Ivor Brown - On and off the track
by Philip Dalling

Ivor

I guess there were a great many Ivor Browns, depending upon where you were coming from.

There was the star speedway rider - easily the biggest name in the Provincial League until Ivan Mauger arrived on the scene. Idolised by Cradley fans, booed (and worse) by the rest.

The classy Jaguar and neat trailer, the immaculate bike, the spotless white shirt and gloves, shining leathers, socks neatly tucked over the top of his polished riding boots.

Not forgetting the fact that he won most of the races he started...

Everything about Ivor was a provocation, unless you were a committed fan.

Then there was the off-track Ivor who spent his entire life as one of the mainstays of a picture postcard village on the borders of Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. Proprietor of a haulage firm and of the post office and general stores, cricketer and family man. A man who seemed just as proud of the fact that his home-cooked ham was the mainstay of the teas at every cricket ground in the area as he was of his distinguished speedway career!

I first experienced Ivor as a fan, watching him collect the points at Station Road, Long Eaton, when the Heathens arrived on Provincial League business, or in individual meetings.

When, in 1969, he took over the promotion at Long Eaton, in partnership with former Dudley Wood team-mate Vic White, I had graduated from the terraces to the press box. Speedway Star ordered a profile of Ivor for the 1970 `Parade' annual, and I was happy to earn the couple of guineas that was the going rate for a two-page spread in those far-off days.

Ivor revealed that his first experience of a speedway track was at Long Eaton, which was quite close to his Wymeswold home. Former Norwich star Paddy Mills ran training sessions after the Archers had pulled out of Southern League racing, and Ivor was one of the regulars.

I remember standing with him at a 1969 vintage Rangers training session, when he looked wistfully at the novices and remarked that it didn't seem five minutes since he had been in their position himself.

As a speedway rider, Ivor was far from being an overnight sensation. As the sport shrank in the mid-1950s rides were hard to come by and there was plenty of junior competition at Blackbird Road, Leicester. A handful of team rides and endless second half appearances were all that came his way, until Yarmouth, the Southern Area League and, eventually, the advent of the Provincial League gave him regular competition.

The rest is history, well captured by the recent VSM picture of Ivor leading Nigel Boocock into the first bend at Brandon in the first-ever British League match. It was somehow fitting that the PL's greatest star should symbolise how the once-despised lower grade riders could match their former National League colleagues wheel for wheel in the big league that gave British Speedway a new golden era.

My career took me far away from Station Road and speedway for many years. It was good to make contact again with Ivor in 2004 and to chat about his career. Not that it was necessarily easy going. The man who cared so much about his on-track image was, in private life, quite diffident about his achievements.

Quietly proud of his career, is probably the best way to put it. A great many people in speedway were honoured to have seen the man in track action, and proud to have had contact with a true legend of the sport.

Callum Brown:

"Thanks for all your nice comments, this is my step grandad. "  

 

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