Shawfield Stadium

Shawfield Stadium is a greyhound racing venue in the town of Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, located close to the boundary with Glasgow. It has also previously been a regular venue for football and speedway, as home to Clyde F.C. and the Glasgow Tigers respectively. Other sports including boxing and athletics have also been staged there.

The stadium began to take shape when Clyde took over the site, previously a trotting track, in 1898. Dog racing was introduced as an additional source of revenue for the club in 1932, but Clyde’s financial difficulties led to them selling Shawfield to the Greyhound Racing Association in 1935, continuing to play there as tenants. This arrangement continued until 1986 when the GRA’s redevelopment plans led to them evicting Clyde from their traditional home. When these plans failed to come to fruition, there was talk of Clyde, then enduring an unsatisfactory groundshare at Partick Thistle, returning to the ground. Ultimately this proposal came to nothing, with Clyde eventually establishing a new home base in the new town of Cumbernauld.

Instead of football returning to Shawfield, new tenants arrived at Shawfield in the shape of the Glasgow Tigers, returning to their home city in 1988 after a year’s exile in Workington. The Tigers would race there for a decade, apart from the 1996 season when they were temporarily in abeyance and replaced by the ill-fated Scottish Monarchs team.

Shawfield today

Since the departure of speedway to Ashfield Stadium ahead of the 1999 season, Shawfield has only staged greyhounds. Currently, racing takes place three nights per week(Tuesday, Friday & Saturday) . While the basic shape of the stadium, with its crumbling disused terracing and crush barriers, remains intact from the Clyde era, today only the grandstand is in use. As well as betting facilities there is a bar and a restaurant for spectators. The large tote board which dominated the south end of the track was demolished in 2004. The exterior of the stand, which had become quite run down, has been reclad in recent years.

(source .. wikipedia) reproduced under GFDL

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