A night at the dogs

The sort of people who looked on an evening watching greyhounds career round a cinder track were the sort of people who probably had enough skeletons in their cupboard to cause percussive ripples in a graveyard.

Back then, dog-tracks were the sort of places where you might meet up with the likes of Arthur Daley, Fagin or any cravat-wearing nudge-nudge, wink, wink chancer.

Only one adjective applied: Dodgy. Well, it's all changed now. These days, a night at the dogs is some sort of social mecca, a place of pilgrimage for punters, a chance to lose a few quid and gain a few friends, a time to enjoy a reasonable meal and a drink or two, while outside, the hounds chase the electric hare called Charlie.

Fortunes are not won and lost at Oxford Greyhound Stadium. That's not what this game is about, not really, not anymore. It's about socialising, pure and simple.

And so here we are, on an early Oxford Spring evening with low clouds scudding the skyline and rain as persistent as untreated dandruff falling onto the floodlit track. My companion for the evening is Oxford Mail greyhounds correspondent John Gaisford, a man who knows more about the sleek beasts than most. He even understands the betting arrangements.

And he introduces me to Cheryll Jeffreys, the manageress with the sort of tan you don't get from hanging round dog tracks. Greyhound racing, says Cheryll, is the new Big Night Out.

Cheryll has just had several big nights out in Tenerife hence the tan but her warm and welcoming manner helps create the general ambience at the Oxford Greyhound Stadium. Over in the far corner of the stadium, a Tesco signs blinks through the rain, like a red-eyed ghostly reminder. I remember that I should be placing a bet here, so offer John my cunning punting plan, ghost-written for me by Mr Raymond Brown of The Watermans' Arms and his sidekick, Lord Birkenhead. (That is not his real name, or title, you understand, but unlike A Night At The Opera, An Evening At The Dogs throws up -if you'll excuse the phrase - many possibilities.)

John looks at the bets with scarcely disguised contempt. "You really want to do this, then?," he says, with the sort of awed admiration that must have crossed the face of the Japanese admiral when they told him to attack Pearl Harbour.

"Yeah," I tell him, "Why not?" He shrugs, in the way intelligent people usually do when confronted by the terminally simple.

There are a lot of young staff at Oxford Greyhound Stadium whose duties are to take your bets and bring your food. And they do it with charm.

Now, in the bad old days, food was much more than a dirty word at greyhound tracks. 'Food' meant a couple of fried eggs lobbed into a deep-fried basket and a cold sausage roll, if you were lucky. But now, food means a perfectly respectable charcoal-grilled steak, with wholesome spuds and veg, or roast duck, or whatever.

Down on the track, the men in white coats called 'Paraders' are walking the canine athletes in an anti-clockwise direction. Still the rain falls. "Good luck," says Sinead, our Tote lady. I turn to ask Gainsford which pooch we should be cheeering and discover he's busy lighting his pipe. "You never won, George," he says, with equanimity. Oh. Right, then.

Still, there are another nine races on the card, so the night is young, I think. This will transpire to be not the first time that a fool and his newspaper's money have been parted.

"Charlie's running", someone shouts, and so he is, destined never to be caught by the glittering-toothed enthusiasts who pursue him with little numbered tea-towel type arrangements on their well-trained backs.

Within a minute, Gainsforth is telling me I've lost again. He looks pleased, though but then he's won. Again. Mick Taylor is the manager here. He explains: "I did this in Wolverhampton and have been in the business for 20 years.

"It's good fun. We've started to recognise that there is more to this than the flat-capped punter image. Over the last seven years, we've created an atomosphere where you can wine and dine, with family and friends.

"Our slogan is, 'Try something different.' There's always something happening. This is not the sort of place you'd take a girlfriend for a romantic evening for two, but it's a great social occasion for friends and family." Trainer Terry Atkins has been about his business for almost 41 years.

"How do you train winners? Good question," he says.

"Well, the formula is the same whether they're dogs, boxers or footballers. Plenty of rest and routine. Routine is it. Like the army. Although I don't feed my dogs a lot of red meat now, I must be honest."

Fed up with Gainsford's predictions, I ask Terry for the winner of the next race. "Bitches are better stayers," says this father of two daughters. So I back a bitch. And lose, again. The phrase, 'Story of my life' crosses my rapidly-embittered thoughts. I'm beginning to think that this is like the Mafia.

And so we go though the card, although personally, I might as well have made a small funeral pyre and burned mine. Or just set fire to the money. Same thing.

But a night at the Oxford Dogs is not about money, I keep telling mysellf, even when Gainsford's tight little smile announces another win.

And just to remind me that fate will be what fate will be, an 11-1 shot romps home in the final scamp of the evening.

I turn into the rain-streaked night. It has been a night I have enjoyed, despite my slimmed-down wallet.

And did I have a bet on the 11-1 hound? Fat chance.