The Weymouth Wildcats were a British

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 based in

Weymouth, England Weymouth is a seaside town in Dorset, on the English Channel coast of England. Situated on a sheltered bay at the mouth of the River Wey, south of the county town of Dorchester, Weymouth had a population of 53,427 in 2021. It is the third l ...

, who raced in the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

. The Wildcats won the first Conference League Championship in their history in 2008 after winning the Conference League play-offs. They closed down in 2010. In 2019 they raced at Wimborne Road, the home of Poole Pirates in the Midland Southern Development League hoping to relocate into Weymouth later.

History

Speedway at the

Wessex Stadium The Bob Lucas Stadium (formerly named the Wessex Stadium) is a football stadium in Weymouth, England. It has been the home ground of Weymouth F.C. since 1987. It was formerly a greyhound racing and speedway stadium. Football The ground, which w ...

started in 1954 under the promotion of J W Coates, R Barzilay and W J (Bill) Dutton. In 1955 Weymouth entered National League Division 2. Early names for the club were Weymouth Scorchers and Weymouth Royals. When the British League formed a second division in 1968, Wally Mawdsley and Pete Lansdale entered a team from Weymouth which was known as Weymouth Eagles. The Eagles finished ninth out of 10 in the 1968 Division 2. Harry Davis, in 1974, teamed up with Boston promoters Cyril Crane, Gordon Parkins and Ted Holding to enter the (renamed) Weymouth Wizards in British League Division 2. In 1975 the Wizards finished in last place out of 20 teams in the League (renamed from British League Division 2 in 1974 to National League). 1978 saw yet another new name, Weymouth Wildcats and new colours (red and white replacing the purple and white), Len Silver (Hackney) taking over as promoter. But Len Silver withdrew from the promotion of Weymouth Speedway during the winter of 1978/79, following a disagreement over terms for using the stadium and Allied Presentations (the promotion at Reading) stepped in to take over the licence. Early in 1980 Allied Presentations announced that they would no longer promote Speedway in Weymouth leading to local businessman Mervyn Stewkesbury becoming the new promoter. In 1981, the Wildcats finished runners-up in the League. 1983 Weymouth retained the

National League Pairs Championship The National League Pairs Championship is a motorcycle speedway contest for tier three clubs in the United Kingdom. The Championship is between the top two riders from each club competing in the National League (speedway), National League. The me ...

. In 2003, after a break of nearly twenty years, former rider and childhood fan Brian White fulfilled a personal dream of bringing speedway racing back to Weymouth. This time the Wildcats returned at a new venue, the Wessex Stadium. In speedway terms, White called it "the greatest week of his life". Bringing the sport back to the area was no easy task for White, who overcame large opposition and many obstacles. Planning permission was initially turned down in the hamlet of Buckland Ripers, and whilst the proposal seemed to have the local council's backing, a 400-name petition against the establishing of a speedway team there soon stopped the plan in its tracks. Whilst many would simply have given up at this setback, White persevered, and was eventually persuaded to re-start talks with

Weymouth F.C. Weymouth Football Club is an English semi-professional football club based in the town of Weymouth, Dorset. They compete in the National League South, the sixth tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed the Terras due to their t ...

about the possibility of racing at the Wessex Stadium. After long negotiations and two and a half years of hard work, White's dream was finally realised when

West Dorset District Council West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

gave the needed approval for the Wildcats' return on Thursday, 3 July 2003. White pencilled in the official return of speedway in Weymouth for Saturday, August 2 2003, where riders competed in the Wessex Rosebowl in front of 2500 fans. The winner of the meeting was rider Justin Elkins. White and everybody who helped him were lauded and given widespread praise. Former Wildcats' captain Martin Yeates was quoted as saying, "what Brian White has done here is amazing. He's given the town back their beloved sport and this time I just hope it's here to stay". Former Australian national team boss

Neil Street Neil Street OAM (15 January 1931 – 6 October 2011) was an international motorcycle speedway rider, manager and engineer, who first arrived in Britain in 1952 to ride for the Exeter Falcons. Street was born in Melbourne, Australia. He rode f ...

also added, "I kept having to pinch myself to make sure I was watching speedway in Weymouth again. It's been a long wait for the return of the sport and what a way to bring it back". In November 2010 the club was shut down after their landlords,

Morgan Sindall Morgan Sindall Group plc is a leading British Construction & Regeneration group, headquartered in London employing around 6,700 employees and operating in the public, regulated and private sectors. It reports through six divisions of Constructio ...

and Wessex Delivery, repossessed the track for non-payment of rent. Despite attempts by local businessman, Harold Doonan, to re-open the club, the landlords subsequently dismantled and removed the track and applied to

for permission to use the land for open storage. In 2017 they were entered into the newly formed SDL league with James Tresadern and Martin Peters as co-promoters and co-owners. After a successful season racing out of Plymouth Speedway in 2017 they moved to Eastbourne for 2018. In 2019 they have moved to the home of the Poole Pirates. For the 2019 season, Adrian Young and Malcolm Brown were made up to Commercial Managers to run the business side of the team. As of 2021 they were not entered in a league.

Season summary

Riders previous seasons

2019 team ''Midland Southern Development League'' * James Laker (Captain) * James Jessop (Vice-Captain) * Andrew Palmer * Jacob Clouting * Jordan Bull * Francesca Kirtley-Paine * Sam Peters 2018 team ''Southern Development League'' * Jordan Bull (Captain) *

James Jessop James Jessop (born 1974) is a British contemporary artist. He trained at The Royal College of Art (RCA) and Coventry University. He lectures at City and Guilds of London Art School. His work is influenced by early New York City Subway art and p ...

* Bailey Fellows (Vice-Captain) * Jake Fellows * Connor Fletcher * Luke Barnes 2017 team ''Southern Development League'' * Kenny Bowdrey (captain) * Mick Sutton (vice-captain) * Tom Meakins * Chris Bambury * James Chattin *

2010 team * Tom Brown *

Byron Bekker Byron Anthony Bekker (born 2 July 1987, in Johannesburg) is a former motorcycle speedway rider from South Africa, who rode in the British Premier League. Career Bekker started his British racing career in 2005 with Newcastle Gems where he rode ...

Adam McKinna Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

James Cockle Sir James Cockle FRS FRAS FCPS (14 January 1819 – 27 January 1895) was an English lawyer and mathematician. Cockle was born on 14 January 1819. He was the second son of James Cockle, a surgeon, of Great Oakley, Essex. Educated at Charterho ...

* Luke Chessell * Richard Andrews * Karl Mason * Nick Alford 2009 Team * Jon Armstrong *

Terry Day Terence Day (born 17 October 1940) is a musician specialising in free improvisation, a poet and a visual artist. He is a founding member of the ''Continuous Music Ensemble'' and ''The People Band''. Some of his musical partners include Derek Ba ...

* Matt Wright *

Lee Smart Lee Mitchell Smart (born 5 April 1988) in Swindon, Wiltshire, is a former motorcycle speedway rider from England. Career Smart raced for the Mildenhall Fen Tigers in the Premier League in 2008 after being released by the Birmingham Brummies ...

Tim Webster Tim Webster (born 15 December 1951) is an Australian television and radio personality and sports broadcaster. He held various presenting roles on Network 10 from 1981 until 2008. Career Early career In 1972, Webster started working for Ba ...

* James White-Williams *

Benji Compton Benjamin Mark "Benji" Compton (born 17 September 1986, in Playa de las Américas, Tenerife) is a Spanish-British motorcycle speedway rider. Career Compton has ridden for Buxton Hitmen in 2004, Scunthorpe Scorpions in 2005, Sheffield Tigers i ...

Lee Smethills Lee Kenneth Smethills (born 30 March 1982 in Bolton, Greater Manchester) is a former professional motorcycle speedway rider from England. Smethills rode for various clubs across all of the three divisions of British Speedway from 1998 until 2 ...

2008 Team * Jon Armstrong *

Brendan Johnson Brendan Van Johnson (born June 24, 1975) is an American attorney who served as the 40th United States Attorney for the District of South Dakota. He is the son of former U.S. Senator Tim Johnson and currently is a partner at Robins Kaplan LLP, a ...

* Luke Priest * Andrew Bargh *

Jay Herne A jay is a member of a number of species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerine birds in the Crow family, Corvidae. The evolutionary relationships between the jays and the magpies are rather complex. For example, the Eurasian ...

* Kyle Newman *

Lee Herne Lee may refer to: Name Given name * Lee (given name), a given name in English Surname * Chinese surnames romanized as Li or Lee: ** Li (surname 李) or Lee (Hanzi ), a common Chinese surname ** Li (surname 利) or Lee (Hanzi ), a Chinese ...

2007 Team *

* Karl Mason * Dan Giffard * Nathan Irwin *

Sam Hurst Sam Hurst (13 March 1832 – 22 May 1882), nicknamed the Stalybridge Infant in ironic reference to his considerable physical size, was the English bare-knuckle boxing champion 1860–61. He was born in Marsden, in Yorkshire, England, but in ...

* Mark Thompson * David Mason 2006 Team * David Mason * Adam Filmer *

Jordan Frampton Jordan John Frampton (born 8 March 1985 in Poole, England) is a former motorcycle speedway rider from Great Britain. Career Frampton started his speedway career in 2003, completing his first full season in 2004 with the Swindon Robins, Swindon ...

* Danny Warwick * Chris Johnson * Mark Jones *

1975 Team Wizards * Brian Woodward * Chris Robins *

Vic Harding Vic Harding (5 July 1952 in East Ham, London – 8 June 1979 Whipps Cross, London) was a motorcycle speedway rider. Career Harding began at the Rye House training school in 1970 run by Len Silver and spent several seasons trying to break into ...

* Nigel Couzens * Martin Yeates * Roger Stratton 1976 Team Wizards * Martin Yeates * Chris Robins * Roger Stratton *

* Garry May * Trevor Charley

References

{{Speedway Conference League Speedway Conference League teams Speedway National League teams Sport in Dorset Sport in Weymouth, Dorset