Armadale Stadium

Edinburgh Monarchs 41-43 Glasgow Tigers

23rd July 2021

This was not my first trip to watch speedway, for I can distinctly recall dropping into Powderhall Stadium in the late 1980s to attempt to find out what the sport was all about.  Edinburgh Monarchs (then still actually riding in Edinburgh) narrowly lost to Sheffield (I think it was), and I can remember being baffled by the tactical substitution business.

  

If memory serves, Edinburgh were leading towards the end of the match, but because they were a certain number of points ahead, their opponents were allowed to drop one of their poorer riders for the final (or it could have been the second last) race, and bring in a chap who had been winning all evening.  Which just sort struck me as cheating a bit and, when the visitors won the tie, left me feeling diddled in some indefinable way.

The Monarchs were compelled to leave Powderhall in 1995, when the venue owners sold the property to housing developers.  An unsatisfactory season spent through in Glasgow as the Scottish Monarchs followed, before the club took up residence at Armadale Stadium, some twenty-odd miles to the west of Edinburgh 

I attended a stock cars session there, also the late 1980s.  The venue's selling point at the time being that it offered a figure-of-eight track for the bangers' races - thereby increasing the big bash potential for crash-hungry punters.  Not that the bangers generally needed such inducements.  However, I think compared to the likes of those at Newtongrange and Cowdenbeath the track was perhaps too compact for car racing.  And the figure of eight business just made it even more difficult, for me anyway, to work out who was winning.

My memories of my first visit to the place are more than a little hazy, but upon arrival this afternoon I would hazard that there had been precious little upgrading in the interim.  Indeed, I should not be surprised if Armadale Stadium has hardly changed significantly at all, since it was first opened in 1939.

But I loved it, and it will be a sad day when "They" finally get to build houses on the site, as "They" most assuredly will.

There were a LOT of cars in the car park, and it did not look an easy place to get out of.

This raised terracing at one end of the track offered the best views...

.....and as soon as the stewards' attention wandered, I hid my yellow wrist band and headed up there.

I saw this little guy hiding behind an advertising hoarding - a refugee from the greyhound racing, perhaps?

The 2021 season saw both Scottish clubs Edinburgh Monarchs and Glasgow Tigers competing in the Speedway Great Britain Championship - the second tier of the sport in the UK.  The top tier itself appears an odd set up, for there are only six teams competing this season, and I discovered today some of the riders this evening also turn out for top league sides.  Is there promotion and relegation between the two divisions?  I have no idea.

One thing I certainly had forgotten, was just how little time each race took - generally the winner slides his way around the track in under a minute.   A chap called Sam Masters won the opening race for the Monarchs, but that was to be the last time the home side led the contest.  Although, to be fair, there were never more than two points between the evenly matched sides.  

The Monarchs actually won more races (8 to 6) than their opponents but the problem was, with many of these wins the Tigers took both second and third place resulting in a 3-3 points split for the race.  In contrast, it seemed to me that pretty much any time the Tigers won a race, their second rider would finish third leading to a 4-2 points award.

Going into Race 15 (the final scheduled one) Edinburgh trailed 41 to 43, and really had to win it and also take third place, to force a draw in the match.  They could, in theory I suppose, have won the tie with a 1 & 2 place, but such an outcome (for either side) had never looked likely in any of the evening's previous rounds.  And I am guessing a 5-1 race is a rather rare beast in speedway.  

As it was, seconds into the last race, Glasgow's Ulrich Ostergaard lost control on the first bend and clattered into the track surround.  From where I stood, the Dane appeared to slide under the inflatable safety guard, and into the metal fencing for a real sore one.

An ambulance arrived and, after a lengthy delay for in situ treatment, the unfortunate chap was driven off to hospital.  The departure of the ambulance, and it's associated team of paramedics, I assume was the reason the meeting was then abandoned due to "lack of medical cover".  The Tigers being awarded a win.

I later discovered Ostergaard had suffered back injury and a broken wrist.

A rather sobering finale to what had been a fun evening.

This blue blur is Bill Lawson winning Race 12.

Never a sight one wishes to see at any sporting event.

Panorama of Armadale Stadium.