1988 British League season

The 1988 British League season was the 54th season of the top tier of speedway in the United Kingdom and the 24th known as the British League.

Summary
Coventry Bees won the league for the second successive year and again by a 16 point margin. The Bees also reached the Knockout Cup final losing to Cradley Heath. Remarkably it was Cradley's seventh Cup win in 10 years. With the League Cup scrapped the Coventry team had less fixtures to ride and their pairing of Tommy Knudsen and Kelvin Tatum were once again the catalyst for the seasons success finishing 2nd and 4th respectively in the averages. Hans Nielsen topped the averages again for the sixth consecutive season.

British League Knockout Cup
The 1988 Speedway Star British League Knockout Cup was the 50th edition of the Knockout Cup for tier one teams. Cradley Heath Heathens were the winners for the third successive year if including the tied 1986 final.

First round

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

First leg

Second leg

Cradley Heath were declared Knockout Cup Champions, winning on aggregate 100-80.

Riders' Championship
Jan O. Pedersen won the British League Riders' Championship. It was the held at Belle Vue Stadium on 9 October.


 * ef=engine failure, f=fell, x=excluded r-retired

Riders & final averages
Belle Vue


 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Chris Morton 9.01
 * 🇺🇸 Mike Faria 8.18
 * Peter Ravn 7.70
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Paul Thorp 7.22
 * 🇸🇪 Roland Danno 6.92
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Andy Smith	 6.83
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Paul Smith 4.97
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Glenn Hornby 3.12

Bradford


 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Gary Havelock 8.30
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Neil Evitts 7.44
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Sean Willmott 6.02
 * 🇺🇸 Rob Pfetzing 5.67
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Michael Graves 5.29
 * 🇺🇸 Randy Green 5.15
 * 🇫🇮 Olli Tyrväinen 4.64
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Anthony Hulme 3.57

Coventry


 * Tommy Knudsen 10.08
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Kelvin Tatum 10.04
 * John Jørgensen 7.49
 * 🇺🇸 Rick Miller 7.02
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Neville Tatum 5.00
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 David Clarke 4.85
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Andy Hackett 4.79

Cradley Heath


 * Erik Gundersen 10.06
 * Jan O. Pedersen 9.88
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Simon Cross 8.22
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Alan Grahame 6.92
 * Gert Handberg 5.10
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 David Walsh 4.50
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Wayne Garratt 3.45

Ipswich


 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Jeremy Doncaster 9.34
 * 🇫🇮 Kai Niemi 6.87
 * 🇮🇹 Armando Castagna 6.75
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Carl Blackbird 6.19
 * 🇩🇪 Gerd Riss 6.07
 * 🇦🇺 Steve Regeling 5.40
 * 🇮🇹 Paolo Salvatelli 4.97
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Robbie Fuller 2.50
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Nigel Flatman 2.40
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Jonathan Cooper 1.45

King's Lynn


 * 🇺🇸 Lance King 7.75
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 John Davis 7.69
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Richard Knight 7.45
 * Bo Petersen 7.26
 * Allan Johansen 6.33
 * 🇦🇺 Stephen Davies 6.24
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Gordon Kennett 6.00
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Adrian Stevens 3.90
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Roger Horspool 1.28

Oxford


 * Hans Nielsen 11.03
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Simon Wigg 8.64
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Marvyn Cox 7.24
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Martin Dugard 6.97
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Nigel De'ath 4.32
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Alastair Stevens 3.91
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Jon Surman 3.81
 * Lars Munkedal 2.80
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Peter Lloyd 2.65

Reading


 * 🇸🇪 Per Jonsson 8.98
 * 🇸🇪 Jan Andersson 8.93
 * 🇳🇿 Mitch Shirra 8.20
 * 🇸🇪 Tony Olsson 6.95
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Malcolm Holloway 5.63
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Dave Mullett 5.22
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Gary Tagg 3.09
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Rodney Payne 2.81

Sheffield


 * 🇺🇸 Shawn Moran 9.51
 * 🇺🇸 Kelly Moran 8.67
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Neil Collins 7.16
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Peter Carr 5.78
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Sean Wilson 5.30
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Ian M Stead 4.58
 * 🇺🇸 Randy Green 4.00
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Gordon Whitaker 3.60
 * 🇮🇹 Valentino Furlanetto 3.60
 * 🇳🇴 Einar Kyllingstad 3.38

Swindon


 * 🇸🇪 Peter Nahlin 7.68 (6 matches only)
 * Brian Karger 7.48
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Andrew Silver 7.23
 * 🇸🇪 Jimmy Nilsen 7.22
 * 🇸🇪 Erik Stenlund 6.56
 * 🇸🇪 Richard Hellsen 5.94
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Alun Rossiter 5.87
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Gary Chessell 5.41

Wolverhampton


 * 🇺🇸 Sam Ermolenko 9.40
 * Bo Petersen 7.67
 * 🇺🇸 Ronnie Correy 7.24
 * Jan Stæchmann 6.11
 * Preben Eriksen 5.94
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Andy Grahame 5.73
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Andy Phillips 5.51
 * Lars Munkedal 5.46
 * Peter Glanz 4.42