The Dogs: A Personal History of Greyhound Racing

225 Pages·2003·0.51 MB·English

by  Laura Thompson

The Dogs
Greyhound racing is the second most popular spectator sport in Britain
(after football), but to outsiders it has remained a mystery. The Dogs
opens this world to us, explaining the history from its beginnings, its
heyday and its problematic future, as well as unravelling the intricacies
of the sport: how to tell a good sprinting dog from a staying one, the
pristine logic of the racecard, and the unpredictability which can throw
any race into disarray.
The daughter of a dog owner Laura Thompson was fascinated by
the sport from an early age, captivated by the worldly elegance of the
stadia and enraptured by the unearthly beauty of the dogs. She catches
the elusive, unique nature of the champion greyhounds, from all-time
greats like Mick the Miller and Pigalle Wonder to her father's beloved
Commutering. She looks at the addictiveness of gambling and describes
the different characters who stand at the trackside, the dog men.
The Dogs takes us around the stadia, the kennels and the unlicensed
'flapping' tracks into the heart of greyhound racing, vividly evoking its
magic and the glamorous heat of Derby night at White City, the shine
of pride and affection in the eye of a dogman, and the punters’ belief
that they can foretell, even manipulate, the future. At a time when
greyhound racing’s place in sporting culture is under renewed threat,
this informative, funny and moving account shows how it can capture
and keep our deepest affection.
Laura Thompson
The Dogs
A Personal History
of Greyhound Racing
HIGH STAKES
This edition published in 2003 by
High Stakes Publishing
21 Great Ormond St
London WC1N 3JB
T: 020 7430 1021
www.highstakes.co.uk
First published in 1994 by Chatto & Windus Ltd.
www.gamblingbooks.co.uk/publishing
Copyright © Laura Thompson 1994
The right of Laura Thompson to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or
introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)
without the written permission of the publishers.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
ISBN 1 84344 016 4
The Dogs
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman
Typeset by ABLE Solutions, Birmingham.
To my father; and to all the dogs
Acknowledgements
Without my father, this book would not have been written.
For their kindness and help I should like to thank Geoffrey
Thomas and Frank Melville at the NGRC; Ann Aslett and
all the Chandler family at Walthamstow stadium; Roy James;
Johanna Beumer; Mick Imlah; Mark Bell; and my mother. I
am also very grateful to Paul Duffett and to Bob Betts,
editor of The Greyhound Life, for lending me several of the
photographs that are reproduced here.
Contents
Foreword ...........................................................................9
1 Facts ..............................................................................13
2 The Love of the Dog Man .......................................27
3 Beginnings ..................................................................47
4 Mick the Miller and After .......................................67
5 The High Life ..............................................................91
6 The Low Life ............................................................107
7 The Dog Man and his Boy .....................................143
8 Out of Ireland ..........................................................179
9 The Dogs ...................................................................201
Notes ..............................................................................213
Foreword
It is hard to describe how I feel about the re-issue of this book:
both tremendously happy and tremendously sad.
Writing the book, ten years ago, was quite a simple business.
It took about six weeks and I remember almost nothing about
the process: only a deep sense of surprise and delight as I
realised that I was not just telling the story of greyhound racing,
I was writing about my own childhood. Tears would drop
helplessly on to my Amstrad keyboard as I conjured memories;
nonetheless I was enjoying myself enormously. Partly this was
the sheer fun of writing my first book. But it was also, I think,
because I was too young to feel the true pain of remembering
the past. Now I find the book almost unreadable, so powerfully
does it symbolise to me the world that I no longer inhabit:
those gleaming White City nights, the yearning eyes of the
greyhounds at the kennels, the sight of my father in his heyday,
with a glass of gin in one elegant hand and The Sporting Life in
the other.
All gone, all of it: the arenas, the greyhounds and my father,
who died at the end of 1999 and who was the dogs to me. The
two became interchangeable as I wrote my book: both of them
slightly raffish, wonderfully old-style, worldly and shrewd and
soft at heart. My father and I always communicated by oblique
means—winks, raised glasses, chats over bets—so it made
sense that I should convey our loving friendship in coded form,
and thank him for the glorious gift of himself by conjuring the
world that both he and I adored.
For the purposes of this new edition I had, of course, to
look at my book again. The sense of loss was so great that I
thought I would give a year of my life for one more evening at
the old White City: a Derby final night, with the young summer
sun hitting the glass front of the restaurant and the butter curls