When Wembley went to the dogs!

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

 

A few weeks ago, during cleaning work by Wembley Park in Olympic Way, some black paint or plastic peeled off of a wall. At first the workers thought they’d uncovered a picture of a rabbit. Then someone realised it was a hare, and that it might be something to do with the greyhound racing which used to take place at the old Wembley Stadium. 

 

Sure enough, further removal of the black coating over the tiles revealed the greyhounds, and a scene which was part of the original 1993 Bobby Moore Bridge tile murals. This part of the design used the slope of the ramp down from Bridge Road on the east side of Olympic Way. Unfortunately, all three greyhounds were partly hidden behind steps which TfL had installed in 2006, as part of pedestrian access improvements ahead of the opening of the new stadium.

 

Two views of the greyhound racing tile mural, October 2022.

 

Greyhound racing played a very important part in Wembley’s history, as without it, the stadium built for the British Empire Exhibition might not have survived the 1920s. I shared the story of how Arthur Elvin saved the stadium from demolition in Part 4 of The Wembley Park Story, in 2020. 

 

A single-day “booking”, for the F.A. Cup Final, would not have paid the cost of the stadium’s upkeep each year. But Elvin saw the potential of a new sport, which had proved popular since its introduction to England at Belle Vue, Manchester, in 1926. The clue was in the name of the company through which he, with friends, purchased the stadium from the Exhibition’s liquidator: Wembley Stadium and Greyhound Racecourse Company Ltd.

 

On top of the £122,500 they paid for the empty concrete building, the company spent a further £90,000 on improvements to the stadium facilities, and on the track, lighting and kennels. They started to see a return on their investment when over 50,000 people turned up for the first evening of greyhound racing on 10 December 1927.

 

Greyhound racing at Wembley Stadium, December 1927. (From an old book).

 

Part of the appeal of greyhound racing was that it was more accessible to ordinary people than horse racing, often seen as “the sport of Kings” and the upper classes. But the big greyhound tracks wanted to keep some of the horse racing glamour. White City Stadium had already set up its “Greyhound Derby”, so Elvin introduced a competition called the “Greyhound St Leger”, which became the sport’s long-distance autumn “classic”, and a Wembley Gold Cup.

 

An advertisement for and photo of greyhound racing at Wembley in the 1930s.

 

A 1937 poster for Wembley Stadium as “The Ascot of Greyhound Racing”. (Image from the internet)

 

With up to three evening’s racing a week, 1.5 million people had passed through the stadium’s turnstiles in the first year. Part of the attraction was that strict controls at Wembley meant the races were fair (unlike at some of the smaller, less regulated tracks), so that punters could be sure the results of each six-runner race were honest, and the betting was not “fixed”. Another attraction was that Wembley always put on a good show.

 

A parade of the greyhounds before a race. (Brent Archives – Wembley History Society Collection)

 

 
Uniformed attendants open the traps at the start of a race.

(This and remaining images from an old book)

 

Some of the most important greyhound racing meetings were held on a Saturday evening. But what about when this clashed with an F.A. Cup Final? No problem, as far as Arthur Elvin was concerned. The Cup Final always kicked-off at 3pm, and there was no extra time or penalty shoot-outs in those days. As soon as the Cup had been presented and the spectators had left, 400 men (Elvin among them, with his sleeves rolled up) would be clearing the tons of litter, restocking the bar and refreshment kiosks, and putting up the lighting around the track, ready for the evening’s race meeting at 8pm.

 

Three leading greyhounds approach the finish in a tight race.

 

The original Wembley greyhound track was 463 yards long and on grass. The artificial hare which the greyhounds chased was electrically powered, and ran on a rail around the inside of the track, at speeds up to 40mph (64 kilometres an hour). Some races were held during the Second World War, in daylight (because of the “blackout”), but a number of dogs were killed when a V1 flying bomb landed on the kennels, just to the north-east of the stadium, in 1944.

 

When the 1948 Olympic Games were held at the stadium, greyhound racing was suspended for a few weeks. The greyhound track had to be dug up, to prepare a cinder track for the athletics events, and after this Wembley had a sand track 436½ yards (399 metres) around, with its hare on the outside.

 

Preparing the running track for the 1948 Olympic Games.

 

From the 1950s onwards, greyhound racing at Wembley continued two or three times a week, all year-round. It was still very popular, and attracted large crowds, not just from the local area. It was so popular that when the football World Cup was held in England in 1966, one of the Group 1 matches, France v Uruguay on 16 July, had to be played at the White City Stadium, because Wembley refused to cancel its regular Friday evening greyhound meeting!

 

A greyhound race over hurdles at the Wembley track.

 

However, by the 1990s fewer people were attending greyhound racing, and the Wembley track began to make a loss. The news that the ageing stadium was going to be demolished, and a new one built, hastened the end of a sport at Wembley which had lasted for over 70 years. The last greyhound racing meeting was held there on 18 December 1998.

 

Do you have any memories of “going to the dogs” at Wembley Stadium? If so, please share them in a comment below.

 

Philip Grant.

They’re back! – Heritage tile murals in Olympic Way now on permanent display

I am pleased to publish this 'Good News' guest post by Philip Grant and congratulate him and his heritage colleagues for their persistent campaigning to save the historic murals for Brent residents and visitors to Wembley Stadium.

 

Three sporting heritage murals on the east wall of Olympic Way, 23 August 2022.

 

It was April 2018 when Wembley History Society first called on Brent Council and Quintain to put the Bobby Moore Bridge tile murals, celebrating Wembley’s sports and entertainment heritage, back on permanent public display. They’d been covered over with vinyl advertising sheets since 2013, under a secret advertising lease deal between the developer’s Wembley Park subsidiary and Council officers.

 

In August 2017, Brent’s planners finally got round to approving advertisement consent for this “cover-up”. Although Quintain’s application had asked for five years from September 2013, it was given for five years from 27 August 2017!

 

When Council officers extended Quintain’s advertising lease in 2019 (in a very “dodgy deal”), they did get an agreement to have the tile mural scenes on the east wall of Olympic Way “revealed” for 21 days each year. This was first done at the start of Brent’s year as London Borough of Culture in January 2020. 

 

However, local historians and many local residents wanted more than that! We did not want Quintain renewing the advertisement consent for the Olympic Way murals, due to expire on 27 August 2022, so I started the year by sending a letter to their Chief Executive Officer. I asked for Quintain’s agreement to put the murals on the walls of Olympic Way back on permanent public display once the advertisement consent ran out, and in March I received a letter confirming they would do that.

 

On Tuesday I was passing through Wembley Park, so went to take a look. And yes, they are back on display, and will stay that way! Residents, and the tens of thousands of visitors to Wembley every year, can now enjoy the American Football, Rugby League and Ice Hockey mural scenes all year round. That is what they were specially designed for, back in 1993!

 

The drummer mural on the west wall of Olympic Way, awaiting restoration.

On the west wall, the “drummer” tile mural (the last remnant of a scene celebrating the “Live Aid” concert at Wembley Stadium in 1985) is still waiting for new tiles to be added. Most of the original design was lost when steps down from the then bus stop were built for TfL around 2006. Quintain have commissioned an artist to design a suitable “infill” for the triangular section (now just concrete) down to the bottom of the steps, using the same type of tiles as the original. I’ve been told that this should be in place by November 2022.

That just leaves the Bobby Moore Bridge subway. There are colourful tile mural scenes along the walls on both sides of the underpass from Wembley Park Station. In 2019, Brent’s planners persuaded Planning Committee to allow the vinyl adverts to be replaced by light panels, which could be used for advertising, despite strong local opposition. The only concession to Wembley History Society’s call for all the tile murals to be put back on display was the framing and display lighting for one mural, showing England footballers at the “Twin Towers” stadium.

 

The England footballers mural in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway, 23 August 2022.

 

Brent Council’s current advertising lease with Quintain, which includes the right to advertise on the subway walls (except for the footballers mural), expires in August 2024. Perhaps then we can have all of the tile murals put back on permanent public display. The progress we have made so far shows that it is worth standing up for Brent’s heritage!

 

Philip Grant.

The Wembley Park Story - Part 5

The fourth part of Philip Grant's series on the history of Wembley Park

Thank you for joining me again, on our journey through Wembley Park’s history. Part 4 is here, if you missed it. We are moving into times within the life of many of you, so please feel free to add your own memories to (or correct, if necessary!) anything that I write from now on.

1. Wembley Park, seen from above the station, late summer 1948. (Britain from Above image EAW018314)

After the Olympic Games, in the summer of 1948, Wembley Park returned to “business as usual”. The Palace of Industry was a warehouse for His (then Her) Majesty’s Stationery Office, storing stocks of its publications, from Acts of Parliament to the Highway Code, and millions of envelopes and paperclips for the Civil Service. A wide variety of businesses used other surviving buildings in the former (British Empire) Exhibition grounds.

2. Two adverts from the early 1950's for businesses at Wembley Park. (Brent Archives – local directories)

The Empire Pool’s swimming bath was never used again after the Olympics, and the arena became a year-round sports and entertainment venue. The Wembley Lions ice hockey team played there throughout the 1950s, but ice pantomimes also began here in 1950. Other regular annual fixtures from that year were the All-England Badminton Championships and the Harlem Globetrotters basketball matches. Six-day cycle races, and amateur and professional boxing, also featured in the programme, together with the Horse of the Year Show from 1959.

3. Harlem Globetrotters basketball and six-day cycling action at the Empire Pool, 1950s. (From old books)

In 1955, a second television channel was launched in Britain, funded by showing adverts. The ITV franchise for weekdays in the London area was awarded to Associated-Rediffusion, who bought the former film studios in Wembley Park Drive to use for making programmes. They soon had more ambitious plans, and built the largest TV studio in Europe, next door to their existing premises. Wembley Park’s Studio 5 opened in June 1960 with “An Arabian Night”, a spectacular 3-hour show which was broadcast live across the whole ITV network.

4. A cutting from the "Wembley Observer", about plans for the new studio. (From the late Richard Graham)

More building work was going on nearby, with several new office blocks appearing on either side of Olympic Way, close to Wembley Park Station. Apart from that, however, much of the former British Empire Exhibition site remained in drab industrial and commercial use, with firms such as Johnson Matthey & Co (metals) and Fisher Foils among them. Even the former Neverstop Railway station in North End Road was used, as a car repair workshop.

5. South Way, Wembley Park, looking towards the stadium, 1960. (Brent Archives online image 4841)

6. North End Road in the 1960s, with the old Neverstop Railway Station, and Danes Court flats beyond.
(Wembley History Society Collection - Brent Archives online image 9502)

My own first memory of Wembley is arriving on a chartered train, packed with boys from East Sussex, in April 1959. Schoolboy football international matches had begun at the stadium in 1950 (women’s hockey internationals, to attract groups of schoolgirls, started the following year), and I was one of the 95,000 who had come to watch England v. West Germany. We won 2-0, but I have fonder memories of another Wembley match between the two countries, seven years later, which I saw (in black and white) on a television set at home with my family!

7. A 1963 poster and 1966 programme for famous events at Wembley Stadium. (Internet / Terry Lomas)

Wembley Stadium had been fitted with a new roof in 1963, so that all spectators would be undercover. This did not apply to events where part of the crowd was “on the pitch”, such as the memorable boxing match in June that year. Henry Cooper, who lived in Wembley, knocked down Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammed Ali), but still lost the contest. The 1960s also saw a new sport come to Wembley Park, with the opening of a 24-lane ten pin bowling alley, the Wembley Bowl and Starlight Restaurant, between the arena and Empire Way. This was converted to a Squash Centre in 1974, and later to a bingo club.

8. Wembley Conference Centre, in Empire Way near Wembley Hill Road, c.1990s. (Image from the internet)

Sir Arthur Elvin had died in 1957, and by the 1970s his Wembley Stadium company had become a subsidiary of the British industrial conglomerate, BET. They set about adding to Wembley Park’s attractions, with a new hotel, large exhibition halls and the Conference Centre. This opened in 1977, just in time to stage the Eurovision Song Contest. It hosted many other major events including, from 1979, the Benson & Hedges Masters Snooker Tournament. From the 1970s, the stadium car parks were home to the popular Wembley Stadium Sunday Market.

9. Wembley Stadium Sunday Market, c.1990s. (Image from the internet)

Popular music shows at the Empire Pool had begun in 1959, with the first single act concert by The Monkees in July 1967. Wembley hosted its first Stadium concerts in the early 1970s, and within a few years had become one of the “must play” venues for top performers on their tours. In July 1985, it staged the Live Aid charity concert, raising funds for famine relief in Africa, watched on television by an estimated 1.9 billion people around the world. The “Free Nelson Mandela” 70^th birthday concert in 1988 helped to bring about his release from prison, and Brent’s Mayor was able to welcome him to Wembley for an anti-apartheid concert in 1990.

10. The logo for Live Aid in 1985, and the 1988 birthday concert for Nelson Mandela. (From the internet)

The former Palace of Engineering was demolished in the early 1980s, to make way for more modern commercial and retail buildings. Under the planning agreement for this development, Brent Council adopted Olympic Way (a private road, built by Wembley Stadium in 1947/48) as a public highway. In 1991, when Wembley was a key part of England’s bid for UEFA’s Euro ’96 football tournament, the Council decided to pedestrianize this main route to the stadium.

As part of this scheme, a wide subway was created under Bridge Road, to give people on foot a safer journey to Olympic Way from Wembley Park Station. The walls of the subway were decorated with specially designed ceramic tile murals, celebrating sports and entertainment events from the history of the stadium and arena. Named “The Bobby Moore Bridge”, the new structure was opened in September 1993, by the widow of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning captain, who had died from cancer a few months earlier.

11. Two of the tile mural scenes in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway. (Photos by Philip Grant, 2009)

Wembley Stadium had been made all-seated (following the report on the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy), so that when Euro ’96 was staged in June 1996 it had a capacity of 76,500. England played all three of their group-stage matches there, including a 2-0 victory over Scotland. Wembley also saw the host nation’s quarter and semi-final games, and the final, won 2-1 by the reunited Germany v. the Czech Republic, after beating England on penalties in the semis.

12. Fans heading up Olympic Way for the England v. Scotland match, June 1996. (Image from internet)

Even before Euro ’96, Wembley Stadium was showing its age, and with its cast reinforced concrete structure, it was difficult to make major improvements. In 1995, the Sports Council announced that it would hold a competition to decide where a new National Football Stadium should be built. The prize would be £120 million, of National Lottery funding, towards the cost of building the new venue.

As well as other English cities, a number of boroughs in London wanted the new stadium sited in their area. Luckily, they were persuaded that Wembley had the best chance of success for the capital, and the final competition shortlist was between bids from Birmingham, Manchester and London. In the end, it was the world-famous name of Wembley, and the heritage of “the Venue of Legends”, built up since 1923, which won the day!

Next weekend, in the final part of this series, we will reach the 21^st century, and see how the new stadium, and other developments, changed the face of Wembley Park. I hope you will join me then.

Please feel free to add your memories, questions or comments in the box below.

Philip Grant.

Love Where You Live - the Bobby Moore Bridge tile murals

From the “Brent & Kilburn Times”, 20 February 2020.

Guest post by Philip Grant

Dear Councillor Butt,

Love Where You Live - the Bobby Moore Bridge tile murals.  This is an open email.

​By chance, a letter that I wrote to the "Brent & Kilburn Times" (urging readers to go and see, by 24 February, the three tile murals which were "revealed" on 18 January) has been published today alongside your article, urging readers to Love Where You Live.

Like most of my fellow law-abiding local citizens, I abhor illegal rubbish dumping as much as you do. But there is more to having an environment that residents can love living in than just fighting against litter. 

Having beautiful surroundings, that give you a sense of pride in where you live, and encourage you to look after that place for others to enjoy as well, is another important factor. That is why, for the past couple of years, I have been working with colleagues in the Wembley History Society, and with a growing number of residents who have told me that they love the tile murals at Wembley Park, to try to get this Council-owned heritage artwork put back on public display.

I realise that most of the murals are currently covered over with advertisements, or with light panels which can be used for displaying advertisements. This is as a result of a lease of the Bobby Moore Bridge to Wembley Park Limited, which you and your Cabinet agreed to in January 2018. However, the Officer's Report on which you based that decision did not mention the murals, or disclose that the advertising rights were over walls with these tile murals on them, so that there was no consideration of the heritage value of the Council asset that you were being asked to sign away control over.

The current lease expires in August 2021, and I would ask you to give a commitment now, that when any renewal of advertising rights on the walls containing the Bobby Moore Bridge tile murals comes before Cabinet again, the Report must include a proper description of the murals involved, and a fair assessment of their heritage value, so that any decision is based on the full facts.

I believe that it would be possible for the Council to receive a worthwhile advertising income from the Bobby Moore Bridge, while still allowing the tile murals, or at least most of them, to be put back on permanent public display. So that the possible options which could deliver this outcome can be properly considered, I would ask you to notify Brent's Chief Executive, and confirm publicly, that you support the following suggestion:

My suggestion is that, within the next six months, a Senior Council Officer should meet with me, and any other representatives of Wembley History Society or local residents who wish to be involved, to discuss ways that the murals can be displayed again, while the Bobby Moore Bridge still produces advertising income for Brent Council. If those discussions produce a viable plan for a way forward, that plan should be implemented in good time before the current advertising lease expires on 30 August 2021, so that the Cabinet can choose what it considers the best option for the Bobby Moore Bridge from that date onwards.  

With the "reveal" of some of the murals for LBOC 2020, Brent has finally acknowledged that these scenes from famous sports and entertainment events at the Stadium and Arena 'are part of Brent’s rich heritage'. Now we need to build on that, to help Wembley Park residents, old and new, to Love Where They Live.

Let me end by echoing the closing words of your "View from the chamber" article, which I endorse: 'Working together, I know we can make an environment we can all be proud of.’

I look forward to receiving a positive response from you. Best wishes,

Philip Grant

(a Fryent Ward resident).