Lea Bridge

Lea Bridge Stadium, Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, London operated between 1928 and 1939

Lea Bridge 1931 can anyone name the riders? John
Update: Colin Greenwell has been in touch, he says: Wally Lloyd, Steve Langton, Dusty Haigh, Reg Stanley, Billy Lamont and Charlie Spinks. Thanks to the book. Speedway League Tables, Volume 2, by Maurice Jones

Another London track which staged midget cars as well as speedway and another team with the star motif on their race jackets, I know they were also called the saints and the cubs

By chance I ran across the entry on Lea Bridge speedway. I was a great fan of Walthamstow Wolves during the 1950 season. I lived in nearby Leyton. During the summer that year I acquired my first bicycle and explored my immediate area. I remember tracking down the old Lea Bridge Stadium. There was still a lot to be seen. The cinder track was clearly visible all round and I walked on it. There were towers which had originally supported floodlights over the circuit which I estimated on my cycle speedometer to have been app 330 yards, the ruined pits area and terraces which were in a crumbling state. It was all very sad and depressing and I stayed for some time trying to imagine what it must have been like on a race night. It could never have been an attractive venue -totally unlike the Walthamstow Stadium. I read later that the track at Lea Bridge had last been used in September 1938 and the field in the centre had been used by Clapton Orient FC for some seasons until 1937-38 when the club removed to Brisbane Road. Speedway and football had subsidised each other at the Lea Bridge Stadium until the break up and when the football left, speedway soon petered out after one season. The parents of several boys in my class, also speedway fans, had memories of attending matches at Lea Bridge. Sometimes there were two fixtures in one evening ! One lad, Eric Long, produced a pile of Lea Bridge programmes, duly written up with heat results. Though some of the riders' names were familiar to us because they were still active on the track, I can't at this stage remember any of them. I don't think Lea Bridge were in Division One. I also rode out to High Beech and climbed trees to watch the racing which took place on Saturdays only. I think it was used for training and by amateurs by then. Yours ever, Lionel King