Friday photos: Kent AC and other 1960s athletics

Following the photo I posted earlier this week of a group of Kent AC athletes from the 1950s, Roy Candy (who ran for the Lewisham-based club from 1960 to 1966) has been in touch and sent through some great photographs from the 1960s.

The group photo was taken at a training weekend at Timsbury Manor, Hampshire in 1965. It features members of Kent AC (back left row), Cambridge Harriers and London Olympiades, including for the latter the great Lilian Board and Mary Bignal Rand. Kent AC runners featured include Tina Ash (nee Darby), Nigel Porter, Cheryl Miller, Beverley Franklin (nee Panter), Dave Franklin, and Roy himself.

The next couple of pictures are from the Eton Manor to Southend Road Relay (c.1964) and show Kent AC runners Peter Brenchley, Roy Candy and John Oliver.

At Kent AC's Ladywell track in 1965, Lewisham Half-Mile Champs won by Roy Candy in 2m 1.4s from Mike Field and Richard Selby.

Another training weekend, possibly Camber Sands 1963. Among those featured are Avril Usher (later Avril Bowring), who ran for Kent AC at the time and later competed in the 1970 Commonwealth Games in the 400m.

As always, any more names or memories very welcome in comments.

Friday photos (19): National Cross Country Championships 1965

More than 8700 runners are registered to take part in the English National Cross Country Championships tomorrow afternoon, taking place for the 15th time at Parliament Hill  since the race was first held there in 1957. I plan to be among them, joining the thousands on that famous charge up the hill that marks the start of the course.

These images are from a British Pathé newsreel featuring the 1965 Nationals there, described by the commentator as 'nine miles of snow, ice, mud and slush'. The race was won for the second year running by Mel Batty (Thurrock Harriers), who also set a world ten mile record in 1964. His old club have established a Mel Batty 10k road race in memory of their lifelong member, who died in 2011.

Mel Batty

Mel Batty crosses the finishing line - the 1965 Nationals were sponsored by News of the World

New Zealand runners at the start of the race

Previously in Friday photo series:

New York High School Runners 1970s

Lilian Board, 1948-1970
Running in Tel Aviv 1942
Alan Turing the Runner

Marilyn Monroe the Runner
Tom Longboat, Canadian First Nations Marathon Runner
Runners in Space: an image from Munich 1972 on NASA's Voyager spacecraft

Jim Peters collapses in Vancouver 1954

Anita Neil - Britain's first female Black Olympian?

Running in the Streets of New Cross 1953

Running tracks from space

Running with Madonna

Ron Hill

1930s photos from Margate (Kent) and White City (London)

Magic Lantern Slides of London Running, 1909

Ladywell Running Track 1950
Muhammad Ali Running

Athletes Protests, 1968-2014

Friday Photos (17): Muhammad Ali Running

Muhammad Ali was of course a great boxer rather than a runner, but running (or 'roadwork' as boxers sometimes term it) was a huge part of his training. Hence lots of photos of him running. There is a great quote that is often attributed to him online: “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses-behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights". Unfortunately I haven't been able to find the original source of this - I hope it's not another of those endless circulating internet myths - but it tells a truth about training for any sport.

Cassius Clay (as he was then) running on the Julia Tuttle Causeway, Miami Beach 1961
(from Miami Archives)

'Ever the early riser, Clay would start each day of training at 5:00 am with roadwork. As he ran from his hotel to the gym[in Miami], police would sometimes get complaints that a young black man was running down the streets. In a southern city during the era of segregation, such a black male must obviously been guilty of something' -  Muhammad Ali: A Biography  by Anthony O. Edmonds).

Ali running in London streets, 1960s
(from Huffington Post)

Ali running in Hyde Park with Jimmy Ellis, 1966

'taken at dawn in Miami as Ali does his roadwork while training for his first encounter with Joe Frazier 1971'
(from Chris Smith Photography)

"Champ had finished his morning workout at the Fifth Street Gym when I asked him to run on the beach. He agreed and told me it would be good training for his leg strength running on the sand in combat boots. He told me he always ran in heavy combat boots so his boxing shoes would feel lighter when he was in the ring. As I took the pictures I thought of something Muhammad had said years before: “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses-behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights"."
(Telegraph)

Previously in Friday photo series:

New York High School Runners 1970s

Lilian Board, 1948-1970
Running in Tel Aviv 1942
Alan Turing the Runner

Marilyn Monroe the Runner
Tom Longboat, Canadian First Nations Marathon Runner
Runners in Space: an image from Munich 1972 on NASA's Voyager spacecraft

Jim Peters collapses in Vancouver 1954

Anita Neil - Britain's first female Black Olympian?

Running in the Streets of New Cross 1953

Running tracks from space

Running with Madonna

Ron Hill

1930s photos from Margate (Kent) and White City (London)

Magic Lantern Slides of London Running, 1909

Ladywell Running Track 1950

Friday photos (13): Happy Birthday Ron Hill.

Happy 76th birthday (yesterday) Ron Hill, long distance running legend. According to Wikipedia 'He was the second man to break 2:10 in the marathon... In 1970, Hill won the 74th Boston Marathon in a course record 2:10:30. He also won gold medals for the marathon at the European Championships in 1969 and the Commonwealth Games in 1970... Hill held world records for 10 miles (16 km) (47:02, Leicester, April 1968; 46:44, Leicester, November 1968); 15 miles (24 km) (72:48.2, Bolton, July 1965); and 25 kilometres (16 mi) (75:22.6, Bolton, July 1965)'. 

Famously he has run every day for nearly 50 years - I believe the anniversary is actually on 20 December 2014. Runners everywhere though can thank him for his off track achievements - Dr Hill the textile chemist was one of the pioneers of using nylon and other synthetic fabrics in running wear, liberating us from the chafing nightmare of soggy cotton. The sportswear company he founded makes the running vests for my club, Kent Athletic Club and many others. Cheers Ron!

Ron Hill in 1962 in the Inter-Counties
Six Miles

(from excellent Ron Hill profile at Racing Past)

Ron Hill after winning  the Commonwealth Games Marathon in Edinburgh, 1970 

- and below, running during the race.

Winning the 1970 Boston Marathon

Ron Hill running in 1972 Olympic Marathon in Munich

Ron Hill, 27 Oct 1973, AAAs Marathon Championships Harlow

Ron Hill at the Enschede Marathon in Holland, 1975

Hill (right) with Bernie Plain (1976)
- from Run and Become

At the street in Accrington named after him in 2014  (from Athletics World)

Ron Hill at Heaton parkrun, Saturday 27 September with Danny Norman, right, and Steve Way, left
(photo by parkrun Danny Norman)

Previously in the Friday Photos series:

New York High School Runners 1970s

Lilian Board, 1948-1970
Running in Tel Aviv 1942
Alan Turing the Runner

Marilyn Monroe the Runner
Tom Longboat, Canadian First Nations Marathon Runner
Runners in Space: an image from Munich 1972 on NASA's Voyager spacecraft

Jim Peters collapses in Vancouver 1954

Anita Neil - Britain's first female Black Olympian?

Running in the Streets of New Cross 1953

Running tracks from space

Running with Madonna

On Google Image Search...

Google Image Search has a long way to go  - using 'search Google for this image' for one of the Ron Hill pictures, Google came back with eight models and a horse as 'visually similar'!

The Runner - W.H. Auden (1960)

The Runner

All visible visibly

Moving things
Spin or swing,
One of the two,
Move, as the limbs
Of a runner do,
To and fro,
Forward and back,
Or, as they swiftly
Carry him
In orbit go
Round an endless track:
So, everywhere, every
Creature disporting
Itself according
To the law of its making
In the rivals’ dance
Of a balanced pair
Or the ring-dance
Round a common centre,
Delights the eye
By its symmetry
As it changes place
Blessing the unchangeable
Absolute rest
Of the space all share

The camera’s eye
Does not lie
But it cannot show
The life within,
The life of a runner,
Of yours or mine,
That race which is neither
Fast nor slow,
For nothing can ever
Happen twice,
That story which moves
Like music when
Begotten notes
New notes beget
Making the flowing
Of time a growing
Till what it could be
At last it is,
Where Fate is Freedom,
Grace, and Surprise.

Wilma Rudolph (USA) wins the 100 m at the 1960 Olympics

In 1960 W.H. Auden was commissioned to write a poem for a BBC programme about athletics - presumably tied in with the Olympic Games which were held that year in Rome.  My favourite section of 'The Runner' is the opening of the second stanza: 'The camera’s eye, Does not lie, But it cannot show, The life within,  The life of a runner' . A reminder that we can never see the interior life of the athlete - or anybody else.

More running related literature:

Jack Kerouac running down a mountain

'These forms who hasten by' - runners on the Pilgrims Way, 1920s

'You just had to run' - Karl Ove Knausgaard

Morrissey - List of the Lost

Burns Night Running Thoughts

Running in the Railway Children

A Midsummer Night's Running

Running to Paradise - W B Yeats

The Sky of a Saturday Morning - John Updike

The Road is a Strange Country - Rebecca Solnit

Once a Runner - John L Parker jr

Louisa May Alcott - 'A Joy to Run'

Friday Photos (7): Lillian Board (1948-1970)

One of my earliest childhood sporting memories is the death of Lillian Board. A runner at 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m, she was only 19 when she won a silver medal running for Great Britain in the 400m in the 1968 Mexico Olympics. 

Colette Besson (left) narrowly beat Lilian Board in 400m in Mexico in a fantastic finish

The following year she won gold in the 800m at the European Athletics Championships in Athens (pictured below), and another gold as part of the world-record setting women's 4 x 400m relay team. 

 She was a massive star in Britain with a great career seemingly ahead of her, but sadly she died in December 1970 at the age of 22 from bowel cancer.

Lillian Board and team mate Janet Simpson training in Mexico in 1968

Front cover of Athletics Weekly, September 28 1968: left to right: Maureen Tranter, Anita Neil, Lillian Board, Janet Simpson - the 4 x 100m team in Mexico 1968 (they came 7th)

Lillian Board was featured on the BBC's Desert Island Discs in 1969. The songs she chose were:

Mikis Theodorakis - Title Theme (from Zorba the Greek)
Simon & Garfunkel - A Poem on the Underground Wall
Nat King Cole - When I Fall in Love
The Sandpipers - Guantanamera
Tom Paxton - The Last Thing On My Mind
Mason Williams - Classical Gas
Jack Jones - Without Her
Judy Collins - Both Sides Now

Lots more about Lillian Board here



Previously in the Friday Photos Series:

New York High School Runners 1970s
Running in Tel Aviv 1942
Alan Turing the Runner

Marilyn Monroe the Runner
Tom Longboat, Canadian First Nations Marathon Runner
Runners in Space: an image from Munich 1972 on NASA's Voyager spacecraft