Greyhounds
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Anyone know anything about this ? was apparently in local paper .hopefully its the irish fellow has bought it .
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Replies: 21
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dont know if this is good news or bad news? hope they havent done a chandlers all over again
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If it was Pascal i should find out tonight
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let us know pf .some said it was in a local paper ,but ive been through them online and cant find anything
Also ive been informed if pascal does buy it ,the stadium will be closed for a year while the redevolpement goes on .. |
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Yes that was his plan, it's not ideal really but he wants the place totally changed.
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probably the hare driver after the way he weaved norahs to the front last night
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YEEEEEEAAAAAHHHH...There is a god after all...hope its Pascal...he will show what can be done....and take this sport into the 21st century
Norah..you shagging that hare driver or what... The attraction cant be that silver tongue of yours...especially after your last outburst in the Post yesterday.....i wouldnt let the women walk me jack russel |
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The very best of luck to Mr. Taggart if he's going ahead with this, but I have to say this is a big, big swing at a ball well outside the plate.
I'd almost question the sanity of anyone paying a current market value price for the Plough Lane Midden and planning to upgrade it as a sports facility. I wouldn't have any great concerns about the possibility of Wimbledon not getting the Derby back - assuming the site does have to be trackless for a full year and not ten or eleven months - as the Board will be keen to stage their flagship event at a top class stadium in London. However, Mr. Taggart's plan was to build an entirely new stadium from scratch. That'll cost plenty of money. The punters generally attending in SW17 aren't sufficiently numerous and aren't sufficiently careless with their cash for a profitable state-of-the-art dog track to be a going concern. The track is hardly in an affluent area, in terms of the immediate surroundings (though obviously there is plenty of money in Wimbledon proper) and the rest of the district is a tip of not-especially-busy superstores, workshops and other light industrial units. What type of person is going to attend and where will they be coming from? Is there really a market for a proper greyhound track in west London? I'm far from sure there is. Road links are OK-ish but there's no tube station in comfortable proximity. (I'm amazed the rozzers don't sit outside at 10:35 as a warm up for keeping an eye on motorists leaving pub car parks an hour later.) Hotels have sprung up in more eyebrow-raising localities in London in recent years and survived, but a full-scale development on that particular stretch of Garratt Lane being commercially viable stretches credulity a tad. The one possibility everyone looking at the stadium has always been trying to bring about is AFC Wimbledon being enticed to move in... and obviously contributing substantially to the redevelopment costs, possibly by re-investing a £4m or £5m windfall received from the sale of their current Kingsmeadow ground. Getting planning permission to build a commercial development on Kingsmeadow is likely to be difficult, however, and I'd be astounded if Mr. Taggart has been in touch with AFC Wimbledon representatives. This isn't Dublin. It isn't even Enniscorthy. I don't see this working at all, but I hope I'm wrong. |
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From the sale of their current Kingsmeadown ground......
Am I right in thinking this actually belongs to Kingstonian Football or did AFC Wimbledon buy this? Zero relevance, but I've played there a few times |
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Think you are wrong...but your points are strong..
The same was said of Shelbourne and other Irish tracks The stow is/was a mirror of the don,but on east of the capital... The road infastructure is terrible...but so was any other track in London,... It is surrounded by a relatively affluent are,but a little further a field is very affluent country side and counties..edge of kent/surry/eat and west sussex...borders of hamshire/middlesex to name but a few.. Hope he buys Oxford too...lovely little track... Pascal would show what can be done by promotion and investment...GRA are a sad excuse for a track owner... |
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AFC Wimbledon do own Kingsmeadow, having acquired it below market price (Getting on for £2,000,000 or so, I think) from a speculator who bought it from the skint Kingstonian for about £400,000 but who was happy to take a handsome swift profit rather than spend years fighting NIMBYs and council planning committees.
Bord na gCon finance boys were throwing a bit of money around when Mr. Taggart was in charge over there. Admittedly probably not as much as Mr. Taggart's detractors would have us believe. He and his business associates are going to have to finance this development themselves... and they're going to have to run the stadium under the regulations, direction and auspices of our august friends from the governing body this side of the Irish Sea. I hope I'm wrong, but I just see Londoners as being a different demographic. No more likely to get pissed for no reason on a Friday or Saturday night than the average Nort Soide Dubliner, but there's so much more competition for the leisure industry pound - and the "game for a laugh" casual flutter - in London. There's no current interest in greyhound racing from what will have to be Mr. Taggart's target audience. I don't think the target audience in Dublin was anything like as far removed from greyhound racing as the target audience in London seems to be. Now if he could get a proper casino licence and have a casino alongside the track, we might well be in business. That's not impossible - in fact, it's likely to be attractive to several people in the London Authority and in Westminster - but I think it's Mr. Taggart's best chance of pulling this off. Without that, I might almost say Oxford could have been a better bet |
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Look, Norah can do what she wants or Brian Harrison will go in, bang the racing manager out, shoot the hare driver and finish off by burning the place to the ground. Did you know hes been inside
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Here we go again.... i dont know why people spread rumour, gossip, conjecture without facts
.... its basically newspaper talk again at the very most, woodmanchester's cronies trying to keep themselves in a job, sell a few more papers, why not wait until the facts come out ? #47Beckford Boy Posted 13 January 2012 - 03:06 PM Good size feature in today's Racing Post on the plans of an Irish businessman who is already a leading player in the Greyhound world to try and buy Wimbledon Stadium from present owners RCP.It is said that he and his consortium colleagues have this week conducted a site visit to the stadium and he is quoted as saying "it is an absolute dump at the moment".Carrying on he also states that it has always been an ambition of his to take over Wimbledon and put in first class facilities to give London greyhound owners a massive leisure facility.Yer man openly admits that serious dialogue has yet to start and that necessary planning issues and asking price are the key to the whole venture ,also of course we have no idea if speedway would be entertained in any such development. It is probable that if anything were to come of these plans it would involve the demolition and rebuilding of the stadium .For the moment at least perhaps we can clutch a straw or two and dream Wimbledon Stadium Has Been Sold!!! by Damo! » Mon 02 Feb 2004, 13:01 Oval Racing Forum 3 September 2005 Daily Mirror 'Stow Blow Exclusive By Aiden Magee LONDON may be about to kiss goodbye to greyhound racing as housebuilders George Wimpey are believed to have bought the Walthamstow track for £35m. With Wimbledon Stadium also a target to be sold off, the capital could see the end of nearly 80 years of racing by Easter next year |
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Missed that Daily Maxwell story... probably because I wouldn't wipe my rear end with a copy of the Daily Maxwell.
They were having a laugh with £35,000,000. Even with the Olympic Fever that would have been sweeping the manor at the time, that was taking the mickey to an unreasonable extent. I doubt if the Stow site would be worth more than £10,000,000 now. As you say, irishone, this is probably just paper talk. I don't think Paschal Taggart comes on here, though I could be wrong. He does pop up on the odd forum, however. He'd need to be offered the kip at a below market rate price and/or receive some very firm assurances from people in high places regarding future plans to even think about going ahead with this in my opinion. |
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I certainly don't know anything specific (or whether the following is in the public domain) but the organisation(s) which provided the finance for the purchase of the GRA tracks a few years ago has, I understand, recently sold it on and accepted a loss running into millions.
The organisation which has purchased this debt will now have a lot of influence over the GRA and will probably want some of this debt redeemed sooner rather than later I guess. There could be some truth in the rumour - better hope it is bought for greyhound racing and not other development. Could apply to other GRA tracks also. |
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Wimbledon Stadium Deny Closure Rumours
Filed in News on October 7, 2005 with no comments Stumble This Digg This Share on Delicious Share on Facebook Tweet This In response to the recent press surrounding the closure of Wimbledon Stadium linked to the Wimbledon Dons Speedway Team, Wimbledon Stadium categorically deny that there are any plans for closure and its business as usual now and for the future. The rumours may have stemmed from ill feeling about the commercial decision to stop Speedway at the Plough Lane track. Speedway has never attracted sufficient attendance over the four years they were at the stadium to make the event economically viable. Managing Director of the GRA Clive Feltham comments: “The decision to end speedway and move our BAGS (Bookmakers Afternoon Greyhound Service) fixtures have drawn comment, but the reality is that’s a case of unfortunate timing. They are commercial decisions – taken for totally independent reasons and with no linkage. I can understand the disappointment of the speedway camp, but we are still squarely behind Stock Car Racing – which now has 32 fixtures on Sunday’s. The fact of the matter is that the public taste has changed and for whatever reason people now prefer stock cars to speedway. Thankfully they also still enjoy greyhound racing, where Wimbledon figures are holding up well, especially when compared with competitors.” Told of the rumours that the track has been sold to a supermarket, he said: “I can categorically state this is not the case, there is no truth to this.” Mick Hardy General Manager of Wimbledon Stadium added “These closure rumours have caused a lot of anxiety amongst the 300 members of staff that we have, thinking their jobs are in jeopardy. To add to this we also have over 400 owners linked to 500 dogs and the 10 contract trainers concerned for the welfare of the Greyhounds as well as their staff and livelihood.” Wimbledon has three high profile race meetings coming up with The William Hill Grand National, The William Hill St Ledger and The William Hill Oaks over the next three months. There has also been an additional Thursday meeting added in December to cope with the demand for Christmas bookings. The William Hill Derby is scheduled to take place next year; plans are already being made for the activity surrounding the event. With all the positive activity at Wimbledon happening with new menus, refurbishment and charity events, we want to emphasise that the stadium is here to stay as one of London’s premier venues for entertainment. |
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Good to hear, I guess.
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How about a super casino and if the track's closed 2013, who's favourite to hold the Derby?
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The truth of the matter is that the majority of people have long since given up on Wimbledon, I'll be in London for a week at the end of the month and going to Wimbledon dog track is very much last on my list of things to do and I would wager nobody on here apart from casemoney(Nanny) has been there more than I have over the last 30 years or so.
It truly is a soul destroying experience to go there now. I'll keep the memories I have of seeing the greats but I think I will leave it at that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfrNW2zylXk |
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Still, you gotta laugh
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