Save Athletics at Tooting Bec

Fresh on the heels of the news that Crystal Palace athletics is under threat from the Mayor of London, concerns have been raised about another South London track. Tooting Bec Athletics Track has been a feature of running in that part of London since the 1930s, with the current synthetic track being opened in 1985. Today it is the home of Herne Hill Harriers, among other users.

Wandsworth Council, which currently runs the track, has announced that as part of its budget cuts it is 'exploring possible new management proposals for the Tooting Bec athletics track in a bid to secure its long term future. Next month councillors are likely to consider proposals that could involve seeking expressions of interest from local sports clubs, voluntary groups, charities and health and fitness professionals who could take over the day-to-day running of the track and all its amenities'.

While the Council is presenting this as being about 'safeguarding the future' of the track, they have refused to guarantee that it won't close down if nobody else steps forward to take over running it. There also worries that if it is privatised the costs of using the facilities could increase. A campaign to save the track has been launched, with a petition and a rally yesterday. More than 200 people turned out at the track with banners reading 'Keep it Open and Affordable'.

(photo from HHH Triathlon on twitter) 

Wandsworth Council has also been criticised by runners recently for refusing to allow parkrun events in its parks without charging a fee. Other London councils are not charging because they recognise that these free, volunteer-led runs are attracting people to the parks at relatively quiet times of day and bring health and social benefits to the local community.

First World War: Remembering the Runners who Died

Last weekend my club's long Sunday run took us through the Greenwich foot tunnel round the Isle of Dogs and on to the Tower of London where we paused to view Paul Cummins and Tom Piper's installation 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' - 888,246 ceramic poppies filling the Tower’s moat to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War.

The installation has been incredibly popular, and also prompted some healthy debate. Maybe it doesn't show the full horror of the carnage - what could? - and it can be a fine line between remembrance of the dead and glorifying war and militarism.  But the main sense conveyed at the Tower of London is the sheer scale of the loss with each of the poppies representing a life cut short (and even the 888,246 British and Colonial military deaths make up only part of the 16 million dead on all sides).  I suspect that most looking at it would see this simply as a terrible waste which they hope will never be repeated - though sadly people are still dying in wars in too many places.

The impact of the First World War is really brought home when you look at war memorials with their long lists of names and reflect on what they mean. They show how in any community, workplace or social group almost everybody would have been personally affected by the deaths of friends and relatives. Athletics clubs were no exception and thousands of runners were killed or injured. At the South London Harriers club house in Coulsdon for cross country last month, I noticed a memorial plaque listing 40 members of the club who died in the First World War. 

'in glorious memory of the South London Harriers who gave their lives in the Great War 1914-1919'

Lewisham War Memorials, which lists many memorials in my local area, also records that there is a plaque in Catford  for the 'Private Banks Cricket and Athletic Club' Roll of Honour 1914-1918. This is believed to commemorate 53 members of the sports club linked to the financial institutions which owned and used the sports ground on Canadian Avenue, SE6.

The 'Private Banks Cricket and Athletic Club' memorial
in Catford, South East London

Save Athletics at Crystal Palace

The athletics stadium at the National Sports Centre in Crystal Palace park was until recently the Wembley of British track and field, where large crowds gathered to watch big international events. Many of the greatest athletes in the world ran in the London Grand Prix events held there between 1953 to 2012 (though the park's association with athletics goes back much further - see this race report from 1873).

 Yohan Blake, Usain Bolt, Conrad Williams and Tyson Gay at Crystal Palace in 2007
(photo from Conrad Williams on Twitter) 

Now the fight is on to save any athletics provision in the park as a result of changes proposed by the Greater London Authority, which is currently responsible for the National Sports Centre site.

Under proposals being consulted on by the Mayor London, the 17,000 capacity stadium would be demolished entirely. While a swimming pool would be retained, barely any consideration has been given to the future of athletics. The indoor track would be 'permanently removed', while the possibility of retaining an outdoor 'community athletics track' is unpromisingly described merely as 'currently under review'.

The stadium itself is arguably surplus to requirements since the opening of the Olympic Stadium in Stratford. There is a broader issue of how poorly sporting authorities promote athletics as a spectator sport, and I am sure there is sufficient interest in London to get good crowds for more than one event every year or two (the frequency of Diamond League events at Stratford). But it is undeniable that at present Crystal Palace is under-used as a stadium - although a smaller pavillion/stand would be quite feasible as long as a track continues.

The loss of track(s) would be much more catastrophic, effectively ending any use of the park for serious athletics. A community track would be a great asset to the new school(s) planned to replace the stadium, as well as to the local clubs and others who use the current facilities, including South London Harriers and Crystal Palace Triathletes.  

If athletics is going to flourish in this country we need mass participation and a network of good, accessible clubs and tracks across the country that can sustain a vibrant running culture at all levels - as well as enabling the next generation of potential elite athletes to be engaged, identified and supported. The mass participation side has really taken off through parkrun, and an increasing number are taking the next step on to the track to train with their local running club. The so-called Olympic legacy is looking very fragile if this progress  is going to be undermined by losing facilities in places like Crystal Palace and elsewhere (this year we have already lost the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffiled despite a campaign to save it)

A campaign to save athletics in the park has been launched, spearheaded by well-known coach John Powell. Please do go and sign the petition as well as responding to the consultation (which runs until 16 November). The petition states: 

'Save Athletics - and sport - at Crystal Palace. Current plans threaten to bulldoze the iconic athletics stadium and indoor training track, and rebuild sporting facilities in the glass recreation centre building. The impact of this on track and field in London, let alone other sports could be disastrous. What IS the Olympic Legacy for South London?! The Crystal Palace Sports Partnership (CPSP) is a group of stakeholders who are combining to form one unified voice representing all interests in the future of this historic site. Our mission is simple: 

......We support a mixed-use sports and leisure centre at Crystal Palace - a sustainable facility that is shared by the local community, schools, clubs and aspiring athletes at all levels.  It should be a resource that caters for the needs of recreational users as much as it provides for and supports the development of the next generation of Olympic athletes. We are concerned that the consultation by the GLA for repurposing the current National Sports Centre is way too short and has failed to identify and consider the needs and views of existing users.  We request that user groups and local stakeholders are more thoroughly engaged in shaping the outcome of this process.

For further information please contact The CPSP Chairman, John Powell MBE, via trackspeed1@hotmail.com' 

Mo Farah (left) in the 5000m in the London Grand Prix/Diamond League
at Crystal Palace, July 2012.

South of England Athletic Association speaks out

In their response, the South of England Athletic Association (SEAA)  says:

'The South of England Athletic Association (SEAA) represents and provides competition for all the athletes and athletic clubs within the whole of the area.  We have considered the outline proposals and condemn any plan that removes the athletic facilities.  We accept that the Olympic Stadium provides a fitting setting for televised major meetings but it is inappropriate for the many lower level meetings and is certainly not available as a training venue.  Track and field athletics is a summer sport with all year round training needs so an indoor track is essential in winter.  Crystal Palace fulfils the requirements for track and field athletes from both clubs and schools.  As a facility that has been regularly used for training, local club and school meetings and SEAA Championships over many years any redevelopment should take account of these needs.  As a major competition provider we believe that complete removal of this facility would be severely detrimental to athletes and athletics in London and the surrounding areas.

We propose that the following would ensure the centre meets those needs:

- A full 8 lane track is maintained together with all field event facilities such as long jump pits and pole vault bed.
- A new up to 1000 seat stand is built incorporating changing rooms, equipment stores and administration areas.
- A photofinish “tower” is appended to the stand to allow meetings up to national level to be accommodated.
- At least a 100m indoor straight and field event facilities should be incorporated in the design of one of the new buildings.  This may be an opportunity to build a full 200m indoor track for the whole of London south of the river' (3 November 2014).

Crystal Place Park - the wider picture

One of the ironies of the Crystal Palace proposals is the role of one time runner at the track, Sebastian Coe - he ran his final UK competitive 800m there in 1989. Coe is now Executive Chairman of sports management consultants CSM Strategic, and they have been paid to conduct the consultation on the future of the site. Coe was a great runner, and a competent sports administrator, but lets not forget he is also a Conservative politician (as MP and now Lord) and businessman...

...And there are some very big business interests involved in the future of Crystal Palace. As Inside Croydon has documented, the plans for the sports stadium are strongly influenced by plans by billionaire developer Zhong Rong to build a replica of the original Palace on the terraces at the top of the park, complete with hotel, shops and conference centre. A GLA document  on the sports centre states that “The success of the proposed new Palace is inextricably linked to its wider landscape" and demolition of the stadium would open up the sightline from the planned development.

The sphinx looks across at the floodlights of the Crystal Palace stadium

For many of us the melancholic terraces with their lonely statues looking out across the park are one of the best parts of Crystal Palace, and keeping them as they are is certainly preferable to the kitsch monstrosity proposed by the developers and championed by Johnson. If the 'new Palace' goes ahead it will not only grab public land for private profit but also damage sports and other provision in the wider park. It is not just the running tracks that are under threat in the long term - the Crystal Palace parkrun route, and the perimeter road used for triathlon and cycling events, both enter into the part of the park most affected by the planned development, and new access roads could also disrupt these routes. The park itself risks becoming reshaped as a back garden for a commercial enterprise rather than continuing as a multi-use space at the heart of South London sports and athletics.

Record Sleeve Athletics (10): Olympic Rap by 4-Play (1984)

Released to mark the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, 'Olympic Rap' by 4-Play is an electro gem that, in my humble opinion, stands head and shoulders above some of the overblown Olympic anthems featured in this series previously. Admittedly it's only direct references athletics in its opening mention of the LA games and in samples of athletic stadium crowd noises, but that's enough for me.

(thanks to DJ Controlled Weirdness for spotting this one a while ago)

Previously in this series:

Musique - Keep on Jumpin'

Sergio Mendes - Olympia

Giorgo Moroder - Reach Out

Skids - Days in Europa
Three Degrees - The Runner

Blackbyrds - Action

The Associates - Affectionate Punch

Santana - Marathon

Joan Armatrading - Track Record & Roxy Music - Flesh and Blood

Running into the Prime Minister

So you're going for a lunchtime run down to the gym and you spot David Cameron looming up on the pavement in front of you. What ya gonna do? Maybe charge into him and then say it was an accident, though we'll have to take Dean Farley's word for it when he says that he didn't know it was the Tory Prime Minister when he ran into him in Leeds today  (see film here at BBC website).

According to the BBC, 'A member of the public who caused a security alert when he bumped into David Cameron in Leeds has said he had "no idea" it was the prime minister. Dean Farley said he was only aware that he had collided with Mr Cameron an hour after he had been arrested by police. He insisted he was "not particularly political" and was just going out on his daily lunchtime jog to the gym when he ran into a "bunch of men in suits"'.

'Guess who I ran into the other day?'

Must admit when I heard about it I was slightly disappointed that no ex-members of the once Leeds-based band Chumbawamba seem to have been involved, as some of them have both the radical track record and running skills needed for such an audacious piece of street theatre/direct action. Danbert Nobacon from the band famously tipped an ice bucket over Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott at the 1998 BRIT Awards, and has also run in fell races for Pudsey and Bramley Athletic Club along with Chumba co-founder Boff Whalley (author of Run Wild)

Running on Screen (4): Race strategy from The Office - run fast at the start, middle and end

Finally got round to watching the last episode of The (American) Office. I loved this programme in both its UK and US versions, and the latter also included one of the funniest treatments of running on TV. In 'Fun Run' (Series 4, Episode 1, 2007), hapless boss Michael Scott organises a charity 5k: 'Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race for the Cure'. All the staff at the paper firm are instructed to take part and kitted out in specially printed T-shirts.

Michael ends up in hospital with dehydration after carbo-loading on fettuccine just before running and declining water. He comments 'and while I eventualy puked my guts out, I never puked my heart out. And I'm very, very proud of that'

In this episode too, the will they/won't they romance of Jim and Pam (pictured below) is finally confirmed, and the two discuss race tactics:

Jim: 'So what's your strategy for this race?'

Pam: 'Well I'm gonna start fast, then I'm going to run fast in the middle, then I'm gonna end fast'

Jim: 'Why won't more people do that?'

Pam 'Because they're stupid'.

(although the series is set in Scranton, PA, the race was filmed in the streets of Los Angeles - Chandler Boulevard near Tujunga, north of Magnolia Blvd, to be precise)

Other posts in the 'Running on Screen' series:

Top of the Lake and The Fall
The Running Man (1987)
Muybridge's Runner, 1887

Forward to Farthing Downs: start of the Surrey Cross-Country League

As discussed here before, cross-country is where it all began as far as modern organised athletics is concerned, with many of today's running clubs starting out in the 19th century to chase across fields in 'hare and hounds' races.

With the conditions now beginning to get suitably cold and wet, the English cross-country season got underway again last week - and I ran my first organised cross country race since leaving school.  Over the summer I joined my local Kent Athletic Club (based in Lewisham), and I was one of 27 wearing the blue vest of Kent - and  one of 176 runners in total -  in the opening men's match of the 2014-15 2XU Surrey Cross-Country League at Farthing Downs in Coulsdon.

Entrance to the South London Harriers HQ in Brighton Road, Coulsdon

 The race was hosted by South London Harriers, who have been based in the area and running over Farthing Downs since at least 1913 (their origins go back further to a pub in Peckham Rye in 1871, but that's another story). The Surrey Cross-Country League is slightly less venerable, but is still older than me, having started in 1962. The top flight of the event, Division One,  was dominated by two teams in the ten years between 2001 and 2011, with Herne Hill Harriers winning six times and Thames Hare and Hounds winning four times. But in the last two years, it has been won by Kent AC following a rapid progression from the 4th to 1st division after the club joined the league in 2007-8.

The animals of Farthing Downs

Coulsdon is within the London Borough of Croydon, but the area is as proper countryside as you can find within the M25. Yes cows had to be moved out of the way before the race could start. When you see the word 'Downs' you know it really means 'Ups' and the 5.4 mile course (over two laps) started with a long uphill grassland stretch before descending through woodland on a path with enough stones and tree roots to stop the mind from wandering.

The route

The race was won by Jon Pepper, running for Ranelagh Harriers, followed by Kent AC's John Gilbert and Paskar Owor (Belgrave Harriers).  The team competition was won by Kent though, who took five of the top 13 positions. Team points are calculated on the basis of the top ten finishers for each club - the winner gets 1 point, 2nd place two points etc. with the team with the lowest number of points across its first ten finishers being the winner overall. Kent are definitely now the team everyone wants to beat, so plenty to run for in the remaining three matches at Lloyd Park, Streatham Common and Richmond Park (full results here)

John Gilbert (Kent AC) and Paskar Owor (Belgrave Harriers, and a former Olympic athlete for Uganda)
- photo from Surrey Cross-Country League facebook page

Going straight into a highly competitive Division One match was daunting for me, and I can't say I contributed to the outcome. But I did achieve my modest race goals of 1. not falling over; 2. not getting lapped; 3. not walking; and 4. not coming last. I strongly recommend you try and run in a cross-country race over autumn/winter if you get the chance, I certainly intend to do some more.

The match was preceded by the Young Athletes race (under-17s), won by Kent's Alex Yee. In fact it's been a good couple of weeks for Kent AC runners, the next day the club's Amy Clements won the women's race in the Royal Parks Half Marathon, while the weekend before Cath Stibbs won the women's race at the Chester Marathon. Kent's women's team also made their debut in the Surrey Cross-Country League  'Senior Ladies' Division 2.

After the race runners retired to the South London Harriers clubhouse bar, a place steeped in running history and lore with  vintage photos, medals and indeed its very own blue plaque outside.

Plaque outside the SLH HQ commemorating Gordon Pirie (1931-1991).
5000m silver medallist at 1956 Melbourne Olympics

Jonny Muir has also written about this race:

'this is no normal race. This is among the best racing amateur athletics can offer. I once ran a race called Hellrunner on an army camp in Hampshire. It is part of a breed of modern races that are pitched as masochistic and ‘tough’. The ground was frozen. The hills were modest. We waded through the Bog of Doom, a contrived trench of neck-deep water. It was cold, but provides the runner with a rest – a convenient break from what you came here to do. I finish fifth. They give you what is called a ‘survivor’s medal’ if you get round. Hellrunner? I have run in hell. It’s a place near Bourton-on-the-Water. It is Richmond Park when you are in 76th place a week after winning a marathon. It is the second lap of Farthing Downs'.

See also on South London club running:

Assembly League Finale in Beckenham (Sept 2014)