RIP MERVYN STEWKESBURY

Poole club owners Matt and Dan Ford are greatly saddened by the news that former Poole promoter, Mervyn Stewkesbury, passed away on Sunday 7th May.
 

Stewkesbury became promoter at Wimborne Road when he moved the homeless Weymouth operation to Poole after Reg Fearman and Terry Chandler saw the Poole club go into liquidation in 1984. 

After bringing much National league success to Poole, in tandem with his long-time promotional partner Pete Ansell, Stewkesbury, began to lose his appetite for the rigours of running a speedway club and when supporters Matt Ford and Mike Golding made an offer to buy the club, Stewkesbury was happy to sell up and concentrate on his other business interests with Betterment Properties.

Speaking of the news of Mervyn's death, Ford said "Mervyn was a great person, a very shrewd businessman and undoubtedly Poole fans are indebted to him for saving the club at the start of the 1985 season. My thoughts at this time are with his family."

During his time as Poole Promoter, Stewkesbury, who had served as Chairman of the National league Chairman developed a blue-print to take British Speedway forward, a plan that amalgamated the top two leagues into two divisions, with promotion and relegation introduced. Whilst his fellow promoters supported the plan, even introducing it in 1991, a season before Stewkesbury had intended, it sadly proved unworkable and a further league restructure in 1995, established one large league before the creation  of the Elite league (now known as the Premiership) followed in 1997.