My first taste of working in speedway was at Doncaster in 1969. My pals and I travelled through on the train each Sunday afternoon from Bradford managing to persuade them to give us all jobs as pushers and graders. My memory of the track in 1969 was that it was extremely stony and rough but had improved to a redder shale for the next season. Mind, I wouldn't know I wasn't a rider!

I loved York Road, it was my first experience of a smaller track and the racing could be good. I preferred the Stallions name to the Dragons, perhaps just a race jacket preference. I only realised a short time ago that I appear on one of your pictures; to the back of Alan Bridgett and to his right. That's a 15 year old me, with hair and no beard!

Perhaps more importantly, I was recently looking through the Yorkshire Film Archive as I often do, and came across some incredible home movie. The story goes that speedway was staged at York Road in 1928 but there seems to be little or no detail. When running a film entitled “Bentley Floods, Air Show and Motorcycling”, I came across, at 0 mins.53 secs. “Motorcycle racing at the stadium”. It is definitely the same Doncaster stadium although the circuit looks more like a track marked out on the grass with little flags but the style of riding is leg trailing. The film runs for over two minutes and has probably been in someone's attic for years before being donated. The good news is that any of you can go online and watch it just go on to the YFA website and search on the name of the film! Anyone who knows cine will realise that the original images were shot on 9.5mm film, the central sprocket hole is a giveaway.

And that's not all! As soon as the Doncaster footage finishes we go over to Sheffield for some early speedway from there. Check it out.

The stills below are from Doncaster