Dog Racing in Manchester

Tell someone that you think they’ve ‘gone to the dogs’ and they will likely be extremely offended. That is largely because the sport of greyhound racing has nose-dived in terms of popularity over the years, with as many as 70 million people attending course in the 1940s, when racing was at its peak. Nowadays, however, the Greyhound Board of Great Britain estimates that fewer than two million people went to a licensed track in 2019. Manchester was one of the big victims of this drop-off of the sport’s popularity, with Belle Vue once one of the country’s most important courses and now no longer in existence. With that in mind, what do you do if you want to watch dog racing in the city?

Licensed Greyhound Stadiums

Here is a look at the 20 stadiums around the United Kingdom that are licensed to host greyhound racing by the Greyhound Board of Great Britain:

• Brighton & Hove Stadium
• Central Park Stadium (Sittingbourne)
• Crayford Stadium (London)
• Doncaster Stadium
• Harlow Stadium
• Kinsley Stadium
• Monmore Green Stadium (Wolverhampton)
• Newcastle Stadium
• Nottingham Stadium
• Oxford Stadium
• Owlerton Stadium (Sheffield)
• Pelaw Grange (Chester-le-Street)
• Perry Barr Stadium (Birmingham)
• Romford Stadium (London)
• Suffolk Downs (Mildenhall)
• Sunderland Stadium
• Swindon Stadium
• Towcester Stadium
• Valley Stadium (South Wales)
• Yarmouth Stadium

There is also just one active independent stadium, which is located in Thornton in Scotland.

Dog Track Near Manchester

The more eagle-eyed amongst you will no doubt have realised that there don’t appear to be any stadiums located in Manchester, either licensed or independent. In other words, if you’d like to go and spend an evening at the dogs then you’re going to have to leave the city of Manchester in order to do so. Not only that, but you’re going to have to travel quite some distance in order to be able to enjoy yourself.

Don’t be fooled by the presence of Chester-le-Street on that list either; it isn’t the Chester located not far from Manchester but is instead in County Durham, closer to Newcastle than it is to Greater Manchester. We won’t even bother looking at the likes of London, Towcester or South Wales, but in terms of the places that are slightly closer, here is how long each of them would take to get to from Manchester on the road, roughly speaking:

Track	Approx Distance as Crow Flies	Rough Time on Road
Owlerton Stadium	32 miles	1 hour
Doncaster Stadium	45 miles	1 hour 10 minutes
Nottingham Stadium	58 miles	1 hour 50 minutes
Monmore Green	62 miles	1 hour 40 minutes
Perry Barr Stadium	70 miles	2 hours

In other words, if you wanted to go on a night out to the dogs and were comfortable driving, which means that you wouldn’t be able to imbibe any alcohol, then the shortest distance that you’d be looking at would be around an hour to get to Sheffield. A two-hour round-trip for the purpose of going to a dog track doesn’t seem like the most exciting way to spend your time. You would be entirely forgiven for thinking that, realistically, the closure of Belle Vue Stadium means that going to the dogs isn’t really something that is available to those that live in Manchester anymore, which is obviously something of a crying shame.

Owlerton Stadium – Closest Dog Track to Manchester

If you think that you’re ok doing the one-hour drive out to Owlerton Stadium in order to get your fix of dog racing as a Manchester resident, you might just want to know a little more about the venue itself. Also known as Sheffield Stadium, it was actually built in order to host speedway racing back in the 1920s. Unsurprisingly for Sheffield, there was a steel works and a steel forge surrounding it. When it opened, it was the city’s second oval greyhound racing track, with Darnall Stadium having already opened a couple of years before. The greyhound racing itself began officially in 1932, with the stands being altered to ensure good visibility of the greyhounds.

Nowadays the track is considered to be the premier venue for dog racing in the local area, with its convenient location close to Sheffield city centre making it a popular place for people to go. There are three bars from which you can enjoy some of the best views of the track, as well as numerous places to buy a bite to eat. With speedway and stock car racing also continuing to take place at Owlerton Stadium, it is seen as something of a multi-purpose venue that promises entertainment of numerous different types. The good news for those of you driving from Manchester is that there is a car park on-site with room for 400 cars.

Belle Vue – Manchester’s Once Great Stadium

Those that know about greyhound racing will happily talk to you for hours about Belle Vue Stadium, such was the extent to which it was loved and revered by those in the sport. Located in the Belle Vue area of the city from which it took its name, it opened its doors for the first time in 1926 when it was owned and operated by the Greyhound Racing Association. With luxury glass-fronted grandstands, hospitality boxes, restaurants and bars, it was a great place for punters to head to in order to enjoy some greyhound racing action. As is common for such venues, it also hosted speedway events when the greyhounds weren’t running.

Belle Vue’s place in the hearts of greyhound racing lovers in the United Kingdom comes from the fact that it was the first place in the country to host racing around an oval track. That was on the 24th of July, 1926, when just shy of 2,000 people turned up to see a dog called Mistley win a race over 440 yards. There were six races with seven dogs in each run on that first day and in the years that followed, racing’s popularity around the country grew and grew. Some big races were run at Belle Vue, with the likes of the Northern Flat, the Oaks and the Cock o’ the North hosted by the famous old racing track.

In 2014, the National Asset Management Agency, who owned the GRA at the time, sold the stadium to the Crown Oil Pension Fund for £2.6 million. Although the Greyhound Racing Association continued to manage it for the next few years, a decision was taken to sell the lease to Arena Racing Company in the October of 2019. That was the beginning of the death of racing at the stadium, with ARC confirming in the August of the following year that it was to be sold for housing. The last race was to take place on the sixth of June 2020, but the arrival of Covid-19 saw racing finish at the stadium even earlier than planned. A sad end to a once glorious greyhound arena.