Crewe Cycling Club* started to use the new ground as soon as it opened and held their 7th Annual sports there on August 27th 1898. The annual sports on June 3rd 1899 had 250 competitors and nearly three thousand spectators. The bicycle events were half and one mile handicap race, one mile novices race and a two miles inter-club race. Music was provided by the Crewe Temperance Brass Band.
The Crewe Athletic club continued to hold their popular Annual Athletics Festival in the early 1900s which included bicycle races. There was a record entry of 500 competitors in the 1907 festival and the 32nd annual festival in 1908 attracted more than 7,000 spectators.
Other organisations held bicycle races at the track including Chester Cycling Club who held their 50 miles club championship race on October 11th 1898 and the Railway sports were held there. Crewe CC held mid-week evening events which were very well supported, with attendances of up to 6,000 this was a great achievement for mid-week local bicycle racing.
After the First World War, Crewe CC gradually became less active when Crewe Clarion and Crewe Wheelers came to the fore, with meetings on the Alexandra track. The Crewe AAC annual festival meetings continued and there were some mid-week meetings organised the Crewe AAC, including the area team pursuit championships.
There was a surge of interest in cycle racing after the Second World War, Reg Harris, Alan Bannister and Cyril Cartwright competed in a mid-week sports meeting at the track, before the London Olympics in 1948. Harris and Bannister returned in August, after the Olympics to race alongside Tommy Godwin and Lew Pond. More big names appeared the following year when Syd Patterson, the Australian sprint champion and Jackie Heid, the American sprint champion, competed with Bannister and Pond for the Grand Prix of Crewe.
In the early 1950s there was a Thursday evening track league organised by the Athletic Section of the LMR Sports Club and on August 24th 1950, the local NCU sprint championship was won by Roy Swinnerton. The five miles scratch race was won by local rider Albert Crimes of Crewe Wheelers. Albert was probably the best tricycle road time trial rider that we have ever produced and with John Arnold, their record breaking rides on a tandem tricycle in the 1950s are still legendary.
When the Lyme Valley cycle track opened at Stoke in 1956, which was less than fifteen miles from Crewe, the Lyme Valley track proved very successful, the Alexandra ground was consigned to history.
The Alexandra track was used intermittently for speedway between 1929 and 1979 and then briefly for stock car racing. The stadium eventually closed in 1993 and a large shopping centre, called Grand Junction retail park, was built on the site, but it was announced in 2024 that the retail park was closing due to poor trade.
* Crewe Cycling Club was formed in 1891 and had its headquarters in the Oak Farm and Cyclists' Hotel on Oak Street. The club captain was George Hullett, who was also the hotel proprietor, he was an agent for Granville Cycles and taught ladies and gentlemen to ride at his Cycling School using a grand hall. Crewe CC were very active and started racing on the road in 1891, with a 50 miles club handicap race.
