Fans of speedway today received a hammer blow with news that their sport will not make a comeback at the new Odsal Stadium.

Any lingering hopes of a return to the days when Bradford Dukes ruled the roost have been dashed in new stadium plans.

Bradford Bulls media manager Stuart Duffy said: "We have no plans for speedway or any other motorsport at Odsal."

Life-long fan and an associate member of the Veterans Speedway Riders' Association, Paul Stephenson, said: "It's a tragedy. There is a call for speedway in the city. It is silly to just concentrate on rugby in a magnificent stadium like this.

"Look at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. They can put in a track and cater for everybody - they could have done this at Odsal.

"It's true the crowds were dropping during the last season in Bradford but attendances were affected everywhere. With all the Sky interest in speedway recently, they would have come back."

Speedway crashed out of the city in 1997 - at a time when the Bradford Dukes were Elite League champions.

Just 12 years earlier, 37,000 fans packed into Odsal Stadium to see one of the greatest world finals when it needed a three-man run-off to decide the winner.

The great Dane Erik Gundersen, defending the title he had won in Gothenburg, came out on top again.

Another great occasion was 1990 when speedway's greatest past-masters, including Ivan Mauger and Barry Briggs, were paraded before the crowd at the world speedway championship - this time watched by 27,000 people.

Twenty-four-year-old Swedish outsider Per Jonsson was the surprise winner.

The staging of the event and standard of track in Bradford impressed many of the representatives of the FIM, the international ruling body.

That was a far cry from 1945 when speedway made its entrance at Odsal.

In June, 1945 of that year, nearly 20,000 fans paid to watch the sport. All the profits went to the Lord Mayor's British Legion Appeal. There were spills and collisions all evening - understandable because there had not even been a trial run on the new track.

A year later two serious crashes which put two riders into St Luke's Hospital brought cries of "unsafe track".

But speedway went on to thrill many thousands of people in the city.

Mr Stephenson added: "It's all very, very sad. Bradford is going to miss out and that's a shame."