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Cardiff remembered: Fans flocked to cheer on the Dragons

Author Brian Lee writes a weekly history and nostalgia column for the South Wales Echo.

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Cardiff remembered: Fans flocked to cheer on the Dragons

Cardiff Speedway track at Penarth Road pictured in 1952. Image: Media Wales.

Written by Brian Lee

I was asked me to write about the speedway that used to take place in Cardiff.

In my book Cardiff Remembered published in 1997 and which has been reprinted on several occasions, I had this to say: “Speedway motorcyle racing first came to Cardiff in the 1920s (1928 to be exact) and was held at the Sloper Road Stadium which closed during the war years.

“The sport returned in 1951 to Penarth Road Stadium, said to be one of the best tracks in the country.

“Thousands of Cardiff Dragons fans (I was one of them) would flock to Penarth Road Stadium on Thursday nights to cheer home their favourite riders like Mick Holland, Chum Taylor and Keven Hayden. Hayden was the first Cardiff rider to hold the track record and was also the first ‘Dragon’ to score a league maximum number of points. One of the best meetings was in 1952 when Cardiff entertained Plymouth. That evening the track record was broken no fewer than five times and the Dragons beat Plymouth 47 to 37 points.

“Teams from New Zealand and America raced there when the World Championships took place that same year.”

Mike recalled a number of speedway riders and these included Roy Bart-lett, Mick Callaghan, Arthur Pilgrim and Jimmy Wright and in another of my books, Cardiff Voices I wrote: “As supporters of the Dragons team we would shout out, ‘Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate... Cardiff Dra-gons!”

The roar of the motorbikes, the smell of the fuel and the clouds of shale dust thrown up as the riders rounded a bend all made it very exciting to a young lad of 15 or 16.”

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For those of you wanting to know more about speedway in Cardiff then Andrew Weltch’s Speedway In Wales published in 2002 by Tempus, now The History Press, is the book for you.

Andrew writes: “Speedway in the capital can be divided into three distinct eras at three venues. Cardiff’s White City stadium hosted the first true speedway meeting in Wales on Boxing Day 1928 and continued sporadically until 1937. The sport returned in 1951 with the launch of the Cardiff Dragons team at a new track in Penarth Road, but this lasted less than three years. More recently, since 2001, there has been the annual visit of the sport’s showpiece, the British Grand Prix, to the city’s magnificent Millennium Stadium.”

Sadly, the only reminder of the old Penarth Road Stadium now is the road sign off Penarth Road which reads Stadium Place.

Crack riders of the speedway scorch the cinders at a try-out of Cardiff's new stadium which will open shortly - 2nd Dec 1950. Image: Media Wales.

Sloper Road Stadium was known as the Welsh White City Stadium and the famed greyhound Mick The Miller ran six times there between 1929 and 1931.

In fact, Mick set a world record of 29.60 secs for the standard distance of 525 yards when winning the semi-final of the Welsh Greyhound Derby in 1930 and bettered it when winning the final in 29.55 secs a couple of days later.

More of Mick The Miller’s Welsh White City exploits when he was beaten in a match by Back Isle in a future article.

Meanwhile, the City of Cardiff Year Book for 1929 makes interesting reading. For instance, did you know that the Central Library erected on The Hayes at a cost of £11,500 and opened 1882 had a stock of 223,093 volumes?

Or that the number of books issued from the library during the year was 459,682 and that the average number of visitors to the general reading room was a whopping 3,000 daily? While in the Ladies’ Room the number was 700 daily.

The Chief Constable James Arthur Wilson OBE, who was appointed in 1920, was earning £1,100 per annum.

There were 11 park keepers who were paid £2 15s.7d weekly and the earliest known officer of the Corporation bore the title of Praepositus or Portreeve. The name appears in an agreement of 1126 between Robert Consul and Urban the first Norman Bishop of Llan-daff. The change from Portreeve to bailiffs was made by a charter of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Worcester in 1421.

We also learn that in 1879 the Corporation took over the Waterworks from the Cardiff Waterworks Company. And that in 1891 they took power to supply electricity. Also in 1920, they were authorised to run omnibuses.

  • Please send your pictures and stories to Brian Lee, Cardiff Remember, South Wales Echo, Six Park Street, Cardiff, CF10 1XR
  • or email brianlee4@virginmedia.com
  • If sending a letter, please include your phone number.

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