The Belle Vue Colts are the junior youth development team of the Belle Vue Aces, the World's most famous motorcycle speedway team, based in Manchester in the northwest of England.[1]
The Belle Vue Colts side was formed by former Aces rider Dent Oliver who became General Manager of Belle Vue Aces in 1967.
Oliver's arrival brought sweeping changes to the club's approach as he recognised that if the club was to remain at the very top of British Speedway it needed a way of developing its own young riders.
Oliver quickly introduced the now legendary Monday night training schools which he hoped would provide for Belle Vue's future.
His efforts brought huge and immediate rewards with youngsters flocking from all over the north of England and a constant flow of young talent finding its way onto Belle Vue's ever growing roster.
The astonishing success of the training schools brought the club one major headache, how could it accommodate the sudden influx of talent?
The answer was just around the corner with the formation, in 1968, of the new Second Division. Belle Vue were invited to enter a team of their raw youngsters alongside former provincial league teams like Middlesbrough Bears, Plymouth Devils and Rayleigh Rockets, and the new division roared into life on Wednesday 8 May 1968 with Belle Vue defeating Canterbury 55-23 in the first ever second division match.
The Colts went through that maiden season unbeaten at home and clinched the league title on Wednesday 28 August when they beat Weymouth 63-15 (the most convincing victory of the season). Twelve months later The Colts retained their Second Division title and even went one better by adding the Knock-Out Cup to the trophy cabinet.
Many of the riders used in those two debut seasons went on to further their careers at first division level.
In 1970 the Belle Vue management looked for a new home for their nursery team, and this was found just up the road at Rochdale where the Colts moved - still under the control of Belle Vue - to become the Rochdale Hornets.[2]
Rochdale finished third in the 1970 Second Division and reached the semi-finals of the knock-out cup.
The Hornets closed after finishing ninth in the 1971 championship, but not before unearthing the biggest talent that the second division was ever to produce - the 16 year old Peter Collins. Since then the Colts have continued in various competitions, usually as second half events after the Aces' matches, always with the same goal in mind - To discover new young British talent.
Notable successes include the 1978 Scottish Junior League title, the 1989 British League 2 Championship and K.O. Cup double and the 2001 and 2002 Northern Youth Development titles. In recent years, Joe Screen, Carl Stonehewer, Scott Smith, Lee Smethills, Ricky Ashworth and James Wright have all moved on to a higher level.
Belle Vue operated "second" teams in the pre-war era. Examples are the Belle Vue Merseyiders team and the second team of 1939 which operated in that prematurely closed season. In the mid 1950s Belle Vue ran a few "second" team events when the Aces were away from home.