Speedway more than just a sport, says lifelong fan

Speedway returned to Oxford in 2022 after a 15-year hiatus

A city's speedway is not just about the sport, "it's about the community and what it means," a lifelong fan has told the BBC.

Ian Wagstaff, from Cowley, first watched a race at Oxford Stadium in the late 1950s.

He said he fell in love with it because of "the sheer excitement of those four riders, just for 60 seconds".

In 2007, Oxford lost its speedway team but it returned to the city 15 years later thanks to what Mr Wagstaff called a "tremendous effort by this community".

The Oxford Cheetahs were founded in 1939, with Mr Wagstaff first watching the team 20 years later in 1959.

"My father first took me up there and during my school days I went on a very regular basis," he said.

The sport was "so frantic and gets the fans wild", he said, adding: "If the race is good, you really enjoy it - if it's not, you've always got the next one to come."

Ian Wagstaff, right, has been watching speedway in Oxford since 1959

The motoring journalist has now written a book called Oxford Revival about speedway in the city and the community that surrounds it.

Mr Wagstaff said his career had involved "writing about car racing" but speedway "was always there in the background".

He said writing the book had "taken me back to where I came from".

"I just felt that this was a story that really needed telling because of the tremendous effort by this community," he said.

In 2007, low attendance and the loss of the lease on the stadium in Sandy Lane, Cowley, forced the Oxford Cheetahs to fold - ending nearly 70 years of speedway in the city.

Mr Wagstaff said the Cheetahs were "so important for the community"

A community-led battle for a decade and a half to bring the sport back to Oxford ended in success, with the Cheetahs returning to Sandy Lane in 2022.

"They took on the property developers and they won, over a 15-year period, and they had to fight really hard to do that," Mr Wagstaff said.

It took "lots of volunteers and lots of really hard work" to "beat the property developers" who wanted to turn Oxford Stadium into housing, he said.

The Cheetahs were "so important for the community", he said adding that speedway "enables them to come together and to focus".