Peterborough Greyhound Stadium Guide

Peterborough Greyhound Stadium is actually located in the Fengate area of the Cathedral city. To be fair, that’s less than a mile from Peterborough centre, so we’re probably just picking hairs in pointing out. Still, we like to be precise! It opened in 1931 within the city’s historic area known as the Liberty of Peterborough.

The management of the stadium are rightly proud of its history, but they’re just as keen to show off about what’s going on there now. There are several areas you can watch the racing from, including the grandstand, the restaurant and some posh suites that welcome up to 52 guests in each. There’s even a pizza & pasta restaurant if you’re in an Italian mood.

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Race Days & Times

The chief meetings at Peterborough Greyhound Stadium take place on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights. Interestingly, it is (at the time of writing at least) one of the few dog racing venues around the country that doesn’t engage in Bookmakers Afternoon Greyhound Services. That means that it’s not open for racing at any other time of day, but on the flip side, it is available for hire!

When it comes to timings they’ve kept things nice and simple. On Wednesdays, the doors open at 6.30pm and the first race gets underway at about 7.25pm. Doors open at the same time on Friday night with the racing starting at 7.30pm. The first race is also at 7.30pm on Saturday evenings but the doors open a little earlier; you can get the part started from 6pm on a Saturday.

Visiting

  • Ticket Prices: Obviously, prices differ depending on where in the stadium you’d like to go, with regular offers available for restaurant tickets and so on. Standard grandstand tickets are £5 for adults, which includes a Race Card. For twelve to seventeen year-olds, it’s £3 and it’s just £1 for kids under eleven. If you book online, then you’ll get £1 off the price, too.
  • Getting There: Fengate is not far from central Peterborough and the stadium is just off the A1139 for those of you heading there in the car. If you’re after some public transport options, then bus number 61 stops reasonably nearby. Peterborough Train Station is about 30-minutes walk, depending on your pace.
  • Parking There is a car park here for customers to use.

History

The area of land chosen for the Peterborough Racing Club to use for their greyhound racing stadium was directly North of a sewage pump station owned by Peterborough Corporation (a good excuse for punters to say their dogs were garbage if they didn’t perform well). The doors were opened for the first time on the 4th of April in 1931 and twelve races took place under the watchful eye of the Managing Director, G Hooke.

To begin with, the venues witnessed both greyhound and whippet racing and meetings took place every Monday and Saturday. Despite the facilities being rather basic, including the hare being sent around the track thanks to the power of two blokes cycling, 400 people turned up the second ever meeting. The crowds grew up to around 700 before the races were suspended after the outbreak of the Second World War.

In 1945, after the war had ended, the track was bought by a garage owner by the name of George Ellingworth and Reg Perkins, whose family ran a farming and transportation business. Their first job was to improve the facilities and their decision was perfectly timed – in 1947, the totalisator managed a turnover of just shy of £50,000. It was an independently run track, separate from the governance of the National Greyhound Racing Club, but that didn’t make it any less popular with the locals. With licensed bars, refreshments and bookies in resident on the course it was the place to be for folk living in and around Peterborough.

In 1982, Rex and David Perkins, who had taken over the running of the course from their dad five years earlier, decided to take advantage of the NGRC permit scheme that was in effect at the time. The scheme allowed the smaller stadia around the country to run races under the NGRC rules but at a reduced rate. That was key to the stadium’s development and, in 1983, the Peterborough Derby was introduced.

In 1988, numerous renovations were completed to the stadium, including the installation of a new grandstand and restaurant. Eleven years later a fire at a nearby warehouse spread to the course and did damage to numerous parts of it, resulting in the venue having to close for six months whilst it was rebuilt. The Perkins family remain in charge of running the stadium to this day.

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