Rob Hadgraft's Blog

Barefoot in the park - with a couple of little beauties from Brazil!

I KNEW these wafer-thin shoes would come in handy one day!  Bought them in a moment of madness more than 20 years ago and ever since they've been tucked away, unused and gathering dust. Until now!
My latest attempt to overcome chronic injury saw me this week exploring the world of ‘barefoot’ running - and these shoes are proving just the ticket. They are hand-made and there’s not a single other pair like them in the entire world. They are, literally, unique. 
They were made from recycled material by an under-privileged person from one of the favela districts that surround Brazilian cities. The company involved – Nao do Brasil – say no worker is exploited, all are legally-employed adults, and every shoe is unique, hand-sewn from whatever material was available at the time.
My various chronic running injuries have responded well this week to a spot of ‘barefoot running’ on local grass sportsfields, wearing these little beauties from Brazil. They are a joy to wear after years of clunky, conventional shoes. (Don’t try this at home folks - unless you are desperate like me - for these shoes were built with ‘fashion’ in mind, not running!)
Pulling them on reminded me of a trip to Brazil back in the days when I could run properly! It was an occasion when my running activities showed the sporty Brazilians just how we English often perform like heroic failures.
While in Porto Seguro, I was told of a marathon taking place locally the following day in which runners had to stop at every bar along the 26-mile route, swallow a drink and then move on. The area was absolutely awash with bars, so you can see that health and safety was not an issue in Brazil back then. 
Instead of paying an entry fee for the race you were expected to donate a quantity of food to a local orphanage. It was a good cause, but being a sensible Englishman, I naturally backed off and opted for a different road race that I thought would be safer and more appropriate. Things didn’t quite pan out that way.
My choice was a 10k in the city of Salvador da Bahia. It involved rising at an ungodly hour around dawn to catch a bus to the Iguatimi shopping centre. Here I assembled with 500 others for the first ‘Corrida Rustica da Justica 10k’. I was in a tiny minority of foreign participants and alongside my precious (and now defunct) Nike Air Sock racers, I couldn’t help but notice the vast amount of bare feet on show. It was hard to tell if these runners were too poor to afford shoes, or whether they simply preferred the Zola Budd/Bruce Tulloh approach.
The course proved hot, humid and hilly so I didn’t push too hard, aiming to nip inside the 40-minute mark at worst. When we reached the latter stages and were still going uphill out of town, it began to dawn on me this must be a point-to-point race and at the end I’d be a long way out of town without no transport back. We duly finished at a local government office in Salvador’s remote hinterlands, and lapped up the free water melon handed out instead of medals or T-shirts. Several fellow runners keeled over in the intense heat, one I saw being given oxygen and on a drip in the back of an ambulance. If the locals were going down, what were my chances of surviving this ordeal?
Stuffed in the pocket of my shorts was a tatty little street map which I showed to a policeman in the hope of some directions home. I attempted some Portuguese at him, but in my exhausted state it must have been unintelligible because he just looked at the map, scratched his head and shrugged.  
I attempted to walk/jog back the way we’d come but the course had not been marked and every street looked the same. It was searingly hot and I had no fluids, no sunscreen, no mobile phone, nada.
I followed the occasional direction sign saying ‘Centro’ and found myself strolling down a busy dual carriageway. These were tough districts, but my skimpy running gear clearly indicated I possessed nothing worth mugging me for. It took an hour or so, but eventually I got back. Surely no other 40-minute road 10k in history had ever involved quite so much blood, sweat and effort? 
* Rob Hadgraft's books - including six biographies of champion runners of yesteryear - are on sale via Amazon at:   https://amzn.to/33Lyawc

"We used to get up out of shoebox, in middle of night, and lick road clean wi’ tongues!"

MOST running clubs have a handful of old codgers on their books who have, for one reason or another, been bestowed with the honour of Life Membership.
My own outfit – Tiptree Road Runners – is no exception. There are, I believe, around ten or a dozen ‘Lifers’ in our ranks, including yours truly. With legs and lungs that are ancient and over-used, most of us Tiptree ‘Lifers’ don’t run as far or as frequently as we used to (Malcolm and Jim are notable exceptions) and there is therefore a desire to keep the fires burning by having the occasional re-union.
We generally adjourn to a local pub and settle down to reminisce about those golden days when we used to run fast, when races had sensible entry fees, and when injuries were just a minor occupational hazard.  
This week we descended on the unsuspecting Essex village of Feering adn its excellent Sun Inn. And yes - you are right - we did behave rather like the four Yorkshiremen in the famous Monty Python sketch, leaning back in our chairs and recalling fondly when the hills were steeper, the shoes were more basic and the vests scraped your nipples clean off. Luxury.
Eee bah gum, things were tough when we were getting our PBs. We didn’t have chip timing and mats with sensors – we had to wind up a grandfather clock and strap it to our left arm with rope if we wanted to know our times.
One topic did render us almost speechless with disbelief at this week’s reunion. Ian revealed Nike are marketing shoes that you can apparently lace-up without bending down – all you do is click a button on your smartphone and the Bluetooth connection with your feet will do the laces up for you!
No, he wasn’t having a ‘senior moment’ – these things really do exist! The shoes were launched earlier in 2019 under the brand name Nike Adapt. They retail at around £300.
Why would any runner spend a small fortune on something like that? Well apparently these shoes are aimed particularly at people like tennis star Sir Andy Murray, who recently found bending down very painful before he got his hip and back problems sorted out!
With a Nike Adapt app on your phone you can adjust the tightness of the fit, and the battery in the shoes will last for up to 14 days on a single charge. The company’s boffins claim self-lacing shoes are useful for athletes looking for a very precise fit, as well as those who find tying laces difficult.
The app also allows you to alter the colours of lights that are built into the sole of the shoe! Are you wearing a red shirt? Boom. You can make the lights of the shoe red. Green shirt? The lights can be green.
All this is nonsense, I hear you cry. Why don’t Nike just concentrate on making a shoe that claims to make you run faster?  Oh, hang on . . .  
* Rob Hadgraft's books - including six biographies of champion runners of yesteryear - are on sale via Amazon at:   https://amzn.to/33Lyawc The Nike Adapt BB . . .  ties its own laces and lights up to order.

"We used to get up out of shoebox, in middle of night, and lick road clean wi’ tongue!"

MOST running clubs have a handful of old codgers on their books who have, for one reason or another, been bestowed with the honour of Life Membership.
My own outfit – Tiptree Road Runners – is no exception. There are, I believe, around ten or a dozen ‘Lifers’ in our ranks, including yours truly. With legs and lungs that are ancient and over-used, most of us Tiptree ‘Lifers’ don’t run as far or as frequently as we used to (Malcolm and Jim are notable exceptions) and there is therefore a desire to keep the fires burning by having the occasional re-union.
We generally adjourn to a local pub and settle down to reminisce about those golden days when we used to run fast, when races had sensible entry fees, and when injuries were just a minor occupational hazard.  
This week we descended on the unsuspecting Essex village of Feering. And yes - you are right - we did behave rather like the four Yorkshiremen in the famous Monty Python sketch, leaning back in our chairs and recalling fondly when the hills were steeper, the shoes were more basic and the vests scraped your nipples clean off. Luxury.
Eee bah gum, things were tough when we were getting our PBs. We didn’t have chip timing and mats with sensors – we had to wind up a grandfather clock and strap it to our left arm with rope if we wanted to know our times.
One topic did render us almost speechless with disbelief at this week’s reunion. Ian revealed Nike are marketing shoes that you can apparently lace-up without bending down – all you do is click a button on your smartphone and the Bluetooth connection with your feet will do the laces up for you!
No, he wasn’t having a ‘senior moment’ – these things really do exist! The shoes were launched earlier in 2019 under the brand name Nike Adapt. They retail at around £300.
Why would any runner spend a small fortune on something like that? Well apparently these shoes are aimed particularly at people like tennis star Sir Andy Murray, who recently found bending down very painful before he got his hip and back problems sorted out!
With a Nike Adapt app on your phone you can adjust the tightness of the fit, and the battery in the shoes will last for up to 14 days on a single charge. The company’s boffins claim self-lacing shoes are useful for athletes looking for a very precise fit, as well as those who find tying laces difficult.
The app also allows you to alter the colours of lights that are built into the sole of the shoe! Are you wearing a red shirt? Boom. You can make the lights of the shoe red. Green shirt? The lights can be green.
All this is nonsense, I hear you cry. Why don’t Nike just concentrate on making a shoe that claims to make you run faster?  Oh, hang on . . .  
* Rob Hadgraft's books - including six biographies of champion runners of yesteryear - are on sale via Amazon at:   https://amzn.to/33Lyawc The Nike Adapt BB . . .  ties its own laces and lights up to order.

The strange effect of running 'naked' (i.e. minus technology!)

  FLASHBACK to exactly 30 years ago. November 1989 was unusually sunny, mild and dry. It was a month when history was made: the Berlin Wall came down, TV cameras were allowed into the House of Commons, Thatcher’s Tory leadership was challenged for the first time, and revolutions kicked off in Bucharest and Prague.
And . . . attracting far fewer headlines . . . was the fact my trusty runner’s wristwatch suddenly packed up. But, bizarrely, this malfunction would prove a blessing in disguise.
It unexpectedly helped bring about probably the best month of racing I ever did. In four events, including a tough 10-miler, every single mile was completed in well under six minutes (these days I can barely manage a kilometre in six minutes, let alone a mile!). And all because I raced without the aid of a watch.
Nowadays running without a watch (or any other technology) is known as 'running naked'. Back then it didn't have a name.
Knowing zilch about my pace and mile-splits initially felt like a problem. In those days it was all about chasing PBs; and how could you chase a PB if you couldn’t monitor your pace? But, rather magically, there was some sort of chemical reaction and my anxiety transformed into adrenaline. I ended up faster than usual!
First up was the popular Pitsea 5-mile road race, a fast and mostly flat affair near Basildon, in near-perfect conditions. Habitual glancing at my naked left wrist gave zero clues as to how things were going, but it felt fast. I became hopeful I’d get close to my existing PB of 27:55.  
Runners finishing nearby reckoned we’d gone under 28 and later it was confirmed I was clocked at 27:20. It was a big chunk off the PB, and really pleasing to have averaged quicker than 5:30 per mile.
A week later came the Clacton five-miler and I continued the ‘no watch’ experiment. Things went even better. In blissful ignorance of time and tide I came home in exactly 27 minutes, nabbing a place in the top ten.
I was left pondering how legs and lungs seemed to perform better when there was no brain telling them about time. Mind you, I did wonder if a watch would have helped me cut off an extra second . . .  26:59 would have been so much better than 27:00!
All this seemed to cause an excess of foolish confidence the following Saturday, when I entered two different races on the same morning! Despite having to gather in Ipswich’s Humber Doucy Lane at the ungodly hour of 0745, I managed second place in the Sri Chinmoy 4, in a time of 22:30.
Exit stage left and a quick costume change . . . and off I dashed with minutes to spare to the University of Essex, and the Today’s Runner cross-country league race. This also went swimmingly, although XC never requires watches anyway!
With birthday and Christmas coming up I was in no hurry to buy a new watch by this point, and went ‘naked’ again the following week for the toughest task of all - the undulating 10-miler put on annually by Hadleigh Hares. It’s not one to be messed with, and definitely not a PB course. 
Nevertheless, the ‘no watch’ trick had one more surprise in store for me. It got me home in 58:30, a 10-mile time that in 2019 remains my second-best of all time.
Hadleigh concluded a great month but I didn’t want to push my luck  . . . so returned to wearing a fully-functioning timepiece at all subsequent races. And in the 30 years since, I’ve never managed to kick the habit.
Tempus fugit!
* The annual Hadleigh (Suffolk) 10-miler - November 2019 style (Pic by Katrina Rigby)

Doing a Parkrun with the aid of six legs!

RUNNING with a dog is strictly forbidden in races affiliated to UK Athletics or the Trail Running Association – but hounds can get a slice of the action at most of the UK’s 600 Parkruns these days.
My first race in six months is likely to be a gentle outing at a Parkrun sometime soon. Being unfit and out of practice, I reckon the best way to keep moving and get some legal assistance to the finish will be to attach myself to a four-legged friend and get him to drag me along.
Carrying out this job will be Arthur, an energetic terrier who has recently been put through his paces in local parks to test his suitability. Last weekend he even got to sample a ‘big race atmosphere’ for the first time when I took him along to watch and mingle with runners at the NESS Cross-Country League event on Hilly Fields, Colchester. 
Arthur, whose fourth birthday is this weekend, wasn’t at all fazed by the noise and congestion created by 330 runners and other assorted onlookers. He seems good and ready for his Parkrun debut. He’s not used to crowds, but was happy to meet my 20 Tiptree club colleagues who were running at Hilly Fields. At one point he even rolled on to his back in order to get a tummy rub from Morven (lucky boy!).
Runner’s World magazine have endorsed Arthur’s participation in running – his breed was named at No.6 of the best 20 types of dog as running partners. They said Staffies like Arthur are “Low to the ground and really excel at shorter distances. They are one of the rare breeds that look like they are working as hard as you when running.”
I quite like the idea of making my latest comeback while tied to an energetic quadruped. Not only can he haul me along when the going gets tough, but if my finish-time is embarrassingly slow, I can always shift the blame to him! 
At least he won’t need carrying. Heard a tale recently about runner Khemjira Klongsanun hitting the seven-mile point of a marathon in Thailand, when she suddenly noticed other runners dodging a stray puppy.  With no houses nearby, Khemjira was sure it must have been abandoned. She scooped it up and carried it the remaining 19-miles to the finish! She ended up adopting it, named it Chombueng after the location of the race, and now they’re both living happily ever after. 
My other shaggy dog story this week concerns the recent Marathon des Sables (self-styled ‘Toughest Footrace on Earth’). Run over seven days through the Sahara desert, this year’s participants found they had an unexpected companion - a dog happily racing alongside them!  They named it Cactus, welcomed it into camp at night, gave it food and water and health checks from the runner who was also a vet.
It seems having four legs is an advantage on sand, for Cactus was ranked 52nd overall in the race’s third stage and was listed as a finisher in the bulletins from Race HQ. What a very good boy.

The Tiptree man who ran home from Liverpool Street!

Tom Payn makes his debut as a runner, alongside dad in the Tiptree Road Runners 
fun-run of nearly 30 years ago.  This year he became one of the world's fastest
100-mile runners,  shortly before his 40th birthday.
 ULTRA-runners rarely seem to make the headlines. So it’s a fair guess that even my running clubmates from Tiptree are probably unaware a 39-year-old man from our village recently produced one of the quickest 100-mile runs in history.
The feat took place on a track in Kent just a few weeks ago, and was described by one astonished race official as “One of the truly great all-time performances”.
Tom Payn covered the 100 miles in 12hrs 25mins 30secs – lapping the Ashford track all day long for a place in the record books as the second-fastest Briton of the last 35 years, and the 8th fastest of all time!
Tom grew up in Keeble Close, Tiptree, where mum Jane still lives, and (like your Clapped-Out Runner) went to St.Luke’s Primary School in Church Road. His first steps as a runner were as a tiny nipper in the 1980s, bombing up and down the cul-de-sac where he lived while mum stood at the front door timing him. Nowadays his running tends to be scrutinised by highly-qualified officials with sophisticated equipment!
Tom’s running achievements since those salad days are many and varied, but my favourite tale about him concerns the day he decided to test his legs for the first time over a really long distance.
Stepping out the front door of his flat at London’s Barbican - not far from Liverpool Street station - he made a big decision: Why not make that morning’s training session a run all the way to his home village of Tiptree?
It was a frightening commitment for an ultra ‘virgin’ - but running to Tiptree at least enabled him to avoid the troubles of the Greater Anglia train-line!
Tom told me this week: “I’m trying to remember when that run from the Barbican to Tiptree was. It must have been early 2012 as I did my first ultra in September of that year. If I remember correctly I jumped on the canal path over to Stratford, then shadowed the A12 through Romford and went past Gallows Corner, crossing underneath the M25 before running up to Brentwood.
“There were plenty of wrong turns along the route and this added quite a bit of distance, but I always thought I was heading roughly in the right direction. From Brentwood I again began shadowing the A12 all the way to Chelmsford, where unfortunately once again I got a bit lost.
“Once I’d finally found my way through Chelmsford I was able to get up to Hatfield Peverel. From there I took the country roads through Wickham Bishops and Great Braxted before finally arriving in Tiptree! I think my Garmin recorded it at 50-something-miles in 7-something-hours.”
Tom’s story reminds me of my early days as a novice runner, training for the inaugural Ipswich Marathon in 1983. I recall leaving Ipswich town centre and heading for West Bergholt, a mere 18 miles away. My route involved shadowing the A12 just like Tom, and getting lost just like him. But I suspect the similarities probably end there.
These days Tom is a full-time runner and has conjured up superb times at a ridiculous range of distances, from 800 metres up to 100 miles. He’s run a 2:17 marathon, has gone sub-30 for 10k and won the Tiptree 10-miler in 2011. He gets hired to pace top stars in big marathons, and is a buddy of writer Adharanand Finn, who mentions Tom in his acclaimed books ‘Running with the Kenyans’ and ‘The Rise of the Ultra-Runners’.
He’s come a long way since those hectic sprints up and down Keeble Close!    

The day we crossed the virgin Orwell Bridge

The Evening Star team ready to cross Ipswich's Orwell Bridge: From left - Max Stocker, Bruce Wade, Rob Hadgraft, Colin Hayward and Bryn Webber.

THEY started building it exactly 40 years ago, hence tomorrow (Friday) is being declared ‘Orwell Bridge Day’. Celebrations include a BBC Radio Suffolk documentary featuring various people with bridge-related memories. The line-up includes your very own Clapped-Out Runner!
Some of you may recall that shortly before this magnificent edifice was opened to traffic, a half-marathon was staged allowing more than 1,000 runners to stream across the virgin Bridge, before a U-turn took them back across it along the opposite carriageway. 
One of the foot soldiers in that unique event was Yours Truly and, notwithstanding the fierce winds and relentless hills, it felt like a real privilege to be among the first ‘civilians’ to cross the River Orwell in this way. Proper pioneers! 
In those days I was a running novice who didn’t even possess the proper kit, but I wasn’t the only one. The event was sponsored by my employers at the local paper, and we fielded a small but enthusiastic team of chaps who didn’t normally run great distances but were up for a challenge. A few weeks earlier I’d tried the Sunday Times Fun Run in London's Hyde Park and was in the early stages of addiction to the running game. Having recently got married and bought a house, it seemed like a more suitable leisure pursuit than Sunday morning football!
Just over 1,000 of us charged across the Bridge on that chilly day in November 1982 to complete 13.1 tough miles. The winner of the women’s race was Carol Gould, an Ipswich-based international with a 2:35 marathon to her name.
Carol and myself were invited into the BBC Suffolk studios recently to record material for tomorrow’s documentary and it proved an enjoyable re-union as we’re both former members of Ipswich JAFFA and hadn’t had a good chin-wag for 25 years or more.
The Bridge half-marathon stands out in my memory as my first proper road race, in which I managed a time of 1hr 30mins despite scant experience or proper training. I also recall the start being delayed at least 15 minutes because Ipswich mayor Beryl James was stuck in traffic!
It was 1982 and the citizen running boom was just taking off in East Anglia. There were hundreds like me that day getting their first proper taste of the sport. A sign of the times was the oldest finisher of the 1,046 being only 59 years old!  And when it was announced a few weeks later that Ipswich’s very first full marathon would take place in the same area, around 900 quickly signed up – but only 24 of them were women.
* BBC Radio Suffolk’s ‘Orwell Bridge Day’ (Friday Oct 25) includes Matt Marvell’s documentary to be broadcast at 9am on the breakfast show, and showings throughout the afternoon in the Suffolk Food Hall of a 40-minute film of the bridge being built. 
( * Views expressed in this blog are purely my own and not necessarily those of the two long-established East Anglian running clubs I am privileged to have Life Membership of).     

All revved up and nowhere to go!

AFTER what happened at Peterborough last weekend, I’m relieved my efforts at the Tiptree 10-mile race on the same day didn’t attract the attention of the police.
Peterborough’s Great Eastern Run was cancelled on police advice after a man was seen out on the course “acting suspiciously”. Armed officers were sent in to investigate and 4,000 dismayed runners back on the start-line were politely asked to disperse and go home!
On reflection I might also have been seen as acting suspiciously at the Tiptree 10:  I spent the morning tampering with the digital race-clock, relieving a colleague’s vehicle of its battery, breaking into a big white van, shifting orange cones all around the road, and even shouting frantically at female runners.
But don’t be shocked, this stuff was all in a morning’s work in my role as marshal/helper at the finish-line zone! The shouting and pointing at women’s tummies may have looked a tad rude, but was only done if they crossed the line with race numbers obscured or missing. It was all done with a smile, and with the best of intentions – and I’m pleased to say many of the 400 finishers were full of praise for all the volunteers who made up Stacy and Simon’s team on the day.
The news of Peterborough’s last-minute police cancellation certainly generated waves of sympathy for their 4,000 runners. Talk about all revved up and nowhere to go. And one of them was the Assistant Chief Constable himself!
My personal memories of the annual Peterborough half-marathon are very rosy ones I’m pleased to say. It was here, back in the 20th century, I managed to clock a PB of 1 hour 19 minutes on their super-fast course. Yes, I admit doing the long drive to Peterborough that day was largely due to the flatness of the route awaiting us! A similar journey occurred a year later for the Wisbech 10, where those wide-open Fenlands helped me chalk up a PB of 58 mins 06 secs for the 10 miles.
Such running seems a lifetime away now, occupied as I am with some rather unpretty attempts to get back in shape for a few Parkruns, following many months of low mileage and injuries aplenty. I did manage to knock out 5k the other day – almost cause for celebration, as this hadn’t occurred in four months or more, for one reason or another. How times change. Literally.
(* Views expressed in this blog are purely my own and not necessarily those of the two long-established East Anglian running clubs I am privileged to have Life Membership of).     

Not quite finished yet!

AFTER a lengthy absence from the blogosphere, the Clapped-out Runner is back! 
This blog first appeared seven years ago as ‘Diary of a Clapped-Out Runner’, its title a sort of tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecating reference to the fact my times were getting slower as the years slipped by, and I was finding myself nearer the back than the front end of races.  
But at least back then I was still running and racing regularly . . . nowadays, it must be said, that ‘Clapped-Out’ adjective has got dangerously close to being the absolute truth! 
Various chronic running-related injuries, a series of ever-diminishing Parkrun times, and a collection of running shoes that mainly gathers dust . . .  these things have recently rudely suggested I might like to quietly quit and do something else in the name of leisure and fitness. 
But no. That hasn’t happened yet. In fact, I’ve even adopted the mantra “It’s better to wear out than rust out!”  Stopping altogether after 37 years of running would surely invite overworked joints and sinews to seize up altogether; better to keep them moving, even if they do squeak, crack and complain!
Our new dog Arthur mentioned the other day he quite fancied a go at Parkrun - so there’s another reason for me to keep the running going. Can’t let him do the damn thing on his own.
Yep, my running mojo has evidently not quite vanished yet . . . and there was further encouragement recently when Runner’s World magazine published a set of statistics that somehow persuaded me I’m not quite as slow these days as I thought I was.
These stats were “average finish times” of the entire UK running population in 2019. How on earth they managed to calculate them I have no idea, but I’m in no mood to argue. They have made an old man very happy, for they suggest that even in my current state of sporting decline I can still go quicker than Mr and Mrs Average (as long as I can remain fit enough to actually reach a finish-line!).
UK race participation has become far more popular in the past 10 years (up by 164%), meaning the demography is totally different in 2019. There are far more runners out there whose main motivation is to enjoy a sociable means of staying fit and healthy, regardless of their age, size or sporting background. Running is no longer a niche sport for eccentric, serious-faced skinny chaps who smell of liniment and whose idea of nirvana is a place in the county cross-country team.
Newbies are everywhere - and very welcome they are too - which explains why average finish-times are getting slower these days. Of course this is good news for us veterans who need modest target times as we cope with Mother Nature’s efforts to slow us down.
Runner’s World reckons the average nationwide finish time for a 5k is currently 33:54 (men 29:08 and women 38:12). For the 10k it is 58:08 (men 53:38 and women 63:18). For the half-marathon it is 2:02:43 (men 1:55:26 and women 2:11:57. For the marathon it is 4:23:27 for men and 5:00:39 for women.     (* Views expressed in this blog are purely my own and not necessarily those of the two long-established East Anglian running clubs I am privileged to have Life Membership of).     

White City: A sporting landmark demolished for BBC offices

MOST people – especially sports history buffs – hate to see a well-known and much-loved landmark building demolished only to be replaced by something of far less architectural or aesthetic merit.  A typical example was the case of the White City Stadium. There was deep dismay and gnashing of teeth when the old place was smashed to smithereens by a wrecking ball in 1985. This athletics ‘Mecca’ in London W12 was removed to make way for a widely-detested office block for the BBC’s ever-proliferating management.It’s true the White City facilities had become pretty much obsolete, but surely this historic site should have been earmarked as a striking and much more convenient location for Wembley Stadium’s replacement? That never happened, vested interests winning the day with the ‘new’ Wembley being created on the old footprint.  My year-long tour of 60 of Sydney Wooderson’s race venues culminated in a visit to the spot where the White City Stadium once stood. I found that although the old place has been wiped off the face of the earth, at least there were a couple of small reminders of the past among the mundane and functional edifices of today.By looking skywards I found a memorial wall (above), bearing the five Olympic rings and names of medal winners at the 1908 Games held on this spot – and by looking down I located engraved paving that showed where the finish line on the old cinder running track was positioned (below). The only other reminder of the past in the vicinity these days is the adjacent street Dorando Close. This was named in tribute to Italian marathon runner Dorando Pietri, who stumbled across the finish line in first place at the 1908 Olympiad, only to be disqualified for receiving assistance. The stadium was built in 10 months on the site of the Franco-British Exhibition and opened by King Edward VII in April 1908. There were more than 60,000 seats and the original running track three laps to the mile. The classic 26.2 miles distance for the marathon was fixed here, with the 1908 Olympic race starting at Windsor Castle to a point in front of the White City royal box.In 1926 the Greyhound Racing Association took over the stadium and grassed over the running track for dog racing and speedway and built new covered terracing and a restaurant. From 1927 until closure in the 1980s it would be considered the top greyhound track in Britain. In 1931, a 440-yard running track was installed for the AAA Championships, which were held there from 1932 - the very year of Sydney Wooderson’s breakthrough in senior athletics. The AAAs main event continued here up to 1970 and there were many other major internationals fixtures. Crowds, especially in the immediate post-war years, were huge.   QPR used the stadium for home matches in the 1930s and again in the 1960s, and when a World Cup 1966 group game between Uruguay and France clashed with dog racing at Wembley, the match was switched to White City. * Sydney Wooderson wins the 1939 AAA mile at White City.My on-going research for a biography of Sydney Wooderson tells me the little man raced at White City around 25 times between 1933 and 1946. He regularly thrilled the big London crowds with his fast finishes in mile races, arguably the most memorable of the lot being a rare defeat – at the hands of the brilliant Arne Andersson on a Bank Holiday Monday in August 1945. Sydney had only just recovered from a serious bout of rheumatic fever that hospitalised him for many weeks, whereas Andersson arrived from Sweden in peak condition having avoided all the hardships of the recently-ended war. Wooderson ran bravely and brilliantly but was pipped in dramatic style right on the line, losing out by less than half-a-second. Watching wide-eyed that day was a young Roger Bannister, who admitted later the excitement, the roaring of the crowd and the courage of the little English underdog inspired him to take running seriously . . .  and the rest is history!
* The Sydney Wooderson book is still a work in progress, but my other books – including biographies of runners Jim Peters, Arthur Newton, Alf Shrubb, Walter George and ‘Deerfoot’- are on sale via Amazon now. Link:  http://amzn.to/2hp3etz