Halifax Town / Halifax Dukes (Speedway)

[Donnywolf]

Anyone remember The Shay and the peculiar arrangements when Football matches were played ?

I told my mate last night about the difference between Football Pitch and Speedway configurations and he looked "surprisedl" so I have posted on here without any further clues hoping those as old as me will confirm what I "think" I remember

[idler]

The corners looked to be grass laid on pallets and were removed when the speedway took place to round the track off. Is that what you were thinking of?

[Donnywolf]

BINGO !

My mate often seems to think I have misremembered things and as we were on the train to The Blades me and a third party were discussing the old Grounds and when it got to The Shay I said ...

.... yeah I remember they had to put pallets in each corner covered with grass / turf so the players could take corners. The Speedway Track being circular / oval used to mean the corners of the Footballl pitch were chopped off before each Speedway and replaced before the footy

Mate 1 looked like I had been on the booze all day but you cant foget such oddities can you ?

Cheers - now I just need photos. Searching on Google I found that the Football pitch had been reduced to fit the Speedway Track and for that HTFC got 10% of all the Speedway receipts forever which was ironic given that the Dukes eventually got much bigger gates !

[Donnywolf]

A bit more info from a Chesterfield fan

 60s 70s Spireite
Group:Members
Posts:1,226
Joined:03-November 09

Posted 24 March 2011 - 10:05 PM

Remember no one seemed to know how to take a corner for us- as the edges were turf standing on wooden pallets (taken up for the speedway) - corner takers had to step up from the track onto the turf.

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...and from The Shaymen

Certainly not my first game, but one I remember (apart from the narrow 0-8 against Fulham) was a midweek match against Dutch side Go-Ahead Deventer, they were on some sort of European tour and must have used the game to show their `stars` how to avoid gravel rash off the speedway track and how to replace the turf on the pallets that formed the areas near the corner flags.