Without doubt one of the most talked about sporting venues in the world has got to be England’s Wembley stadium. Its vast history mainly relating to football has been the topic of conversion by millions across all five continents. Yet very few know that greyhound racing was not only its saviour, or even its regular income, but at one time had priority over World Cup football.
Firstly, I will discuss its saviour, because without Mr Arthur Elvin’s investment of quarter of a million pounds, and also his love for greyhound racing, Wembley Stadium would have been demolished in 1927. The arrival of Greyhound Racing at Wembley attracted thousands through the turnstiles at every meeting, with an impressive 50,000 witnessing its first ever gathering on the 10th of December 1927.
Wembley did stage huge events such as England international football matches, the FA Cup Finals and Rugby League Cup Finals, plus many other sports, yet these sporting occasions were only spasmodic, leaving the hounds to fund the upkeep of the stadium. Yet one of greyhound racings stronghold over anything else happened during 1966.
1966 was the year as we all know that Engand won the world cup, yet what happened on the night of July 15th, 1966, could never ever be repeated again. For some unrevealed reason France’s game with Uruguay was planned for an evening kick off at Wembley, yet so was greyhound racing also. And guess what the World cup football fixture had to be switched to another greyhound racing venue, that of The White City Stadium in London. An amazing statistic in the world of football today and is clear to us all that this could never happen again, and yet even more sadly is that the sport of greyhound racing has no were near the powers it used too.
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