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Post by youtubefiend on Jan 21, 2011 11:56:45 GMT 1
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Post by haflinger121 on Jan 21, 2011 20:21:39 GMT 1
Some interesting info there ytf, quite a bit of it that I'd not heard before. As I have yet to establish exactly where 'The Dog Field' actually was, 'fraid I can't confirm that Perry Hill is the place but it could well be. I note that both the Reville biog and a couple of others I looked at just for interest, refer to photos that I can't see - did you have them come up when you looked?
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Post by youtubefiend on Jan 22, 2011 13:07:53 GMT 1
There were no photos on the link I gave for Jean Reville. What other sites do you mean and (as I am certain our site colleagues will) I'll have a look as well cos it might just be the system you use. Jean Reville was ceratinly a great character but it would seem injury ended his career as he would have been an even bigger name in the seasons from 1936 to when the war began in September 39. Is the 'dog field' detailed anywhere I wonder and I may do google maps for Perry Hill (is it Catford or really Forest Hill)? to try and find it but I also read that Dom Kaye (or Keye) was the promoter there and not Reville as the latter's biography seems to imply.
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Post by youtubefiend on Jan 22, 2011 13:13:23 GMT 1
No such place as 'dog field' comes up for Catford on googlemaps and it does show Perry Vale and Perry Hill but nothing that could be or was a stadium so far as I can see so where did the midgets race and so near to Crystal palace anyhow.
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Post by haflinger121 on Jan 23, 2011 2:56:51 GMT 1
I would just remind you, ytf, that this topic has already been discussed under the Round The Tracks section where the topic line is Two tracks in Catford London. In it, we have speculated that the promoter at Dog Field might have been Kaye Don.
I have also recently been checking maps, or at least, the ancient 1970 edition of the London A-Z I keep for such things, as it is old enough to still show many of the city's now lost raceways and stadiums. I've also found Perry Rise and, as you say, no obvious sites nearby for a track. I don't think we're looking for a stadium though, I reckon it really was just not much more than a field, if indeed it was ever more than that. And alongside Perry Hill - at least in 1970 - there are or were no less than three 'possibles' - two athletic grounds side by side and a cricket ground. More detailed research and probably a site visit is called for to see if any of these might once have been known as Dog Field.
Incidentally, the Penerley Road cricket ground once used for speedway, although not (as far as we know) cars, was still there in 1970.
Certainly, there seem to have been a lot of tracks at one time or another in this small area, with bikes at Penerley Road, midgets at Dog Field and Catford Greyhound Stadium itself and, as you say, Crystal Palace was very close by too, within walking distance. In fact, it is on the near edge of the adjacent page of the A-Z.
It's an interesting question you raise about whether any of these places are really in Catford though and, strictly speaking, the answer is no! Perry Rise and Hill are pretty much in Forest Hill or Sydenham, while even Catford dog track was really in Ladywell and more properly known as Ladywell Greyhound Stadium. But, as I'm sure you realise, most small areas of London overlap several other small areas and telling one from another has become almost impossible and irrelevant anyway, unless you are a historian.
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Post by haflinger121 on Jan 23, 2011 3:13:16 GMT 1
Update: I just found a mention of Dog Field on the London Speedways website in which its location is given as Blythe Hill. Now that really is in Forest Hill, not Catford. But...Blythe Hill has at the top of it a socking great area of land just marked in the A-Z as Blythe Hill Fields. The plot thickens....
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