sparrow,

Very interesting.

When Hackney was undergoing its rebuild to become the ill-fated Embassy Stadium they carried on racing but housed the punters in the old stand opposite the one being knocked down. Naturally, it was given a bit of a face-lift first.

It wasn't Hackney as soon as that rebuild began but one hot June afternoon in 1994, someone climbed onto the track at the third bend to try to stop a race. The dogs ran past the guy anyway and the result stood, as per the new rules.

But somebody spotted the guy who had tried to stop the race trying to climb over the fence at the rear of the bend. A few punters ran up there and caught him but then some other punters went after them and a right old set-to started. They were fighting each other all over the track and on the infield. I think there were only half a dozen of us left who did not go to join in.

The guy who had tried to stop the race received a right pasting but, thankfully, it all blew over inside a couple of minutes. The racing manager, Micahel Marks I believe, came down to investigate further and I said to him 'are you going to call the police because that looked nasty'.

By then the guy who had been given the pasting was sitting in a chair provided to him holding a cloth to his bleeding nose and face. Marks told me that he had already called the police but racing then continued as if nothing had happened and, as far as I know, the police never turned up!

At the next meeting Michael Marks told me that those who had chased after the race-wrecker were simply over-excited and then the rest got caught up in it and there was no point whatsoever to the punch-up! The police had called him after he had called them but decided they had better things to do. The race-wrecker had scarpered soon after I saw him in the chair and that was the end of that.

So, we went from some pretty nasty public disorder back to normality inside 30 minutes.

What a strange crowd dog punters could be!