1969 Hampden’s First Season
Charlie Monk Wants to Come Back to Glasgow
Bo Josefsson and Ake Andersson both returned to Sweden at the end of July 1968 to ride in Swedish league fixtures. Neither had shown much semblance of form for the Tigers that month and it was no great surprise that they never came back. Tigers got Alf Wells who had been released by Newcastle and got on with the remainder of their league fixtures during that torrid season. However they had two challenge matches in August, one against Prague and the other a Scottish Cup tie with Coatbridge and brought in Charlie Monk as a guest for both meetings, during which he said that he would not now be averse to returning to the White City. What had happened to change his mind? Was it the promotion or the track, both of which he had criticised the year before.
The annual rider allocation exercise prior to the 1969 season was one of the most far reaching, with top heat leaders both demanding and refusing certain moves. Ivan Mauger, crowned World Champion for the first time in 1968, was adamant that he was leaving Newcastle, and he was going to Belle Vue, not Hackney, Oxford nor anywhere else. A number of riders were allocated to Newcastle as a replacement, including Monk, Nygren and Harkins, none of whom agreed to the move. Monk’s move to the Tigers was on and off at various times, with Oyvind Berg being listed for Sheffield and Willie Templeton due to go to Coatbridge at other times. The riders and Les Whaley stood firm although Monk’s move wasn’t confirmed in time for him to race in our colours at Hackney towards the end of March.
The Program
Like its predecessor, the 1969 program had no photographs either on the cover or elsewhere. The cover featured a drawing of two riders, seemingly a Tiger and an opponent, shaking hands on their post race lap of honour. In fact it was based on a photograph taken during the 1967 Great Britain versus Sweden test series and featured Nigel Boocock and Gunnar Malmquist, the latter’s appearance on our program cover being quite inexplicable as the Tigers promotion had spent many weeks the previous year trying to get him to shake on a deal to join the Tigers!
The Supporters Club was given an entire page for their news and their president often toiled to fill the page, which was generally repetitive and humourless. He waged a personal crusade to take membership over the 1000 mark, and there were lengthy instructions on the collection of old newspapers, a source of club revenue in these simpler times.
The 1969 Program
In the early weeks the program featured a competition called “Number the Rider”, where each of the numbers on a square in the grid apparently represented a First Division rider. It was completely unintelligible and no winners were ever published, indeed it is possible that no entries were ever received! The grid, together with the answers given, is shown below. More than forty years later it still seems the most bizarre speedway competition I’ve ever seen - and I still haven't a clue how it is meant to be solved!
Solutions:
12 Barry Briggs
3 Ole Olsen
48 Clive Hitch
30 Jim McMillan
1 Ivan Mauger
96 Jimmy Gooch
19 Soren Sjosten
6 Roy Trigg
24 Bernie Persson
11 Bengt Larsson
10 Bruce Cribb
95 Ronnie Genz
Unsurprisingly it was discontinued after four weeks and replaced by a straightforward quiz with eight speedway questions.
The Opening Meeting
The opening meeting was originally planned to be the home leg of the Champagne Derby against Coatbridge on 4th April but, due to delays in building the track, this was deferred a week. The fact that the Scottish League Cup Final between Celtic and Hibernian was due to be played on the following day may also have had a bearing on the postponement decision. This would have been the first time the fence had to be removed and stored away, and, while it would later become a slick operation, there was some initial apprehension over how long this would take.
Coatbridge had hoped to ride a Hampden on the 11th but they had a league fixture at Wolverhampton that night and could not persuade the Wolves to reschedule it. Tigers therefore would be opening with their originally fixtured home meeting against Kings Lynn.
The afternoon was overcast and there was light drizzle around teatime, which got heavier as the meeting started. Heat one saw Alf Wells go straight through the tapes, but replacement Willie Templeton joined Charlie Monk for a 5-1 over Terry Betts in the historic opening race. With conditions worsening, Monk’s winning of 74.8 was never in any danger of being bettered and stood as the track record. As the rain continued to fall, spectators on the back straight were getting soaked and thankfully the connecting gate to the covered west terracing was open to allow them some shelter. This would be the one and only time that access was permitted to this part of the stadium.
Understandably the track started to cut up but it did have a great capacity to absorb the rain, allowing the meeting to continue. Russ Dent was in his element in these conditions and his heat thirteen pass of both Betts and Simmonds, Kings Lynn’s top two, secured his paid maximum. Betts ended the maximum hopes of both Monk and McMillan. Monk went on to win the trophy final for Monk and McMillan.
A huge crowd reportedly close to 15000 turned up for the opening meeting, and while this attendance was an all time high for the sport at the stadium, healthy crowds of over 5000 would be the norm.
Alf Wells Retires
1969 was always going t be a tough season for Alf Wells. No longer a heat leader he would now be paired with Jim McMillan, Charlie Monk or Oyvind Berg, which would no doubt curtail his scoring. The move to Hampden should have been good for him. Always a smart starter, he would have been expected to defend his early advantage on the narrow Hampden track. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out this way. Some say he tired on the big track – although it was actually 10 yards shorter than the White City – others thought he didn’t like riding on a track with a board fence. Whatever the reason, he seemed very unsettled at the start of the season and had tapes exclusions in his opening race in three of his first four meetings.
By the end of April, he had an average of 4.00 but looked pretty ill at ease. Tigers had no obvious number eight. Robin Amundson was expected to link up with Glasgow but had received National Service call up papers in his native Australia. Les Whaley took the rather rash decision to drop Wells in favour of Jim Crowhurst for the home meeting against West Ham. The guy have never seen Hampden before, let alone ridden on it! As it turned out he was well off the pace and was released back to Canterbury where he toiled to retain his team place.
Wells returned and had marginally better meetings scoring paid five at home to Belle Vue and paid seven at Coventry, one of his favourite away tracks. However a first race spill in the local derby with Coatbridge saw him nursing a wrist injury. In his absence Tigers signed Berwick’s Maury Robinson as our number eight. Wells returned with a bang. His nine paid eleven on a rain soaked Swindon track sparked our first away win of the season. Perhaps better times were ahead – sadly no. The next two home meetings saw Tigers lose to Halifax and be held to a draw by Poole, with neither Wells nor Dent being in any way impressive. Whaley said that, while both were off form, he was dropping Wells as his loss of form had been “long standing”. Robinson would take his place, while Wells got rides at Berwick, starring in a challenge meeting with Long Eaton and winning the Danny Taylor Memorial meeting.
With Robinson being required for a Berwick fixture, Wells returned for the home meeting with Wolverhampton but turned in another poor performance with paid two.
Then things got crazy. He was told he could not ride for Berwick, nor indeed any other Second Division team as he was “too good”. This at a time when he couldn’t hold down a team place at Glasgow. He decided to retire. Another bombshell, Robinson was told that he couldn’t go on doubling up for both Glasgow and Berwick – if he exceeded six matches for the Tigers, he could no longer ride in the Second Division. Unsurprisingly he decided to throw his lot in with Berwick.
Tigers moved to sign Mike Hiftle a Belle Vue junior who couldn’t get a team place with Colts team!
Alf Wells in his last meeting for Tigers
This excellent photo graphically demonstrates how uncomfortable Wells was riding Hampden and how the track didn't suit Oyvind Berg who finished second to Mick Handley in this heat - at the White City he would have had no problem in winning this race.
Home and Away
With a heat leader trio of Monk, McMillan and Berg, the Tigers looked to have a formidable home set up, particularly with Dent showing some amazing form at his new home in the early weeks of the season. However, with the track both settling down and becoming slicker as the summer approached his form slumped rather alarmingly. A run of mechanical troubles added to his woes. Tigers now proved to be a bit vulnerable at home, and dropped three league points in early June. In retrospect, it was no real surprise when a strong looking Halifax outfit won 41-37, on a night when Berg had to ride on borrowed machinery as his own bike had been delayed while returning from an abortive meeting in his native Norway, and Monk was suffering from a gastric complaint and rode against promoter Whaley’s wishes. The following week Poole’s all round strength saw the Pirates, inspired by ten points from reserve Guasco take a league point back south, with Dent managing a solitary point. However to keep this in perspective it should be pointed out that the Pirates would go on to win the British League title.
More surprising was the home point surrendered to Cradley in mid July. Tigers were fancied to win comfortably, particularly as they had been unlucky to lose 41-37 in a KO Cup tie at Cradley just a few weeks earlier. Dent continued to suffer with bike problems and worryingly failed to score in two outings. With Beaton and Robinson also struggling, Tigers were up against it from the start. The Heathens, boosted by nine points from the reserve berth by Gardner, were unlucky not to take both points. Indeed it needed two 5-1s from McMillan and Berg in heats eleven and thirteen to salvage a draw. Dent took full advantage of the Glasgow Fair break to ort out his bike, and, thereafter, Tigers comfortably won their remaining home fixtures.
Away from home the Tigers opened with a narrow 39-38 defeat at Hackney but then lost a string of away meetings by some margin before winning at Swindon on a wet night when Wells proved his worth from the reserve berth with a match winning nine paid eleven points. Thereafter the team could usually be relied upon to put on a good show and break the 30 point barrier without really threatening to capture any league points. With Wells retired and Robinson no longer available, the Tigers signed the untried Mike Hiftle, making our reserve pairing of Beaton and Hiftle the youngest and least experienced in the league. The general feeling that this would scupper any chance of further away success as both these lads would be going to away tracks for the first time. It didn’t actually work out like that, with Tigers enjoying good away performances during the Glasgow Fair, winning at Wolverhampton and getting a draw at West Ham. Tigers could have won in London had Charlie Monk been prepared to ride on a borrowed bike in heat twelve where he would surely have gained at least a third place. Monk refused and reserve Dent, being deliberately kept back for heat thirteen, had to ride, finishing his quota of five rides.
Most away meetings thereafter continued to be 12 –16 point defeats so it would be wrong to blame our young reserves. Only at Newcastle where Russ Dent put his experience of the Brough Park circuit to good use did we get anywhere near the homesters, losing 41-37.
British Final Double Disappointment
With both Monk and McMillan boasting averages close to 10.00, there was some hope that at least one could qualify for the Wembley World Final from the British Final, which was being held at West Ham, a track to which both seemed well suited. However, both had been having problems with their gating, particularly at Hampden and their form had shaded. On the night they finished well down the scorers list with six and four respectively.
Scottish Cup Boycott
There was certainly always a fair bit of “feeling” when Tigers met the Monarchs, may be more so this year. Les Whaley took a dim view of Hoskins comments in the Coatbridge program ahead of our league meeting there in June. Hoskins took exception to the Tigers describing their 46-32 win over the Monarchs at Hampden as a “crushing” and conveniently ignored Tigers away win at Swindon saying we always got crushed on the road. Whaley said he had no wish to comment on this attempt to stir things up and that the issue would be settled on the track
Sadly we got stuffed 49-29! However it was not a meeting without talking points! And before I am accused of red and white bias, let me tell you what the presumably neutral Peter Oakes wrote in the Speedway Star “ one of the strangest decisions I have ever come across – Brian Collins quite clearly left the track and rode over the centre green with both wheels. There was no exclusion by referee Taylor who said he had not seen the incident- he was one of very few in the stadium. As far as I (and thousands of spectators) was concerned there was no doubt at all.”
The following week Reidar Eide defeated Charlie Monk in the Scottish Match Race Championship and displayed his lack of class in his attitude to both promoter Whaley and the public, with Whaley describing his conduct as “inexcusable”. Hoskins made an apology saying Eide’s conduct was mischievous rather than malicious.
Against this simmering background, the Scottish Cup was to be contested on successive nights at the end of August. Tigers won the home leg at Hampden 44-33 in a closely contested encounter in which Doug Templeton, returning from retirement, top scored with nine points from the reserve berth. The return leg at Coatbridge saw the Monarchs run out 45-33 victors, taking the cup by a single point non aggregate but left both Tigers supporters and riders fuming. Indeed the tigers riders were all for pulling out of the second half in protest but saner counsel prevailed and they made their point by taking a clean sweep in the final and finishing in formation. Les Whaley would write in the following week’s program “I have protested at every meeting (with the Monarchs) at the tactics employed and tolerated by officialdom, but it would seem that the matches are not being held on equal terms…...These meetings must be excluded from future fixture lists…….Tigers have no wish to ride against the monarchs except in statutory league meetings”
All strong stuff! So what was Les Whaley complaining about? The inside line at Coatbridge was nothing more than a sawdust trail and the second bend was a favourite spot for the homesters to cut inside the line to pass opponents. Doug Templeton and Brian Collins were particularly adept at this manoeuvre!
The starting gate at Coatbridge was notorious for malfunctioning although it seemed to function ok if there was only one tape strung to it. The home riders took advantage of this by putting their front wheels under the single strand. The starting marshal didn’t seem to see anything wrong with this! Wayne Briggs would later say that he hoped a new gate would be provided for the 1970 season – sadly Coatbridge never came to any tapes, old or new, for that season!
Was Whaley right to make such a stand? Probably not, as a fair bit of controversy never went amiss and added to the atmosphere. As it turned out, the Monarchs weren’t about to contest any challenge matches with the Tigers anyway.
Charlie Monk and Willie Templeton in hot pursuit of Reidar Eide in that dreaded Scottish Cup tie at Coatbridge !!!
Light – ning Starts Stopped
Ronnie Young worked as a pusher at Hampden but when he broke his wrist in a cycle speedway crash in September, he was moved to starting gate duties. He noticed that while most riders looked at the magnets on the starting gate Dave Gifford leaned further over his handlebars and looked into the referees box. He was certainly making some great starts. Then it dawned on Ronnie what was happening. There was a light in the referees box that lit to show power was going to the starting gate. This went out as soon as the referee hit the start button and gave an early warning of the tapes going up! A quick word with Neil McFarlane and the light was covered up, leaving Mr Gifford staring in vain … and missing the gate!!
The Final exclusion
Tigers final home meeting of a very successful season was the Scottish Western Championship, which had an attractive field including Ivan Mauger, the Boococks, Jim Airey, Ray Wilson, Arnold Haley and “ public enemy number one” Reidar Eide! None of the Tigers were in the final reckoning which saw Ivan Mauger unbeaten and Nigel Boocock second with 12 points. Then came three riders tied on ten points, Haley, Olsen and Eide. In the run off, Olsen pulled up early on, while Eide had a huge lead over Haley who was now trundling round. Going down the back straight, Eide slowed and looked back and waved to Haley, seemingly inviting him to catch up and make a race of it - a truly pointless and graceless gesture. Eide eventually finished in a time of 85.4 seconds, probably the slowest race win at Hampden. Predictably, the crowd gave him the bird as he cruised over the finishing line. Neil McFarlane got on the phone to referee Cuthbert, whose grasp of reality always seemed on the tenuous side, and persuaded him to exclude Eide – presumably for either looking back or for ungentlemanly conduct. Either way it was a regrettable end to a great season, with speedway beginning to resemble wrestling with bizarre decisions.