1981 Miscellany

League Cup:

The new opening season competition started with a narrow defeat at Sheffield, followed by a convincing defeat of Hull. The loss of Carter and Pendlebury in the next home match against Birmingham proved critical - without those 2, the Dukes only won a further 2 matches in the competition, finishing last in the Northern section.

Coventry took on King's Lynn in the final winning the trophy by 122-70 on aggregate.

Four Team Tournaments:

After a large number of meetings in 1980, the Dukes only took part in 2 such matches during 1981. With the non-running of the Inter-League 4TT, Halifax ran a home 4TT against Belle Vue, Hull and Sheffield, although the weather and fixture congestion prevented the traditional season finale of the Northern Fours. They also took part again in the Ernie Park Memorial meeting at Ellesmere Port. Details of individual heats etc can be found in the results archive pages. The scorers for the meetings are outlined below:

Other Meetings During 1981:

With the advent of the new League Cup competition, and a number of postponements due to the weather, there were much less open dates to fill in 1981.

The Dews Trophy 1981 - was won by Kenny Carter who defended the title he won the previous year. Details of the fixture can be found in the archive for May 1981 (Meeting 11).

1981 National League Pairs Championship - Halifax once again got to host the prestigious National League tournament, in 1981 it was held on Saturday 18th July (Meeting 17), whilst the Dukes were in away action at Coventry. The meeting was won by Canterbury, with Mike Ferreira and Denzil Kent beating Wayne Brown and Steve McDermott of Berwick in the final, with Mildenhall and Wolverhampton defeated semi-finalists.

The British Match-Race Championship - The "Golden Helmet."

After no interest in the Golden Helmet for the Dukes' riders since Ian Cartwright lost to Peter Collins late in 1979, Kenny Carter was nominated as the August Challenger to holder Gordon Kennett. The Eastbourne star had inherited the title from Michael Lee, who was stripped of the title for failing to turn up in June, and had successfully defended against British Champion Steve Bastable. Carter proved a more difficult opponent however, and after each rider won their home leg 2-1, a third leg was required to be held, the chosen venue being Reading. At Smallmead, the Dukes number 1 easily beat Kennett 2-0 to become the holder of the Helmet for the first time.

The September defence was postponed due to weather and rider unavailability, and so Carter defended the title for the first time in October - against World Champion Bruce Penhall. The American must have been favourite to take the title, but after winning the first race at Dudley Wood, Penhall and his supporters were left stunned as Carter won the next 2 races to take the first leg. 4 days later in front of a huge Shay crowd, Carter again lost the first race, but exacted his revenge over Penhall in races 2 and 3 to defend the title without the need for a deciding neutral venue leg. Kenny Carter therefore became the winter holder for 1981/82. Full details of the heats and times can be found below.

The Juniors/Second-Half Riders: During 1981, the following riders took part in various junior matches for the Dukes - those who rode for the main team are not included in this list, but will have their own biography in the riders archive - many thanks to:

Ian Gibson, David Mitchell, Geoff Wilson, Adrian Dews, K Wright and Rob Woffinden.