Liverpool Chads are a defunct

motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that use only ...

team who were based at the Stanley Stadium in Prescot Road,

Fairfield, Liverpool Fairfield is an area of Liverpool, in Merseyside, England, encompassing streets between Tuebrook and Kensington and stretching to Old Swan. It consists of a variety of houses; there are some traditional red-brick terraces, larger Victorian villa ...

, England.Bamford, R & Jarvis J.(2001). ''Homes of British Speedway''. Stroud: Tempus Publishing

History

Liverpool Speedway's team was established the late 1920s. League racing first took place in 1929 with the formation of the

English Dirt Track League The Northern League was founded in 1929 when it was known as the English Dirt Track League, the earliest league (along with the Southern League) in speedway racing in the United Kingdom, comprising teams from Northern Britain. The addition of two ...

, effectively a Northern League, which ran alongside the Southern League. In 1930 the team competed in the Northern League. They were known during this time as Liverpool Merseysiders. The Liverpool promotion were attached to the

Belle Vue Aces The Belle Vue Aces are a British motorcycle speedway, speedway club, based in Manchester. The club hold the record of having won the top tier List of United Kingdom speedway league champions, League championship 13 times. They currently compete ...

promotion during this time but midway through 1937 the club folded and the riders moved to Belle Vue. When the sport was revived in 1949 the team were known as Liverpool Chads. The team's nickname referred to a popular piece of cartoon graffiti at the time known as a ''

Chad Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic ...

''. They opened again in the National League Division Three and were again based at Stanley Stadium,

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

. The team moved up to National League Division Two for the 1951 season and operated there until 1953 when the track closed, again in mid season. A new side now called Liverpool Eagles were created in 1957 but closed after a few meetings. A few open meetings were staged in 1959 and the club, now racing as the Liverpool Pirates, competed in the 1960

Provincial League Provincial League (formerly known as Professional League) also known as Pro League was the old regional Football league in Thailand in 1999–2008. It was founded in 1999 under the name "Provincial League" organized by Sports Authority of Thailan ...

. The club again closed at the end of the year and the Stanley Stadium was demolished and a fruit market was constructed on the site. Speedway was also staged in Liverpool in the 1930s at Seaforth Greyhound Stadium.

Notable riders

Peter Craven Peter Theodore Craven
, fansite biography by Jim Blanchard. (accessed 12 July 2006). (21 June 1934 – 2 ...

(

World Champion A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

) * Oliver Hart *

Ginger Lees Harry Riley "Ginger" Lees (1905-1982)Jacobs, N & Lipscombe, P (2005). ''Wembley Speedway : The Pre-War Years''. Stroud: Tempus Publishing was a former international motorcycle speedway rider who rode in the first ever Speedway World Championshi ...

(rode in the first ever

Speedway World Championship The World Championship of Speedway is an international competition between the highest-ranked motorcycle speedway riders of the world, run under the auspices of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM). The first official championsh ...

final in 1936)Jacobs, N & Lipscombe, P (2005). ''Wembley Speedway : The Pre-War Years''. Stroud: Tempus Publishing *

Tommy Price Thomas Price (2 December 1911 – 26 December 1997) was a British Motorcycle speedway, speedway rider. In 1949 he won the first Speedway World Championship to be held after the Second World War.Bamford, R. & Shailes, G. (2002). ''A History of t ...

Season summary

References

{{reflist Defunct speedway teams in the United Kingdom Sport in Liverpool