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Post by BVADMIN on Apr 23, 2022 23:46:29 GMT
 Sports & Betting History by Best Betting Sites
The Australian Cricket team at Kinsley Greyhound Stadium (2001). |
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Post by BVADMIN on Jul 11, 2022 22:54:15 GMT
Sports & Betting History by Best Betting Sites
Hackney greyhound sales, 1968.
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Post by SALFORD GIRL on Aug 23, 2022 8:19:14 GMT
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Post by SALFORD GIRL on Aug 27, 2022 9:10:15 GMT
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Post by BVADMIN on Nov 10, 2022 23:10:53 GMT
BLACKPOOL Rugby League and Greyhound Racing Stadium
on Princess Street, Blackpool. 1963-1997
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Post by topcat on Nov 27, 2022 9:05:16 GMT
THE GREYHOUND RACING TIMES WEBSITE is a great read.
It's always great to look back in time.
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Post by BVADMIN on Dec 19, 2022 11:19:15 GMT
Where did those 24 years go?
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Post by BVADMIN on Jan 25, 2023 0:02:52 GMT
 
The race in question was won by Zanzy Token from Trap 1 and as such it brought to an end forty four years of racing at the south Birmingham track. As a twelve year old schoolboy at a nearby school I had managed to escape in time to see the last two races and as is usual in these situations the place was packed.
The story of Kings Heath is an interesting one and it was very much a pioneer in many things that we now take for granted, although sadly its closure when viewed with fifty years of hindsight was very much a warning of what would unfold over the next half century of racing in this country.
The track ran its first race on the 21st May 1927 and was the third greyhound track to be opened in the UK, putting it ahead of both Hall Green and Perry Barr, it was leased by British Greyhound Sports Club until 1936 who also opened stadiums in Sheffield, Bristol, Hull and Blackpool, when the lease was transferred to Leo Craven who eventually purchased the land in 1949 for Kings Heath Racecourse Ltd.
Sadly there were fires in 1933 which destroyed the south stand and then in 1939 which damaged the home kennels.
Kings Heath was often at the fore front of introducing modern technology such as photo finish equipment in 1947, along with an inside rail watering system, undersoil track heating, electronic totalisator, and chromotography, but most revolutionary at the time was the change from turf to sanded bends an idea of local owner Joe Haydon in the late 1960’s.
In 1967 Kings Heath was one of the four original tracks to sign up to join the new Bookmakers Afternoon Greyhound Service following changes in UK betting law.
1969 saw an attempt by a leading bookmaker to purchase the stadium but this offer was not allowed by the then ruling National Greyhound Racing Club.
The end was signaled by the purchasing of the site by the GRA (known at the time as Greyhound Property Trust Ltd) in late 1970. The cost to the GRA was £212,000 but surprisingly a bid of £225,00 from BAGS three days earlier was rejected, if this had succeeded maybe the track would still be operating today.
The track closed in March 1971 and the GRA sold on the site for housing almost immediately, a scenario which we are all too familiar with, who could have imagined at that time that fifty years on how many other tracks would follow a similar sad path. |
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Post by BVADMIN on Jan 25, 2023 15:05:00 GMT
Sports & Betting History by Best Betting Sites
Manchester White City Stadium in the 1950s (R JRowe Collection)
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Post by SALFORD GIRL on Feb 3, 2023 7:06:02 GMT
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