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Going To the Dogs ™/ Text / Shona Harvey / Illustration / Chris Graham Whether you know much about it or not greyhound racing is for many, one of those traditional and quintessentially British sporting past times. After the recent closure of the Walthamstow dog track to developers, Wimbledon is now the only remaining venue in London. Therefore, it is only natural to question - is greyhound racing a dying sport? Is it appealing in any way to the younger-technology obsessed generation of today and its potential saviours of tomorrow? The Cut team headed down south to find out more. A freezing cold Tuesday evening in November held little promise as after a long journey we finally arrived at the Wimbledon greyhound stadium, the last of its kind in London. After initially being performers. They run 200ths of a second every time they go round here – they do the same time every time, which makes them a very reliable betting medium.What punters look for is reliability and that’s why bookmakers will always want greyhound racing in the shops. In terms of it being a social night out, I don’t think it will ever reach the heights it had, although it’s more popular in the countryside and the game is now shifting north. It might well be a case of something coming to a natural end. “ Next on the agenda was to get information from some of the dog owners but they seemed too lost in concentration to approach, so we headed outside to watch some of the races and speak to the bookmakers instead. Watching a race in person proved to be more exciting than I’d imagined. To see the asked if we were there to dine - dining at the dogs?! - we made our way to the correct entrance and were warmly greeted by the staff and management. The aim was to speak to pretty much anyone at the event and get a genuine insight into the world of greyhound racing. Soon enough we were taken for a grand tour around the stadium by one of the stewards. I was surprised at what surrounded me – for a supposedly dying sport, the crowd numbers didn’t seem too sad and by around 9pm, there was quite a bit of a buzz in the atmosphere, especially during the actual races. What didn’t surprise me was the type of people in attendance: mainly old and grey-haired working-class men. I could see straight away that attracting young people to the game would be no easy feat. Eventually we were taken greyhounds bolt around the track at such a rapid pace right before me was quite captivating and you could sense tension amongst the crowd as the punters screamed for their backed winner. Bill Cook – a bookmaker for 60 years – talked to us about the appeal of the game and how he became involved. “I’ve worked at it all my life. Prior to going into the army, I used to love going to the dogs with my father, who was an owner, and when I came out I decided to go into the game.” Bill’s perspective on whether greyhound racing is a dying competition seemed to me more cutting yet arguably more realistic in comparison to Mark’s. “Unfortunately the game now is not what it was. Around thirty years ago, there were fifty bookmakers here, and in the 1950s there was a hundred. Now you can see there are to one of the commentary boxes and introduced to Mark Sullivan, a human encyclopaedia of greyhound racing if there ever was one. His highly impressive knowledge of the game firstly gave us insight into the history and past popularity of the sport. “Greyhound racing started in the 1920s. It went through a period of just building up its status in the post-war years, and years after the Second World War was when it became very popular. It wouldn’t be unusual to have a crowd of 80,000 in a derby final at the White City stadium, and there were around a 100 tracks in the UK.” Sullivan partly blames the legalisation of betting shops for the beginning of the sport’s troubles and its gradual decline in popularity. “In 1963, betting shops were legalised and up until four! You do get people that come here to have a night out and a meal, which is nice but generally speaking, the ‘down-to-earth punters’, as we like to call them, are on the decline all the time.” What kind of people still come to the racing? “All walks of life! From cockneys to kings to servants! There’s something for everybody at this game. It used to be very popular years ago – in White City there used to be 20,000 people and 160 bookmakers. Unless you were there, you just can’t imagine the difference, it’s amazing. I can’t suggest anybody come to the game laughs but I still get a kick out of it.” Ultimately, it seems that a combination of bookmakers controlling the sport, the rising land values of inner city grounds and the phenomenal change in technology in then it hadn’t been actually possible to place a bet in a betting shop – they didn’t exist. So people could only place a bet by coming to the track itself. Once punters were able to go to betting shops, the crowds started to dwindle away and consequently, the number of tracks began to decrease. We’ve arrived at the position we’re in now where the tracks really run for the bookmakers. They actually control the sport now because most of the tracks are reliant on bookmaker funding to stay open.” Sullivan doesn’t think that the game will ever die but does believe that it will change dramatically to a sport supplying purely a betting medium for the bookmakers, not based in inner cities as land values are too great, which was the case with Walthamstow. “I think it will always exist because dogs are very reliable recent years have all made it a hard battle for a traditional sport like greyhound racing to keep going in the future. It’s fair to say that the game now largely appeals only to its original supporters and those who were there to witness the glory days of an 80,000 attendance at White City stadium, rather than the young people of today. On that Tuesday evening, I wondered how long the sport had left until it completely died out. I asked Bill what he thought and was taken aback, feeling slightly saddened by his abrupt response. “10 years, at the most. I hope I’m wrong! That’s how I feel, I’m sorry to say. It’s a dying game.”		Issue Three Feb 2009 Giggs Interview Global Kingdom : What Is Britishness Back To The Old School Fashion Sarah Maple Exclusive Young Comedians Kyza Interview Charlie Crocket Feature Chip Music Feature Lips To The Mic : Female Artists The Chrsiping Debate Rodney Hinds Careers Interview De Tropix Interview Grey Hound Racing Feature Slanguage Feature Real Life Gambling Crazy Cousinz Interview Hard Knock Wife Review Secret Style Histories Riz MC Cover Artist Feature Dels Cover Artist Feature Sofi Donut's Artist Feature Sara-Sham Savari Benoit Pioulard Emily Cummins Interview This Real Life : Smacking Damien O'Brien Interview Issue Two Aug 2008 Reggie Yates Interview Road To 2012 : Olympics Special Road To Carnival Fashion Freedom At A Price Red Hot Interview Nash Money Sneakers Micachu Interview Natty Interview Life In The Marine Corps Parents Meet The Teenagers Young Londoners Meet The Cast Of Adulthood Cyko Logic Interview Fred Butler : Prop Stylist Interview Immortal Technique Review Made In Queens Victor Timofeev : Artist Interview Ricky Powell Interview Twizzle Interview Flywear Feature Top Girl Film Feature Queen Of Nations Not Without My Sister Sky's The Limit Career's Advice Issue One March 2008 Bashy Interview The Cool Kids Lady Lykes Grimes New School Rowdy Superstar Interview The Sound Of Reason Slash Interview Hoxton Vs Hampstead Fashion Young Designers Lucinda Chua Interview Will Kay Interview The Brothers Size Chris Lambert Duane Henry Drug Trafficking Feature Does My Bum Look Big in This Life After Prison Whats Upsetting Our Children MP Julia Goldsworthy Autechre Live In London Hardcore Is More Than Music Media Box Paddington Development Trust The Cut Ica Blog The Cut On Myspace