Saving Speedway

British speedway in the 1950s experienced some challenging times. At the start of the decade the sport still enjoyed the fruits of its post World War Two boom, with more than 30 venues from Eastbourne to Edinburgh and annual attendance figures peaking at 11 million. However, punitive entertainment tax, wet summers and the soaring popularity of television saw crowds dwindle and tracks close, leaving a hardcore of less than a dozen professional clubs in the elite National League by 1957, with just two surviving in the North of England and none at all in Scotland. 'Saving Speedway' tells how the road to recovery began when a small group of men of vision re-opened long-closed venues and then, in 1960, formed a new competition, the Provincial League, which doubled the number of speedway venues overnight and eventually led to a new golden age for the sport.