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Staines Greyhound Stadium
Staines Greyhound Stadium was a greyhound racing stadium in Staines, Surrey (Middlesex at the time). Origins and opening Staines Greyhound track opened on 21 January 1928, and the first race was won by a greyhound called Oojah over 55 yards. The stadium was at Hythe End just north of the River Thames, south of Wraysbury Road. Previously this area was an unpopulated rural area that today makes up some of the Colne Valley Parks. The track was very basic with one main stand on the home straight. During its early existence it was sometimes referred to as Bell Weir Park. Affiliation It is believed that this track may have been affiliated to a governing body at one stage but for the majority of its existence traded as an independent (unaffiliated to a governing body) and therefore nicknamed a flapping track. Cheetah racing In 1936 Arthur Leggett, the owner of Romford Greyhound Stadium, decided to bring cheetah racing to the UK. Twelve cheetahs arrived from Kenya in December 1936, co ...
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Staines-upon-Thames
Staines-upon-Thames is a market town in northwest Surrey, England, around west of central London. It is in the Borough of Spelthorne, at the confluence of the River Thames and Colne. Historically part of Middlesex, the town was transferred to Surrey in 1965. Staines is close to Heathrow Airport and is linked to the national motorway network by the M25 and M3. The earliest evidence of human activity in the area is from the Paleolithic and, during the Neolithic, there was a causewayed enclosure on Staines Moor. The first bridge across the Thames at Staines is thought to have been built by the Romans and there was a settlement in the area around the modern High Street by the end of the 1st century CE. Throughout the middle ages, Staines was primarily an agricultural settlement and was held by Westminster Abbey. The first surviving record of a market is from 1218, but one may have taken place near St Mary's Church in the Anglo-Saxon period. The industrialisation of Staines ...
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William Hill (businessman)
William Hill (16 July 1903 – 15 October 1971) was the founder of William Hill, the British bookmaking firm. Born in Birmingham, Hill left school at the age of twelve to work on his uncle's farm. While working in a factory in Birmingham he started collecting illegal bets from local people on his motorcycle. In 1919, Hill joined the Royal Irish Constabulary (Cork East Riding - and is documented on the RIC records as such) as a driver while underage (16) and was stationed in Mallow, County Cork, Ireland. After the hopeless failure of his first foray into bookmaking, he moved to London in 1929 where he started taking bets on greyhounds before opening an illicit gambling den in Jermyn Street in 1934. He exploited a loophole which allowed credit or postal betting but not cash. In 1938 he was the joint owner of Lone Keel who went on to win the 1938 English Greyhound Derby. In 1944 he produced the first fixed-odds football coupon. In 1954 he reversed his business into ''Hol ...
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M25 Motorway
The M25 or London Orbital Motorway is a major road encircling most of Greater London. The motorway is one of the most important roads in the UK and one of the busiest. Margaret Thatcher opened the final section in 1986, making the M25 the longest ring road in Europe upon opening. The Dartford Crossing completes the orbital route but is not classed as motorway; it is classed as a trunk road and designated as the A282. In some cases, including notable legal contexts such as the Communications Act 2003, the M25 is used as a ''de facto'' alternative boundary for Greater London. In the 1944 ''Greater London Plan'', Patrick Abercrombie proposed an orbital motorway around London. This evolved into the London Ringways project in the early 1960s, and by 1966, planning had started on two projects, London Ringways#Ringway 3, Ringway 3 to the north and London Ringways#Ringway 4, Ringway 4 to the south. By the time the first sections opened in 1975, it was decided the ringways would be com ...
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1934 Betting And Lotteries Act
The Betting and Lotteries Act, 1934 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and had three sections: Betting, Lotteries and Prize Competitions, and General. The draft bill was presented to parliament on 7 March with the provisions passed on 27 March. Overview Betting Horse racing courses and greyhound tracks were forced to limit their race days to a maximum 104 per annum whereas previously they were able to race on an unlimited basis. On course bookmakers and totalisators were also restricted to betting on a maximum of 104 days per annum. Power was given to local councils to issue (and revoke or refuse) the betting licences required and the 104 appointed days of trading must be published in advance. The racecourse and tracks were to charge on course bookmakers a specified admission price and it was illegal for under 18 to be involved in any betting organisation. The issue of street bookmaking was not addressed which the press felt should have been. The restriction to ...
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Slough Stadium
Slough Stadium originally known as the Dolphin Stadium was a greyhound racing stadium in Uxbridge Road, Slough, Berkshire. Origins and opening George Bennett Sr. a resident and entrepreneur of Slough bought and sold a cinema in Chalvey before purchasing the Dolphin Hotel in Slough in May 1914. The hotel was next door to the Dolphin ground which had hosted cricket, bowls and football in the nineteenth century. Slough Town AFC took over the ground in 1890 and Bennett became their owner. Bennett decided that the ground required more activity and after watching the new sport of greyhound racing he made the decision to construct a greyhound track around the pitch. Work got underway in 1928 with the stadium taking shape on the east side of the Uxbridge Road and south of the Dolphin Hotel. The south part of the stadium would reach as far as the houses on Dolphin Road. The opening night was on 26 May 1928 the first ever race at the track. Training kennels were established at the ne ...
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National Greyhound Racing Club
The National Greyhound Racing Club was an organisation that governed Greyhound racing in the United Kingdom. History The National Greyhound Racing Club (NGRC) was formed in 1928 and this body would be responsible for regulation, licensing and the rules of racing that came into force on 23 April 1928. It consisted of twelve stewards, one of them senior and most of them with military or police backgrounds. Any greyhound track licensed under NGRC rules would have to adhere to all rules set by them. The National Greyhound Racing Society was a branch of the NGRC responsible for the promotion of the industry. By 1946 the Club employed a 300 strong security service to ensure fair play on its associated tracks. In 1972 the National Greyhound Racing Club and National Greyhound Racing Society amalgamated to form one controlling body called the National Greyhound Racing Club Ltd. In 1987 its secretary Fred Underhill received an O.B.E in recognition of his service from 1962–1988. Disba ...
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Tote Board
A tote board (or totalisator/totalizator) is a numeric or alphanumeric display used to convey information, typically at a race track (to display the odds or payoffs for each horse) or at a telethon (to display the total amount donated to the charitable organization sponsoring the event). The term "tote board" comes from the colloquialism for "totalizator" (or "totalisator"), the name for the automated system which runs parimutuel betting, calculating payoff odds, displaying them, and producing tickets based on incoming bets. Parimutuel systems had used totalisator boards since the 1860s and they were often housed in substantial buildings. However the manual systems often resulted in substantial delays in calculations of clients' payouts. The first all-mechanical totalisator was invented by George Julius. Julius was a consulting engineer, based in Sydney. His father, Churchill Julius, an Anglican Bishop, had campaigned, in the early years of the twentieth century, against the ini ...
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English Greyhound Derby
The English Greyhound Derby is the most prestigious race on the British Greyhound racing in the United Kingdom, greyhound racing calendar, with a history stretching back to 1927. It was first held at White City Stadium, but moved to Wimbledon Stadium in 1985, and then Towcester Greyhound Stadium in 2017, Nottingham in 2019 and back to Towcester in 2021. Only four greyhounds have won the event twice, Mick the Miller, Patricias Hope, Rapid Ranger and Westmead Hawk. Trainer Charlie Lister OBE has won the event a record seven times. History file:Rapid-ranger-gideon-hart.jpg, Rapid Ranger, twice winner of the Derby 2000–2001 file:Dorotas Wildcat 2.jpg, Dorotas Wildcat, 2018 champion The first venue of the English Greyhound Derby was at White City Stadium, which had been built for the 1908 Summer Olympics, 1908 London Olympics. Greyhound racing had only recently started to take place there, with the first greyhound race only taking place a couple of weeks prior to the first Derby b ...
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The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'', which do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1966. In general, the political position of ''The Times'' is considered to be centre-right. ''The Times'' is the first newspaper to have borne that name, lending it to numerous other papers around the world, such as ''The Times of India'', ''The New York Times'', and more recently, digital-first publications such as TheTimesBlog.com (Since 2017). In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as , or as , although the newspaper is of nationa ...
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Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. With a population of approximately 1.2 million people, Surrey is the 12th-most populous county in England. The most populated town in Surrey is Woking, followed by Guildford. The county is divided into eleven districts with borough status. Between 1893 and 2020, Surrey County Council was headquartered at County Hall, Kingston-upon-Thames (now part of Greater London) but is now based at Woodhatch Place, Reigate. In the 20th century several alterations were made to Surrey's borders, with territory ceded to Greater London upon its creation and some gained from the abolition of Middlesex. Surrey is bordered by Greater London to the north east, Kent to the east, Berkshire to the north west, West Sussex to the south, East Sussex to ...
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Harringay Stadium
Harringay Stadium was a major greyhound racing and motorcycle speedway venue in Harringay, north London. It was built and opened in 1927 and closed in 1987. Construction Harringay Stadium was the third greyhound racing stadium to open in Britain. It was owned by the Greyhound Racing Association Ltd (GRA). After great success with their first track at Belle Vue in Manchester in 1926, they opened both White City and Harringay stadiums in 1927. The driving force behind the GRA, and its managing director until the 1960s, was Brigadier-General Alfred Critchley, who wrote in his autobiography that, when he first learned of greyhound racing, "It immediately occurred to me that this might prove to be the poor man's racecourse". Apparently his interest in how the lower-paid classes were losing money by backing horses was born out of concern for his valet who lost large sums betting on horse racing. Harringay Stadium was constructed by Messrs T.G. Simpson of Victoria Street, Londo ...
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Kenneth Gandar-Dower
Kenneth Cecil Gandar-Dower (31 August 1908 – 12 February 1944) was a leading English sportsman, aviator, explorer and author. Born at his parents' home in Regent's Park, London, Gandar-Dower was the fourth and youngest son of independently wealthy Joseph Wilson Gandar-Dower and his wife Amelia Frances Germaine.Malies, J. (2004) "Gandar-Dower, Kenneth Cecil", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Oxford. Two of his elder brothers, Eric and Alan Gandar Dower, served as Conservative Members of Parliament. Other brothers include Ronald, Leonard and Howard. All used different versions of their surname: Gandar-Dower, Gandar Dower and Dower respectively. Education Gandar-Dower was educated at Windlesham House School and Harrow School, where he played cricket, association football, Eton fives and rackets and, with Terence Rattigan, wrote for '' The Harrovian''. He then received a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1927 to read History, gai ...
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