Wimbledon Stadium
Encyclopedia
Wimbledon, London
Wimbledon is a district in the south west area of London, England, located south of Wandsworth, and east of Kingston upon Thames. It is situated within Greater London. It is home to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and New Wimbledon Theatre, and contains Wimbledon Common, one of the largest areas...
in southwest London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It also hosts speedway
Motorcycle speedway
Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. Speedway motorcycles use only one gear and have no brakes and racing takes place on a flat oval track usually...
, stock car and other racing events.
It is a greyhound racing
Greyhound racing
Greyhound racing is the sport of racing greyhounds. The dogs chase a lure on a track until they arrive at the finish line. The one that arrives first is the winner....
stadium
Stadium
A modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...
for the purposes of entertainment, usually including gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
on the outcome of a race. It is arguably the most famous greyhound racing stadium in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
following the closure of Walthamstow Stadium
Walthamstow Stadium
Walthamstow Stadium was a greyhound racing track located in the London Borough of Waltham Forest in east London and was one of a limited number of remaining greyhound race tracks operating in Greater London...
. The stadium annually hosts the English Greyhound Derby
English Greyhound Derby
The English Greyhound Derby, also known as the williamhill.com Greyhound Derby for sponsorship purposes, is the most prestigious race on the UK calendar, with a history stretching back to 1927...
which is greyhound racing's premier event.
The stadium
The facilities include a glass fronted grandstand seating 8,000, and several bars and catering facilities including a waiter-service restaurant. The stadium is surrounded by a large open-air car park. The local football team AFC WimbledonAFC Wimbledon
AFC Wimbledon is a professional English football club that traces its origins to Wimbledon in the London Borough of Merton. Based at Kingsmeadow, Kingston upon Thames, the club are members of Football League Two, the fourth tier of English football....
has mooted a move to the stadium, after the stadium was put up for sale in 2007. Currently however any pitch would be of inadequate size and would impinge upon the existing dog track, so any move would necessitate costly re-building. Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium is currently owned by the Greyhound Racing Association (GRA).
The track also hosts Motor Racing events promoted by Spedeworth International, including Superstox
Superstox
Superstox is a type of single seat formula racing, similar to Sprint car racing developed in the 1960s in the United Kingdom.Its original routes come from the mid-1950's where it derived from BriSCA Formula One Stock Car Racing, where a smaller junior forumula was crated and raced at the Southern...
, Stock Cars
British stock car racing
British stock car racing has many different formulas. Currently, the three main branches of the sport are 'hot rods', 'stock cars' and 'bangers'. Within each of these three branches there are many variants.-Hot Rods:...
, Hot Rods
Hot Rods (oval racing)
Hot Rods or simply Rods refer to a number of British oval racing formula . Hot Rods were introduced at Hednesford Hills Raceway in the early 1960s as a British counterpart to NASCAR-style production car racing...
and Bangers
Banger racing
Banger Racing is a tarmac or dirt track racing type of motorsport event popularised in both North America and Europe and especially United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands in which drivers of old vehicles race against one another around a race track and the race is...
. The Unlimited Banger World Final used to take place at Wimbledon until it moved to Ipswich in 2008.
History
Racing was first held on 19 May 1928. The site had been purchased by South London Greyhound Racecourses Ltd who then experienced financial difficulties. W J Cearns owner of the building firm put in a large sum of money to help get the stadium up and running. Wimbledon became one of the major tracks of Britain after a new grandstand was constructed to replace the war damaged section of the stadium.Many famous trainers helped the track gain a first class reputation for good racing including Paddy McEllistrim, Sidney Orton, Joe Harmon and Paddy Fortune. The track originally held the classic races The Laurels - greyhounds and The Puppy Derby. Eventually the Greyhound Racing Association would purchase the stadium and it would hold the English Greyhound Derby
English Greyhound Derby
The English Greyhound Derby, also known as the williamhill.com Greyhound Derby for sponsorship purposes, is the most prestigious race on the UK calendar, with a history stretching back to 1927...
following the demise of White City Stadium
White City Stadium
White City Stadium was built in White City, London, for the 1908 Summer Olympics, often seen as the precursor to the modern seater stadium and noted for hosting the finish of the first modern distance marathon. It also hosted speedway and a match at the 1966 World Cup, before the stadium was...
.
Competitions
During the year there are five main greyhound events held at Wimbledon, they are -- The English Greyhound DerbyEnglish Greyhound DerbyThe English Greyhound Derby, also known as the williamhill.com Greyhound Derby for sponsorship purposes, is the most prestigious race on the UK calendar, with a history stretching back to 1927...
(May - 480m) - The original classic race for hurdlers The Grand National - Greyhounds (June – 480m Hurdles)
- The original classic race for puppies The Puppy Derby (August – 480m)
- The original classic race for stayers The St Leger - Greyhounds (October – 687m)
- The original classic race for bitches The Oaks - Greyhounds (December – 480m)
Speedway
Speedway arrived at Wimbledon in the 1928 pioneer season and a team was entered in the league competitions from 1929 to 1939. The team was re-formed after the war and the Dons raced in the top flight National League Division One 1946 to 1964. The Dons were multiple winners of the league in the 1950s. The Dons were founder members of the British League in 1965. Upon their reopening after the war, in 1946, average weekly attendances were in excess of 30,000, until the early 1950s, when the sport declined rapidly in popularity. Still Wimbledon were one of the top teams with healthy crowd figures, and upon the closure of Wembley in 1956 remained the only team in London (apart from sporadic appearances by New Cross in 1959/1960 and 1963) until 1963 when Hackney entered the Provincial League, and 1964 when West Ham reopened in the National League (now known as the 1st Division Elite League).Wimbledon's tenure in the top flight came to an end in the 1980s and the GRA (owners of the stadium) decreed that speedway would end at the end of the 1986 season. However, a London stockbroker, David Pickles, gathered together a consortium in the 1986/87 close season who ensured that the famous Dons would continue to run. They employed the ex-England team manager John Berry and enjoyed reasonable success on and off the track in their first season. After a disagreement with Berry and the other members of the board, Pickles dramatically resigned as chairman of the club during the match with Exeter in September 1987, selling his shares back to the other members. With a few reshuffles at board level and the leaving of Berry, the remaining members eventually took Wimbledon back to the British League Division One in 1991, but the move proved disastrous and with only a couple of months of the season having been ridden, the financial losses were so great they were forced to pull the plug on this once great team. In June 1991 Wimbledon rode their final meeting, which was eventually curtailed due to the weather, in speedway's top flight.
Until 2005, the stadium was also home for over 50 years to the now defunct Wimbledon Dons
Wimbledon Dons
The Wimbledon Dons were a professional motorcycle speedway team who operated from the Wimbledon Stadium, Plough Lane in London.The track opened in 1928 and the Dons operated there from 1929 until 1991. They were closed during the Second World War but upon their re-opening in 1946 there were 42,000...
speedway
Motorcycle speedway
Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. Speedway motorcycles use only one gear and have no brakes and racing takes place on a flat oval track usually...
team and was famous for hosting the Internationale meeting every season. The team were disbanded following a dispute between the team's promoters and the owners of the stadium over a large rent increase.