Barrow Park Road Stadium was a

greyhound racing Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around a track. There are two forms of greyhound racing, track racing (normally around an oval track) and coursing; the latter is now banned in most countries. Tra ...

and

speedway Speedway may refer to: Racing Race tracks *Edmonton International Speedway, also known as Speedway Park, a former motor raceway in Edmonton, Alberta *Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a motor raceway in Speedway, Indiana Types of races and race cours ...

stadium in Park Road,

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. In 2023 the ...

Opening

Local businessman a plant hire operator Cliff Hindle built a new stadium at Park Road, which opened halfway through the 1977 season for a short series of speedway open meetings. In 1978 a team was entered under the name Furness Flyers, but finished bottom of the National League. Crowds were poor and the speedway track closed after only one season.

Speedway

The nomadic

Berwick Bandits The Berwick Bandits are a British speedway club, based in Berwick-upon-Tweed. They currently compete in the SGB Championship, racing at Shielfield Park, with home matches usually taking place on Saturday evenings. They also run a second team in ...

who had been evicted from their home track at

Shielfield Park Shielfield Park is a football stadium that is home to Berwick Rangers and Berwick Bandits speedway team. Although Berwick Rangers is a Scottish Lowland Football League club, Shielfield Park is situated in the English county of Northumberland. ...

by their landlords Berwick Rangers FC halfway through the 1981 season raced a number of meetings at Park Road, one of these was an Inter League cup match against the

Wimbledon Dons The Wimbledon Dons were a professional motorcycle speedway team who operated from the Wimbledon Stadium, Plough Lane in London.Jacobs, N. ''Speedway in London'', The track opened in 1928 and the Dons operated there from 1929 until 1991. They w ...

speedway team. Speedway racing returned in 1984 when former Barrow rider and local businessman Chris Roynon ran a series of 'Open Licence' meetings with a view to return to league racing in 1985. Barrow 'Blackhawks' entered the National League in April with the first meeting against

Exeter Falcons The Exeter Falcons were a speedway team based in the city of Exeter. The Falcons operated from 1947 to 2005 at the County Ground Stadium in Exeter. History In 1947, the Falcons competed in a league for the first time when they finished fourth ...

being abandoned because of a generator failure. The British Speedway Promoters Association warned Roynon that his team would be expelled from the league if they didn't meet the minimum points limit required for team building. The team were subsequently expelled and their results expunged from the league table. Roynon reverted to running a number of 'open licence' meetings once again with a view to returning to league racing in 1986 but the events were not well attended, with the final speedway meeting taking place during September 1985.

Greyhound racing

Independent (unaffiliated to a governing body) greyhound racing took place at the Park Road Stadium from 24 April 1987 until March 1991. The owner was Chris Roynon and racing was held every Tuesday and Friday. The hare system was an 'Inside Sumner' and the race distances were 250, 415 and 595 metres. There was car parking for 500 vehicles, a bar and mobile snack bar.

Closure

In 1993 the stadium was demolished to make way for a candle factory.

References

{{Motorcycle speedway tracks Defunct greyhound racing venues in the United Kingdom Defunct speedway venues in England