Speedway re-opened in Glasgow after World War Two in mid-August 1945. There was a short season of ten matches which ran until mid-October.
Most featured “Select” sides, with the same riders turning out for all manner of different teams – some things never change! There were seven matches featuring a “Glasgow” side. They raced against Newcastle, the Midlands, the North, the Rest and North London although the names never really meant much in all honesty. There were also two Ron Johnson Select v Bill Kitchen Select fixtures and a Scotland v England clash.
Organised league racing returned in 1946 and the White City opened on 10th April with an Open meeting, which was the Glasgow Cup won by Bill Kitchen. The following week was a Best Pairs event. The third match on 24th April was a National Trophy fixture with Glasgow taking on Sheffield.
The programme in all three of these matches mentions the need to settle on a name for the team. Johnnie Hoskins in the opening programme proposes that the team be called “Dynamo”. It is apparent from the following week’s programme notes that the crowd had been lukewarm at best to that suggestion. It is also implied that the name “Lions” was popular but Hoskins said they couldn’t have that because Wembley were already called the Lions. It would be hard to say with any real certainty that this was the reason, or if Hoskins himself just didn’t fancy that name.
On 24th April the programme makes it clear that a name still hadn’t been decided upon. However, the following week, 1st May, in our opening league fixture against Newcastle it was revealed that after the previous week’s match the name “Tigers” had been decided upon.
Whether we were the Tigers when we went to Sheffield for the second leg the following night on 25th April is debateable and speedway historians would say that the debut of the Glasgow Tigers was indeed on Wednesday 1st May, 1946 when we hosted Newcastle at the White City Stadium in a Northern League match.
The rest, as the say, is history!