ALAN CALVERT reviews the life and times of Bolton Greyhound track: THERE has been greyhound racing at Raikes Park, Bolton, since Mr A Pilkington's Conally Lass won the 7pm race on Saturday, December 10, 1927.
Since then management, staff, dog owners and punters have experienced all the highs and lows you would expect from the volatile world of gambling.
But until now the Bolton Greyhound Racing Company Ltd has always been able to keep things going in an environment which has had its fair share of characters over the years.
Robert Sinclair Milne, born in St Helens, was a turf accountant in Silverwell Street, Bolton, when he and his associates decided to convert the old colliery site at Raikes into a centre for the new sport of greyhound racing.
It was the country's fourth track when it opened and it has always had a good national reputation. Mr Sinclair Milne - still remembered by some of the older patrons - was a fierce autocrat who insisted that the track should remain independent of the National Greyhound Racing Club, which has always overseen affairs at Belle Vue in Manchester.
This view prevailed until the current management introduced racing under NGRC permit rules last year.
Perhaps the best-known story about the eccentric Sinclair Milne concerned the occasion when he challenged bookmaker John Hamer to a sprint for a prize of 100 guineas.
The two men tossed a coin to decide the athletics track lanes for the following morning's race.
This enabled Sinclair Milne to arrange for his opponent's lane to be dug-up and watered a little before the race, which the future greyhound boss won with great glee.
During his lengthy stewardship the track experimented with such activities as speedway racing, baseball, boxing, wrestling, women's soccer and military tattoos. Celebrities to visit Raikes Park in the early years included Gracie Fields, the jockey Steve Donoghue and somebody called "Daredevil Peggy," who set fire to herself and dived 80ft into a tank of water.
Charity events were a major feature of life at the track and thousands of pounds were raised for the Churchill wards at Bolton Royal Infirmary.
(The same spirit was in evidence in 1982 when a special Falklands meeting raised an astonishing £2,510.)
Raikes Park and its sister track at Blackburn later passed into the hands of Sinclair Milne's twin nephews, Tom and Alec Atherton, who ran it in a colourful manner until major boardroom upheavals led to a take-over in 1979 by brothers Philip and Sydney Ordman from Manchester. The Blackburn stadium was sold for development, but Bolton escaped a similar fate in March, 1990, when a Government inspector agreed with the stadium regulars and bookmakers who banded together to fight proposals by London-based developers Centros to turn the site into a 90,000 square foot retail park.
The Inspector, Mr Robert Watson, said: "In my judgement its use makes a marked contribution to the recreational life of the town and the wider area."
Later, younger members of the Ordman family took over the running of the track and over the last five years more than £750,000 has been spent on investments which include a comfortable restaurant and new kennels associated with the decision to embrace the NGRC.
But the spectre of re-development has appeared again with the attempts of the Raven Group - also London-based - to win planning permission for a major leisure scheme which includes a 12-screen cinema and a bingo hall.
The track management - faced with losing the permission to run stock cars at the end of the year - hinted in March that the stadium could close irrespective of the planning decisions for the new scheme.
Last night's announcement brings Bolton close to the end of an era.
Burnden Park, Bolton Royal Infirmary and now Bolton dogs - the old town is just not going to be the same any more. The three directors of the Bolton Greyhound Racing Company Ltd are Brian Rodden, son-in-law of Israel-based Phil Ordman, Katherine Hurst, daughter of the late Sydney Ordman and Bill Williams, the managing director. The freehold and the track are owned by an Ordman family trust.
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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