Harold Montague Stevenson (1 November 1907 – 5 December 1994) was a

motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that use only ...

racer from England.

Career

Stevenson rode for the

West Ham Hammers The West Ham Hammers were a speedway team, first promoted by Jimmy Baxter in 1929. History They operated from the West Ham Stadium until the outbreak of World War II under several different promotions, most successfully under the control o ...

from 1929 until 1939 in early pioneer days, captaining the club for most of them. He was captain for their first ever meeting on 2 May 1929 at home to Coventry and was still the captain in 1937 when the Hammers won the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

Championship. He was born in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He rode for England in the first Test series against Australia in 1930 and went on to become England captain.Morgan, Tom (1947) ''The People Speedway Guide'', Odhams Press, p. 82 When speedway returned after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Stevenson opened speedway training schools at Birmingham and Bristol to tutor a new generation of riders. He also took the role of managing the Hanley Potters. In 1935, he travelled to Australia and finished runner up in the

Australian Championship The National Second Division (NSD) – also referred to under the working title The Championship – is a proposed Australian national second-tier men's, soccer league, to be run by Football Australia and the Association of Australian Football Cl ...

. When the

West Ham Stadium West Ham Stadium was a stadium that existed between 1928 and 1972 in Custom House, in East London (it was in the County Borough of West Ham, in the county of Essex, at the time of the stadium's construction). The stadium was built in 1928 on Pri ...

Custom House A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting c ...

was demolished in 1973, one of the roads built on the site was named after Stevenson.Jacobs, Norman (2001). ''Speedway in London''. Stroud: Tempus Publishing During the sixties Tiger managed the Red Star Tyre Service in Katherine Road East Ham.

Players cigarette cards

Stevenson is listed as number 43 of 50 in the 1930s Player's

cigarette card Cigarette cards are trading cards issued by tobacco industry, tobacco manufacturers to stiffen cigarette packaging and nicotine marketing, advertise cigarette brands. Between 1875 and the 1940s, cigarette companies often included collectible ca ...

collection.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stevenson, Tiger 1907 births 1994 deaths British speedway riders English motorcycle racers West Ham Hammers riders