Memories Of Waterden Road

[btfan 0]

I also have fond memories of Waterden Road in the eighties.

 

1) The drive through the Blackwall Tunnel, I remember a strange smell as you approached the Tunnel from the south, my dad always said it was a brewery, not sure if that is true. Mind you, he would know

 

2) Having our car broken into twice, once in the carpark, and once out on the road!! Seemed to spend a lot of time at the Police Station!!

 

3) Turning right and then left at a big pub after the Blackwall Tunnel on the way to the stadium, can't remember the name?

 

4) Thommo always missing the start, swooping around the boards, and nobody was better at making their way from the back!!

 

5) Andy Galvin, a stylish performer, a great NL rider.

 

6) Somebody mentioned a girl called Mel, using a bicycle pump airhorn. Think I remember her, did she stand on the back straight with her family, around 1984, had shortish hair. I fancied her from afar, but never spoke to her.

 

7) Remember the closure in 1991? Wasn't there some sort of robbery of the takings??

 

8) My Dad buying the monkey nuts for me during the meeting!!

 

9) Sitting on the bar which surrounded the greyhound track to watch the racing.

 

10) The "Sean Willmott Tra la la la la chant from the second bend in the early eighties.

 

11) Overall great racing, at a slightly delapidated stadium, but one with history.

 

BT Fan

 

 

[SCORPIO 7]

Make it a Date, Friday at Eight

The strains of The Magnificent Seven bursting out on the PA system

The cracked glass in the Grandstand

The wooden fold down seats

 

Hackney speedway.....It all started for me as a young baby when my dear old Mum (CH) and Dad took me in my pram to Waterden Road in 1979 and I apologise to all the people that got annoyed by a baby bawling his head orf as that was me,

Well, Mum and Dad kept telling me I bawled me 'ead orf every time the tapes went up.

 

Mum has told me many a time of that horrible night when a young Hackney legend lost his life, the late great Vic Harding.

 

Moving swiftly on to my formative years, the Eighties. I don't remember much the first couple of years but I have recollections from around 1982/1983.

 

The journey from our North London home was the same near enough every week, 123 Turnpike Lane to either Blackhorse Road or Walthamstow "Bell" then a 58A or 158 if Blackhorse Road or 69, 97 or 97A if the "Bell" to Leyton Town Hall then the walk down Ruckholt Road past the School on the corner, now a car sales place and has been for a while now, going over the railway where I used to look for locos in Temple Mills yards then over the River Lea before turning left down Waterden Road. Sometimes we used to get "Heathys" Hackney Special from Leyton.

 

Me and my brothers would eagerly await with Mum (CH) and Dad, listening out for the footsteps of Iris and the undoing of bolts to open the door to the Season ticket holders, running up and getting my Kestrel News, racing up the stairs to "Our" seats and spread ourselves out to await the arrival of our friends then I would get some money and go to the track shop and buy the latest photo and run back to Mummy & Daddy (earlier years) walk back to Mum & Dad in later years.

Watch some of the best racing including my namesake and favourite Barry Thomas sweeping round the last bend or coming last with everyone still cheering him on.

At the end, it would be pack up the bags and get down to Leyton Town Hall and get whatever come up first, 58A, 158, 69, 97 or 97A and depending on what it was either the "Bell" or Blackhorse Road and then sometimes running to the 123 stop when we saw it waiting at the traffic lights. Sometimes we would go across the marshes and catch the 236 to Finsbury Park and get a 29 from there.

 

I can't quite remember but I think it were 1989 and that's when Mum got the car and drove over to The Wick.

Moved to High Wycombe in 1990 and the same Friday ritual continued, finish school, mad dash home and get ready for the drive up the M40 and A40 and across London to Waterden Road.

 

Some of my memories also include "Big Arfur" and his loud booming voice "Buy ya weekly Speeeedwayy Mail"

Snoopys under the grandstand hosting the Kiddies Christmas parties and riders dressing up as Santa

Racing down to the pits get some autographs.

 

The sad night in which a young man, Paul Muchene wearing the Hackney colours sadly lost his life in Hospital after crashing on the 4th bend which sent him down the home straight.

 

Then that other sad night, the day when Hackney died. My beloved Hawks/Kestrels/Hawks were gone.

No more Friday nights down the Wick shouting for my team wearing my Hackney scarf and clutching my Hackney programme board waiting for the winning time of yet another victorious rider wearing the red,white,yellow & blue of the Kestrels or Hawks.

 

Roll forward 4 years to 1995............

London Stadium Hackney on a wet September evening to watch the inaugral British GP and the crowning of the 1995 World Champion. Could this really be happening, a world championship meeting being held at "my" stadium.

Then came the announcement that 1996 a team would ride at Hackney and I thought "WOW" my Hackney Hawks are back but nope, sadly they were to be called the London Lions but support them I must and I was there for every official fixture in 1996 travelling up by train from High Wycombe and making a mad dash across London by Tube to Liverpool Street and cramming onto a 26 bus to Hackney Wick then a mad dash down the back of the factories.

I was lucky enough via my Dad to get a job working as a track raker, Could this really be happening, Im working on the track at somewhere, where I stood/sat on the terraces as a wee nipper.

It was certainly a different view from "down there" watching the riders whizz by quicker than what it seem's on the other side.

As I said, I was on those terraces from the first meeting in 1995 the GP, then every match in 1996 up to and including the Belle Vue match when I was accepted as a track raker, starting work the following week on the 4th bend.

It could only happen at Hackney, bright sunny evening and the match between London Lions and Scottish Monarchs got abandoned due to a power cut in the local area which also affected the nearby London Underground Central Line.

The LAST ever speedway team racing that I can remember (date I can't) was against the team I was to support later in life, the Oxford Cheetahs. The meeting was abandoned after Heat 12 or 13 as the track had become unrideable after a fair bit of rain.

 

Roll forward 9 Years to 2005 and the wonderful re union at Paradise Park. The magic was back if only for one night and not at Hackney Stadium and the The Magnificent Seven blasting out, the atmosphere, the lump in my throat and all the memories of days past come back.

 

My last memory of Waterden Road was a couple of years back when I was on a drive with my mate and we stopped off there and to see what I saw, I was almost in tears. The place where it all started for me was now gone, reduced to piles of rubble.

Edited July 2, 2008 by SCORPIO

[SCORPIO 7]

Mum would've been in here element on here, all the old Hackney memories and adding her own.

 

It is down to Hackney that Mum & Dad met.

Mum was a follower of the those Yellow Stars from South London, The mighty Dons of Wimbledon until Garry Middleton, her first speedway love moved across the river to East London to join the Hawks. Mum followed too, taking her support of Garry to Waterden Road and became a follower of the Hawks.

Dad decided to go down Waterden Road, I don't think he was an avid follower of the Hawks until he met my Mum.

It was on a coach trip to Coventry with the Hawks that my Dad asked Mum's brother if he could sit next to her which he duly did and that was that, they went on to date and eventually got Married in 1974. I arrived on the scene in November 1978 and my brothers put their appearance in in 1981.

 

And as they say.....The rest is history

 

 

Other memories I have are when we used to go by bus, we would get off before the Leyton Town Hall and Dad would go into the chippy and get some chips before we would walk down past Leyton Orient's ground and proceed towards Ruckholt Road & Waterden Road.

Stars of Tomorrow meetings, the second half action with the Earlybird hawks and If my memory serves me correctly, the Broadway Centurions.

1988 was the best of all seasons sweeping all before us to clinch the NL title along with the KOC in an all London Final with Wimbledon and the London Cup.

Travelling across to Plough Lane and hearing the EastEnders theme tune on the parade for Hackney.

My Mum giving riders like Jeremy Doncaster, Lance King for various reasons.

Our mates who sat in front of us, Sheila & Fred and their sons Jason & Soren.

Playing speedway riders with my brothers using a drinks can as pur steel shoe and "riding" round in circles.

Mum & Dad buying me and my brothers Hackney race jackets which we duly wore.

 

Awwwwwwww, Happy Days..................

 

If there is ever another re-union, put me down for 5 tickets.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

Can I just say that Scorpio's last two postings have been among the best and certainly the most evocative I've ever read on this Forum..

 

This sums it up doesn't it: Speedway tracks were where we went with our families; where we met friends and even future spouses.

Those responsible for closing down tracks (and YES, I am talking about you Messrs GRA at Wimbledon ) should hang their heads in shame..

 

But am I alone in believing that we will have soon-ish a fantastic opportunity to bring Speedway back to London E15..?!

Surely the overkill on sports stadia about to spring up in and around Waterden Rd. c/o the 2012 Olympics can leave us with one we can claim for our own..??

 

Now THAT would be some reunion!!!