TOBY – A PROFILE OF TORBJÖRN HARRYSSON

Newport Wasps lost their first Swedish icon Gote Nordin (a star of the 1966 season) to Poole. They replaced him with another Swede, the man who surprisingly finished ahead of him in the 1966 World Championship Final in Ullevi, Torbjorn Harrysson. Harrysson it is reputed had ridden less than thirty meetings prior to finishing fifth in the Final with 10 points from five rides behind the eventual champion, Barry Briggs.

Harrysson had visited the UK with his Swedish team Vagarna featuring prominently as they recorded victories at Belle Vue and Long Eaton on their seven match tour. As a result he became a major target for British League clubs. Newport were fortunate to capture his signature.

From the outset he took the club by storm with his exciting and attacking style of speedway.  Initially he lived with fellow rider Dave Gifford in Manchester. As Gifford recalls in an article on SpeedwayPlus “To put it mildly Harry’s English was not good, but it never stopped him from talking even if he was the only one listening and he laughed a lot which made him good company.”

The records show a slow start. His first match was against Ivan Mauger’s Newcastle Diamonds on Friday March 24. He was last in his first race and recorded four points overall in a 44-34 victory. The following Monday he was in better form, scoring 9 paid 10 against Wolverhampton and recorded his first race win in his final race beating Hasse Holmqvist. In his next meeting at home to Sheffield he recorded a 12 point maximum and a paid maximum in the next against Oxford. In between he scored 10 points at Dudley Wood as Newport recorded a rare away victory, 43-35 against Cradley. The only misfortune for Newport was that Toby as he came to be known had to miss a number of meetings due to Swedish commitments, they lost at home and away in quick succession to Poole early in the season and lost all five of their last fixtures.

But in between Harrysson was beating all before him. On July 7 1967 at Glasgow Harrysson recorded a maximum as Newport slip to a 43-34 defeat . The report of the meeting states “For once, Charlie Monk doesn’t score his customary maximum, when Torbjorn Harrysson leads him home in his first outing, in the only race to be completed below the eighty seconds barrier.” Monk returned the compliment at Somerton Park although Harrysson beat him in the second half race-off.

It was a similar story in 1968 he inflicted a rare defeat on Ivan Mauger in the early season match against Newcastle and beat Briggs in a thrilling heat 14 victory as the Wasps beat Swindon in June. The Speedway Star reported on the July 12 meeting at Somerton Park (Newport 46 Hackney 32) “Torbjorn Harrysson and Bobby Hughes continued to develop their recently-formed partnership and Toby’s team-riding was a JOY to watch. This pairing is the Wasps’ strongest and their Heat 11 dead heat for first place illustrates just how well they work together.”

Harrysson was injured in an individual meeting at the beginning of August 2 (see picture below) and despite a broken toe resumed riding a few weeks later. He was fighting hard to get fit for the World Championship Final. Although not quite at his best (and with a reduced average as a result) he turned in some solid performances in the League not least at Belle Vue in October 1968. A Belle Vue Aces fan of fifty years Frank Cook recalls Harrysson at that meeting “If you ever saw Soren Sjosten at his best he needed some beating. I always remember when Newport came to Hyde Road, he fought wheel to wheel for four laps with Torbjorn Harrysson. Toby was a brilliant rider ..I loved his style of riding. His battles with Soren Sjosten at Hyde Road were brilliant.”