Dirt-track racing was introduced to Britain early in 1928 and the bikes roared into Liverpool’s Stanley Stadium in August of that year. Sadly, speedway was staged at the Prescot Road track for only two brief periods in the pre-war era. League racing returned to Liverpool in 1949, at the tail-end of a post-war boom for the sport. Again, the team’s existence was relatively short, lasting until mid-1953. A few non-league events were staged in 1957 and unlicenced racing shared the bill with businessman Mike Parker’s speedcars in 1959.

As the sport recovered from the 1950s doldrums, the ‘pirate’ meetings led to a Liverpool team being founder members of a new Provincial League in 1960. Exciting times lay ahead with significant growth in the number of tracks operating in Britain during the following two decades. The next boom period passed Liverpool by, however, as the team competed in just one season of league racing before the stadium gates were closed to speedway yet again. The bikes were never to return. This book looks at the efforts to establish the sport on Merseyside and examines the reasons why seven attempts were short-lived, at Stanley Stadium, at Seaforth to the north of the city and directly across the Mersey estuary in New Brighton on The Wirral.

(Over 400 pages)