Excellent piece in the T

The above headerer should have read: Excellent Piece in The RP today by Bob Betts.

It takes an outside columnist to say what the inhouse blokes should have been saying for years. Problem is, though, it will fall on deaf years because it seems nobody has the bottle to question the authorities.

Spot on IMHO
No question the GRA have used and abused Punters, Owners, trainers over the years PLUS employees

It is a good article; I always enjoyed Bob's regular articles in the Life, and if I remember correctly, he was the Slough correspondent for some years.
I would disagree however that the White City closure was perhaps the start of the decline. In the late 60's they changed the company name to GRA PROPERTY TRUST, they had bought several tracks oveer the years. After the post war boom, and declining attendance, Greyhound racing itself could no longer satisfy the shareholder requirements of such a company. It was the beginning of a property boom, and to attract shareholders they focused on the potential their increasing property portfolio, instead of the more meagre returns from racing. They bought up tracks culminating in Wimbledon in the early 70's: 1972? They knew that there was not enough public support to sustain running all their tracks, and planning permission was applied for some of the track sites, including some London venues. Even then, some were doomed! The shares rose to a height of about £1.50 (£30 in to-day's values), but in 1974 came the property crash. The shares were suspended in 1975 owing to a then debt mountain. The only way then for the company to survive was to sell tracks: Harringay, White City (there was an option, and my local and favourite: Slough. There was a reverse takeover by Wembley in the mid 80's: the shares were about 12p. A couple of tracks were bought, others sold; still there were profit issues, and in 2005 Wembley offloaded GRA to Risk Capital. We are seeing the result. I bought shares at 75p in order to put some small votes for dog racing. I did not unfortunately sell at £1.50, but held out for a while, and eventually took a loss.
I am saddened by events over the years,but I think the trend started unfortunately in the 60's.

Little chance of that. Incidentally, expat echoes my thoughts about Bob Bett's article. Bob talks about the early 70s but the writing was already on the wall by then and the sport was in serious decline. He needed to go back a decade further to when the sport really was on a high. Some of us sad old men still remember those days.

Sparrow, I remember the unfortunate demise of Clapton, which resulted in the Scurry Cup coming to Slough, and crowds with it. Quie a spectacle there, all those fast dogs after that inside hare! The 'old' Reading also sold for development in about 1974, was also perhaps linked as well. There used to be regular intertrack races midweek over the longer distances. The GRA certainly did themselves and dog racing no favours whatsoever.