The following article was published in December 2004 at a time when six tracks that were trading under the ‘GRA’ banner. Even back then though, the company that brought greyhound racing to Britain had technically already ceased to exist, following its sale to Wembley in 1987.

Worse was to follow two months after this article was printed when Risk Capital Partners were said to have bought the company. Clearly admitting that the senior partner was Galliard Homes might have alerted the industry to their true ambitions as property developers. The irony of it all, given the reason for GRA’s fall from power.

Although the term ‘GRA’ is now on par with a bad smell, it wasn’t always the case. This is the story of men with great initiative who brought greyhound racing to Britain, and without whose nous, vision, and ambition, this sport my not exist.

It is also a tale of mismanagement and decline. In many ways, GRA ‘is the history of greyhound racing in Britain’

 

Brigadier General Critchley

The imminent sale of the GRA marks another major twist in the fortunes of Britain’s biggest racecourse promoter.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you cannot deny that they are part of the fabric of the sport and have been since its very first race at Belle Vue on June 24 1926.
There were a reputed 1,700 at that first meeting and lost money. The second meeting reputedly did little better but for the third meeting there were 16,000 payers through the Belle Vue turnstiles.
Belle Vue, then, as now, was owned by GRA, a private company formed by Brigadier General Alfred Critchley, the ‘father’ of greyhound racing in Britain.

His fellow share holders were Charles Munn, an American who first brought the concept over the Atlantic and retired Chief Constable Sir William Gentles.
The company cost £22,000 to launch and was based at Belle Vue
Eleven weeks and 37 meetings from the start, Belle Vue were averaging crowds of 11,000.
Within a year, the privately owned GRA became a public company and began to expand with a track in Liverpool.
In June 1927, London had its first track in Shepherds Bush – London White City.
By the time that it was floated on the stock market in 1938, the 12 year old company was operating Belle Vue and White City (Manchester), Hall Green, Powderhall, Harringay, White City (London) and Brough Park.
Throughout its history the company would acquire and lose tracks, often to the developers.
Always the biggest company in the industry, GRA’s fortunes pretty much mirrored those of the industry it dominated.
There was massive growth pre-war followed by even greater returns post 1945 due to the lack of non-rationed goods available.

Clapton

The 1955 Derby Final was typical of the time when an estimated 55,000 packed into White City.
Nevertheless the industry was hammered by punitive taxes and gambling restrictions bought in by successive Governments.
For instance there was a 10% tax on totalisator betting on greyhound tracks, but none on horse racing.
(Until 1971 greyhound tracks were only allowed to stage 104 standard meetings per year)
Things nosedived further in the early 1960s when betting shops were legalised.
The whole industry suffered, however it was in the early 1970s that things took a bad turn for GRA in particular.
GRA formed the GRA Property Trust Ltd with John Sutton as its MD.
The idea was simple enough – in areas where the company owned maybe two or three ageing and increasingly less profitable stadia, it would knock down the old tracks, develop the sites and put profits into improving new tracks.
The loss of certain tracks was therefore quite within the plans.

New Cross

In 1972 West Ham went for housing. Clapton was compul-sory purchased by Hackney Council also for housing, though it didn’t actually close for two years.
In fact, nationally tracks were closing at almost one per month is 1972.
It was the year in which iron-ically, GRA acquired Wimbledon and started serious development work at Hall Green.
Indeed by the end of 1972 GRA was still operating 14 tracks.
Unfortunately, the property arm of the company continued to acquire and ultimately found itself in hock when eventually the market crashed.
Debts were assessed at £20m and dealings in the company’s shares were suspended.
It was forced into a scheme of arrangement managed by Jack Aaronson.
GRA had to put the family jewels, in its case White City. In a deal with developers Stock Conversion it went for a fraction of its true value – £2m.
In 1983 Isodore Kerman replaced Jack Aaronson as GRA chairman and announced plans to close Northaw and Shawfield, sell off much of the Harringay site but build a new modern replacement and turn Wimbledon into ‘the flagship.’

Harringay

The latter was the only promise he kept with some viewing Kerman as simply an asset stripper, others as canny pragmatist who saved the company.
What is widely forgotten however is that GRA had never planned to keep White City open.
More than ten years before it finally closed in 1984, GRA had decided to sell the site and build a smaller stadium nearby – we will never know whether that board of directors would have been as good as their word.

Unfortunately, even the sale of White City didn’t bring matters to a close.
The next biggest tree in the forest, Harringay, closed in 1987, shortly after Slough.
The former, an old stadium could have been anticipated. Slough, originally acquired with the ‘old Reading’ and Clapton was a modernised stadium.
Indeed one senior exec later confessed, “if Harringay had been sold first, there might not have been a need to sell Slough.”
Of course matters didn’t end there!

Slough

Powderhall was sold on to Coral and then in late ‘87 a ‘reverse takeover’ by Wembley – a term for a fancy merger where the lesser partner (GRA) is a listed company.
Interestingly, the GRA was valued at £68m – 15 years ago.
Since then, there have been the acquisitions of Oxford and Perry Barr and the closure of Catford and Wembley.
Now the grand old lady is on the market again – future unknown – six stadia with a value somewhere in the region of £50m.
She’s survived worse!

 

They Did It In Style. .

GRA wasn’t just about running tracks – it was a complete vision for greyhound racing.
Their greatest monument was arguably Hook Kennels at Northaw, home to the White City, Harringay and Clapton (then Watford) runners.
It was more than just a kennel. It was a learning centre for an apprenticeship as a greyhound trainer.

Northaw

A dedicated young person would spend several years learning their trade with the sure knowledge that their honesty and competency would reward them with a decent profession after maybe 10 years or so on the career ladder.

The Dalkeith Park Kennels in Edinburgh

Set in 150 acres, it had feeding, boarding and recreational facilities for dozens of staff. It boasted a veterinary hospital where many clinical and surgical advances were made by staff specialising in racing greyhounds alone.
Last but not least it also had fantastic facilities for training greyhounds. Small wonder that dozens of classic winners were kenneled there.
GRA also bred their own dogs on their farm in Kildare.
Pups were then sent onto Northaw to be assessed by trainers and then sold on, proven and seen, to any potential owner.
Occasionally the company got it wrong. As was the case with the Harringay Arena which at its height hosted some of the country’s biggest indoor spectacles.
Costing £120,000 back in 1936, it seated 10,000 people under 20,000 square feet of glass.
Its only problem – it was too big to be commercially viable and closed in 1958.
But then GRA never thought small.