The Historical Association: Curtain Raisers? East Anglian Motorcycle Sport Adventures in Cold War Eastern Europe

This lecture explores East Anglia’s place in twentieth-century motorcycle racing, showing how speedway, motocross and motoball connected the eastern counties to riders, teams and audiences across Europe and beyond. It examines the region as a vibrant sporting hub and looks at how international competition brought unexpected cultural encounters into local communities.

The talk also follows East Anglian riders travelling through the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, asking what they experienced in communist Poland, the USSR and Soviet Ukraine. Drawing on archival research, fieldwork, press accounts and testimony, Dr Richard Mills presents a vivid account of motorcycle sport as a route into the politics, mobility and exchange of the era.