Thetownend.com

Off to greyhound racing the for the first time tonight at Romford.

I know a few on here know a bit about greyhounds so any betting related tips for tonight is massively appreciated.

Ta.

Don't bet on a dog that shits during the pre race parade. It is a sign that it is not hungry enough to put maximum effort into chasing after potential food (albeit that 'prize' turns out to be in reality a stuffed toy). Any time I've been dog racing it's been good fun. Good luck.

Look at http://myracing.com/free-greyhound-tips/

 He normally does pretty well

Thanks for that. He seems to know what he is talking about so I think i'll have a nibble at some of his tips. He already has a few for Romford there so I'll pretend I know what I am talking about!


soapy tit wank, nice tip! :) Thanks.

At Romford dogs as at all tracks, watching the betting is a must to see which dog is being backed, following the money is always a good pointer.
I always reckon there are three dogs trying and three dogs not in every graded race, open races maybe not.
At the end of the day enjoy your evening, drinks are very reasonably priced at Romford, and normally the atmosphere is great.
Good luck.

Thanks Steven.

Going with a guy from work who organised it. Its £11 for entry, something to eat (Burger in a polystyrene box), 2 drinks and £1 bet which I think is great value.

Looking forward to it! Going to the casino tomorrow so hoping to come away at least break even!

Are there bookies on site like at the horse racing?

We went to Belle Vue for a mates stag do, similar deal but as we got it via Groupon or something it was under a tenner. Good night out and was full of drunken hen nights the night we went.

Four bookies in the main area waiting for your cash.

I always back with the young big bloke 2nd from the right, if you hoover and dog you are looking to back is 4/1 for example he normally asks what are you looking for, reply a bit of 9/2 or 5/1 and he will oblige.

 Audrey is the greyhound man.... has he flounced out due to excessive cunt votes?

Wear a hare outfit.

Pick the one with the meanest looking trainer because he's probably given his dog the most steroid and hormone injections.

Jesus Romford is an eye opener! I got to Stratford and a guy was being detained for assaulting members of staff! Then at Romford dogs there was a group of hideously drunk women who were so stereotypically Essex it was untrue. It's another world over the east!

Great evening though, the groupon voucher is a cracking deal, would highly recommend a night at the dogs. Mixed bag as regards results, probably down overall but will hope not to be even further down at the casino tonight!

Is Blunsdon dogs track still going?

Used to love going there,good value night out as long as you don't get too carried away with your bets.

The ice hockey rink and the Raiders fans were an eye opener as well...

I can imagine. I wouldn't exactly call the locals 'friendly'!

Yes, still there - new stadium meant to have started in October but not happened!  Racing on Wednesday and Saturday nights plus two meeting in the morning/afternoons for BAGS bookies. 

Cheers Ronnie

Does that mean the speedway team still race there too?

Haven't seen the Robins since 1982,the father in law is from Poole and a Pirates fan and I keep meaning to take him but heard they'd moved?

Yeah the speedway still race. The sport is a bit in the doldrums I think, Coventry bees had to withdraw from the league. However BT Sport have bought the tv rights so maybe all is not lost!

I follow the results but haven't been to a meeting in ages. Used to go a lot as a kid. Loved the smells!

Cheers Bob

Yes,there's no smell quite like it.


 

We were promised the stadium in 2016. 2016 speedway season came and went without a shovel being wielded on site.

At the end of 2016 they said everything was clear to start construction and we'd be ready to move into the new stadium in June/July. Since then, they've stuck a portacabin on site, moved some earth around a tiny bit and now taken the cabin away again. Not one brick has been laid. All whilst the houses have been flying up around the old and "new" sites.

Clarke Osbourne and Stadia UK are notorious for being greasy little cunts, promising new stadia, selling the land for development and not delivering. We're supposed to have the backing of the council that the new stadium has to be built before a certain amount of houses are built, but no one seems to be able to actually provide any proof that this is a legally binding contract. Either the council are in on it all or they're being played like a fiddle by Osbourne as well. Both scenarios are as likely as each other unfortunately.

I can't see the new stadium ever being built and can't see us staying in the old one for much longer. The place is fucking knackered. Just wait for the mystery fire in the main stand. Hard to see any future for the Robins beyond 2017 at the moment, unfortunately. The sport in the UK is on its knees anyway at the moment.

Depressing time to be a Robins fan. At least the football is proving plenty of cheer....oh FFS.

Isn't Mr Whippy the chairman or CEO or whatever at Swindon Speedway? That'll be the problem, all the plans for the new stadium are stuck in his head. He seems to have developed a liking for providing public cover for dubious sports owners.

As for the council holding developers to what they've actually promised to deliver, you've got no chance. The developers at Coate drove a coach and horses through all the agreements they made about how they'd develop "Badbury Park" and the council did fuck all. Council planning officers seem to see their job as being to help developers do whatever they want and fuck the residents who pay their wages

And now Osbourne and co have got their mitts on Torquay United, council own Plainmoor but apparently they have been promised that a new footy stadium will be built if they can have permission to develop the old ground.  Give them five years and there will be some very disappointed Gulls fans!!  And yes Paul, Mr Whippy is on the board of the Robins - wonder if he promises the riders he will take them to the Gluepot for a lunchtime pint!

They're fucked then, he's like the Grim Reaper or Kate Adie - when he turns up, you know you're (being) screwed

That's a depressing tale,sorry to hear that.

Forgive my ignorance but who's Mr Whippy?

I was going to mention it but forgot, but yes, Torquay are next on the list to be wiped off the face of the earth.


As useless/deluded as he might be, he (or anyone else at swindon speedway) will have next to no say to what goes on with the new site. All the speedway does is rent the stadium for meetings, so the best they can hope for is to bend over and hope Osbourne doesn't fuck them about too much. The plans have been in a long time before Whippy came in, and the whole saga even years before that.

2006 Stadia UK said they wanted to redevelop the site but released plans for it without speedway involved. After some outrage from people and some drum banging from Tomlinson on the council, they reluctantly included speedway back into the plans.
The financial crash put everything on hold for years. They spent a few more years fucking about after that getting planning permissions and then kept coming up with excuses about drainage and parking and shite like that. They've kept dragging their heels on the whole thing and seemed to have planned it intentionally poorly so it would hit all these problems.

More than 10 years down the line, the sport that was struggling back then is now barely fucking breathing (that's a whole other conversation), so a lot of people barely give a shit anymore. There's no news coming from anyone about what's happening, Tomlinson seems to have gone silent on the issue.

Their plan is probably to delay building of the new stadium so there are enough houses up around the new site to say that a new stadium is no longer viable, all whilst the bulldozers move in on the crumbling wreck of the old site. Cunts.  :crash:

Mike Bowden. Although I've said he won't have any say on how things progress, he does seem to know how to spin some shite.

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/15044648._Stadium_is_going_to_plan___says_Bowden/

I've said it all from day one. I'll only ever be convinced we're getting a new track, when I'm actually stood on the terraces watching a race meeting. Until then, I remain highly sceptical.

A colleague from another hobby is a very keen greyhound racing man - not locally I would add - and is very close to the GRA _the controlling body (I think!) of greyhound racing.  Whilst we were at a social function three years ago he approached me and asked if i knew that Swindon Greyhounds and Speedway stadium was due to close in 2016?  I expressed surprise but he just said they were planning on redevelopment for housing!  With all the delays and no progress on a replacement stadium I fear for the future of greyhound racing and speedway in Swindon.

Just read a very interesting article from a page called www.Twohundredpercent.net  Entitled Torquay United: Going to the Dogs?  Tells you all you need to know about the Swindon speedway and greyhound track owners!

The enforcement of matters held in legal agreements (s.106 I suspect) appended to planning permissions is mainly a matter for the Councils legal services (the old fashioned Borough Solicitor), advised where appropriate by the Enforcement Officer and the ultimate decision to take action lies with the elected members.

The 'Planning Officers' cannot do anything without their overlords say so!

Two Hundred Percent is ace - run by a guy called Ian King twitter.com/twoht and one of the best places for investigative journalism around lower league ownership. I'd recommend his piece on Crawley from a few years back. I've asked him before about Town - he's had a few bits and pieces but never anything conrete enough for a full-on article.

I couldn't find the Torquay piece sadly, however I read the Morecambe piece on their and if the Torquay piece is as accurate I would read it with a piece of salt, not saying its deliberately incorrect but some basic fact checking would probably be useful.

They can pick up a phone. There's plenty of steps they can take short of legal enforcement action. They showed more interest in enabling the developers than helping residents, which they clearly did not regard as being part of their job.

Obviously I bow down to your considerably greater experience of the operations of local authority planning departments and intimate knowledge of exactly whether the planners have picked up the phone, sadly I wasn't there to witness.....

Oh and this is not me making any excuses for SBC, from my professional experience they are one of the most awkward planning departments to deal with in the Country.

The Morecambe piece was a guest piece written by someone else by the looks of things. The stuff on there is normally very good.

No need for sarcasm. As you say you weren't there to witness, I was and they repeatedly directly refused to help. They were lazy, incompetent and often deliberately obstructive to even the simplest of enquiries.

Apologies, probably the weary result of dealing with Nimby's for nearly 20 years.  ;)

Ha ha, probably much the same way the aresholes at SBC felt about me and my neighbours I guess :)

If your postings on here are anything to go by, undoubtedly so ;)

FWIW I am not saying that all planning officers are great, there are some horrors out there and my experience of SBC to date has not been great however there is often a lot more to their position than meets the eye, especially on larger schemes where senior officers or elected members may have had a word and whereby the Council as a whole has a position which the planners have been told to adhere to.

Its a lot duller and less corrupt than many like to think, apart from 1 high profile Council in the north west where cronyism is rife (for instance I have sat in a meeting and our Client was told (with us in the room) that if he sacked his project team and used this other company - who mysteriously do all the work in said area, he would have much better chance of getting permission) and I suspect some skeletons will start falling out of cupboards in the next 6 months or so I have never been aware of anything blatant in too bloody long doing this job!

Going back to the original topic of the thread, I like dawgs.

Oh, I'm sure you're right and I'm sure in the grand scheme of things their hands were tied, but this was on simple shit where all it would really have taken is a small amount of:
a) competence
b) giving a shit
c) being able to differentiate between "facts" and "lies I told you a while ago that I'd forgotten about and rather hoped you had"
to have made residents' lives considerably easier at little or no cost to either the council or developers. Sadly both a), b)  and c) were demonstrably lacking.

 Takes me back to the halcyon days of T Dan Smith in Geordieland.  Smith was a a character who probably thought he was doing well by the working classes of the North East by doing very well for himself.

He dealt with the corrupt architect John Poulson who sorted the planners, so the north east ended up with all sorts of hideous buildings including the notorious Byker Wall.

Poulson and Dan Smith both ended up at HMP..... but the Tory Home Secretary , one time chancellor and leadership candidate Reggie Maudling, who invested heavily in Poulson's companies...and of course had nothing to gain from their corruption, just had to resign.

Amazingly, Thatcher could bring back Maudling as Foreign Secretary, until she sacked him. Nothing has changed much now... Tory politicians will always try to do their best by their business friends, attempting to bend the law or change it, as they'll have substantial interests themselves in the companies concerned.

The Byker estate had been traditional terraced houses, much like in Swindon the Queenstown area, bulldozed on the whim of planners, politicians and architects and replaced with something hideous.

The Byker Wall became a listed building in 2007........ I don't suppose those doing so ever lived there.

Incidentally... Bovis were one of the companies implicated in the corruption, yet seemingly stayed unscathed enough to recently get a hefty fine as their new builds are inconveniently falling down.

Having lived and studied in Newcastle for 5 years and within a stones throw (if I were Goldie Sayers) of Byker for 3 years lets not re-write history too much to shoe horn in an anti-Tory point.

T. Dan Smith's (I think you missed the bit noting that he was a Labour politician leading a Labour administration who mysteriously gave over 50% of their corporation painting contracts to Mr Smiths painting company) main legacy on Newcastle is the driving of various main roads through the middle of the town, and also levels being all over the place due to the aspiration for 'streets in the sky', likewise another close ally of Poulson was Andrew Cunningham who was also a Labour politician and Union man and also did time for the bribery scandal which enveloped Smith and Poulson.

Not sure why Poulson would have had any need to sort the planners as Smith was Leader of the Council and had a close ally in Wilfred Burns the Chief Planner and between them they came up with the Brasillia of the north scheme for Newcastle.

Poulson was indeed jailed as were the Labour politicians Smith and Cunningham, I don't know much about Maudling (nothing in fact until I googled him just) although Maggie could not have made him FS as he died in Feb 1979 before she became PM, however despite his direct link to Poulson he didn't end up in nick, which does seem odd - likewise another Labour MP Albert Roberts for whom Poulson designed a House FoC seemed to get away with little censure.

The Byker Wall (which is by Ralph Erskine and nothing to do with Poulson - not even sure if Smith had anything to do with it, I supect only its early concept if anything) is a question of taste - not really my cup of tea, but if you are a scholar of such architecture its apparently a gem, yes it replaced terraced housing but again lets remove the rose tinted specs its terraced housing that had been condemned as early as the 50's but not demolished - so not really the whim of anyone - possibly the Public Health Inspector? In terms of its merit I suspect its something of a marmite building, I recall when we studied it in the 90's a number of residents and architectural historians suggested that it should be listed, if you visit the site its strange plan form and orientation makes a lot more sense than it appears in photo's?

Cannot comment on Bovis, however all the sorry case really reveals is that politicians of all colours are happy to get their noses in the trough and often architecture does not age well?

I knew those years studying planning and architecture history would come in useful one day, in those fields Poulson, Smith and Byker are the key case studies we all had to learn!  ;)

 Yes Smith was Labour as suggested by the thought that he may have been doing some good for the working classes of Newcastle, as well as himself.

 Byker was part of the whole scheme driven by Smith with Poulson's influence.

 Maudling should have read Shadow Foreign Secretary....nevertheless amazing that a disgraced politician should have still been kicking around the front benches.

 At least with the more recent likes of Jonathan Aitken, the Tories only used him in consultancy roles when he came out of the slammer.

That's a hell of a smear, are you suggesting that the Tories do not do good for the working classes, as Mrs May keeps telling us they are the party of the Just About Managing.


I recall that Smith actually wanted to rehabilitate and modernise terraces to keep communities together and the Tory government of the day put the brakes on that, hence why his aspiration to retain the strength of communities (possibly due to his being a Wallsend lad) led to estates such as Byker. I actually think you are doing Smith a disservice Poulson had nowt to do with Byker.


Can I present exhibit A, Dr Liam Fox, resigned in disgrace and now a high ranking cabinet minister, most recently seen on TV yesterday sat in front of a massive screen containing a tweet from his personal account and trying to claim that the Guardian had sent or made up said tweet.... I know a lot of people don't have much time for Thatcher with her tarnished (in some cases without evidence) legacy, however I suggest the way Mrs May is going she is potentially going to eclipse Thatcher.

 All fair points.

I'll pick up on the question of taste mentioned in the previous post re Byker. I lived for some years in Pompey, which had the notorious Tricorn Centre...for some a classic example of le Corbousier style, modernist Brutalism.

 I literally couldn't bring myself to set foot in the place.... some tried to get it listed but happily it was knocked down in 2004.

 I guess, I have a tendency to see something so gross and assume it represents corruption, in the way that a Salisbury cathedral seems to represent a higher purpose. But yes it's a matter of taste. 

I like the work of Jonathan Meades on such subjects as Brutalism, don't necessarily agree but always thought provoking.

www.Twohundredpercent.net/Torquay-United-Going-dogs/

Ta, reads like an everyday tale of lower league football club ownership.