International SPEEDWAY

EXTRA !!! Index

STYLE and HUMOUR
These two superb programme covers were designed for Austrian MRC meetings. The "knights in shining armour", with racejacket breastplates (above), depicts Ronnie Moore, Ove Fundin, and Olle Nygren. The programme was used for an individual meeting at Vienna on 09.04.1960
On the right, and beautifully drawn, is "cowboy" Ove Fundin, riding a 1 h.p horse-bike. This programme covered two meetings in the Austria MRC v Oxford v Vargarna series, those staged at Vienna (02.04.1960) and Graz (06.04.1960). It is especially relevant as Ove won all his 25 races in that series! Details are here		Many thanks to Duncan Luke for letting me use the scans of these rare programmes.

"PIRATE" PROGRAMMES
	1952 In the UK, it was not unusual for "unofficial" or "pirate" programmes to be issued for some of the big events, such as the Wembley World Championship Finals. But some Test Matches were also affected, such as this 1952 match at New Cross ... the "pirate" is the poor quality programme on the left.
	And from the same year, a pirate programme from the Harringay Test
	1949 Pirate programmes were sold outside the stadiums or, in some cases, at tram stops on the route to the stadium. Three years earlier, another pirate programme was used for the 1949 Birmingham Test...
	... with an identical design also used at New Cross
	1948 The 1948 Test at Belle Vue was another victim of the pirates but this, like all these "souvenir" programmes, was merely a 4-page piece of card. It is known that pirate programmes were also sold for the Tests at Bradford (Odsal) in both 1949 and 1951
	1951 These pirate programmes all appear to come from the same source, judging by the identical border design on the covers. Whoever produced them, they seemed to be unsure as to the year of this Belle Vue Test Match.
	1935 Now Roger Stevens has found this pre-war pirate programme (left) ...
	1937 ... and another Harringay programme, this time for an England v Overseas Test Match
	1939 Another pre-war Harringay pirate Test Match programme on the left, from Phil Smith

	THE MATCHES THAT NEVER HAPPENED ...
			A U.S.A. v Canada match was scheduled for Owego, N.Y on Aug 7, 1999 and a programme printed for it. Unfortunately, the Canadian National Championships held at Welland in late July had to be abandoned due to rain, and was rescheduled at the same track on that date, the last race date of the season there. This of course meant that there could be no Canadian side to ride at Owego on that night so they had to run a regular event instead. Ironically, rain also washed out the second attempt to stage the Canadian Nationals after only one heat, so both meetings were lost and neither restaged that year. Duncan Luke
			This Poole match was scheduled to be the 4th Test in the 1958 England v Australasia series. It was postponed due to rain and never restaged. This rare copy of the programme comes from Roger Stevens

© Brian Collins