From Hampden Park to Workington

Speedway in Glasgow can be traced back to the sport’s earliest days in 1928. The Glasgow Tigers were born in 1946, but had to leave White City Stadium in 1968 when they found that their spiritual home was on the path of the proposed western extension to the M8 motorway.

The promoters moved quickly to secure a new home at Hampden Park, Scotland’s biggest stadium, then home of Queens Park FC. Their stay there lasted until the end of 1972, when they left the city, never thinking that it would be 16 years and four moves later before they would finally return to Glasgow in 1988.

In those intervening years, the nomadic Tigers raced at Coatbridge, two venues in Blantyre and Workington in Cumbria. Jim Henry and Doug Nicolson take the reader through a roller-coaster period for the club from 1969 to 1987 – from Hampden Park to Workington.

The book looks at the team’s performance season by season, the riders and the venues.

The key riders include Jim McMillan, Charlie Monk, Bobby Beaton, Steve Lawson – who wrote the foreword – the McKinna brothers, Brian Collins, Jim Beaton and Andy Reid.

Well-illustrated with photos and programme covers, the book will be of interest to all speedway fans.