Charlton Dogs

 Well I thought this week we should go to the dogs.  I guess most people now will have no idea there was a greyhound racing track in Charlton on the site which is now Macro. It closed in 1971 and the only thing I can remember about it is the traffic jams when there was a race meeting on.

Greyhound racing seems to be neglected in history books. It is said to have developed after the mechanical hare was invented in 1912 in America, with the first dog racing track opening in California in 1919.

In Britain the Greyhound Racing Association held its first meeting in Manchester in the mid 1920s and it quickly became popular.  Many tracks opened in the 1930s reaching a height of popularity in the 1940s and 50s and then gradually declining with closures throughout the 1970s and 80s.  My own very scanty knowledge of the sport came in the mid-1980s when it seemed to me to be a sport available to those with very modest means who could have an entertaining but cheap evening making small bets plus inexpensive beer and sandwiches.   The betting system was complex and I’ll come back to it - but my mid- 80s experience was in the company of a number of highly educated men with technical backgrounds none of whom could understand it – despite, in two cases, a PhD in maths!

There were other local tracks some of which have closed relatively recently – Catford for one, Crayford for another.  

The Charlton Greyhound Stadium opened in 1930 and I have been unable to find very much about it except for very scanty newspaper reports and advertisements.  However, John Smith in his History of Charlton managed to produce six pages about it and I’ve no idea what his source material was. Inevitably therefore this report is going to lean very heavily on what John had to say. Clearly I can’t write six pages here and I would recommend anyone really interested to read what John had to say – it’s in Volume 3, page 330.

The first meeting was held in up August 1930 in the site at the top of Anchor and Hope Lane, which had been levelled and a track laid. There was some sort of stand and an electric hare.  It was immediately very popular and in its first year made a profit of £10,000. The initial manager was an ex-fairground showman, Thomas Murphy, who lived in a caravan on site. He died in 1932 and management was taken over by what John Smith calls ‘the manipulative ability’ of a Mr Louis. He built a clubhouse and in 1934 it was licensed by the Allied Greyhound Association.  They also held boxing matches and all in wrestling there. 

There were however from the start objections to meetings on Sundays by the Lord’s Day Observance Society which initially had enthusiastic support from an organisation called  ‘Bookmakers Against Races’ and Greenwich’s short lived first Labour MP, E.T. Palmer. He described it as ‘the worst example of our drift towards the Continental Sunday’. Money raised at the track to support the Miller Hospital was returned by the hospital because of these protests.  A meeting was held at the Town Hall which included a message of support from Herbert Morrison, the Minister of Transport. Every possible local dignitary made a long speech about the nuisance which this dog track was causing. These speeches were constantly interrupted by ‘a voice’.. It said things like  ……….‘the war did not stop on the Sabbath.’ …..’you call this meeting democratic?’ …………’You’ll be sorry at the next election’. 

One of the most important things about the early track was, John Smith tells us, that within two months of opening it was operating the first mechanical tote.  Sadly, there seems to be no information about what this machine was.  The installation on greyhound tracks of electric totalisators is it important in that they were a step - albeit one in a different direction - to the development of computers during the Second World War.   Like the computers t is about finding a way of solving complex problems by machine.

My own involvement with totalisators was in 1987 when I was a, fairly useless, part of a team of industrial archaeologists who went to study the system at Haringey dog track , then about to close, . The Haringey machine was probably far more sophisticated than the early machine used at Charlton.  It was housed in three rooms comprising stacks of small mechanical units which were linked to booths around the track where bets were placed. It then worked out the odds in real time – and sent them to be displayed on the big tote board out above the track.  There was no system for taking it back to nil and that had to be done between races, manually, by a team of men.  It was very impressive and both the Science Museum and the London Museum were keen to get components of the system for future exhibitions. There are some pictures on the net which I am pretty sure are of the items they took.

One of our team, Charles Norrie, researched and wrote up the machine in a great deal of detail and his subsequent paper on it was published by the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society and is available on the net (http://www.glias.org.uk/journals/harringay-stadium.html).  Since I start looking for information on totalisators I have become very aware that Charles’ description of the Haringey machine is the only serious and detailed article about how these machines actually worked on a day-to-day basis and what they looked like.  

As part of his research Charles went to Australia because work on developing the Totalisator was done by an Australian, George Julius, and there are many websites about him - he seems to be some sort of Australian hero. There also seems to be some rivalry between Australia and New Zealand about the development of technology for greyhound tracks.

There was never a Julius machine at Charlton. In 1937 there was a big refurbishment. The track was improved; stands were built which were covered and heated and a new ‘Union Electric Totalisator ‘was installed. This was a popular machine installed in many British greyhound tracks but I have been able to find very little about it. I suspect it was something on the same scale as the Julius machine but the lack of information is a measure of how little research has been done on these totalisators. 

Apparently the Union Totalisator system was developed by a John Handley, who may have worked for Standard Telephones and Cables in their New Southgate Works.  He was later associated with Creed & Co., of Croydon. I have tracked him down through assignments on his patents - and some speeding tickets.  What we need now is for someone to get copies of his patents and understand them!!

The Union Totalisator Company itself belonged to John Nixon Brown (né Izod). In the 1920s he managed the Carntyne Greyhound Stadium, Glasgow, where he also promoted dirt track racing. He was later elected Member of Parliament for Govan and then for Glasgow Craigton as a Conservative. He eventually became Secretary of State for Scotland and entered the House of Lords as Lord Craigton.  His totalisator was manufactured by Standard Telephones and Cables and nineteen of them were installed in 1938, with a final total of eighty.  Presumably these were made at New Southgate - I am assured that it is unlikely these machines were manufactured at STC ‘s Greenwich factory on Enderby Wharf

The next 30 or so years Charlton dog track continued in business providing an entertainment facility for local people.  In 1934 the stadium was also used for all-in wrestling with Gorilla, Black Eagle and Man Mountain.  There were also some women wrestlers as well – I am afraid - some women’s mud wrestling. There were three race meetings a week but there was competition from Catford and Welling stadiums – and also, I’m sure further away at Crayford and West Ham. In 1938 new stands were built and a Member’s Sports Club and restaurants were added. There were races for a ‘Charlton Cup’, ‘Charlton Hurdles and a ‘Greenwich Cup’.

The stadium was closed when the Second World War started but reopened on Saturday afternoons  and  the grandstand was bombed in 1941.  After the war, dog racing became an extremely profitable business but the opening of betting shops soon meant lower numbers of customers. The Council wanted to develop the stadium is a sports centre but instead he track was sold, and sold again, to various developers. It was again modernised in the mid-60s with improvements to the stands and kennels to house 80 dogs.  In June 1966 there was a Gala opening with over 8,000 punters arriving to have a free drink and a free two shilling bet.  However the stadium did not do well particularly in comparison with Catford which was enjoying capacity crowds.  T

The final day had to come. John Smith relates how in September 1971 at a special Gala night customers were given free tickets for Catford.   It was the end for Charlton dogs. 

In 1971 I was working as a typist at Delta Metal, the only woman in a department with many men who told me about their experiences at the last night of Charlton dogs.  It was very unlike the ‘Gala’ in John Smith’s account.  They told me that the electrically operated hare ‘faltered’.  At this mayhem broke out - described to me as ‘like one of those fights you see in Wild West films’ where everybody in the room is throwing punches and breaking chairs over each other’s heads.  

I have never been able to find confirmation of this fight in the press or elsewhere but I have been told about it by so many different people at the time and since, that I’m sure it must be true.  

Greyhound racing throughout its existence remains downmarket and Charlton was as downmarket as they come.  It did however provide your legendary ‘good night out for a tenner’ - a couple of bets, a beer and a cheese roll - what more could anyone want?

And perhaps a final word about the greyhounds themselves without whom the whole operation could not have happened.  Let’s hope they weren’t treated too badly, and that they ended their days in comfort and as as family pets - although I rather think I probably wasn’t true, poor creatures!