| Other Sports at Celtic Park | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 16 2011, 09:18 PM (2,006 Views) | |
| A Burning Pride | Nov 4 2011, 01:21 PM Post #41 |
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"Glasgows Speedways the pre war years " By Jim Henry THE PIONEER SCOTTISH VENUE : OLYMPIC STADIUM, GLASGOW The birth of speedway in Scotland is often the subject of debate and, if you demand that the track be of the cinder variety in a proper stadium, then Celtic Park is the one you should support. If you want the proto-speedway venue then I must direct you to a stadium which lay to the north of Celtic Park, separated from it by a railway embankment, and marked on the ordnance survey maps of the day as The Olympic Stadium. A somewhat pretentious name for a trotting and greyhound track which was, to describe it best, somewhat egg-shaped. The straights were straight, but the bends were of different radii. The distance round one lap measured at 486 yards. Vertical railway sleepers served as an outside fence and a post and rail fence marked the inner boundary. From contemporary maps of the track the stadium was orientated with the long axis NNE - SSW and appeared to have some form of covered accommodation at the northern end, adjacent to the bend with the greater radius. The southern bend was adjacent to a railway embankment which in turn was adjacent to the north western terracing (the Celtic End) of Celtic Park. The site is now occupied by the houses of Dalserf Street. This venue which had the postal address of Porter Street, Camlachie was owned by a Mr Nelson and the venue is much better known as Glasgow Nelson. The events staged there were organised by the Glasgow Nelson Motor Cycle Dirt-Track Club, the first such club to be established in Britain. Activity started in early March 1928, including one on a snow covered track, when the club members took to the track to practice. Jimmy Valente is featured on the front page of the contemporary Sunday Post repairing an inner tube before returning to the track. Further practice sessions were staged and recorded in the contemporary press before the Glasgow lads felt prepared to charge the public to watch what they were up to. The event of 25 March was recorded thus. ‘Thrills in plenty were given by the members of the recently formed Motor Cycle Dirt-Track racing company at Nelson Grounds, Camlachie, Glasgow yesterday afternoon, when both solo and combination machines took part in a number of displays. The attendance must have been most gratifying to the promoters, over 2,000 being present. Exhaustive alterations which are being made are rapidly nearing completion.’ On Easter Monday, 9 April 1928, the doors were opened to the public and the first event staged. Yet again the press were there to record the action in photographic form. Most newspapers carried action photographs which show the riders cornering with feet on the ‘pegs’. The written coverage elsewhere is sketchy to say the least and most meetings seem devoid of much incident. All of 2,000 turned up to watch the heats and finals of 5 events. John Allan, a road racer from Prestwick is recorded as the first winner of a heat. John won the 350cc heat of the 5 lap event in 2 minutes 37 seconds and by a distance of 40 yards from an A. Dick. John went on to win the final from Andy Marr and George Wilson and win £3. Tom Shearer won the 250cc 10 lap event by a lap to collect a gold medal and £1 taking 5 minutes 46.6 seconds in beating Jimmy Reid . The 600cc event went to another road racer, Manx Grand Prix competitor Harry Potts who defeated George Biagi, a relation of track doctor Carlo, covering 5 laps in 2 minutes 27.5 to win £4. James Edward defeated Graham Morrison and Harry Potts to win the Unlimited event in 2 minutes 20.6 seconds and collect a gold medal plus £3 while Peter Coia had a walk over in the sidecar event after Frank Alexander crashed, gifting Peter the gold medal and £2. According to Norrie Isbister, Nelson was not really dirt track racing as the track was board hard and it was ridden feet up on the pegs. The contemporary photographs fit Norrie's description of the event but what he did not mention was that the bikes were in road going trim. No bits taken off here. The following Saturday but one, 21 April the new sport attracted 1,500 fans. This time Scotty Cumming won the 350cc, Graham Morrison, from Ayr, the Invitation (for the best from the opener), James Edward again won the unlimited as did Peter Coia in the sidecars. The 250cc event was cancelled due to lack of entrants. The night before Celtic Park opened on 27 April, the event winners were 350cc George Wilson, 600cc Peter James, 250cc Tom Shearer while James Edward retained his Unlimited crown and Peter Coia surrendered his sidecar mantle. The report of this meeting is quite sketchy but a certain Norrie Isbister appears in the published results taking second place in the heats of the 350cc. Friday 4 May 1928 and meeting four gave victories to the same guys as the week before in both the 350cc and 600cc events. The unlimited event was won by Andy Marr, who was a pioneer who had raced sand tracks. The sidecar fell victim of a paucity of entrants. The 1928 finale for Nelson took place the following Friday and it was a Jimmie Pinkerton benefit night. He raced unbeaten through all his races to win the 350cc, 600cc and the unlimited event. Jimmie was a regular attender at Nelson and would go on to appear at White City's only meting in 1928 which was the swan song of the Glasgow Nelson Dirt-Track Club. OK the track may not have provided true speedway, but it was a pioneer venture and it helped bring a few riders into the speedway fold. Today the site is covered by houses which are dwarfed by the stands of Celtic Park. There has been talk of demolishing some of these houses, and, if they do this, there may be the chance to erect some form of memorial to Glasgow Nelson and the pioneers of Scottish Speedway. The track flickered into life in 1932 when at least one meeting was staged there on Tuesday 17 May. A meeting was staged by the riders known as the ‘Blantyre Crowd’ who were running a track at Motherwell under the Lanarkshire Speedway Club banner. A meeting to be staged on 24 May was advertised in the Daily Record and Mail that day. It advised that 20 riders would take part and that admission was 7d. (approximately 3p). Whether this or any other meetings were held is not known. Edited by A Burning Pride, Nov 4 2011, 01:21 PM.
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| A Burning Pride | Nov 4 2011, 01:29 PM Post #42 |
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CARNTYNE SPEEDWAY The first flush of speedway, or to call it by its contemporary British name, dirt-track racing, was still in bloom when the manager of the newly constructed Carntyne Greyhound Stadium decided to try his hand at promoting the new sport. The track was located in the east end of Glasgow, not very far away from the other two early venues at Celtic Park and the Olympic Stadium. The dog track site had previously housed an approximately ‘D’ shaped trotting and running tracks, but was redeveloped to stage the new canine sport of greyhound racing. Unlike other wannabe promoters, the Carntyne manager did not bother to go and visit either of the two rival venues. He just got on with building his own unique venue on the centre green of his brand new dog track. Jack Nixon-Browne, who was the son of a director of Scottish Greyhound Racing Company Ltd., laid the first Carntyne track inside the dog track, giving the sport a new slant by deliberately making each bend different. This ploy has been used elsewhere since, but not to the same extreme. One bend had an inside white line configuration which was parallel to the inside edge of the dog track; a smooth curve. The other was designed somewhat like a hairpin bend, not at all conventional in dirt track terms. Riders would have to make a very sharp turn and the track builder's idea was to create a bit more spectacle. Expecting fallers at this bend Nixon-Browne piled up moss and peat, used to cover the dog track, against the dirt-track fence to make the landing a bit softer for any rider failing to negotiate the corner. The meeting report for the first meeting mentions the hairpin bend in the description of the track. By his own admission, Jack Nixon-Browne was not sure what he was going to do about the meeting format, but he eventually decided to adopt a format very similar to that used by the pioneer venue at Glasgow Nelson, rather than the handicap and scratch race events format adopted at Celtic Park. A few small adverts in the local press, which merely advertised motorcycle racing at the stadium, heralded the opening meeting on Friday 25 May. All of 600 folk turned up to watch the meeting. Results are fairly scant in the press but they do record the three events, the 350cc and unlimited capacity solo races and the sidecar event. Prize money on offer was not wonderful by Celtic Park terms. £10 for the 350cc, £5 for the sidecars and what the unlimited riders received is not known. The stadium manager took part in this and the second and last event staged a week later on Friday 1 June. The same format was adopted, but the solo race distances were reduced from a long distance 10 laps down to a mere 6 lap event. Sidecar racers still had to do ten circuits. Yet again a poor crowd turned out for the event and Jack Nixon-Browne, who had only taken over as manager in March 1928, decided to call a halt on his new venture. He later went on into politics to take a seat in the House of Commons as MP for Glasgow Craigton. He rose to become a Minister of State in the Scottish Office and was one of the MPs who spoke out against Entertainment Tax being levied on speedway. Later in life he was elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Craigton and became the only member of the Veteran Speedway Riders’ Association with a peerage. In the period between the first and second attempts to stage speedway the stadium was used for chariot racing which was featured in the trials for the very early television system. |
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| A Burning Pride | Nov 4 2011, 01:30 PM Post #43 |
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note to self - check out a book called 'played in glasgow' |
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| SaintMartin | Nov 5 2011, 12:02 AM Post #44 |
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Ants i've got that book. |
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| tollcross | Feb 17 2012, 01:40 AM Post #45 |
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Posted this on KDS and thought it worthy of a space in here, although he never fought at Celtic Park i'm certain he visited CP and had this photo took (clues are there?) Did see it reported as pic taken at Paisley Ice Rink where Cassius Clay (Ali) had a exhibition Match against Jimmy Ellis 20th August 1965 which the crowd booed.  |
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| caltonbhoy1967 | Feb 18 2012, 12:10 AM Post #46 |
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Professional Darts Tournament taking place at Celtic Park on 16th August 2012. |
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| steve | Apr 17 2012, 10:34 PM Post #47 |
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Not exactly a sport, but a new type of road skate was demonstrated on the Celtic Park cycle track around Sept/Oct 1895, according to Chambers's journal, Volume 72, By William Chambers, Robert Chambers
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| steve | Apr 17 2012, 10:54 PM Post #48 |
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And some more info about the Christmas 1893 floodlight tests. From The Electrical journal, Volume 32, Benn Bros., ltd., 1894   
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| tollcross | Apr 18 2012, 01:30 AM Post #49 |
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Thanks for posting them Steve Think this is the only image we have seen of these lights, my source tells me its a illustration from a victorian magazine showing the SvE game of 1894 at Celtic Park, this enlarged image shows 3 lamps and not 2 as written in the last piece, these snippets go a long way to convincing me that the lights were not up for the 1894 Scotland v England match, still trying to convince myself this photograph is from that game.   |
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| Camillo | May 10 2012, 11:49 AM Post #50 |
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Pushball    
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8:29 PM May 19