Ipswich Greyhound Racing Club to honour inaugural president

By Jordan Gerrans

The Ipswich Greyhound Racing Club will give a nod to their history and a founding father on one of the club’s biggest occasions this Saturday evening.

The club will run the Ted Meehan Memorial race on Saturday, an event which will be on the same card as their prestigious Group 2 Vince Curry Memorial Final.

On the opening night of racing at the Ipswich complex on Saturday May 1 of 1982, Meehan was the inaugural president of the club and was instrumental in setting it up.

Meehan sadly passed away last weekend, which coincided with the semi-final stage of the rich maiden series – the Vince Curry Memorial.

As well as helping lay the foundations for the Ipswich Greyhound Racing Club, Meehan also was key in the establishment of the ever-popular Vince Curry Memorial.

Meehan approached Curry, then the sporting director of radio station 4BC, about getting their races broadcast across the air waves.

It only grew from there and Meehan named the now time-honoured race series after the popular late broadcaster.

While Curry did not ever call dog races at Ipswich, his influence on the club was profound in the early days and continues to be felt into 2024.

“He and Vince Curry himself got it all going,” former Ipswich Greyhound Racing Club President Rob Essex said.

“Ted instigated it all.

“Ted was trying to get Saturday night racing at his club and in those days, you needed to have a tie-up in broadcasting to get TAB support.

“Therefore he approached Vince Curry and Vince came on board and thought it was a great idea. Vince thought the harness racing from Albion Park on a Saturday night and dogs from Ipswich would be a great combination for the station.”

John Doyle was on the committee when Ipswich ran their first ever race program and worked closely with the late Meehan.

“He was a hard worker,” Doyle said.

The first committee at Ipswich effectively started from scratch.

As well as being on the committee, Doyle also worked looking after the grounds around the track and prepared a team of greyhounds himself.

“It was enormous at the time,” Doyle said.

“We got the ground and then built a big kennel block.

“At the time there was no grand stand so we built up a completely new grand stand there to seat several hundred people. That is where it all started.”

Meehan was a greyhound lover and was also involved in the Greyhound Racing Control Board.

Former Ipswich club president and life member Merv Page credited Meehan for much of the track’s early success.

“I did not know Ted personally but he did a lot for the greyhound industry,” Page said.

“He did all the organising for the commencement of it all with the Show Society and the government and all that.”

After being the inaugural president, Doyle estimates Meehan remained with the club for around a decade before eventually stepping away.

“He was originally responsible for speaking to the Queensland Greyhound Racing Control Board at that time in getting Ipswich as a new track,” Doyle said.

“That was where it kicked-off, Ted Meehan was responsible for the initial planning for the new track in Queensland with it being at Ipswich.”

In a column written in 2016, respected former race-caller and greyhound historian Paul Dolan summed up the contribution of Meehan to the code in the Sunshine State.

“The inaugural president was Ted Meehan, a man who was equally at home meeting with the Racing Minister as he was sweeping the floor of the betting ring after the last race to save a cleaner's wage,” Dolan wrote.

The Ted Meehan Memorial will be run as a mixed fourth and fifth grade event over 520 metres and will be the race before the Final of the Vince Curry Memorial series on Saturday night.