More Museums?
By Paul Houghton

Finally we seem to have a permanent museum not far from Rye House. I visited the one that was at Donnington and did enjoy seeing the items that were on show, the one problem within our sport is trying to broaden its horizons. I have amassed quite a few items over the years and some items are of interest. My local Transport museum in Coventry is amazing but its representation of Speedway is pitiful, it has one pre-war bike, which is fantastic to look at but that is it!

Coventry were one of the first clubs to be formed in speedway, I do have some pre-war items but a majority are post-war, I have leathers, race jackets, flags, scarves, pennants & nearly 1000 badges. I'd like to suggest to people, wherever they may be up and down our wonderful country, to have a word with their local transport museum or if they haven't got one, try your teams promoter to see if they can have a clubhouse built that can house speedway memorabilia.

People are interested in having a look, it's the history of our sport and to have one place showing it off isn't right, their should be a few, one in the midlands one in say Manchester and one in Scotland, at least to start off with anyway.

Here's where the problem lies, people will think I'm trying to take business away from Rye House and the wildlife park housing the museum. I'm not, I'm just trying to make more people aware that speedway is still going. I wear a Bees coat and get people saying to me "I used to go, what's Boocock doing now ?"

The Coventry transport museum has indicated that they are very interested but would I be able to get a modern day machine to be the centre piece. I would be grateful if anyone out there has any suggestions on how to get the pieces and how to assemble them? I can only think of one way to acquire the said bike parts, when the parts are damaged and are too bad to be used again, would the riders be willing to pass on the parts so that I could assemble a bike?

I have written to Coventry speedway but have got nowhere! If people visit the museum they will see the speedway memorabilia and think "let's go to Brandon". It benefits the club and the local economy. I'd like to think I will get some help with this instead of the usual brick walls, my email address is as follows if you have any suggestions or can help: speedybee@hotmail.co.uk

This article was first published on 26th February 2009

Jim Henry:

"Glasgow Museum of Transport has a couple of bikes and some bits about speedway in Glasgow. Plans for the new Museum include a bigger speedway section."

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