Harringay Stadium

Harringay Stadium

Harringay Stadium was a major greyhound racing and speedway venue in Harringay, North London. It was built in opened in 1927 and closed in 1987.Harringay

Construction

Harringay Stadium was the third greyhound racing stadium to open in Britain. It was owned by the Greyhound Racing Association Ltd (GRA). [Despite the name the GRA was in fact a private company rather than a sports governing body.] 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".This article has relied heavily on cite book|last = Ticher|first=Mike|title="The Story of Harringay Stadium and Arena"|publisher=Hornsey Historical Society|date=2002|isbn =: 0 905794 29 X] 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, London at a cost of £35,000. The 23 acre site had been the Williamson's Pottery Works from the late 18th century through to the early years of the twentieth. It had subsequently been used as a dumping ground for the spoil from the construction of the Piccadilly line to Finsbury Park twenty years earlier.

On completion, the rather awkward structure had a capacity of 50,000. The main stand running along the north of the site seated 3,000. The remaining 47,000 spectators were accommodated on terracing constructed on earth banking. When it opened the stadium was originally called Harringay Park.

There were a number of additions to the stadium in the years after construction including a number of smaller stands around the track and the construction of a restaurant in the main stand. One of the most renowned additions was the "Julius totalisator". This electro-mechanical computer, installed in 1930 and extended and upgraded in 1948, saw continuous service until the stadium was closed in 1987.cite web
last =
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title = Harringay Greyhound Stadium Totalisator
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publisher = The Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society
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url = http://members.ozemail.com.au/~bconlon/glias.htm
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Greyhound Racing

Greyhound racing was run continuously at the stadium from 1927 until its closure 60 years later. In 1935 Harringay held its first major race, the "Pall Mall". In 1940 it hosted the most prestigious greyhound race, the "Derby". Such was Harringay's reputation that in the 1950's "Sporting Life" called the track "the best running circuit in Britain".

Although the sport was in decline from the 1960s onwards, Harringay had a brief spell of fame when the stadium became the home of Greyhound racing on London Weekend Television's "World of Sport" between 1972 and 1982.

The last greyhound meeting was held on 25 September 1987. [Bamford, R & Jarvis J.(2001). "Homes of British Speedway". ISBN 0-7524-2210-3]

peedway

Speedway began running at Harringay Stadium on May 29 1928, three months after the first speedway event was held in the UK. The track was laid inside the greyhound track. After four years with mixed success the speedway events were stopped. They started again in 1935 and Mr Tom Bradbury-Pratt who promoted both Speedway and Greyhound racing at various venues, together with Mr Charles Knott, promoted many events in the 1930's. With a break during the war. Speedway started again on April 4th 1947 and events ran until 1954.

The home team was known as the Canaries, then the Tigers and finally as the Harringay Racers. Australian Vic Duggan was the top star from 1947 to 1950. When he retired Split Waterman took over as Racers star rider. [ [http://www.speedwayresearcher.org.uk/harringay.html Speedway information on Harringay] accessed 11 May 2007]

The huge postwar popularity of speedway declined through the early 1950s and Harringay was one of many tracks which discontinued its involvement in the sport in that period. The stadium was last used for speedway was when it staged the Provincial League Riders' Championship on September 16, 1961.

tock car racing

Stock car racing was first held at Harringay stadium in 1954-55. After a break of five years racing resumed in 1960 and continued until 1979.

The first world final for stock cars took place at Harringay on 24th June 1955. The cars returned to Harringay for the finals in 1963, 1967, 1970 and 1973.

In 1979 the stadium enjoyed a brief spell of fame of a different kind when a stock car event at the stadium was used as one of the locations for the film "The Long Good Friday".

Banger racing (in which deliberate crashing of opponents' cars was formally permitted) also flourished at the stadium, featuring teams such as the North London "Teddy Bears".

Other uses

The stadium was also the venue for the local borough's annual school sports day from the early 1950s until 1964, the year before the Tottenham borough was subsumed into Haringey under the local government reorganisation.

Historical Notes

Historical accounts paint a colourful picture of life around the stadium. Joe Coral, the founder of Coral Bookmakers started his business at Harringay Stadium and other similar venues. Coral is supposed to have come up against organised crime boss Darby Sabini at Harringay and held his ground by holding a gun to Sabini's stomach.

Contemporary newspaper reports suggest that the crowds at the stadium could also be prone to violent outbreaks. There were at least three documented incidents of serious crowd disorder between 1938 and 1957. On May 14th, 1938 when speedway racing was stopped early due to an accident, a crowd of 2,000 demanded their money back. When their demands were ignored the crowd broke onto the track, smashing and damaging parts of the stadium and setting fire to the track's tractor. ["The Guardian", 15th May 1938]

Eight years later a crowd attending a greyhound racing event ran riot after a second-placed dog was disqualified. According to "The Guardian" the crowd cquote|invaded the track and for over half an hour indulged in senseless destruction. They started bonfires which they fed with pieces of the hare trap...smashed electric lamps and arc lights, tore down telephone wires, and broke windows, wrecked the inside of the judge's box, overturned the starting trap...They also attacked the tote offices... ["The Guardian", 23rd July 1946]

In June 1957 another disqualification sparked a further riot at a greyhound racing event. Similar levels of disorder as the previous riot were dealt with on this occasion by fireman from six fire appliances who turned their hoses on the crowd. Apparently the angry crowd was quickly dispersed, but they left quite a trail of destruction. ["The Guardian", 25th June 1957]

Closure & demolition

The popularity of greyhound racing started to decline in the 1960s. Both this and some poor investment decisions by the GRA left the company almost £20 million in debt by 1975. In spite of this backdrop, the company was talking about major investment in Harringay as late as 1970. ["Business Observer", Page 12, February 15th, 1970.] However, it had also been in talks with "a leading supermarket chain" about the sale of the land as early as 1967. ["The Guardian", Page 9, August 9th, 1967] In any event the stadium received little investment and as a result became quickly dilapidated.

In line with its property disinvestment strategy, the GRA sold the Harringay site in 1985 to Sainsbury's for £10.5 million. Two years later the stadium finally closed down. The site was cleared and in its place was built a Sainsbury's store and some new housing. The only witness to the presence of the stadium is a very small area of wild ground called "Harringay Stadium Slopes" to the south and east of Sainsbury's car park. [London Wildweb - [http://www.london.gov.uk/wildweb/PublicSiteView.do?siteid=6639 Harringay Stadium Slopes] - accessible from Surrey Gardens, off Finsbury Park Avenue.]

References

External links

* [http://www.topfoto.co.uk/fotoweb/Grid.fwx?archiveId=5074&SF_LASTSEARCH=harringay+and+arena&SF_FIELD1_GROUP=1&SF_GROUP1_BOOLEAN=and&SF_FIELD1_MATCHTYPE=all&SF_FIELD1=harringay+greyhound&SF_SEARCHINRESULT=0&doSearch=Search Harringay greyhound racing photo archive at TopFoto]
* [http://www.topfoto.co.uk/fotoweb/Grid.fwx?archiveId=5074&SF_LASTSEARCH=harringay+and+roy&SF_FIELD1_GROUP=1&SF_GROUP1_BOOLEAN=and&SF_FIELD1_MATCHTYPE=all&SF_FIELD1=harringay+billy&SF_SEARCHINRESULT=0&doSearch=Search TopFoto photo archive of Billy Graham's 1954 visit to Harringay Arena with opening show at Harringay Stadium]
* [http://members.ozemail.com.au/~bconlon/glias.htm The Julius Totalisator at Harringay Stadium]
* [http://members.ozemail.com.au/~bconlon/filmclip.htm Video clips of Julius Totalisator]
* [http://www.oldstox.com/ Photo archive of the early days of English stock-car racing, including Harringay, 1955 - 1975]
*Details of some of the Haringay speedway activity can be viewed on [http://www.speedwayresearcher.org.uk The Speedway Researcher]
* [http://www.harringayonline.com harringay online.com] - a local networking site with lots of information about Harringay


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