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 helping to construct this page.

The city of Leicester has had a number of greyhound tracks in the past and the independent track, administered by The Leicester Greyhound Racing Co. Ltd, on Blackbird Road was situated at 1° 8' W 52° 39' N. It first opened its gates on 26th May 1928 and often joint events, with speedway racing. The track had a circumference of 463 yards and held sprints over 280 yards, standard races over both 500 yards and 520 yards, and distance races over 700 yards. The Club had a Members Club called the Stadium Sports Club when the annual subscription in 1931 was 10 shillings.

I am grateful to the former Leicester trainer David Wheatley for the following information. He recalls that the principal race at the track was the Midlands Grand Prix which took place each July. It was a 2-round event for 25 dogs with 5 dogs in each heat. Heats were run on a Thursday and heat winners went through to the final two days later on Saturday. In 1983, the final time the event was run, it was Rikasso Mick who broke the 485 metre record to win the Grand Prix. The most famous winner of the Grand Prix was the 1974 winner Jimsun. Jimsun went on to win the Derby later in the year. In 1982 the Paddy Hancox trained Brief Candle won the Grand Prix.

The bookmakers who stood at were Aubrey Chapman, Fred Mason, Eric Flavell and the renowned rails bookmaker Roy Christie. It did operate as an NGRC track but finally closed its gates on 15th September 1984.

Track Records, as of December 1936, 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 grateful to Tony Nash for providing the data.
SPRINTS (up to 385m) STANDARD (386-549m) DISTANCE (550-699m) EXTENDED (700-999m)
Leicester Blackbird Road Track Records at a snapshot in time:-
SPRINT 280 yards Golden Rissole 16.17 secs Rating 4
STANDARD 500 yards Sahara Sheik 29.09 secs Rating 2
STANDARD 520 yards Archipeligo 30.44 secs Rating 1
DISTANCE 700 yards Cregg’s Cross 41.72 secs Rating 1

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=457897&txtYCoord=306570

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

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