Running,Jumping, Throwing and Watching

Like most sports, I wasn’t built for athletics. Whether needing to run fast, jump high or hurl heavy objects long distances, I was pretty low down the queue. At primary school I would dread Sports Day. This was the one day in the calendar when children could show off in public and in particular to their parents. Great, if you could sprint or balance a mean beanbag. However, if like me your main contribution to your ‘house’ was housepoints gleaned from maths tests or story writing, then your achievements were tucked away in private. The only stage that mattered would be the school field one balmy afternoon in June or July, and it was one from which I was usually either absent or cowering amidst the supporting cast.

In those days, there were no efforts to democratise Sports Day, to ensure everybody ‘won’ something. It was strictly meritocratic. One year, when I was seven or eight, I had a really great chance of success. In the wheelbarrow race, I had the sturdy David Burcham to hold my legs and in practice we were clearly the pair to beat. However, on the big occasion his grip faltered and the favourites were beaten. It still rankles that, in my entire school career, primary and secondary, my sole Sports Day certificate was that third place in the wheelbarrow race. For some reason, I’ve never included it in my CV.

In the fourth year at Mayflower Comprehensive, I decided to take extreme and calculating measures. What event would be so unpopular that I could almost guarantee a top three finish? Ah, triple jump! So what if I couldn’t sprint; I knew the basic technique so, provided I didn’t ‘foul’, glory must surely be mine. OK, so the event wasn’t scheduled for Sports Day proper but beggars couldn’t be choosers. When I turned up at the pit one cool summer lunchtime, imagine my disappointment when I found that I was one of four competitors. Four! I would have to hop, step and jump further than someone else to finally achieve my long-held ambition. Needless to say, I failed. I barely reached the sand. I had to be satisfied with nine ‘A’ grade O levels but I’d happily have sacrificed one of those ‘A’s for an athletics certificate bearing my name. Such is life…..

For all my lack of personal prowess, I was always a keen viewer of TV athletics broadcasts. My earliest memory is of the 1968 Olympics, when David Hemery broke the 400 metres hurdles world record, Bob Beamon produced an almost impossible long jump distance and Dick Fosbury changed the high jump forever, although not at school, where attempting the ‘Fosbury Flop’ would result in at best a severe neck injury. ‘Health and safety’ was not a term bandied about in the sixties but I didn’t need a Government Act to tell me that landing head first in an inch of damp sand was not recommended practice. In any case, I never bothered even trying to ‘scissor jump over the bar. My mantra was: queue with the others, deliberately knock it off, shrug and wait for something I could at least attempt without embarrassment. Mr, Fosbury, you can keep your event.

I shall be returning to the Olympic Games in a separate chapter but throughout my childhood and indeed much of my adult life, Athletics provided an important part of my summer viewing. The BBC devoted countless hours to the sport, broadcasting every ‘meet’ or championships that mattered, from the wholly domestic to the multinational ones lasting a weekend or entire week. It wasn’t only during the summer either. I remember watching Grandstand’s coverage of the national indoor ‘champs’ in the late winter. I was enthralled by the thump-thump-thump of athletes pounding their feet around the banked bends and, in the 60 metre sprints, crashing into and, if I was really lucky, somersaulting over, the padded barriers at the end of the straight. It was always held at RAF Cosford. I never questioned why it had to be held in a big, echoing barn at an air force base somewhere in the Midlands. It was just the way it was.

Year after year, I would know many of the ‘3As’ title holders and the winner of the Emsley Carr Mile. It all sounds quaint now. What’s a ‘mile’?! The ‘3As’ referred to the AAA, short for the UK governing body, Amateur Athletics Association. Yes, it was an entirely amateur sport. In theory, no participant could accept appearance or prize money, a situation which continued to exist at the Olympics until the IOC accepted the inevitable and ripped up the rule book in time for the 1992 Games.

I remember watching the BBC multi-sport game show ‘Superstars’ in the Seventies. Athletes, especially hurdlers and pole vaulters, were often excellent all-rounders. One year, John Sherwood, who took bronze behind Hemery in Mexico, won the UK ‘Superstars’ final. To accept the title and prize, however paltry, he had to renounce his amateur status and retire from competitive athletics. Back then, it wasn’t a decision to take lightly.

Of course, for many people, amateurism was really ‘shamateurism’. The best athletes were paid ‘under the counter’ or by more sophisticated subterfuge. The Soviet Bloc competitors were all officially eligible thanks to a degree of government support. So too, were the top Americans. It’s just that they couldn’t admit it. Nobody believed the likes of Carl Lewis or Flo-Jo were paid no fees to run anywhere in the world and I’m sure the same was true of Britain’s biggest stars like Daley Thompson or Linford Christie.

As a spectator, it didn’t really matter. As long as the best competed against each other, who cared? Why should only public schoolboys and girls, their training and travel costs subsidised by rich parents, be able to win medals? It also didn’t bother me that I was a useless athlete; I could still appreciate the drama of the sport as television entertainment. Some of my favourite all-time sporting memories have involved extraordinary races, momentous duels in field events, records being smashed, and legendary rivalries played out for my entertainment.