Chasewater Stadium was never salubrious. Down at heel, scruffy, it never really took off. Image from ‘Memories of Brownhills Past’ by Clarice Mayo and Geoff Harrington.
Here’s a curious piece of ephemera, found by local history ferret [Howmuch?]. I’m not sure of the source, but it was probably a charity or secondhand shop, as he can often be found ferreting around the darker corners for history oddities. He’s certainly turned up trumps here.
What we have is a PDF scan of a programme – costing 20p at the time – for a full afternoon’s racing at Chasewater Stadium, Brownhills, on Sunday, 17th April 1977.
The track looking south just after construction. Note the stables, bottom right. Whitehorse Road is on the left, and Pool Road on the right. In 1977, the site would echo to the roar of motorbike engines. Image from ‘Memories of Brownhills Past’ by Clarice Mayo and Geoff Harrington.
At the outset, I don’t understand much of what this is about – I’m not into motorbike racing (although the spectacle is great), so I don’t really know how significant this was. However, the adverts, names and feel of the programme gives a real hint of the atmosphere at the time. Whoever purchased it was clearly an avid fan, and noted race winners, points won, etc.
What is significant is [Howmuch?], who knows about these things, thinks this was the only such race held at the doomed Chasewater Stadium. Built as a trotting track, it was never really successful, and the operators experimented with various other sports the track could adapt to – including motorbike racing, and I believe banger racing. None succeeded.
The stadium can be seen in the background to The Stymaster’s Chasewater home movie.
The stadium fell derelict in the 1980s and was demolished to make way for the M6 Toll in the late 1990s. South of Chasewater dam and the M6 Toll, the outline of the track can still be seen to the east of Pool Road.
The ghost of the track is still witnessed in the landscape – local kids often use it for impromptu bicycle races.
I get lots of searches for this stadium, but know little about it, so this great find sheds some light on a quite dim corner of Brownhills history.
If you have any memories of this, pictures or anything else to contribute, do comment here please, or mail me at BrownhillsBob at Googlemail dot com. Cheers.
An interesting event, with results carefully hand documented. Click on the image to download the PDF file – it’s about 5 meg, so may take a while.