (Hollesley). And I retired from speedway.”
But Teager still had the speedway bug and found a job offer for the 1987 season from Rye House promoter Ronnie Russell impossible to turn down.
“Ronnie phoned me up and asked me if I wanted to ride for Rye House. I told him I now had a full-time job, but Ronnie told me: ‘That’s not a problem, our home meetings are on Sundays.’
“I found I could fit in the away matches using my annual leave. I built a speedway bike out of the bits I had leftover, bought an engine, and rode for Rye.”
Did speedway become a hobby for Teager at this point?
“In a way, yes it did, although it still had to pay for itself. But I wasn’t reliant on it, because I had a full-time job.”
Teager’s form for the Rockets was poor. Halfway through the 1988 season, he lost his team place to German Peter Schroeck (see separate story).
But he then had something of a renaissance in 1989, riding at reserve for Ipswich. The Witches had dropped down to the National League, and it soon became apparent that the new Aussie reserves were not up to scratch. They turned to local lad Kevin Teager.
He says: “Ipswich needed a reserve and my average fitted. I invested in some reasonable equipment and I quite enjoyed that season.
“The following season I had brief spells at Rye House and Arena Essex.
“After that, I didn’t retire as such, but there wasn’t any club interested in me. I wasn’t scoring that many points any more. I was doing quite a lot of grasstrack at that point, while I was also rider/coach for Sittingbourne for a couple of years.”
The 1996 season saw a surprise name in the Ipswich No.7 berth – that of Kevin Teager. At the age of 37, he was about to commence his first ever full-season in the top flight!
“From what I recall, John Louis was really struggling to find a No.7, and he phoned up and asked me to go to the press & practice.
“By this time, I was really friendly with Mark Loram. I bought a year-old lay-down engine off Mark, which meant I had top equipment.”
Teager started the season in great form, and after a month moved up to the No.2 spot, alongside Chris Louis, relegating young hot shots Ben Howe and Savalas Clouting to reserve.
“The season started very well”, he recalls. “But I then had a crash at Ipswich. I went straight through the fence and I damaged my ankle and the tendons in my leg.
“After that, I was just making the numbers up. I told John Louis to drop me, but I don’t think there was anyone else suitable to come in, so he preserved with me.”
1997 marked the final chapter on Kevin Teager’s professional speedway career.
“I had spent quite a lot of money on machinery riding for Ipswich, so wanted some outings in the Premier League to get some of the money back.
“I went to the Isle Of Wight for a bit, but the travelling was horrendous. I was using up all my holiday entitlement at work.
“I then signed for Stoke. The home meetings were at weekends, so I could do it. But I crashed on my debut for Stoke at Newport.
“I again broke my back – but much more seriously this time.
“I was in the hospital in Newport for eight weeks, not able to move. I had two major operations. The first one went very wrong so they had to stop. During the second operation, they put two rods about six inches long on each side of my spine, and transplanted a bit of bone from my hip, because I had lost about an inch-and-a-half of my spine.
“By the time I got home, my family had sold most of my bikes. I had spent around a month or so in hospital at Ipswich as well. I was lucky that I worked for the civil service, because they kept my job open.”
However, Teager’s involvement in motorsport did not cease, as he became involved in trials bikes and stock car racing – the latter in conjunction with his job in the prison service.
He explains: “When I started working for the prison in 1986, I was a civilian, working as a motor mechanic. I just did the maintenance of the lorries and the vans at Hollesley Bay. But I then got a promotion and became an Instructional Officer in the juvenile establishment at Warren Hill.
“I was teaching the youngsters motor mechanics in the workshop. As a project, we started making stock rods, supposedly a non-contact car. I would take the youngsters as mechanics and we would go racing at Ipswich, Wimbledon, Arena Essex and so on.
“It was a good experience for them to show them they don’t have to race on the road, and that there are proper places to race where you could do it safely. I was doing that for 3 or 4 years.
“But they privatised all the workshop areas in the prisons, and I was in danger of losing my job. I had the opportunity to transfer and became a Prison Officer, to keep my wages and my pension, so I took that.”
In 2009, Teager joined the Blast From The Past troupe that tours various speedway tracks in Britain during the season, with demonstration races on classic speedway bikes.
“Alec Gooch is a good friend of mine, and he’s one of the main guys behind Blast From The Past. He asked me if I wanted to go to Holland for a meeting over there. I then started looking for a JAP and it took off from there.
“They normally put me at the back to see if I can have a bit of a tussle and work my way forward, to entertain the crowd.
“From there, things developed, and I also started riding in the two-value class of the European Veteran Longtrack Championship.
“Last year, I clinched the series by winning every round. But this year the van broke down on the way to the opening round in the Czech Republic. You drop your worst score, but now I can’t afford to have a bad round or miss any other rounds.”
Kevin is accompanied on his trips abroad by his partner Nikki.
“My marriage broke down a few years ago. I met Nikki and she is my mechanic; we go all over the place together. I’m so lucky to have someone in my life who shares the same interest as me, and we enjoy the social side.
“It’s a social thing; we have some great friends such as Mick and Astrid Cooke. But when the riders put the crash helmets on, the racing instinct takes over.”
Teager currently lives in the garage of the Loram family bungalow.
“Mark has become a great friend. His parents live in the main house, and I live in just a couple of rooms. When they go off to Spain, I look after the house.
“Speedway is one big family, and people are always there for you. I bumped into Richard Clark (the editor of the Speedway Star and a big Wimbledon fan) recently, and we ended up down the pub along with Mark. I hadn’t seen Richard for years, but we picked up our friendship from the Wimbledon days straight away.
“My workshop is at Mark’s farm, where I’m building up a collection of old bikes. But they are not there just to look at; they are there for me to go and race! I have a collection of around thirty bikes now. I love the old JAP. There’s the sound, the smell, plus it’s a bit of a handful.”
Kevin’s career working for the prison service will shortly come to an end, as he and Nikki head off to Germany.
He admits: “I’ve had enough of the prison service, to be quite honest. I keep getting assaulted. It’s become a horrible place to work.
“You have to control these young guys. A couple of years ago I ended up with five broken ribs, after taking a good kicking. I’ve also had my head split open.
“I’ve been there a long time, seen how times have changed, and it is best that I now leave. I still believe in the discipline side of it, but I’m afraid there’s not much discipline now.
“The youngsters nowadays have no respect. You have these boys who, in terms of size, are men. Most of them are quite a lot bigger than me. They know the system. They think they can do what we want, and to a certain extent, they can.
“I’ve worked for the prison service for 26 years, and been a Prison Officer for around eight years. But I’ve come to hate the job.
“The plan is to move over to Germany with Nikki and for us to start a new life over there.
“We’ve finalised buying a house, and it’s now just a case of decamping over there. We’ll then be commuting back here to do some of our racing (Blast From The Past), instead of the other way around.”
What seems to define Kevin Teager is his love for racing motorbikes.
“Even when I was not riding speedway, I was riding trials. When I was convalescing from my second broken back, I was building a trials bike. When the rods came out of my back, I used them to make the front mudguard bay of that bike.
“I still love racing and entertaining people. I wish all the fans and my friends and rivals the best, and long may we continue putting on the crash helmets on and having a bit of fun!”
THE START OF THE FOREIGN INVASION
1988 was a stormy season at Rye House. Struggling to field a team over the National League’s minimum limit, promoter Ronnie Russell turned to mainland Europe.
It was a highly controversial move, as up until that time, the National League had been restricted to British and Commonwealth riders.
There were few arguments over Dane Jens Rasmussen, who was a British resident and had an English wife and young child.
But German Peter Schroeck was a different kettle of fish. He was a 100% foreign rider.
After a tussle between Russell and the sport’s authorities, Schroeck was allowed to ride.
But the young German struggled and was dropped almost immediately. However, Schroeck was reintroduced later in the season – at the expense of Kevin Teager.
“I wasn’t too happy about it at the time”, Teager admits.
“We were about to go on a northern tour. I knew I was struggling, so I said to Ronnie: ‘Look Ronnie, I’m not going that well, you’re not taking me all the way to Scotland, and then dropping me afterwards are you?”
“Ronnie said: ‘No, I won’t do that.’ But, of course, that’s exactly what did happen. So I wasn’t too pleased.
“I put a bit in the Speedway Star to say it wasn’t right that I was being replaced by a foreign rider. I was quite raw about it at the time.
“In my book, the second division should have been kept to British and Commonwealth riders. When it was opened up to foreign riders, it stopped the flow of young British riders coming into the sport, and it’s why we are where we are today.
“These days, the whole league is full of foreign riders.
“Don’t get me wrong; a lot of the foreign boys are very good mates of mine, and I don’t hold any kind of grudge. But I think the powers-that-be made a big mistake in allowing Ronnie to use Peter Schroeck. It opened the floodgates”, Teager concluded.