|
Peterborough Harriers were formed between 1947 and 1948, the president was Mr Spires who lived in Alexandra Road, Peterborough and worked for the City Treasurer's office.
The chaiman was Mr Bill Potts, who was the then Northamptonshire county Marathon champion. In those days Peterborough was in the Northamptonshire area and not Cambridgeshire, in the early 1950's Bill retired from athletics and later became landlord of the Crown pub in New England, Peterborough.
The club coach was Tom Page, who was a local school teacher. He was Northamptonshire county high jump champion and was regarded as one of the best field event coaches in the area. Unfortunately in the late 1950's Tom died in a motorcycle accident.
Club captain was Jack Hunter who was an excellent middle distance runner and was county champion at the mile and cross country.
Interestingly Jack was a former paratrooper who suffered with severe back injury and was advised to take up running as a form of physiotherapy!
Other Members of the club who represented the county at cross country were Fred Wright, Fred Abbs and Bob Forbear who all travelled as reserves for the 1951 Inter-County Championships held at Aylesford Paper Mills in Kent. These championships were won by Dr Frank Aaron from Yorkshire with pretender Gordon Pirie finishing second.
The headquarters of the club were at Walton School, Mountsteven Avenue, Walton, Peterborough with training nights held on Wednesday's and track meetings held on the school field; all the running events were held on a grass track.
The cross country course was over ploughed fields, headland, woodland tracks and bridleways. Competitors had to walk, jog, run from the school to the start which was around three quarters of a mile away. Two laps of the the course equated to 5 miles. Cross country inter-club matches were held between Bedford AC, Northampton AC, Kettering Town Harriers, Lincoln, Wellington, Cambridge University and RAF Cranwell. County Championships were held at Wickstead Park near Kettering.
Transport was a problem in those early days (no change there then) with the junior teams travelling to matches in a closed van that was fitted out as a travelling cloths shop with the athletes having to squeeze in among the stock.
Peterborough Harriers inaugurated the Round the City road race, which was held on Easter Monday and took place around the city starting and fininshing at Market Hill, now Cathedral Square.
This event is now known as the Fred Wright Memorial 10K, following the untimely death of one of the club's founder members, and held around the roads of Whittlesey, after the Queensgate Centre opened and the footpaths used in the final 400m of the race became too congested with shoppers.
 In 1955 the Peterborough Harriers amalgamated with Crowland AC to form Peterborough AC. The club's headquarters are now at the Peterborough Athletics Arena, Bishops Road, Peterborough.
|
