Most speedway historians contend that the second official speedway meeting in Britain was held at Celtic Park on 28 April 1928. Many of the sport’s enthusiasts believe that the sport began in proper stadia, on cinder tracks. Therefore, with this in place, coupled with the stadium’s classic oval shape, Celtic Park would have been an ideal venue. The new motorsport was almost a month old in Britain when, in March 1928, it was announced that Celtic Park would indeed be used for speedway, the announcement coming from no less a Celtic legend than Manager, Willie Maley.
The motorcycling correspondent for The Glasgow Herald wrote: ‘So the Australian dirt-track specialists are to come north after all and show us the real thing which attracts thousands to the trackside in the Antipodes. McKay and Galloway, who also are to promote meetings twice a week at the famous Celtic Park Grounds at Parkhead. These meetings will be open and the prize money to the amount of £200 per meeting will be forthcoming they say.
The racing will be conducted according to the regulations approved by the ACU which prohibit betting and it will be interesting to see if the excitement and interest of the sport itself will prove sufficient to attract the Glasgow public although the promoters have no doubt on the matter. The track is to be loosened so as to allow ‘broadsiding’, a protective fence will be erected, and electric lighting will be installed if necessary.’
The arising motorsport was booming throughout the UK. New tracks firstly opened in England, then in Scotland and Wales. A meeting, widely regarded as the very first in Britain, was held at High Beech in February 1928. There were other speedway events held in Manchester and Surrey a year earlier, but those races were conducted in a clockwise direction and thus are not considered as being ‘true speedway’ occasions, in retrospect.
The first speedway event at Celtic Park was organised by Dirt Track Speedways as they sought to promote the sport further in Scotland. A crowd of 5,000 turned up for the meeting, a small number compared to the 30,000 spectators who attended High Beech in England, two months earlier. The disappointment went against the script and efforts had to be redoubled north of the border.
An excellent promotional opportunity presented itself when Celtic hosted Rangers in a Glasgow Charity Cup tie on 5 May 1928. Knowing a seismic crowd was in store, Dirt Track Speedways put on a brief exhibition of speedway during the half time interval. The promoters then staged the first charity speedway meeting in the UK, at Celtic Park, in aid of St Andrews Ambulance service, who required funds for a new headquarters. Despite such efforts, it was soon clear that the Parkhead track was not rivalling the drawing powers of similar ventures down south, and the twice weekly events in Glasgow were reduced to once. Even this was too frequent and, given an excuse, like the Prince of Wales’ visit to the city, meetings were cancelled.
In total, 11 meetings took place at Celtic Park and when riders complained about the quality of the surface, in addition to the lack of pulling power at Parkhead, racing was halted at the stadium. The doors on Celtic Park speedway were officially closed as of 21 July 1928.
A report in a 1929 newspaper article suggested that stadium alterations at Celtic Park encroached on the track, rendering it unsuitable for speedway again. Scottish speedway moved to a track on Janefield Street, just yards from the home of Celtic Football Club. The new venue initially fared better, as local teams such as Glasgow Tigers and Coatbridge Monarchs began to establish themselves. However, it was a false dawn and the sport seemed to be in decline again, soon attracting little more than a cult following in Scotland (which has remained the case until recently). The final meeting at the alternative Glasgow track was held in May 1932.
A bid to bring speedway back to the home of the Hoops was made by Trevor Redmond in 1963. Trevor was a former Scottish Open champion and successful rider, who was about to finish his career at Glasgow Tigers. He sought to secure the rights to use the stadium, but his attempt proved fruitless. However, the connection between Celtic and Scottish speedway was momentarily rekindled in 2008, when Glasgow Tigers were invited to Paradise to pose for a photograph to mark the speedway club’s 80th anniversary.
*Extract features in Take Me To Your Paradise: A history of Celtic-related incidents & events
