Birmingham Mail

Last night was a special evening for thousands as they crammed into Perry Barr Greyhound Stadium to watch a sport which until recently had been consigned to history in Birmingham.

I brought along a friend and her two kids to see how much it would cost a family for an evening at the Speedway.

Once you have thrown in the tickets, programme and drinks there will be not much change out of £50 but compared to a trip to the Premiership Football it is cheap at half the price.

Did the kids like it? Well nine-year-old Mia decided she wants to be the first ever woman rider to risk her neck for the Brummies and little Neo got so excited he fell asleep halfway through the night.

Speedway is certainly an experience that will not be forgotten quickly; the daring riders, the sounds and smells are guaranteed to trigger the petrolhead in anyone.

What was lovely to see was old Speedway friends meeting up after decades apart. I saw a tear in a few elderly eyes last night but then again it might have been the methanol fumes.

Speedway is certainly different than the last time I went with my dad in 1983 at the old Perry Barr stadium.

Back in those days you would leave the stadium with your eyelashes stuck together with grit and your clothes covered in muck but now Speedway has been given the Sky treatment.

Just in the way they have made portly men throwing arrows entertaining by blaring out Queen and surrounding them with dollybirds Sky's influence was there to be seen last night.

Before and at the end of races DJ's blared out tunes like 'I Predict a Riot' and 'Living for the Weekend' as the gladiators of the track waved to the crowd whether they won, lost of fell off their bikes.

An MC shouted stuff like 'This is history' and after the last race an excitable 'The race meeting is now finished', a bit like when they had to remind the fans that Elvis had left the building.

So a sport that is exciting has been made even more exciting just like when Phoebe took combed her hair and took her glasses off and in Neighbours.

In the upstairs skylounge I had big surprise, £3.20 for a pint of Guinness, which was more than same drink downstairs.

After paying for it I hung around the bar expecting a dinner to accompany the black stuff but I was sadly mistaken and for that price it didn't even have a shamrock on the head.

But cost of a pint aside hopefully the Brummie bosses buried a boat load of four leaf clovers under the track because with a bit of luck Speedway could become a firm fixture for thousands of Brummies for years to come.