One of the greats who passed away yesterday. Winning numerous races in his long career he was considered one of the greatest all-rounders. A two-time AMA Grand National Champion (1963 and ’71) Mann was the first person to win all five disciplines: road racing, short track, TT, quarter-mile and mile flat track. The photo is of him at a blistering pace aboard a BSA Rocket 3. Another photo below shows the triple line up at the Daytona 200 in ‘71 with Don Emde and Mike Hailwood to his far right and immediate right respectively. Mann to first place in that historic race.
“Top flight football is tiptoeing its way to a comeback as the nation eases its way out of the coronavirus restrictions. But if you want social distancing, at least by the length of the front forks, motorcycle footer has its health and safety attractions.
And another thing, Wolverhampton was rather good at it.
To get a flavour of what it was all about, let’s turn back the clock to April 1928, when the sport – then only around four years old – made its first appearance in the Newport district, with a motorcycle football match held at Lilleshall Hall between Wolverhampton and Coventry & Warwick.
Coventry & Warwick had never been beaten, and had won the Auto Cycle Union All England Cup for three years on the trot, as well as numerous other events.
Wolverhampton were rated as one of the most improved teams in the country, a young and skilful side who had been runners up in the ACU Cup in 1927.
Now, the rules.
“The game is played with six players a side, with only the goalkeeper and fullback keeping their positions. The remaining four players are intent on forcing the football through their opponents’ goal,” explained the Newport and Market Drayton Advertiser’s report of this crunch match.
“The skill with which the players control the ball while travelling at speed is truly remarkable. It is by no means a slow game. On the contrary, it is amazingly fast, and the skilled riders must at times have reached 40 miles an hour. The players not only used their feet, but also their heads when occasion demanded.”
In the first half Wolverhampton were the better team and deserved to go into the break 2-0 up. After the interval Coventry & Warwick pulled one back, and but for two fine saves by Barnard in the Wolverhampton goal would surely have gone in front.
Wolverhampton increased their lead, only for their opponents to pull one back a few minutes later.
The glorious final score: Wolverhampton 3, Coventry & Warwick 2. The invincible Coventry & Warwick had at last been toppled.
A few years ago we spoke to June Hussey of Wombourne, whose father Tommy Deadman helped pioneer the sport in Wolverhampton.
He founded Wolverhampton Motor Cycle Football Club – presumably the same side which played that match at Lilleshall – which played home games in Pinfold Lane, Penn.
The sport captured the public’s imagination, albeit for a fleeting time, and led to teams being set up across the country and the creation of a league.
With Tommy as captain, the Wolves team enjoyed a successful year in 1928, winning the Midland League Championship by beating Birmingham and competing in a nationwide competition equivalent to the FA Cup.
Wolves beat local rivals West Bromwich 10-1 in the first round and in the second round beat a team known as Douglas MC. Wolves got all the way to the final but lost to Coventry.
Born and bred in Wolverhampton, Tommy Deadman had already made quite a name for himself in the world of motorcycling, having taken part in the first ever dirt track racing at Wolverhampton’s Monmore Green Stadium in August 1928.
Motorcycle football was popular for a number of years but seems to have faded away around the time of the war, although the idea of playing football on a motorbike has popped up from time to time since.
– Classic 70’s sitcom On The Buses sees one time ‘clippie’ Olive Rudge and her aloof husband George take a fully loaded combination to some seaside destination. George was the center of much derision from main ne’er do well characters, Stan and Jack, due to the decrepit appearance on the BSA.
– with a soft sonorous voice, actor John Le Mesurier played all rolls in a carefree effortless manner. His most noted part was that of Sgt. Arthur Wilson in the 70’s BBC comedy Dad’s Army. The ideal foil against Arthur Lowe’s pompous and blustering Captain Mainwaring.
Here’s a photo of him as a vicar on a BSA in the ‘78 drama “Flint”.
– our feline friends make the perfect companion when busily concentrating on a project. Their attention is subtle and they can be quick to lend a paw when the flash of a wire or glisten of a small bolt piques their interest.
– posed like some emotionally distanced couple in a Jean-Luc Goddard outing; this BSA Starfire plays a central role in the discourse between the laconic reserve of the anorak bespectacled male lead contemplating the idea of home, against the young femme fatale toying with a solitary freedom of the open road.
“Tu me fends le coeur… J´ai le coeur fendu par toi !”
You are breaking my heart… My heart is being broken by you!
– Mick, Keith, Bill, Charlie and Brian enjoy the classics too. This album recorded in the early sixties are compiled of their covers of Chuck Berry standards, amongst others. The first track listing is Bobby Troupe’s “Route 66”, hence the BSA motorcycle themed Rorschach-like cover.
– get the turntable spinnin’ and unsleeve the LP’s for some ‘non-stop hit-party’. They have had at least another three in the series, so it must have fared well in the German top 40. I notice the fraulein in pink is handing the BSA’s leather trench coat clad operator a flute of sweet white. No wonder the exhaust is spluttering in smoke and sparks…
– Robin Wilfred Woods (1936-2020) was a noted ornithologist and botanist who made his career based in Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands. From extensive field work netting and ringing the birds much was learned of the avians of the South Atlantic. His narrow focused Birds of the Falkland Islands is a classic of its genre. With few finished roads across the bleak British outpost a motorcycle is a usual form of transport. Here’s Robin on a 50’s BSA roughing it over the moors near Goose Green.
The Women’s Royal Naval Service was the women’s branch of the Royal Navy. Affectionately called Wrens they provided an essential supportive role during wartime and peacetime. They rode motorcycles as couriers and messengers such as this BSA M20.
– old photo of an AA patrolman maneuvering their recovery combination through some snow drifts. Heavy insulated overalls to keep the cold at bay. My grandfather George Lawrie would have been clad as such whilst plying the roads of North Northumberland.
