SHEENE ‘77
Elvis died, the Queen celebrated her silver jubilee, the Sex Pistols were causing anarchy in the UK, the first Star Wars film was released, and Evel Knievel attempted to jump over a tank full of live sharks. 1977 was a good year, and it was made even more magical for us Brits when Barry Sheene won his second consecutive 500cc world championship.
Despite having won the 1976 world title on a Suzuki, it was by no means certain that Sheene would sign up with the firm again to defend it – or at least that’s what he wanted Suzuki to think. Sheene saw himself as the number one rider at Suzuki, with John Williams and John Newbold acting only as a kind of support act, and Barry was sick of the bitter intra-team fighting and back-stabbing.
He eventually came up with the ultimatum that either team manager Merv Wright (a supporter of the two Johns) left, or he would leave. Unsurprisingly, it was Wright who departed, while telling Motor Cycle Weekly that results might have been ‘very different’ in 1976 if Williams and Newbold had been given equal machinery to Sheene.
However good Williams and Newbold were as riders, they certainly couldn’t touch Sheene for marketability and popularity, and that just happened to be another bee in Barry’s bonnet: he didn’t feel that Suzuki were cashing in on his promotional value enough, as proven by the fact that his Japanese bosses wanted to deduct the cost of 100T-shirts (£100) Barry had given away as promotional items to spread his – and Suzuki’s – name, from
