Coventry Bees Speedway - Brandon Stadium

Cheers Norm / Midland Red. I have great memories of Brandon but don't remember why we stopped going. It was a proper family affair with me, my two brothers, and mum and dad. I wonder if we stopped going when Roger stopped riding. I was 9 in 1975 so it would fit. I did return for a couple of seasons in 91/92 but haven't been more than once or twice since.

My brother, b.1971, has pointed out that the two most familiar riders to us are Ole Olsen and Tommy Knudsen. Tommy may have been from his second spell when we went 91/92 but Ole must have been from the late 70s. I guess we kept going longer than I thought. We had some fun times in the good old days.

Hi MidlandRed Thanks for photo of 1960s Bees, I was pleased to see a very old work friend of mine in the photo, Tony Lomas, we started work on the same day and same dept, Armstrong Siddeley in Parkside. He lived in Bulkington then back in 1957. The last I heard of him was from my brother in law when he worked at the Jag in the 1990s, he asked how I was and wished to be remembered to me. Since I have been retired I have been trying to look up old friends and Tony is one of them. I have asked at the stadium but with no joy so can any of you speedway fans help ?

We used to walk to Brandon from Clifford Bridge Road. The nights the Bees played Leicester there was a traffic jam all the way from Walsgrave to the stadium. I left for NZ in 1956 and remember some of the team members listed - Jimmy Lightfoot and Pete Reason were my favourites. "Two, four, six, eight Jimmy's at the starting gate. Will he win, yes or no, come on Jimmy, have a go!" Other memories were the rattles, "Flight of the Bumble Bee music" and the smell of the cinders and fuel. It was also a great place to socialise! Margaret

Hello & welcome to our history site Margaret. You will remember Clifford Bridge Rd, with the two hump-back bridges. Hope you enjoy your time with us.

My father went to watch the Bees when I was younger, I can remember him having these badges that hung from each other and you wore them on your coat. I suppose they were for different meetings. Can anyone remember these, or are there any still out there?

They were (are?) Supporters Club badges - each year a new "year bar" was issued which clipped on the previous one, so after a number of years, one had quite a length of badge and year bars hanging from one's coat!

Yes, welcome to the forum, Margaret They still play "Flight of the Bumble Bee", and although the cinders are long gone, there's still that special aroma of methanol and Castrol oil!

Oh, the smell of the speedway bikes! It is the same unique smell wherever they race in the world, isnt it? Now about the oil they consume, I stand to be corrected, but it was always my understanding they used a commercially available oil supplied by Castrol called Castrol-R. The suffix R supposedly to represent the word Racing, that it was used in a "total loss" system exiting from the exhaust.

Castrol R explanation is right, but in the total loss oil system, there was literally a small hole in the bottom of the motor, not the exhaust, and the used oil "bled" from there. When I worked on the Brandon track staff, 1961-66, I remember noticing all these "leaks from Nigel Boocock's bike during the pre-match warm-up in the pits, and I thought I'd better tell him about this "problem" !!! He didn't seem at all concerned about it, and eventually someone explained it to me! The oil was added through a small cap on the bike's frame, above the fuel tank, and simply used gravity to lubricate the motor. When (at the tender age of 62) I bought myself a GM500, in a Godden frame, and proceeded to relive the dreams of my youth (or at least try to) in local club practice days here in Australia, I was embarrassed yet again. A rider from my club assembled the bike for me, handed it over, fueled, oiled and ready to go, and I pottered around on it, and eventually decided the oil must need topping up. So, naturally, I unscrewed the cap in the frame, and poured in some oil, expecting that it shouldn't need much to top it up. But I kept pouring, and it never filled!! Then I noticed I was standing in a pool of oil, literally pouring out of a bleed nipple low down on the frame. In modern speedway motors, you simply pour the oil into the top of the motor, and there is a sump in which the oil remains until you change it. So no more yucky and environmentally unfriendly "blobs" of used oil under the bikes at warm up time any more! My wife and I will be in Auckland next week for the SGP - looking forward to it very much! We're also working towards getting a GP in Australia sometime in the future - preferably at a new track we're trying to build near Canberra. Anyone with money to "invest" (burn??), please contribute generously to the "Bringing Speedway back to Canberra" fund LINK !

As an aside, all Bees fans past and present will be saddened by this news just coming out of Los Angeles, USA "The son of motorcycle speedway racing legend and actor Bruce Penhall was struck and killed by a suspected drunk driver Thursday morning on the 10 Freeway in Baldwin Park"

Hi, Remember the Brandon Bees in the 1950's. I belonged to St John Ambulance Wyken division and we were on call at the track every Saturday night. The rider I remember was Les Hewitt. Dave Charley.

Anyone remember when Brandon's track staff were the envy of speedway tracks? I'm fairly sure this photo (by Alf Weedon of course) was taken early in the 1964 season. Note that there are 18 of us! That means four pits pushers, four start colour marshals, the pit marshall (front row, left), and nine (!!!!) track rakers (I don't think the starter was there in the photo). On a good night, we used to have five at the Brandon end and four at the Coventry end, where the wear and tear on the track tended to be less. Fourth from the left on the front row - yes the guy who didn't know how to wear a beret properly - was your truly. Is that Norm Keightley second from right, back row? - still working at the track! Does anyone recognise any of the others?

Great photo, John, thanks for posting it Front row, 2nd from right, is John Barnett, who lived in Brandon and worked at Plumb's in Bishop Street - he was the red start marshal - 45 years since I last saw him! PS Are sure that's not a mortarboard you're wearing !

Some of those guys had been working there since the track reopened after the war. It was a great team to be part of, and, of course, the best "seat" in the house! Yeah - embarrassing eh?