Eastville: From the glory of greyhound racing to ... Ikea

Lost Tracks / Darrell Williams / 22 January 2008 / Leave a Comment

Darrell Williams continues the Lost Tracks series with a look back at Bristol

Just over ten years have passed since greyhound racing was staged at Bristol for the final time and the site became home to an IKEA store.

The Eastville Stadium in the north part of the city had originally been used for rugby in the 1890s before Bristol Rovers FC acquired it in 1897. Greyhounds didn't play their part until 16th June 1928 when that Saturday evening a dog called Vivacious collected £20 for connections when he won the track's very first race. For its first four years, the track staged racing without a totalisator system, which was introduced in July 1932.

With the football club in financial trouble in 1939, the stadium was sold to the Bristol Greyhound Company, albeit by the chairman, who carried out the deal without the knowledge of his fellow directors who wanted to withdraw the offer. However, with the greyhound company adamant it go ahead, Eastville changed hands for £12,000.

Greyhound racing continued unabated throughout the war years, racing on a Saturday afternoon with crowds in excess of 4,000 before the heady days in the late 40s with regular attendances of 6,000 and over 60 bookmakers standing.

Bristol introduced the Golden Crest in 1943, one of the most important races in the provincial calendar, and won two years in a row by the Leslie Reynolds-trained Shannon Shore, who romped home by ten lengths. In 1952, Rushton Smutty, winner of numerous big races, became one of the race's fastest winners, while 1970 Greyhound of the Year Moordyke Spot was another notable winner.

The stadium also hosted the Western Produce Stakes, won in 1948 by the bitch Narrogar Ann, who would later win the Derby.

Bristol became one of the first circuits to abandon grass, becoming sand based in 1968, while in 1977 speedway was staged, with the bikes using the actual greyhound circuit to race on, which amazingly was dug up, and then re-laid each time!

In August 1980, the majority of the South Stand was destroyed by fire, causing more than £1million worth of damage.

Bristol made its BAGS debut in November 1980, and along with Hackney, became the backbone of the betting shop service. It would stay on BAGS until its eventual closure seventeen years later. Desert Wishes, trained by Mervyn Osbourne, became one of the most popular runners at the track in the late eighties. The A1 regular was noted for his party trick of turning around just after the winning line and completing a lap of honour!

When Bristol Rovers moved out in 1986, the track added an extra meeting, but on 27th October 1997 at 4.37pm, the popular cry of 'hare's running Bristol' was heard for the final time in the nation's betting shops. The BS Group, who owned the track, switched the entire operation, including trainers, like Terry Kibble, Ron Dix, Marjorie Millard and Peter Swadden, plus the racing office staff and even the bookmakers forty miles up the M4 to newly acquired Swindon, who took on the bulk of Bristol's BAGS commitments.