HALL GREEN GREYHOUND STADIUM

This site is not an official website for the track shown here and is neither approved or endorsed by the stadium. I am indebted to Richard English for the scans of badges on this page.

Greyhound racing has taken place in Birmingham, notably Hall Green and Perry Barr, since 1927. The track is situated at 1° 50' W 52° 26' N and held its inaugural meeting on 24th August 1927 making it one of the first tracks in the country. In 1931 racing was administered by The Greyhound Racing Association Ltd under the Directorship of Major-General The Lord Loch. The track as a circumference of 500 yards and in 1931 held races on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday evenings. There was a Members Club, called The Hall Green Sports Club, which was fullt Licensed and had extensive restaurant facilities, all for just 18 shillings and 6 pence per year, or half a crown for Ladies.

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Hall Green hosts the Midland Flat championship over 474 metres and a number of greyhounds from the track have triumphed in the Greyhound Derby, notably those trained in the 1980's by Geoff De Mulder. In 1999 the Blue Riband Stakes, which had been contested at Wembley since 1981, transferred to Hall Green and the inaugural running was won by Droopys Merson. A full list of results is shown below.

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Track Records, as of 1947, are shown below together with an indication of how fast the time is in comparison to other tracks, both for currently open and defunct tracks, in the UK. Ratings are between 0 and 100, where 100 is an extremely fast time and reflects the speed of the track, tightness of the circuit and quality of greyhound visiting the tracks. I am extremely grateful to Tony Nash for providing the data.
SPRINT (up to 385m) STANDARD (386-549m) DISTANCE (550-699m) EXTENDED (700-999m)
Hall Green Track Records at a snapshot in time:-
STANDARD 500 yards Demotic Mack 28.30 secs Rating 18 17th June 1937
DISTANCE 700 yards Sheehan 40.58 secs Rating 15 2nd April 1938

Track Records, as of September 2014, are shown below together with an indication of how fast the time is in comparison to other tracks, both for currently open and defunct tracks, in the UK. Ratings are between 0 and 100, where 100 is an extremely fast time and reflects the speed of the track, tightness of the circuit and quality of greyhound visiting the tracks.
SPRINTS (up to 385m) STANDARD (386-549m) DISTANCE (550-699m) EXTENDED (700-999m)
Hall Green Track Records at a snapshot in time:-
SPRINT 258 metres Ballymac Denis 15.12 secs. Rating 59 18th April 2012
STANDARD 480 metres Eye On The Storm 28.02 secs Rating 63 13th April 2010
DISTANCE 670 metres Fearless Lynx 40.44 secs Rating 51 4th February 1995
EXTENDED 892 metres Head Iton Jordan 55.24 secs Rating 43 27th March 2007

I am grateful to Jon Seddon for the following link to a map showing the whereabouts of the old track
http://www.old-maps.co.uk/maps.html?txtXCoord=410956&txtYCoord=282251

This section gives a comprehensive picture of the badges produced by the track throughout the ages, but only provides the briefest of glimpses of its history. For those wishing to undertake further research we can recommend a visit to

http://astore.amazon.co.uk/wwwgreyhoundd-21 where further reading can be undertaken.

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I am grateful to Chris Pitt for the scans of the racecards shown below.

If you have rare Hall Green badges and artefacts for sale then email johnslusar@fsmail.net

Blue Riband Stakes (480 metres transferred from Wembley)
1999 Droopys Merson
2000 Vintage Cleaner
2001 Hollinwood Chief
2002 Hollinwood Wiz
2003 Farloe Verdict
2004 Droopys Oasis
2005 Tuttles Ronaldo
2006 Westmead Joe
2007 Iceman Vader
2008 Farloe Reason
2009 Blonde Fern
2010 Eye Onthe Storm