In 1950, despite Speedway generally being on an upsurge, attendances at Exeter had, if anything, gone into something of a decline which led to the Exeter management declaring that race nights would be switched to Fridays despite an outcry from many supporters. Coupled with this, the Plymouth "Devils" had moved to Div 2 and thus ending the relished Derby meetings that attracted big crowds.

Bronco Slade and Stan Lanfear had both announced their retirement from racing which opened the door for two new Australians in the form of Jack Bedkober and Ken Walsh and Ted Moore returned having had made a brief appearance for the Falcons back in 1947. Exeter got the season underway with a challenge at League newcomers St.Austell, with retired Bronco Slade having joined them as reserve as the falcons went down narrowly. Exeter won the return match comfortably with reserve Ted Moore on great form to score a maximum.

Don hardy was also in brilliant form a few weeks later scoring an 18pt maximum in a National Trophy clash, beating Leicester 65-41 which tied the scores on aggregate. Later, they were to clinch a semi final placing by beating Leicester both home and away to clinch a 117-93 match aggregate score. However they were well beaten in the Semi Final by Oxford despite Don Hardy's 15pts from 6 rides and beating the track record with a new time of 76.0 seconds.

There then followed a string of bad results for Exeter including a home defeat by Leicester, but more worrying was the tumbling attendance figures. In reply, Exeter soundly beat St Austell at the County Ground, but then were soundly beaten in return at Liverpool and Tamworth. Two new riders were signed in an effort to halt the string of bad results. Bill Downton was signed from Swindon along with newcomer Johny Sagreant.

A special match was staged at the County Ground against a Ken Le Breton "select" side in which Le Breton first took a second off the track record before lowering it further to 74.6 secs. The staging of the match saw a good crowd, but Exeter were still struggling near the bottom of Division three. Things just went from bad to worse as Don Hardy was injured and Hugh geddes had been transferred to Swindon, the fee needed to keep Speedway at Exeter alive. Bob Wigg was signed as a replacement but was injured during his debut match against Oxford. To add insult, Geddes was in the Swindon side that beat Exeter home and away.

Downton was then injured along with Bedkober and things were looking precarious. However, a flurry of good results was coupled with the news that racing was to revert back to Monday nights. Exeter finished the season 7th out of ten teams, but more importantly, speedway was to remain at the County Ground.

Dave Walsh lowered the track record even further with a time of 74.5.

Elsewhere in 1950

The season started with the Spring Cup in Division One which was split in two sections, fhe section winners being New Cross and West Ham, and in the two-leg final, the Rangers from New Cross beat their East London rivals by 143-95. Division Two had their own competition known as the Kemsley Shield which was also in two sections. The Southern Shield was won by Cradley Heath and the Northern Shield by Halifax. Cradley incidentally beat Coventry for the shield on race points difference.

The Division Three programme included a 36 match league schedule which precluded any early season cups, however there was an Autumn Cup between Poole, Oxford and Swindon and this proved to be closely fought with Oxford emerging as winners. There was also a Border Cup between the Scottish clubs and Edinburgh proved their class by taking this one. The London Cup was won by Wembley who beat their deadly rivals Wimbledon by 108-107 in what must have been two of the finest matches ever between them. Wimbledon made ammends by winning the coveted National Trophy when they beat Odsal, Bradford in, the two-leg final by 119-97. This competition started at Oxford on April 6 and went on through the season with no less than 66 matches being raced before the Dons took the prize.

As in all seasons though, the league was the thing. There were three divisions with Division One being made up of nine teams. Wembley, who had not entered the Spring Cup because of their traditional late start, carried on where they left off in 1949 and won the title with ten clear points over Belle Vue. In Division Two it was much closer as 15 teams raced each other once at home and once away. At the end of this rather hectic programme, Norwich came out on top just one point clear of Glasgow White City. In the lower division it was Oxford who won the league title from Poole by five points.

On the individual scene, it was the second post-war World Final that was the major event. This was held at Wembley on Thursday, September 21 before a full house of 93,000. Would it be Jack Young, Duggan, Waterman or Parker who would rob the favourite Graham Warren of the title, not forgetting of course the holder Tommy Price? On the night it was the unfancied Fred Williams who took the title and deservedly so. He scored 14pts to beat Wally Green(13) and Graham warren (12).

Pictured left is Graham Warren, much fancied to take the World Crown in 1950.

Other important individual events were won as follows: London Riders Champion-Cyril Roger, Australian Riders Champion-Graham Warren, Scottish Team Riders Champion-Jack Young, Irish Open champion-Ronnie Moore, Divison Three Riders Champion-Pat Clarke, Tom Farndon Trophy-Graham Warren, Brandonapolis-Les Hewitt, 100gns Trophy-Ken Sharples, Coventry staged the Easter Cup and Harwood Trophy and both were won by Ken LeBreton while Jack Young won the Gala Cup at Motherwell.

The Golden Helmet Match race Championship was held by Jack Parker at the start of the season and he beat off challenges by Tommy Price, Eric French and Bert Roger before losing it to the dashing Aub Lawson in September. This was the end of a very long reign for the great Jack Parker, master of match races

Other important happenings in 1950 were the Division One Junior League which was won by Bristol, and the tragic deaths of both Jock Shead (Halifax) and Joe Abbott (Odsal, Bradford) who both died in track crashes on July 1, Joe Abbott on his own track and Jock Shead at Norwich, a black day in what was otherwise a bright and enjoyable season. Things were beginning to stir in Western Europe, Sweden were emerging and another country producing good riders was Norway. Austria had Fritz Dirtl and Albin Seigl of West Germany was more than a match for many British based riders when visiting the continent. As a matter of interest the Swedish champion in 1950 was Eskil Carlsson, and surprisingly Basse Hveem was relegated to second place in Norway by Henry Andersen who later went on to be the first Norwegian to ride in a World Final.

The year ended on a tragic note when a man destined to become one of the world's leading riders and a potential world champion, was killed in a track clash in Australia. That man was Ken LeBreton (Pictured Right) who had just completed five months of racing in the UK which had taken in 128 meetings and travelling more than 30,000 miles. A very sad loss to world speedway and in particular to Australia and Scottish speedway, the White Ghost, as he was affectionately known, was gone but never to be forgotten.

Top scorers were: NL Div 1, Graham warren (Birmingham) 545, Aub Lawson (W.Ham) 542 and Cyril Brine (Wimbledon) 509. In Div 2, Jack Young (Edinburgh) 721, Ken LeBreton (Glasgow Ashfield) 688 and Merv Harding (Glasgow Ashfield) 597. In Div 3, Pat Clarke (Oxford) 503.5, Trevor redmond (Aldershot) 432 and Basil Harris (Aldershot) 410.