A FEW weeks ago, in a feature on a new book about the Barbourne area of Worcester, I scratched the surface of a sport that no longer happens around here.

However, the ink was barely dry on the exploits of Martin Smith, Worcester's first and last Individual Cycle Speedway Champion, before other former cycle speedway aces were in touch.

Men of more mature years now, they were young lads in the early 1950s, who rode pedal cycles like bats out of hell.

It was a rather more affordable imitation of the screaming cinder tracks of the motorcycle speedway world and looking back, somehow seems to define the austerity of the post-war period. It was particularly popular around big cities, where the yet-to-be-developed bomb sites, provided ideal racing grounds.

What began to emerge were some dog-eared and grainy photographs of the sport at its height in Worcester. Not only team line-ups, full of young men soon to leave home for National Service, but also action shots of racers at full tilt on several of the city's cycle speedway tracks.

None are left now and to call them "tracks" is probably to conjure-up an impression more glamorous than the reality, for most were merely marked out ovals on bits of waste ground. Nevertheless, as a time capsule snapshot of what occupied some teenagers half a century ago, before James Dean and rock n' roll redefined their profile, the images were immense.

Tucked away somewhere in the back of his garage in Heath Close, Hallow, Graham Baylis still has the smaller crank he had made for his speedway bike in an effort to give him the edge to the all-important first corner.

"It gave the bike a lower gear that allowed me to accelerate faster," he explained. "If you reached the first corner in the lead there was a good chance you would win the race. If you held your position, it was up to the others to get past."

Like Martin Smith, Graham was a member of the Barbourne Monarchs cycle speedway team.

"We were just a group of lads in our late teens who were looking for something to do," he said. "We'd all got bikes, most lads had then, and so we thought we'd have a go."

According to Martin, Barbourne Monarchs were formed when'some of them went across town to watch the Marl Bank Tigers, a club that was already up and running, racing on their track on a bit of spare ground off Gregory's Mill Street.

"They were the first team we raced against and they gave us a real hammering," Martin recalled. "But we got better and beat them later on."

Other popular Worcester teams were Diglis Pirates (home track on the corner of Diglis Road and Basin Road), Checketts Lane Saints (off Morris Road) and Northwick Pirates (off Beckett Close), while there were also Sale Green Pirates from the village near Droitwich.

"I remember once we travelled up to ride against a team from Stourbridge called Lye Marauders and they were the roughest lot we ever came across," Martin added. "There was always a bit of bumping and boring, it was part of the sport and on the first corner I edged into one of their riders and he fell off.

"After the race he came over to me and said: If you do that to me again mate, they'll find the imprint of your face in that cinder track.' I think he meant it too."

Barbourne Monarchs also raced against a team from Studley and used to travel as far as Woodstock, near Oxford. For that meeting in the grounds of Blenheim Palace, they piled, bikes and all, into Martin's dad's lorry.

The mecca for cycle speedway in Worcester was Reddings cycle shop in The Tything, opposite Alice Ottley School.

"Most bikes had a back sprocket with 22 cogs," Martin explained, "but Reddings managed to get me one with 23 cogs, which meant I had better acceleration, but had to pedal faster."

All the racing bikes had free wheel hubs and no brakes - to slow down you scuffed your feet on the floor, and there was nothing much technical either about their wide, up-turned handlebars.

These were made from electrical piping, which was bent and then had rubber grips put on the ends. They were cow-horn shape because it gave riders more leverage to throw the bikes about.

The Monarchs made their home track on the Barbourne end of Pitchcroft and everything went along undisturbed with racing every Sunday afternoon, until they arranged a visit from Woodstock Pirates and advertised it.

"We cut the grass and made it look really nice," said Martin. "On the day we took them to lunch at the Saracen's Head pub, but when we went down to the track there was some chap jumping about saying he was the croftkeeper and we hadn't got permission. We'd never heard of him. The meeting went ahead, but we decided to move and found a field near the river at Northwick Slip.

"Then one day, two farmers arrived in a Land Rover and claimed we were trespassing. One told us to wait with the other while he fetched the police.

"And we waited, despite the fact we were all fit young men on racing bikes and he was an old chap on his feet. He couldn't have done anything if we'd have ridden off. But you respected your elders in those days, didn't you? Anyway we had been told we had permission.

"When the policeman arrived he was pretty good. He just said: Give it a rest for today, lads and we'll sort it out later.' "But it never did get sorted. Most of us were off to do National Service and the club just petered out."

So that was the end of Barbourne Monarchs. Although if you go on to the internet today, you will see cycle speedway is still a thriving minority sport. Just not in Worcester.