Back in 2013 I spent the summer watching the speedway at Belle Vue Stadium in Manchester. I'd lock my bike to the gates outside, pay a tenner and wander round the historic greyhound stadium with an Olympus OM10 camera round my neck and a Yashica T4 in my jacket pocket while the brakeless 500cc motorbikes drifted through the shale.
The racing was an obvious spectacle, but what stood out even more was the culture around it, with fans knitting their own Belle Vue Aces jumpers or pinning badges to every inch of their jacket. I don't know when speedway peaked in England but it felt like it still really mattered to those who turned up—and in even the quietest area of the stadium you'd find someone stood by a tree or a pile of old tyres scrawling down the scores in a notebook.
Belle Vue Aces moved down the road in 2015, and the last time I rode my bike past the greyhound stadium it had been flattened. This book is about what used to happen there.
