Pride of the East: Motorcycle speedway, transnational encounters, and provincial heartlands

Mills, Richard (2024) Pride of the East: Motorcycle speedway, transnational encounters, and provincial heartlands. History - The Journal of the Historical Association. ISSN 0018-2648 (In Press)

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Abstract

For a century, speedway has operated on a transnational basis. Its riders, competitions, and machinery regularly traverse national and continental borders. The imposition of the Cold War’s Iron Curtain did little to impede its growth. This essay focuses on one of speedway’s far-flung and diverse provincial heartlands to show how the sport generated frequent transnational and transsystemic interactions and forged deep relationships that often stood in contrast to the prevailing trends of international politics. As one of speedway’s ‘entangled peripheries’, rural East Anglia owes a debt of gratitude to Australasian pioneers. From the 1950s – decades before imported talent became commonplace in football – the region welcomed Scandinavian and Eastern Bloc riders, and hosted visiting clubs and national representations from across the continent. Later, East Anglia became a bridgehead for the successful assault of communist-built machinery on the Western market. These bold endeavours were not without controversy, as British riders voiced objections to foreign men and machines deemed a threat to their livelihoods. The Cold War’s end accelerated existing trends and also created exciting new opportunities for itinerant East Anglians abroad. Archival material, conversations with the sport’s foreign trailblazers and fans, Swedish and Czechoslovak sources, photographs, and official publications serve to demonstrate speedway’s enduring ability to forge unexpected ties and give voice to regions at the so-called margins of twentieth century history.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	motorsport,cold war,entangled peripheries,labour migration,east anglia,scandinavia,eastern bloc,trade
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of History
UEA Research Groups:
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	15 May 2024 09:31
Last Modified:	03 Jun 2024 08:31
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/95200
DOI:

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