Warrington (speedway)

In 1928 the new sport known as dirt track arrived from Australia and the following year a dirt track was opened at Arpley Motordrome,^[2] with the Warrington team being founder members of the English Dirt Track League (effectively the Northern League).^[3]

The Arpley Motordrome first opened for speedway on 29 March 1929.^[4] The first meeting saw Squib Burton win the Golden Helmet in front of over 10,000 people. The promotion soon ran into trouble in November 1930 the speedway went into liquidation.^[1] The team's assets (including the venue) were taken over by the management of the Liverpool speedway team (General Speedways (Liverpool) Ltd for £1,100. However, following a court battle, Liverpool were forced to relinquish the assets to a higher bidder.^[5][6]

The stadium found new tenants in 1931 after a greyhound track was added and the venue became the Warrington Greyhound Stadium.^[7] Many years later in 1949 the venue held speedway demonstration meetings.