Romford Greyhound Stadium Guide

Currently known as Coral Romford Greyhound Stadium because of its association with the bookmaker Coral, Romford Greyhound Stadium opened its doors for the first time in 1929 and has a capacity of over 4,000. The venue was named Racecourse of the Year by the British Greyhound Racing Board in both 1998 and 2003, with other awards being given to it over the years.

If you’re a fan of random facts, then here’s on for you: Despite being from Cardiff, the band Underworld have named several of their songs after dogs that ran at the stadium. This includes arguably their best-known hit, Born Slippy. Because of the closure of Walthamstow Stadium in 2008, the Romford track is the last remaining one on East London.

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Race Days & Times

You can watch racing at Romford Greyhound Stadium six times a week. The venue opens on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings. On top of this, you can also go to meetings on Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings, so there will almost certainly be a time in the week when you can enjoy watch dog racing here.

On Mondays, doors open at 6pm because the first race is at the enjoyably odd time of 6.39pm. On Wednesdays and Fridays, its doors at 5.30pm and the first race gets underway at 6.36pm, give or take. On Saturday mornings, you’ll be able to enter the stadium from 10am and the first dogs are off at 10.31am, whilst in the evenings, the racing starts at 7.30pm, so the doors open at 6.15pm. Finally, Thursday’s racing gets underway at 2.08pm and the doors open at 12.30pm.

Visiting

  • Ticket Prices: There are two different enclosures at Romford Greyhound Stadium: The Main Enclosure and the Millennium Enclosure. The latter is only open on Friday and Saturday evenings and both nights cost £7 for the Main Enclosure or £5 for the Millennium Enclosure. Head there any other time and you’ll get in for free.
  • Getting There: Romford Greyhound Stadium is located on the A118 – not far from the centre of town. It’s around 15-minutes from Junction 28 of the M25. If you prefer public transport, then you’re looking at a 5-minute car journey from Romford Train Station or you can get bus number 86 from the centre of town to right next to the venue.
  • Parking There is a car park here but there aren’t loads of spaces. It’s free to park in but it’s very much a ‘first come, first served’ scenario.

History

In 1929, a man named Archer Leggett and his brother-in-law spent £400 equipping land off London Road in Romford ready for it to become a greyhound track. It opened for the first time on the 21st of June that year with a hare driven around the track by an old Ford engine and they invited private greyhound owners around to race there. Sadly, by 1930, the venture came to an end when the landlord of the space doubled the rent to £4 a week and they couldn’t afford to pay it.

They paid then raised £600 and built another track opposite the original one, complete with a totalisator that was operated by hand and a hare that was driven electronically. This track had its first meeting on the 20th of September 1931 and the punters loved it; meetings regularly welcomed more than 1000 people. In 1937, four directors joined the enterprise and brought £17,000 worth of investment with them. Suddenly, a relatively modest track turned into a proper stadium with stands and kennels.

In 1937 the track was the location for one of the sport’s more interesting experiment. The year before Arthur Leggett had been able to obtain twelve cheetahs from Kenya with an aim to seeing them race. On Saturday the 11th of December 1937 they did so for the first time. It didn’t work and the experiment was only tried once more before it was abandoned altogether. If racing against greyhounds the cheetahs had to be released before the dogs, but if they only raced each other then they got bored and didn’t both chasing the lure. It ended up with the punters feeling they were being cheetahed.

In the post-war era there were numerous minor comings and goings at the stadium, with different trainers brought in and races introduced. It was in 1976 when things took a particularly interesting turn, though, when Leggett agreed the sale of the venue to Coral. They poured money into making it one of the best greyhound tracks around, building a new state-of-the-art grandstand and replacing the tote and the hare system that was being used. The year after the takeover a dog named Go Ahead Girl from the local area won seventeen races in a row for trainer Terry Duggan. To this day leading trainers continue to frequent the track.

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