Digital-works has run many highly successful projects exploring the history of work in London. In this project we turn to leisure, and more specifically to greyhound racing which Londoner’s visited in huge numbers from the 1920s to the 1960s after which its popularity slowly declined.
Wimbledon Greyhound stadium opened in 1928 and was home to races until it closed in 2017. Over that time it was of huge importance to many in the local community with races attracting capacity crowds of 25,000 in its heyday in the 1930s and then again in the 1950s and into the 60s. Across the country it was estimated that around 7% of the adult population bet on dogs each week and the huge stadium in White City could fill its 60,000 capacity.
There were 27 different greyhound race tracks in London with only two remaining to serve Londoners, Romford and Crayford. Wimbledon Stadium was the most recent to close and was famous as the home of Mick the Miller and held the Greyhound Derby for over 30 years. The site of the stadium is now occupied by AFC Wimbledon's Cherry Red Records football stadium.
This project used oral history as the primary means to research, record and share this heritage.
We trained 12 people to learn about the heritage and oral history techniques covering how to develop an oral history project, interview skills and audio recording skills as well as researching and developing themes and questions. They went on to work in teams using these skills to conduct and record oral history interviews with 20 people related to greyhound racing either as owners, trainers, stadium workers, bookies or punters.
The full interviews were deposited with Wimbledon in Sporting History, Merton Archives and Bishopsgate Institute.
This project was run by Wimbledon in Sporting History working closely with digital:works.
We are grateful to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for their financial support and to AFC Wimbledon for hosting the project.
Visit the project website
< homeGoing to the Dogs from digital:works on Vimeo.