Speedway Champions

 

SPEEDWAY LEAGUE CHAMPIONS
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          U.K.  :  1929 - 2017
       Europe: Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Czechia, Russia

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SPEEDWAY  LEAGUE  CHAMPIONS

     Click thumbnail for full-size table.                                                                                                                    

    Given in the tables above are the winners and place-getters of the speedway league championship competitions of the day since the introduction of speedway racing, - in the UK one year after the introductory High Beech meeting of 1928, and post-war for six other European speedway nations that operate healthy league championships.

UK SENIOR LEAGUE: (1st Div'n.)
    Variously titled, - after initial North and South set-ups - , as the National League, British League, briefly the Premier League, and today the Elite League, participation at senior league level in the UK has varied from as few as 7 tracks at the sport's nadir to 21-strong at its zenith in the mid-nineties.
     The most successful team, with 13 title wins has been Belle Vue Aces, thanks in part to their ever-presence over the eighty year period: pre-war they were almost invincible! The immediate post-war years saw Wembley Lions at their peak, and in total they took the league championship trophy 10 times in just 24 years of operation despite their 1957 closure.
     Wimbledon Dons, who took over the mantle of the capital's top team from 1954, and Coventry Bees, who only entered senior league racing following the consolidation of 1957, both succeeded in lifting the trophy on 7 occasions. In the present century Poole Pirates have also accumulated 7 successes to date.

Wembley Lions, 1950, showing their strength in depth: T.Price, J.Gooch,A. Bottoms, G.Wilks, B.Wells, capt'n Bill Kitchen, mgr Duncan King, B.Abernethy, E.Williams, J.Gates, F.Williams, D.Cosby, B.Gilbert.

Cradley Heath Heathens

Peterborough Panthers

UK SECOND & THIRD TIER LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIPS
   The health of speedway racing in the UK can be judged at times by the number of leagues, or divisions of a league, that are operating. The supplementary league(s) may have been only a competition for junior or reserve riders of senior clubs, as with the first lower league of 1934,the 'Reserves League," or at other times is a reflection of the number of clubs in operation in any one year. The present third speedway league includes a combination of senior clubs' second teams with equal numbers of independent clubs. In a few years 'second-half' leagues for juniors have also been run or attempted, viz. a disatrous 1959, but are not included here.

    Sometimes operating as Div'n 1 plus Div'n 2 plus Div'n 3, of the 'X League,' promotion (and as equally, relegation) across the leagues is not automatic but more dependent on club viability, with geographical location also having a bearing, and success on the track has at times had to be accompanied by a reversed step. Invariably the designation of these lower leagues changes with time: the third tier of the mid-nineties went from 'British Lge.Div'n.3' to 'Academy Lge', 'Conference Lge', 'Amateur Lge' and back to 'Conference Lge' within 3 years, whence it stabilised until 2009, to become the 'National Lge'. Whilst status of the lower league competitions must rank below that of the senior, these league champions' successes are viewed with as much pride by their club fans, who support as fervently and laud their rider-heroes achievements equally as much.


EUROPEAN LEAGUES
   Below are shown the senior league championship winning teams of speedway nations in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. (Other countries having "leagues" of just 4 or even 3 teams are not considered here.) League competitions in these regions started much later than in the UK, - in 1948 for Sweden and Poland and in the '50s and '60s for the other countries, their geographical size and terrain relative to the the compactness of Britain no doubt effecting a barrier until roads and transport improved over time. In these countries pre-war speedway followed the local amateur motor-cycle club format rather than the commercial operations of UK promotions, and a true club structure is still evident today in many regions. Following the demise of communism around 1990 the geopolitical structure changed for Germany, Czechoslovakia and the USSR, taking the speedway-rich Ukraine (Rovno and Lviv,) out of the equation. In Poland the Rybnik team, (below) dominated the league championship from 1956 to '72, failing to take the cup on ony 5 occasions in 17 years.

    In the '00s decade Holsted and Togliatti have dominated the Danish and Russian leagues respectively but elsewhere there has been a more balanced distribution of success, with the Czech capital Prague team taking only 2 league title wins rather than having the near-monopoly that it enjoyed in previous eras.

   The 2010 Swedish League champions were Elit Vetlanda, led by Jason Crump, (seen left with the trophy,) their 3rd championship win in 7 years. In 2011 something of a record was established when the last Cradley skipper Greg Hancock led his 4 national teams, Piraterna in Sweden, Slangerup in Denmark, Zielona Gora in Poland and Mseno in Czechia, to 4 national league championship successes in each of those countries, - this on top of his World Championship win.



     Click thumbnail for full-size table.
 



ROW Rybnik, (UK tour team of 1965.) Polish League Champions 1962 -'68.
Woryna, Tkocz, Motyka, Kubik (mgr), Maj (cpt), Pogorzelski, Peske, Norek, Wyglenda.

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