The closure of Harold’s Cross Greyhound Stadium is a short term blow to sport in Dublin City but one which had been flagged as inevitable given the sport’s financial debt burden.
Nevertheless it still came as a serious blow when announced this week as happening with immediate effect.
There will be no impact on the amount of racing with Shelbourne Park, only 2 kilometres along the canal, expanding to race on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Places will also be offered to the twelve staff members employed at Harold’s Cross and Savill’s Estate Agents have already been appointed to explore the opportunities for sale of the site.
In a sporting context this is a blow with the history of the track stretching back to 1928 as the original home of the Irish Greyhound Derby and the occasional host to other sporting moments including an appearance in Dublin of George Best.
Best played three games for Cork Celtic after leaving Manchester United, charging a £1,000 match fee but attracting a crowd of 5,000 to Harold’s Cross when playing against Shelbourne in the last of those in 1973.
In financial terms though it does make sense.
The Irish Greyhound Board has a €20 million debt to service since the redevelopment of Limerick Stadium and with such prime real estate in the middle of the City, there is a realistic, if painful, out.
The sale was recommended in an Indecon Report for Government back in 2014 and since that time the axe has hovered.
This week it fell and while there is talk of action to reverse the decision, and local anxiety over what will take its place, there is a sense of time passing, as it did with the Phoenix Park Racecourse in 1990.
At the time there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth but now apartments crowd where once were sporting dreams.
The flip side though is that horse racing did not suffer. Leopardstown now plays host to one of the biggest racing weekends in the world and the sport not only survived but thrived.
Hopefully the same will be true of Greyhound Racing with the focus for Dublin now on Shelbourne Park.
The recent announcement of a new three year sponsorship arrangement with Boylesports, totalling €1 million is a good sign for that future.
Read more about Boylesports’ Investment in the sport
The IGB statement announcing the closure concluded with an acknowledgement of “the long and proud tradition of greyhound racing at Harold’s Cross” and that “the unavoidable closure will be regretted by its many patrons in the greyhound industry, who will be accommodated in Shelbourne Park.”
“IGB will work to promote Shelbourne Park in every way possible to ensure its success. The Harold’s Cross closure will avoid the dilution of scarce resources across two locations and makes long term strategic sense from a logistical, financial and organisational perspective.”
“Stadia are capital intensive and require ongoing investment. Put simply, IGB has not been in a position recently to invest in the future of Shelbourne Park, the industry’s flagship venue.”
That will now change and hopefully the net gain for the sport will be sufficient to ease the transition of Harold’s Cross from live venue to a footnote in history.
