With heartfelt apologies to all Graham Parker fans out there, a long overdue return to my childhood passion, although this was of course to Foxhall Stadium (home of the Ipswich Witches speedway team) and not to Sheffield Tigers Owlerton Stadium, who were of course my home team throughout my childhood; however my earliest actual, genuine memory was the World Speedway Championship of 1965, when the great Bjorn Knutson was the victor at London Wembley Stadium and which I attended with my extended family. However, I do remember going to Owlerton in the days of the great Billy Bales, who rode for Sheffield from 1965 onwards, so I’m guessing I must have first gone to watch the Tigers from about the age of nine onwards.
I should stress at this juncture that I have been to Foxhall on a couple of occasions before, but I hadn’t been for years and as the stadium is just a fifteen minute stroll from my house, I decided I was long overdue a return. Northampton were the visitors on this occasion and although the Witches were generally the superior all round side, the undoubted star of the night was one Adam Ellis. He came second in his first race as he presumably (re)familiarised himself with the track (which is technical and quite a short lap) and then proceeded to win six outings on the bounce, including a couple where he functioned as a rider replacement for the injured Kye Thomson. I might conjecture that Adam, who rode for the Witches last year, needed little in the way of extra incentive as he showed the Ipswich management, team and supporters what they were missing – although the supporters around me appeared genuinely appreciative of his efforts throughout the evening.
Speaking of the audience, crowd, spectators etc., I couldn’t help feel the crowd was a little low on numbers based on previous visits, although they were a while ago so probably unfair to gauge that with any kind of accuracy. Anyway, the scarcity of the crowd gave me a chance to try alternative locations (each of the first three corners) for position, viewpoint, ambience and overall enjoyment and decided the third corner was possibly optimum.
Not quite the same as back in Sheffield in the 1960s, when the stadium would quite often be packed. Why the decline occurred would be the subject of a separate and longer blog entry (which I may or may not get round to) but, in essence, it would appear that dwindling audiences and track closures are largely due to high stadium operational costs, a loss of mainstream media coverage, an aging fan demographic, and inconvenient weekday scheduling. I would agree with most of that superficial analysis, although the weekday scheduling might be contentious, given that Sheffield Tigers (like the Witches) raced their home matches on a Thursday as far back as the 1960s when I first started attending. Also, given the snooze fest that is Formula One and the crowds that engenders, I fail to see why four men on bikes with no brakes battling on an oval track should lose its appeal.
Still an enjoyable evening out and given its nearness to home, one I am minded to repeat.