Bill Kitchen (speedway rider)

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Bill Kitchen
Bill Kitchen motorcycle speedway rider cigarette card.png
Born(1908-12-07)7 December 1908
Galgate, England
DiedMay 1994 (aged 85)
High Wycombe, England
NationalityBritish (English)
Career history
1933–1939 Belle Vue Aces
1946–1954 Wembley Lions
Individual honours
1940 Northern Riders' Champion
1950 Australian Champion
Team honours
1933, 1934, 1935, 1936,
1946, 1947, 1949, 1950,
1951, 1952, 1953 		National League Champion
1933, 1934, 1935, 1936,
1937, 1948		 National Trophy winner
1934, 1935, 1936, 1937A.C.U. Cup winner
1939, 1947British Speedway Cup winner
1946, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951 London Cup winner
Motorcycle racing career statistics
Isle of Man TT career
TTs contested4 (1930–1933)
TT wins0
TT podiums0

William Kitchen (7 December 1908 in Galgate, Lancashire, England – May 1994) was an international speedway rider who started his career with the Belle Vue Aces in 1933. [1] He earned 41 international caps for the England national speedway team. [2]

Contents

Career summary

Before he started speedway Kitchen was a prominent road trials rider and had taken part in the Isle of Man TT. [3]

His pre-war career was with Belle Vue. [4]

After the war he rode in various meeting during late 1945 [5] before becoming the captain of the Wembley Lions in 1946 and finished second in the British Speedway Championship. [3] He finished fifth in the Speedway World Championship in 1938. [6]

Kitchen was a member of a National League winning team eleven times in twenty years, a feat made even more exceptional given the fact that the outbreak of World War II cost his Belle Vue team the chance of earning Kitchen a twelfth title (the Aces were top of the league when it was abandoned), and the fact that the competition was suspended a further six seasons during the war.

Kitchen was a regular England international with 41 appearances for the national team. In 1950, Bill Kitchen won the Australian 3 Lap Championship at the Tracey's Speedway in Melbourne.

After retirement, Bill ran a motor spares shop bearing his own name, in Station Road Harrow until at least the 1980s.

World Final appearances

Players cigarette cards

Kitchen is listed as number 24 of 50 in the 1930s Player's cigarette card collection. [7]

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References

  1. ↑ Addison J. (1948). The People Speedway Guide. Odhams Press Limited
  2. ↑ "ULTIMATE RIDER INDEX, 1929-2022" (PDF). British Speedway. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  3. 1 2 Morgan, Tom (1947) The People Speedway Guide, Odhams Press, p. 76
  4. ↑ "Rider averages 1929 to 2009" (PDF). Speedway Researcher. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  5. ↑ "Bill Kitchen wins speedway helmet" . Newcastle Journal. 10 October 1945. Retrieved 5 January 2024– via British Newspaper Archive.
  6. ↑ Bamford, R. & Shailes, G. (2002). A History of the World Speedway Championship. Stroud: Tempus Publishing. ISBN   0-7524-2402-5
  7. ↑ "Speedway Riders". Speedway Museum Online. Retrieved 14 October 2021.
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