Bicycle racing was tried out on the cricket ground, next door to Victoria Park, on 20th July 1889 but the meeting was a financial failure because the weather was poor and the attendance low.
The first bicycle racing at the football ground was a West Hartlepool Harriers sports meeting on 13th August 1892, there were one and two miles bicycle races, each with entries of about thirty.
The ground became quite popular for sports meeting, in spite of the grass track, which became very slippery when wet. The Hartlepool Social Cycling Club held their first amateur athletic sports on 29th June 1895. West Hartlepool RFC starting hosting sports meetings on 8th August 1896. The Grosvenor Cycle Club held their 5th annual sports on 27th August 1898 at the Victoria Ground, when they had to move from Burn Road because the local council were building a refuse facility there.
Hartlepool Social CC held their second amateur sports meeting after a lapse of eleven years on 27th August 1904. The racing was held on a track marked out at five laps to the mile. The one mile bicycle handicap race, for a gold watch, required seven heats and was won by J Swainson of Great Ayton. The half mile handicap was won by AE Joy of Bishop Auckland. The prizes were on view in Stewart's in Lynn Street.
Around 1906, West Hartlepool RFC were very short of money, so they held amateur athletic sports on 4th and 8th August 1906, with foot and bicycle races. Two further sports meetings were held the following year, but the rugby club went bankrupt in 1908. Hartlepool United** football club took over the ground in 1908, they formed ‘The Hartlepools United Football Athletic Company Limited'.
The first sports and carnival promoted by Hartlepool United FC were held on 19th August 1911, the events were a one hundred yards running race and a one mile novices handicap race. The sports were held for several years, with a good attendance, in 1913 there were 6,000 spectators.
The ground was used by the military during the First World War and it was unusable for some time. The football club sports resumed after the First World War in 1922 with the postponed Major Thomlinson Temperance Institute Club sports which were held on Wednesday 2nd August 1922. The three bicycle handicap events were half and one mile open races and a novices race.
Hartlepool RUFC held a sports meeting on 22nd May 1923 but the attendance was poor, with around 500 spectators and this was the last bicycle racing to take place at Victoria Park. Victoria Park is still the home ground of Hartlepool United.
** The name Hartlepool United was chosen to signify that it represented the two Hartlepool boroughs of Hartlepool and West Hartlepool.
^^ Hartlepool Social Cycling Club was formed in 1891, there was a joining fee of 2s 6d and the annual subscription was 7s 6d (about £55 in 2024 prices). By the end of the year they had 300 members and had their own large club premises in Lambton Street, with two snooker tables. The club seemed to be popular, with club runs and racing up to 1900, but for the next twenty years, it was more of a social club, until it ceased operating at the end of the 1920s. There is currently a club called Hartlepool Social Cycling Club, it is unlikely to have any links to the original club.