A Tribute to Len Silver
By Steve Haire

Len Silver Picture by Colin Pearson

On hearing of the sad demise of our 'Uncle' Len Silver I feel it only right for me to pay my tribute to the great man. There are not many 'promoters' that are up there with the likes of him.

Post war Speedway was as big as any other sport, after the war speedway went on the decline but in the late sixties started to resurge which is where Uncle Len comes in. He was the whole shebang, an entrepreneurial business man, an innovator and remarkable individual.

I won't go into his history, you can find that out by reading his book 'As luck would have it', which I have been informed is on ebay for £126, has lots of anecdotes and gives a good insight into the man's character.

Len, like his fellow promoter Ian Thomas was all about speedway, they both knew how to promote the sport and keep the fans coming back for more. Len would give the Hackney fan value for money, the supporter and racer one of the best racing circuits around, would keep the supporter entertained with novel interval attractions such as a chap diving into a tank of flaming water from a high tower, sledge racing with motocross bikes towing people on sledges (don't think that would be allowed today), an act where a man blew himself up inside a box (remember seeing him at Oxford as well) and the famous Eddie Kidd, doing motorcycle stunts, to name a few.

There was also a meeting were Len got a BMX rider to jump over a car, but Len didn't use his car, no, he used Ian Thomas's Roller.

Perhaps the most famous of his was getting the famous Sun newspaper page three girl Samantha Fox to present the trophies at the National League's best pairs final at Hackney twice and I think it was termed as the Best Pairs and Best Pair meeting.

Len was always innovative, he attempted to have the youngest speedway team which was ironic as in 69 they had the oldest, Hackney was the first track to have an officially printed programme board. He came up with innovative meetings, one where Hackney Top rider partnered with Wimbledon No7, Hackney 2nd top rider with Wimbledon number 6 and so on and of course his most famous the 'Champions Chase' with 32 riders in a knock out type formula with the top bottom two riders dropped out until you had four in the final.

I remember one year Ole Olsen coming second in all his 4 qualifying heats but winning the important final. This format idea went on to be taken up in the Grand Prix where if you came third and/or last in consecutive races you were out.

End of season give-aways were a calendar (still have mine for '71) and a stick of rock. Of course Len went onto save Rye House Speedway (sadly another track we've lost).

What struck me about him was that he was a fair and generous man and was a true speedway fan himself and I know he made an impact on my life, I looked forward to every Friday when he was in charge and also at Rye. He was one of life's great characters and I had the privilege of producing the programme and meeting him at the Hackney Reunion in 2005, which reminds me that another former Hawk who attended that reunion passed recently - Malcolm Brown.

Len I'm sure will be sadly missed by many, I'd like to end with another amusing anecdote. There's always been friendly rivalry between the London teams and when I went to Wimbledon the Junior supporters upon entering the stadium would be given a tin badge with the picture of a Wimbledon rider on it with the letters DJS which stood for 'Dons Junior Supporter', however Wimbledon claimed it stood for 'Don't join Silver'.

A great man, Len Silver, RIP.

This article was first published on 9th February 2025

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