LONG Eaton's now-vanished Station Road Stadium was part of speedway racing's most successful era, the immediate post-Second World War period which forms the subject of a new book by journalist and author Philip Dalling.
The original Archers team, which rode regularly at the track from 1950 to 1952, with a brief revival in 1954, takes its rightful place in The Golden Age Of Speedway (The History Press).
It was, however, quite a tight-run thing, recalls the author, who began his 45-year career working for his home-town paper, the Long Eaton Advertiser (also now just a memory).
"Speedway's greatest period of success came in the years 1946-1949, when annual attendances across the country almost doubled from six to around 11 million people. By the time Long Eaton was ready for its first season the boom had started to level off," Philip explained. "Midway through 1952, by which time the Long Eaton promoters were losing serious money, there were some really dark clouds on the horizon and, as the 1950s progressed and television became generally available, speedway began to struggle.
"Successive post-war governments levied a really punitive entertainment tax of 48 per cent on speedway, compared to the 15 per cent paid by professional football," Philip Dalling said. "Long Eaton's average attendance in 1952 was almost 4,000, which would have made the track a paying concern if speedway had only been subject to the same rate of entertainment tax as football."
Clement Attlee's government, struggling to rebuild a war-torn economy, threatened in 1947 to ban all midweek sport. Speedway would have been the biggest loser, with most of its top sides, especially in London, riding on weekday evenings.
"Thankfully the threat of a ban on midweek matches was averted when it was proved that speedway actually helped lift morale and productivity in factories."
Long Eaton previously rode into the speedway history books in 1929, when the track entered a team into the new English Dirt Track League, but failed to ride a single fixture.
The Golden Age Of Speedway tells the story of the rollercoaster years of the first decade or so after the war, largely through the eyes of the riders.
The foreword is by former international rider and Long Eaton promoter Reg Fearman, and there is a front cover recommendation by five times World Champion Ove Fundin of Sweden, who rode briefly for the Archers in 1966.
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