Speedway: Hundreds turn out to glimpse Sheffield stars at Owlerton as Tigers ready ahead of new season

But Sheffield’s Owlerton Stadium was still full of fans on Thursday night as one of the city’s most successful professional sports clubs of recent years went on show for the first time ahead of the new speedway season.

Sheffield Tigers have picked up a trophy for each of the last three years, either the sport’s Premiership trophy or the sport’s cup competition, and go into the new season among the favourites to win again this year.

The club have been racing at Owlerton since the 1920s, making it one of the world’s oldest speedway arenas. The roar of the engines on a Thursday night in S6 has been one of the best known sounds in the city for generations.

And this year, the club have a line up including two of the sport’s former world champions, and the current world number six.

Speedway sees two team go head to head over 15, high speed motorcycle races around an oval track. In Sheffield’s case, that shale track is 361m long. Each heat lasts around a minute, and Sheffield team boss Simon Stead describes those heats as fast and furious.

Crucially, while in some motorsports spectators can only see part of the track, in speedway, the racing is always in clear view of all the fans.

The new season starts at Owlerton on Thursday April 3, when Birmingham are the opposition.

However, this Thursday saw hundreds of hardcore fans come out in force to watch a public practice session - the first glimpse of this year’s team.

Among those at Owlerton was rider Tai Woffinden, who is making his comeback for Sheffield after suffering a serious injury which cut his season short last year, a serious break of his elbow. It required a major operation. He’s the most successful British rider of all time, in a sport that dates back around 100 years, with three world titles in the sport’s individual format.

An in-demand star, he will be riding for teams in Poland and Sweden, as well as Sheffield.

After months of recovery, he told The Star he’s eager to race again. He says his elbow feels really good and completely back to normal.

He said: “I feel great. I’m excited for the season, I’ve done a lot of testing in Poland for the last few days and fly back out there tomorrow, do other four on the bounce, and then come back for Thursday.”

Another former world champion riding for Sheffield will be Australian star Chris Holder, who is riding for Sheffield for a second season alongside his brother, the current world number six, Jack Holder.

He told The Star he felt Sheffield were the best team last season, having finished top of the league table. But with the sport running a play-off format for the league title, Tigers narrowly lost over two legs in a play-off semi-final to their great northern rivals, Belle Vue.

He said: “We’re looking to get to the the final again this year.”

The club starts the season with a new captain, with Australian Josh Pickering, now a South Yorkshire resident, taking over from long standing skipper Kyle Howarth, who has moved to Leicester this season.

He said it felt good to be captaining the side.

He said: “I’ve not really thought too much about it if I’m completely honest. It’s probably something that I look back on in 10 years time and think I captained these lads to winning the 2025 premiership title, that’s when its going to be cool, but for now we’ve got a job to do and we’re all looking forward to getting going.”

They are supplemented by three new faces, in English riders Danyon Hume, who returns to the club after riding at Owlerton in 2021, former Ipswich and King’s Lynn rider Anders Rowe, and Leon Flint, who takes the club’s rising star space, for young, up and coming British riders, and who rode for GB in a test match against USA over the winter.

Team manager Simon Stead, a former Tigers rider who was born and bred in the city, said: “We’ve retained the backbone of the team from last year. We have a really strong heat leader trio, adding Picko into the mix as captain, and then some really strong reserves. We’ll know more when we’ve turned a wheel, but it looks good.”

He feels it will be strong league, and is keen to make sure Owlerton is a fortress for Sheffield.

He said: “There are going to be no easy fixtures. We need to make sure that our home form is dominant. I really want to concentrate on that and make sure that we’re a real force to be reckoned with here, and then what we do away from home will be a bonus but first things first, we need to make sure were turning people over in good numbers here, then I think the away form will be good as well.”

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