We are nearing the end of the local league fixtures in this year’s Bookmakers Afternoon Greyhound Service Track Championship and hold our home leg on Thursday.

We are unlikely to progress to the grand final after completion of two of the three legs. However, there should be some great racing as we host our league rivals Romford and Sittingbourne.

There will be 10 races and ourselves and the other two tracks will have two runners in each, so why not come down and give your support?

The track opens at 1pm with the first race at 2.18pm. Race card and entry is free.

On a national basis, the six league leaders are Newcastle 356pts; Sheffield 201; Hall Green (Birmingham) 238; Romford 255; Hove (Brighton) 252; Peterborough 323.

These six are likely to progress to the grand final in Sheffield on December 23.

Last weekend saw the start of the running of this year’s Tony Morris Memorial Rose Bowl, which carries a £2,000 winner’s prize.

Tony was recognised as one of the senior bookmakers in the industry. In his later days he was responsible for laying the ante-post prices on the Greyhound Derby, such was his knowledge.

The event attracted 24 top-class dogs to compete over the 380m trip and in the heats stage, Crayford got two runners through to Saturday’s semi-finals in the shape of Tinas Junior and Johnny Ninja – trained by Paul Tompsett and Steve Gammon respectively.

I am optimistic both dogs can go through to the final on December 7 but they face some serious opposition – particularly from Bodell Hurricane after his surprise heat win at 8-1.

Ignore that price as his all-important win time of 23.25sec puts him in with an outstanding chance of landing the prize.

Our two dogs are also big players. Tinas Junior is one of the fastest we have down the back straight once he opens up and his heat time of 23.28 shows just how close an event this is.

Newcomer Johnny Ninja did well to follow Tinas Junior home in second place and given that this was the dog’s debut race at the track he can be expected to improve.

He may spring a big surprise in going on to win the Rose Bowl.