The photograph above is of a bunch of Harriers at Mountblow immediately after the War and the image is one of men happy that the War is over, full of optimism for the future and happy with their life at that time. The chap on the extreme is John Morgan, official club starter who had fought in the War in Burma.
When we first saw the new track at St Peter’s, one of the athletes seeing it for the first time said “There’s no perimeter!” And it is serious lack for distance runners. There was a good big perimeter at Whitecrook where distance runners could get a series of long reps done and of course, it was ideal for warming up purposes. The venue before that was at Mountblow. Mountblow was a superb facility. Opened on 4th September 1937 it was a wonderful improvement on all that had gone before. The “Scotsman” reported on the opening as follows. Note the sum of £12,000 – today’s purchasing power would be £1, 024, 435.86!
13 acres (an acre is roughly the size of two football pitches) is a big area, the smaller football field mentioned above was the one inside the running track which was 327 yards long. Not quite big enough for the standard events but it had a good red blaes surface (a blae is a small pebble and the track was made of crushed red pebbles and had agood smooth surface which drained easily). If we wanted to have proper club championships with quarter and half mile races, with mile and three mile races, or if we wanted to hold inter-clubs or host the county championships we had to know what the dimensions were and David Bowman came up with the diagram below which all committee members and anyone involved in organising meetings used.
The track did indeed host County Championships, and it did host inter-clubs and club championships; all the local schools used it as did the Scouts and BB groups for their annual badge assessments. The very good Victoria Park team of the 1950’s trained there on Sundays when they were at their very best, using the perimeter for half mile reps, etc. It was a wonderful facility with a superb pavil;ion which has been allowed to deteriorate. Look at the description below of it as a listed building:
I’ll return to the facility soon with a bit more detail later.
