BAGS OF FUN; ON LOCATION In the first of a week-long series in which our top writers go out and about to report from all corners of the racing and betting world, Peter Thomas spends a morning at Crayford greyhound track on the outskirts of London, where he joins a family crowd watching the action and picks up on a lucrative track bias.

Byline: Peter Thomas

THERE was a long spell when I was firmly of the belief that Bags racing was simply the olden-day equivalent of virtual dogs, except with better graphics; that what we saw in the shops on a bleary-eyed Saturday morning was, in fact, not real at all. It always looked too disembodied from the general run of things, too metronomic in its relentless provision of tempting betting morsels, to be anything other than a bookmaker's computer-generated fantasy.

I remember the days of dashing manically through a paper round so I could pick up my paltry wages in plenty of time for the start of the early card from Harringay. Even then I harboured suspicions about the action that was ethereally transmitted over the old Victoria blower, but it took another 30-odd years for me to confront my doubts with a visit to Crayford at the weekend.

I'll be honest: I wasn't expecting much. Although I'd had it confirmed that real greyhounds did run around a real track, which sat proudly next to the very regal Black Prince interchange on the A2, I suspected I'd arrive to find a crowd consisting of one man and his dog, although clearly there would be rather more than one dog, but you know what I mean.

As I approach, I'm heartened by the sight of a full car park, although rapidly disillusioned by the sight of a gaggle of women with shopping trolleys coming out of the large branch of Sainsbury's that sits cheek by jowl with the stadium. Still, this surely means I'll find an equal gaggle of men at the track, huddled around mugs of tea and hoping the missus won't flush them before they've at least had a good poke at the opening 10.38, preferably not until some time after the track's Horse and Hounds bar has opened at 11.

And there they are, plenty of blokes, of the type you'll have seen in your local betting shop at around this hour of a Saturday many times before, except that here they're heavily interspersed with a lot of less familiar types. There are plenty of people of pensionable age: codgers, duffers, coffin-dodgers, call them what you will, they're here, presumably attracted by the central heating, but they're heavily outnumbered by the young families that have bagged most of the tables by the glass front that looks out over the track.

There are lots of 30-something men in sports-oriented leisurewear, wives likewise, kids with crewcuts, dad trying not to neck his pint of Foster's with the unseemly haste of a Saturday night, fighting to persuade the nippers that it's far more healthy to watch from inside the bar rather than out in that nasty old fresh air.

And they're not bad judges. It's bitter outside, which is presumably why nobody is. Nobody except for the bookies, of whom there are woefully few, but still far too many for the volume of trade that's present.

The families indoors are what Terry Libretto, making up 25 per cent of the laying contingent on behalf of the John Humphreys firm, describes as "the burger and chips crowd", who won't darken his pitch all morning.

His business will come from the few hardy regulars who appear, regular as clockwork, just as the dogs are approaching the traps, dispense a tenner, or a score, or a word out of the corner of the mouth, retire to the steppings to watch the race and then disappear, not to be seen again for 15 minutes.

On the far side of the track, next to the London to Gravesend railway line, is a huge pylon with what look like two roomy and enticing viewing platforms halfway up. You could shin up there and watch for free, I reckon, but then again you can come through the turnstiles for free anyway and not risk 30,000 volts up the tradesman's entrance, so on balance I guess the pylon would be the outsider of two.

Better to stay in the nice, warm bar with the enthusiastic families, peppering the tote with pounds 2 a time, or upstairs in the slightly posher restaurant, with the sophisticates (the ones with the good cutlery) among a crowd that must number the best part of 200. I'm with the hoi polloi, eyeing up the breakfast buffet, making the bacon a strong favourite over the sausages, which I'd warrant haven't seen a pig in a long while. I decide to stick with a polystyrene cup of Tetley's tea (if you want lapsang souchong in a china mug, best bring your own), over which I shall plan my entrance into the betting fray.

I've had a small, exploratory loser in heat two, but by now, along with David Blunkett and Ray Charles, I've spotted an emerging track bias that means, in a nutshell, that traps five and six couldn't win if they'd watched Ballyregan Bob videos the day before and joined in the race at halfway, while the prospects for trap four don't look too bright either. The bookies tell me this has been going on since the cold snap started. Perhaps they're just being friendly, or perhaps they see me as the kind of muppet who couldn't find a winner with 13 three-dog races to choose from, but I'm up for the challenge either way.

I befriend PA starting-price man David Wicks, who marks my card. I'm weighing him up at first, keeping my cash in my pocket, wondering whether a man in a dogtooth check trilby is the kind of man I should trust to guide me through a punting minefield. Two winners from two races later, I've decided he's the man for me, and I'm going to ask him where he got his hat from.

I endure a temporary reverse when trap 2 is beaten a whisker in the eighth, but this merely emboldens me to take on the chilly mortals tucked away in the ring, below track level in their own personal Saturday morning purgatory. I home in on the J & A pitch, expecting to find a sullen, blue-lipped clerk but instead striking up a chat with the irrepressible Adam Gutmann, who turns out to be president of the Tom Segal Appreciation Society (North Kent branch), a post he took on after a winning Pricewise spree that paid his mortgage for yonks and no doubt provided a new three-piece suite into the bargain. IASK for twenty quid on trap 3 in the ninth and gain what I see as instant acceptance into the Crayford inner circle when my bet's taken without so much as a hint of a ticket being proffered.

"Seventy pound to twenty, down to TSM," went the banter. TSM. Tom Segal's mate. That's me. Three winners later, I'm known as TSFM, which I take as a compliment, even if it's not meant as one.

The punters come out on Monday nights, apparently. This morning is for the burger-and-chips people, tonight for the boozers, and the track is battling gamely for business by running trade nights. Estate agents are next, if you fancy an evening out with a group of terminally depressed people trying to eke out their Giro cheques for three hours.

Even today, though, there are some hard-core backers. The bloke standing next to me for the 11th clearly has a lot riding on trap 2, which eats into trap 3's lead down the back straight and looks set to sweep past on the bend. "Go inside, two," hollers our man. Two goes inside. "Don't check up, two." Two checks up. I avoid cheering home the three dog for fear of violent retribution, but it's not easy, even though my lips have begun to freeze up.

I shuffle to the gents', where I rummage around fruitlessly until I become convinced that my old chap has snapped off in the cold. It transpires that I've merely lost all feeling in my fingers, but I decide, nonetheless, that it's time to go home.

I've beaten the cold and got in a good morning's live punting, but now the cold's beaten me.

The boys in the ring are still going strong, fighting in civilised fashion for their share of the crumbs on offer, clinging bravely to their gallows humour and waiting for Monday night. I promise that I'll be back and that next time I'll be bringing Tom with me. It's the first time I've seen them look grim.

'Two winners from two races later, I've decided he's the man for me, and I'm going to ask him where he got his hat from'

'TSM. Tom Segal's mate. That's me. Three winners later, I'm known as TSFM, which I take as a compliment'

Read Peter Thomas's blog on racingpost.com

CAPTION(S):

Crayford stadium on an icy Saturday morning, where an outside draw means your dog might as well not turn up and the burger-and-chips crowd stay warm by the bar inside Photos by PAUL DUFFETT; Inside and out: some watch the action in comfort (above), while our intrepid reporter roughs it in the cold