Billy Sanders (1955 - 1985)

Billy Sanders was born in Rooty Hill, just outside Sydney, Australia on 9th September 1955. His father, Bill, ran a lawnmower repair shop and Billy was expected to help out at an early age. The experience gained from working on the engines helped Billy later on to understand what was going on with his bikes. Bill senior had an old JAP machine, which he passed on to his son when he reached 15 and encouraged him to have a go at speedway. In June 1971 Billy was spotted practising at Nepean practice track, near Sydney, and invited to take part in a meeting at Liverpool Speedway the following week. He soon started to make an impression and this lead to his name being passed to Martin Rogers (Kings Lynn) who in turn passed it on to John Berry at Ipswich.

At the age of 16 Billy secretly negotiated a contract with John Berry which included lending him the fare to fly over from Australia, building a bike using his own engine and subsidising his lodging costs if he didn’t earn enough from riding (this was never needed). So in March 1972 Billy landed at Heathrow airport and was taken to Foxhall Stadium where Ipswich captain, John Louis, was introduced to him and asked to take him on a track walk. This was to be the start of a strong friendship, which was to endure through all the ups and downs of the years ahead.

On Good Friday Ipswich faced Hackney in a Spring Gold Cup fixture in front of a reported 12,000 crowd. Billy rode in the first heat with Tony Davey, after both Sandor Levai and Alan Sage were excluded for breaking the tapes. He won that heat in a time of 68.6 seconds and went on to win the second heat as well. He then came third twice and finished with a last place. His total of eight points was a lot more than expected and the home crowd had already decided they had a new star in their team. In the return leg at Waterden Road he scored a further seven points.

From an average of 4.46 in his first year Billy improved dramatically in 1973 recording two paid maximums. He finished that year as a heat leader on an average of 7.50 In 1974, his third season, he scored his first full maximum, was already vying for the top position in the team with John Louis and in the process upped his average to a very impressive 9.34. Billy was to remain second to John Louis until his best ever season in 1977 when he achieved the number one spot with an average of 10.18. He held on to this until his brief spell with Birmingham in 1979. He returned to Foxhall towards the end of that year and remained for the 1980 season when his average went under 9.00 for the first time since 1973. In 1981 he moved to Hull in a deal which brought Dennis Sigalos and Jon Cook to Ipswich. However he didn’t settle well there and moved to Kings Lynn the following year. He made three guest appearances for the Witches that season and scored three maximums. He rejoined Ipswich in 1983, alongside Sigalos, and then took over as captain and number one in 1984. He remained with his ‘home’ team up until the time of his death in 1985.

Alongside John Louis and Tony Davey, Billy formed the most powerful heat leader trio of the seventies, helping Ipswich to many great achievements. Ipswich won the British League Championship in 1975 & 1976. They won the Speedway Star and Spring Gold Cups in 1976, the Inter League Cup in 1977 and the Speedway Star Cup again in 1978. Billy then went on to help the team gain second place in the league in 1983 before they achieved the League and Cup double in 1984. He partnered John Louis in the first staging of the British League Pairs Championship, held at Foxhall in 1976 and they also retained it the following year. Billy represented Ipswich in the British League Riders Championship four times.

In 1977 Billy won the prestigious Golden Helmet from fellow Aussie, Phil Crump (Bristol), defended it against Peter Collins (Belle Vue) before losing it to Gordon Kennett (White City). His next challenge was not until 1985 when he failed to beat Erik Gundersen (Cradley) but in his last Foxhall appearance he captured the Golden Helmet from Chris Morton (Belle Vue) only to lose it two days later to Bo Petersen at Swindon.

An Australian international since 1972 Billy was a member of the victorious World Team Cup squad in 1976 and represented his country in the World Pairs final five times. He also qualified for the World Final five times, finishing third in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1980 and finishing second to Egon Muller in Norden. West Germany in 1983. In his homeland Billy had a sensational record in the Australian Championship, first winning the title in the winter of 1976-77 and repeating this five more times up to 1985. The Australian national under-23 Championship is named the Bill Sanders Trophy in his memory

In England Billy won many individual meetings including the Daily Express Spring Classic, the Golden Sovereign and the Daily Mirror Weslake 16 Lapper. For the Witches he scored over 4,000 points in official meetings and achieved a CMA just below nine points a meeting.

Many thanks to Dave Feakes for providing a lof of the information for the above article and to Phil Hilton for most of the photos. More photos can be found here