Question for old Cradley fans!

[brianbuck]

Can any old Cradley fans remember a rider by the name of Cyril Cragg who competed in a Best Pairs meeting at Dudley Wood on Saturday 21st May 1960? He was one of the meeting reserves and took four rides in the place of Bill Coleman who had dropped out of the meeting after his first two rides either through injury or bike problems.

Cragg scored six points from the four rides he completed and fell in what would have been his fifth ride, but in one of his races he defeated Roy Spencer who was at the time Cradley's third heat leader. Cragg's name had never previously been seen in the Cradley programme and neither was it ever seen again, so the mystery seems to be that if he was good enough to beat Cradley's third heat leader Spencer, why would he not have been signed on, on the spot?

Could he have been a rider already under contract to another club who was riding on that particular occasion under an assumed name? This kind of thing wasn't unique at the time - several riders had used assumed names when riding at Bradford and Liverpool the previous season, and former Belle Vue captain Ken Sharples rode as "Gary Lindsay" for LIverpool against Cradley in a cuptie just a couple of weeks afterwards.

Would be interesting to find out one way or another.

[Preston Comet]

3 hours ago, brianbuck said:

so the mystery seems to be that if he was good enough to beat Cradley's third heat leader Spencer, why would he not have been signed on, on the spot?

I think Poole paid him not to sign for Cradley...