grandstands

wow .. !

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Test Cricket Photographs, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

what a great shot...

FAntastic photo...weird to look at that and think every single person in it is now dead....

Thats a bit morbid SandyEm lol. This was when there was a concrete 'velodrome' around the edge of the oval. In the early 1900s they actually ran professional motorcycle races on the track under lights in front of upwards of 40,000 people.

It certainly looks like a roulette wheel.

The croupier looks creepier ...

An account of a court case at Down Assizes (Freeman's , Wednesday, March 11, 1840) centres around a "fraudulently constructed" roulette table at Downpatrick races, by means of which James Perkins cheated several people "of divers sums of money". Here's a snippet including a description of the dodgy roulette wheel. So roulette at a racecourse wasn't unheard of. BTW later in the account , after a witness was asked if he had played in the tent A pause ensued, which was sufficiently significant to cause the court to be convulsed with laughter, which was joined by the learned judge himself The defence counsel argued that a tent was not a house, so it wasn't covered by legislation concerning gaming houses. The judge sentenced Perkins to 3 months imprisonment and £100 fine, but the sentence was suspended pending a decision from the Court of Queen's Bench.

And in an account of "The Card-Cheating Case at Brighton" (Freeman's Monday, July 26, 1852) a witness says he had played roulette at races before this, and generally lost; he had never heard of anybody that won (a laugh). This suggests that roulette wheels at races (a) were commonplace and (b) fixed

... and in 1862 The plaintiff , on examination, stated that he kept a roulette table at races, and also used "bones" (dice) at races; was last convicted of gambling at Limerick; gave up going to races September last; he went to races with a roulette table for the purpose of opposing parties who had robbed him of £600 ... The jury found for the plaintiff one farthing damages

Accompanying note: "Sigma Tri-Hi-Y cheerleaders yelled their lungs out to no avail at the Powder Puff games Thursday as the Mamies won over Sigma 20-13."