By the time he turned 24, rising Queensland solo star Bert Kingston had parlayed a stunning evening at Archerfield Speedway into a full-time ride in the newly formed British League.
“I won the entire programme on Archerfield’s opening night” recalls Bert “and this resulted in Halifax promoter Reg Fearman’s offer to join the ‘Dukes’, along with Aussies Bob Jameson and Dennis Garros.
“Years later I asked Reg why he favoured Aussies and he told me that Australians were hungry and had to earn prizemoney to eat, they couldn’t go home to mummy for a feed. Reg was a hard boss, but we got on together famously.”
Back in Australia, Speedway was a Saturday night out at Sydney’s Royale or Brisbane’s Ekka, but for British League team riders it was a full-time job.
“I shared digs with Bob Jameson at Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands. We had a Morris 1000 van in which we racked up over 80,000 kms in the 1965 season, travelling as far north as Edinburgh in Scotland and to Poole on the south coast. It was a busy life but we loved it and I did well enough to send money back home to my wife Annette every week.”
At the end of that inaugural British League season, the ‘Dukes’ had built up a good support base at The Shay – their tight, steeply banked, one-sixth-of-a-mile home circuit. And fifth in the rankings proved an excellent start against more entrenched opposition.
“I’d built a good rapport with the team and was no longer regarded as an import” says Bert “but I missed my wife’s company and I’d missed the birth of my son Gordon. At the end of the British season I was happy to be back racing at the Ekka.”
However, Reg Fearman was constantly on the phone and, when he offered to bring the whole Kingston family over to the UK, Bert capitulated. It was a good move. The ‘Dukes’ started the 1966 season as middle-rankers but finished with a record run of 15 consecutive League victories to take the Championship; then, in October, they walloped Wimbledon to win the KO Cup Final.
Bert’s personal celebrations were muted, due to a broken leg sustained in the quarter-finals. Then, after a bleak winter, Bert fractured his skull early in the 1967 season. He came back strongly with maximum points in the final meeting at Halifax, but the skull injury took its toll and the family headed home.
“While we lived in Huddersfield our daughter Debra had begun school and young Gordon learnt to speak, so when we returned to Australia both kids had broad Yorkshire accents. No one believed they were our kids,” laughs Bert.
Unfortunately, Bert’s leg-trailing days were brought to a premature conclusion when he smashed his kneecap at the Ekka in 1972, forcing a three-month layoff.
“I returned for a series of match races against World Champion Ole Olsen, but the pain was too much to bear, enough to prohibit any chance of a return to regular racing” says Bert.
Riding full-time in the British League may have been the overseas highlight of Bert’s career, but he went on to become Queensland Champion in 1970/71 and was Australian Test Captain in 1968/69 and 1970/71, with seven Test appearances.
This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the Dukes’ British League Championship and KO Cup success, yet for Bert his career highlight was as Australian Captain against England at the Speedway Royale in 1971; there he racked up maximum points for the team against the British Lions – that and running his motorcycle parts business in Brisbane’s southeast.
by Peter Whitaker
