Frank Corry (professional 1911-1928) Francis Patrick (Frank) Corry was born in Bathurst in 1889. He began his working life as a printer’s devil (apprentice) at the Bathurst Advocate, where he would borrow the editor’s bicycle and learned to ride when the editor was busy composing the Saturday morning leader. He was soon hooked on cycling and hired a bike at 2/6 an afternoon, winning two eleven-mile road races on it. He began to work as a junior reporter, but after winning the famous Austral Wheel Race in 1910, he abandoned journalism to devote himself to professional cycling.
In January 1913, Corry and his partner Reg McNamara won a six-day race in Sydney. By 1914 he had joined McNamara and other Australian cycling stars in the United States, racing in a six-day event at Madison Square Garden in New York. After a few months in America, Corry realised he was not fast enough to be a top sprinter and that only the best riders earned good money, so he decided to try his hand at motor-paced racing . This was a fast and furious event in which a cyclist rode as quickly as possible and as closely as possible behind a speeding motorcycle, sometimes at sixty miles per hour, around a steeply-banked velodrome for up to ten miles. The motorbikes were often fitted with a rear frame to prevent the bicycles running into the back wheel, and Corry modified his bike by reversing the front forks (so they were angled backwards), using a smaller front wheel (24” at the front and 27” at the back) and a very high gear. The cyclists wore a steel helmet, and usually leather clothing for protection in high-speed crashes. Corry found that he had a real talent for this nerve-racking brand of racing, and became one of the world’s best motor-paced cyclists. In 1915, Frank Corry was placed second in a Miss-and-Out (elimination) race at the Newark Velodrome in New Jersey and won a half-hour motor-paced race at Toronto, Canada. In 1916, he wrote to a friend in Bathurst to say that cycle racing was still going strongly in America and he was doing fairly well. He predicted that he would probably return to Australia after World War I, because an American promoter planned to take a group of riders there to run a series of six-day races .
By the end of 1916, it was reported that “Australian cyclists were practically the whole show in America” at the time. In two events in October, Australians won every event on the programme: Alf Grenda and Alf Goullet won a 25-mile teams’ race with Reg McNamara and Bob Spears second, and McNamara and Spears defeated compatriots Goulet and Grenda in a 100 km teams’ race. Spears defeated the great American Frank Kramer seven times that season, proving he was the world’s fastest sprinter. Reports from Bob Spears and Frank Corry mentioned that American cycling fans were becoming annoyed that their own riders were being squeezed out of the major prize money by a bunch of upstart Australians! Corry was also doing very well in the gruelling six-day races, winning the prestigious Boston Six-Day Race in January 1918 with his American partner Edward Madden. By then, he was reportedly finding success in “sprints, unpaced events, paced races and anything else that comes along”, winning a 24- hour motor-paced race at Madison Square Garden with the Swiss rider Oscar Egg. When the war ended, Corry and Bob Spears travelled to the Continent in June 1919 to compete in the inaugural sixday race in Belgium. Corry and his French partner Georges Seres finished fourth, but Corry won many of the special prizes for lap sprints during the race. The next month, Spears and Corry teamed up to win a 100-mile race in Brussels . At the end of 1919, Corry and other Australians finally returned home to race under contract to Carnivals Ltd, a new syndicate formed to promote the coming season. The first event was a six-day race at the Sydney Sports Ground: Corry and Grenda represented the American team (by then both had taken out American citizenship). Corry had been an American since about 1917, as shown by his US World War I Draft Registration Card which lists his residence as Newark New Jersey and his calling as professional cyclist . The Australian stars returned to the lucrative American circuit in April 1920. For the next few years, Corry and other professional cyclists followed the track cycling circuit around the world, racing in Australia during the southern summer and returning to American or Europe by April. The Americans were mystified by the dominance of the Aussies, but they noticed that while their own cyclists took the winter off and rested, the Australians hardly ever stopped racing, so they were at peak fitness and race toughness all the time, giving them an edge over the Americans. By 1923, Corry was branching out to cycling administration in America, something that he took on full time at home after retiring from racing. He acted as the cyclists’ representative on the Board of Appeals of the National Cycling Association .
At the end of 1923, cycle racing returned to the Sydney Sports Ground when Corry and other Australians returned for a series of carnivals in Sydney, promoted by Jack Campbell and Jim Du Frocq. But the local cyclists were no match for Corry in his specialty of motor-paced racing, and he was evidently unhappy with the insufficient amount of racing and the prizemoney offered by the promoters. In January 1924, he announced that he intended to break his contract and race in Melbourne for much larger sums of money under the promoter Charles Lynham. In particular, he was promised a motor-paced race or two with the rising Victorian star Hubert Opperman . This breakaway action by Corry caused a huge controversy - he was suspended by the New South Wales League of Wheelmen, the Sydney promoters lawyered up and issued an injunction to stop him riding in Melbourne. The Melbourne promoter returned legal fire to stop the League’s suspension being acted upon. Unfazed by the frenzy of litigation he had created, Corry rode in a four-mile motor-paced race in Melbourne against W. Smith from Western Australia and Horace Horder . The much-anticipated match-up with Opperman in February 1924 was nothing if not theatrical: when the first race was due to begin at the Melbourne velodrome, the two motorbikes were driven out to the starting line. But only Opperman was on the track when the race started. But to the great surprise and amusement of the large crowd, Corry suddenly climbed over the fence, jumped on his bike and set off in pursuit of the disappearing Oppy, to the rousing cheers of the excited fans. Unfortunately, the track was still wet from recent rain, and after Opperman skidded twice, the referee called the race off before the finish .
The upshot of this lawyers-at-ten-paces saga was that Corry arrived at a settlement with the New South Wales League of Wheelmen under which he could fulfil his cycling engagements in Australia. It was agreed in the Equity Court that he would apply for the injunction to be dissolved and pay the costs of the proceedings. The injunction was then dissolved and all was forgiven. The episode probably showed that Frank Corry was not afraid of bucking the system if he thought he had a case (or a shot at a bigger bag of money). The rivalry between Corry and Opperman was reignited in 1925 when another series of motor-paced races was arranged by Melbourne Carnivals Ltd at the Melbourne Motordrome. In a triumph of experience over youth, the 37-year old Corry defeated the 22-year old Opperman by three heats to two. Corry won the final heat over 10 miles in front of 30,000 spectators, despite finishing with a flat tyre. He took home the stake of £1,000 for his efforts. Corry’s final racing triumph was winning his second Austral Wheel Race in March 1925, off 160 yards in front of up to 30,000 fans at the Melbourne Motordrome. His first Austral victory had been fifteen years earlier . Returning to the northern hemisphere for the 1925 season, Corry only rode occasionally in America, but had some success in Germany. By 1926, he was in Australia and spending his spare time coaching cyclists and motorcyclists in the art of motor-paced racing. But in 1927, he triggered another war in cycling circles when he took part in an exhibition ride on the Melbourne Motordrome track in defiance of a warning by the Victorian League of Wheelmen189. The current battle was between rival promoters at the Melbourne Motordrome and the Melbourne Exhibition track. By 1927, Frank Corry had turned his attention to the lack of timber velodromes in Australia, which he planned to alleviate by constructing one himself. In August, he announced that he hoped to have a sports palace completed by the end of the year, preferably located within ten minutes of Central Station and catering for several sports191. But it was not until October 1928 that he had found a site, on part of the Canterbury Sports Ground, and was able to commence construction. The track would be eight laps to a mile, banked at 48 degrees at the ends and 17 degrees on the straights. There would be seating for 8,500 spectators .
The company promoting the new velodrome was established as Velodromes Ltd with a capital of £50,000. Corry was listed as a company director, and was appointed the track manager. A milestone in Australian cycling was an agreement for amateurs (sanctioned by the New South Wales Cyclists’ Union) and professionals (under the New South Wales League of Wheelmen) to appear together on the same programme, but not to mix in the same races. The amateur body was probably influenced by the need to prepare its cyclists for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, which would almost certainly be on a similar track . Nine months after opening the Canterbury Velodrome, Corry opened a second board track, the Brisbane Velodrome in Fortitude Valley. He continued in his role as the Canterbury track manager for some years. In 1934, he acted as the New South Wales League of Wheelmen’s representative at League Appeals Board hearings into cyclists . The Canterbury velodrome closed in 1937, to be replaced by the Sydney Sports Arena velodrome in Surry Hills. It was reported in 1943 that Bob Spears and Frank Corry were joint managers of this track, and would be coaching cyclists there198. They promoted carnivals at the track199, and in 1944 they also promoted carnivals at Lidcombe Oval. In late 1944, Corry announced he would send an agent to Europe when World War II ended to bring riders out to Australia. Bob Spears was the likely candidate for this, as he raced in Europe for ten years and spoke fluent French. Corry predicted a boom in world cycling after the war . A curious incident in 1945 demonstrated both Frank Corry’s extensive international experience, the hazards of track cycling and possibly his devil-may-care attitude to them. At one point, he suffered a bout of toothache and went to his dentist, who told him that, firstly there were no teeth where it was sore, and secondly his mouth showed no sign of an abscess. Still in pain, he visited his doctor, who ordered an x-ray. This revealed a shadowy object resembling a tack, high up in a gum. After a local anaesthetic, a pair of tweezers extracted a large splinter, apparently a legacy of his track cycling days.
The wood was identified as Canadian spruce, the type used in the Madison Square Garden velodrome in New York, where he remembered crashing and sliding a long way on the wooden track some 25 years earlier. He said the fall left him looking like a pin cushion, but he just removed the most painful splinters so that he could still ride and left the rest. He recalled that several splinters had since worked their way out over the years in “boils and other unexpected places”. Previous splinters that had been analysed ranged from Oregon pine to Canadian redwood, Swedish cedar, Bangkok irrawaddy and Australian jarrah. He was impressed by the jarrah splinter, which was as tough as the day he picked it up 22 years earlier, proving to him that Australian woods were the world’s best (because they produced the most durable splinters!) . In 1948, still keen to build more velodromes, Corry proposed to the Sydney Council that he had the financial backing to demolish the decrepit Exhibition Building in Prince Alfred Park and rebuild it as a multi-sports complex. But the council had other proposals to consider (such as a government sports centre), and in any case there was a shortage of building materials in the immediate post-war era. In the end the council pulled the building down itself and replaced it with an open-air swimming pool and ice skating rink.
Frank Corry died in Sydney in 1964. His long career as a cyclist and then as a coach and manager stretched from the early days of the sport at the beginning of the twentieth century through the heyday of track cycling in the 1920s and 1930s, and into the post-war 1940s. He recognised early on that he would not become a top-class sprinter, but found his niche in endurance racing such as sixday events and the hectic world of motor-paced races. He was willing to go against the system to get what he wanted, but was also willing to work inside the system to benefit his fellow cyclists. After retirement from racing, his vast worldwide experience made him a successful builder and manager of velodromes in his home country.
Credit to John W. Ross "Flying around the boards - the bicycle velodromes of Sydney"
https://shazbeige.com/pdf/Sydney_Track_Cycling_History.pdf
