Thursday 01 April 2010
SWINDON SPEEDWAY is shocked and saddened to learn of the death of mega-popular former rider Paul Fry.

Paul David Fry was born in Ledbury, Worcestershire on 25 October 1964 and first appeared on the grass-track scene at the age of 15, prior to linking with the Cradley Heath junior side in 1984. His big breakthrough came on 8 September that year, when he made his senior speedway debut for a short-handed Newcastle side in a British League match at Dudley Wood Stadium.

‘Fryer’ also rode in one-off meetings for Arena-Essex and the main Cradley Heath team that same year, but had to wait until 1986 for an extended run in the Heathens’ side. However, after two years in the toughest sphere in the world, he dropped down to National League Stoke in 1988, where he continued on his learning curve.

Remaining in the National League, Paul joined Long Eaton the following season and he made real progress during a two-year spell at the Station Road circuit, ending the 1990 campaign with 222 league points and an average of exactly 6.00 to his name. Fry then had another try at top-flight racing with King’s Lynn in 1991, when he managed to achieve a useful 4.27 league average, having scored 74 points.

It was a move back into the Second Division in 1992, though, when Exeter boss Colin Hill stepped in to purchase Paul outright. He subsequently spent five years at the County Ground and obviously found that the sweeping circuit suited his full-throttle style. However, despite achieving the highest average (7.37) of his career at the time in 1992, it wasn’t an enjoyable year as he was involved in four serious track accidents, sustaining several injuries including a painful broken scaphoid.

Having recovered from that setback, Paul’s thrilling style was to entertain the Exeter fans throughout his stay, which included the 1995 and 1996 seasons, when the two divisions combined to form one large Premier League. His best year with the Falcons occurred in 1994, when he garnered 249 points for a league average of 7.66.

Moving on to Newport in 1997, Fryer became promoter Tim Stone’s first signing at his new venture. Paul’s form was tremendous for the Wasps and he thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere generated at the Queensway Meadows raceway as he romped to 252 league points and an 8.75 average. Remaining at Newport in 1998, he couldn’t quite recapture the previous year’s form but, even so, still managed a creditable 8.29 league average.

A return to Stoke followed in 1999, but it wasn’t a happy season, as he spent much of it on the injured list with a broken ankle, sustained at the Isle of Wight while guesting for Exeter on 1 June. At the start of the year 2000, it was announced that Fry had signed for Swindon and considering that he had only attained a 6.60 league average for Stoke, many Robins’ supporters questioned the wisdom of his signing.

However, Blunsdon was a track that Paul had ridden well on many occasions previously, and coming in on a low average was to prove very handy, indeed. Swindon were to enjoy their most successful year in thirty-three seasons, winning both the Knock-Out Cup and the Young Shield, with the form of Fryer playing a major part in the double success.

Quite simply, he was a revelation as he remained ever-present throughout the league programme, scorching to 272 points and heading the side’s averages with a career best figure of 8.96. It wasn’t just his spectacular brand of riding which the Robins’ fans enthused over, for Paul also proved to be an absolute gentleman off the track whenever he came into personal contact with his very appreciative audience and it came as little surprise when he deservedly scooped the club’s Rider of the Year Award.

More of the same followed in 2001, although he endured a spell on the sidelines after breaking a knuckle in a home league match versus Hull on 12 July. It proved a niggling injury, taking time to heal properly and was clearly a contributory factor in his league average slipping back to 8.17. The fans remained more than happy with his efforts though, voting him their Rider of the Year for a second successive term.

Fry seemed to have a greater level of confidence in 2002, banging in high scores right from the start of the campaign as he became one of the top heat-leaders in the entire Premier League. Regrettably, it all ended abruptly at Berwick on 15 June, when a freak heat three accident saw him crash awkwardly and suffer a double leg fracture, rendering him out of action for the remainder of the term. That was only his twelfth league match of the year and, having attained 119 points for a big 9.67 average, he was to prove a very hard man to replace.

Thankfully, he recovered to resume in the Swindon team in 2003 when, understandably, his scoring potential was slightly down, taking into account the injuries of the previous year. Even so, he still recoreded 272 points for a league average of 7.55 and helped the side to victory in the Blunsdon-staged Four-Team Championship on 27 July.

With Swindon subsequently joining the Elite League in 2004, it spelt the end of Paul’s time with the Robins. In total, he made 184 appearances for the club in all competitions, scoring 1,706 points plus 137 bonus for an average of 8.43, while also netting 7 full and 12 paid maximums.

After departing from the Blunsdon scene, Fry sported the colours of Somerset from 2004 to 2006 inclusive, and in the first of those years he posted a league average of 7.42, having scored 204 points from twenty-seven matches. In 2005, he assisted the Rebels in their Four-Team Championship success at Workington on 20 August, while also netting 214 points from twenty-six league matches for a slightly improved 7.66 average.

Then, in 2006, Paul was unfortunately struck by the injury bug yet again, sustaining a broken leg in a home league fixture, ironically against Berwick, on 2 June, which prematurely spelt the end of his season. It was only his sixth league match of the campaigh, from which he had recorded 54 points for an impressive 8.92 average.

Somerset hosted a much-deserved testimonial meeting for the full-throttle speedster on 23 March 2007, when Leigh Adams took victory in an individual event. The popular track ace was again in the wars whilst representing the Isle of Wight in a Premier League match at Berwick on 10 May 2008. Regrettably, the meeting came to shocking end due to an horrific crash that also injured some supporters. As the tapes went up on heat seven, Fry locked machines with home rider Scott Smith going into the first bend, leaving the duo unable to control the outcome.

With both bikes going at full-bore, the pair smashed head-long into the fencing, shattering the barrier to smithereens and sending Smith deep into the no-man’s-land, but Fry and the machines kept on going, flying over the remains of the fence and into the supporters’ area. The IOW rider ended up against the stadium’s perimeter wall, some fifty feet from the track, while the flying bikes struck three very unlucky supporters who were walking past.

The long servant to British speedway sustained knee ligament damage and a couple of broken toes, and Smith, like Fry, was both shaken-up and shocked at the severity of the incident. The local police subsequently treated the incident as they would a regular accident scene and the meeting was abandoned.

Paul looked to be lost to the sport in 2009 after his long racing career, but he was signed by Newport following the injury to Craig Watson in their re-opening meeting. In May, he also joined Poole in a ‘doubling-up’ capacity alongside Ben Wilson, when the Pirates released Carl Stonehewer and Tomasz Piszcz. Having shown good form for the Wasps, Fry took over the club captaincy when Mark Lemon was axed at the start of July. At 44 years-of-age he was, at the time, the second oldest rider competing in British speedway, behind Mark Burrows.