Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium holds its final race day as last London dog track closes down after almost 90 years

WIMBLEDON Greyhound Stadium has hosted its last ever race before it is bulldozed to make way for a football stadium.

The closure after 89 years means the capital is now without a single dog track.

The queue for the dogs stretched deep into the pot-holed and unlit car park on Saturday night - a frequent occurrence in recent times.

The decision to bulldoze the institution has been described as a working class cull.

With Wimbledon’s closure, the capital no longer has any greyhound racing stadiums, when it once boasted 33.

The bulldozers are set to arrive as early as next week.

In its place, an 11,000-seater stadium will be built for AFC Wimbledon.

Some 600 new apartments will also be built on the site after permission for the project was approved by the London Borough of Merton in December 2015.

The Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium has hosted the sport’s biggest race, the English Greyhound Derby, for the past 32 years.

It has also been used for the St Leger and Champion Hurdle.

From now on, punters looking to place bets on the dogs will be forced to leave London and head to Crayford in Kent, Hove in East Sussex or Romford in Essex.

Around 120 people will lose their jobs.

The Greyhound Board of Great Britain said: "We're the regulator so naturally we're saddened. But it's not a death knell for the sport."

Banks pointed out that even while gambling is busily shifting from arenas to mobiles and tablets, there are still 24 places in England where punters can watch dog racing, including at a newly-opened track at Towcester.

Annual attendance still runs to two million and the sport accounts for a fifth of gambling's turnover in the UK.

Some 600 homes will now be built on the land, along with a football ground

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