"The Flying Scotsman": Ming Campbell's athletics career

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Athletics Weekly marked the passing of the former Liberal Democrat leader Ming Campbell with a short article on his career as a sprinter:

Despite being best known as a former Liberal Democrat leader, Campbell held the British 100m record in the 1960s.

Menzies "Ming" Campbell, the Scottish sprinter who ran at the 1964 Olympics and held the UK 100m record with 10.2 before a successful career as a politician, has died aged 84.

Campbell was dubbed the "Flying Scotsman" and occasionally "the fastest white man on the planet" and ran for Britain in the 1964 Olympics in addition to representing Scotland at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.

His UK record of 10.2 for 100m was set in 1967 – a time he achieved twice, in Modesto and San Jose, to equal MacDonald Bailey's 1951 mark – and the time stood as the national record until 1972.

At the 1964 Tokyo Games, Campbell, who was aged 23, reached the 200m quarter-finals and ran in the 4x100m relay.

As a student at Stanford, he famously raced and beat OJ Simpson, before Simpson switched his attentions to NFL. Campbell also finished runner-up to Tommie Smith, the American athlete who later won the 200m at the 1968 Olympics.

Born in Glasgow on May 22, 1941, Campbell studied at Glasgow and Stanford universities and was a barrister before becoming a politician.

He was initially a quarter-miler while studying in Glasgow – winning four Scottish titles at 440 yards – but gravitated to the shorter distances of 100 and 220 yards and their metric equivalents.

At the AAA Championships he won two titles over 220 yards, equalling the championships record of 21.1 in 1964, and he won medals at three editions of the World Student Games in the 1960s.

At the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 he won his 200m heat in 21.33 but was knocked out in the second round.

His impressive athleticism and natural leadership abilities meant he was named British athletics captain in 1965 and 1966. Similarly, he was the captain of the Scottish team at the 1966 Commonwealth Games.

He retired from athletics in 1968 to pursue his law career.

Tommie Smith and his protest at the 1968 Olympics are largely forgotten now. You can read about him in a guest post Matt Roebuck wrote for me some years ago.

And it's possible that I saw Ming as a sprinter myself. I can remember Grandstand - the BBC's Saturday afternoon sports programme - in the 1960s, when "indoor athletics from RAF Cosford" was a recurrent item.

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"Psychologists, however, are all too aware that people are reluctant to change their minds and that, when it happens at all, it occurs gradually. Famously, those who invest heavily in ideological projects such as end-of-the-world cults (or Prohibition, or Brexit) are likely to double down when their prophecies fail (numerous cults have seen the hour of the apocalypse arrive and pass without incident, and then simply recalibrated their calendars)." Richard Bentall asks when Britain will change its mind on Brexit.

Gemma Gould sets out what happens to women who speak out on social media: "For women who take a stand on social issues, the backlash can be swift and severe. In the UK, women in politics, journalism, activism and other public spheres who speak out against injustice are often met with hostility. This hostility is not limited to public debate; it extends into their personal lives, affecting their mental health, well-being and sometimes even their safety."

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"Towards the bottom right-hand corner is St Georges Recreation Ground. The former cinder running track with a spectator pavilion is highlighted by the green surround. The 100-yard sprint section on which Harold Abrahams qualified for the 1924 Olympics in Paris (where he won the 100-metres Gold medal) can just be seen." Anthony Rowley on the volumes of history to be found in one aerial photograph of a Shropshire village.

Jonathan Pomeroy watches this year's swift season end.

Little Bowden Police Station and Magistrates Court - and my political career

This attractive building stands in Northampton Road, Market Harborough, and the Prison History site gives you its early history:

In the Northampton Mercury of Saturday 5th September 1863 was an advertisement for builders to submit tenders for the building of a new Police Station and Magistrates Room at Little Bowden, with separate tenders needed for both. 

In the Northampton Mercury of Saturday 22nd October 1864 it was stated that the Chief Constable had taken possession of the station and placed an inspector and constable there. In the Northampton Mercury of Saturday 7th January 1865 it was reported that the Magistrates took possession of the Magistrates Room on 13th December 1864. 

Little Bowden Police Station on Northampton Road, Market Harborough is still standing and, I believe, is now used for private offices.

The building was used for private offices until recently, but was then put on the market. I'm not sure if it found a buyer.

The Chief Constable who took possession of the police station here in 1864 was the head of the Northamptonshire Constabulary, because the boundary between that county and Leicestershire followed the River Welland through Market Harborough until the 1890s. So a fair percentage of the town's population and offenders lived in Northants.

At some point after that boundary change the police station closed and became the offices of Market Harborough Urban District Council. I'm told there are still cells beneath it.

Little Bowden Magistrates Court continued to sit until about 1960, hearing cases from the Northamptonshire villages south of the town. It also served as the UDC's council chamber until the authority was abolished in 1974.

When, in 1984. I returned from working in Birmingham and London, the building was occupied by a sports club, The Olympian. It took its name from its owner, Brian Kilby, who had finished fourth in the Marathon at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. By some reckonings, he also held the world Marathon record for over a year in 1963-4.

In 1984 Brian Kilby was a Conservative member of Harborough District Council, but we noticed that he had stopped attending meetings - I believe he was having business problems - and selected a candidate for a possible by-election in his ward. That candidate was me.

I forget whether Kilby was disqualified as a councillor or decided to resign, but the by-election duly took place in May 1986 and I gained the seat for the Liberal Party, appearing as 'Liberal Alliance' on the ballot paper.

My memory may be faulty on some of these points, local readers, so please let me know if I've got anything wrong.

Tom and Bill Hartley provide our Trivial Fact of the Day

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England named their squads for their 50-over and T20 cricket internationals against the West Indies next month.

Included in the 50-over squad is the Lancashire spinner Tom Hartley, who provides us with out Trivial Fact of the Day.

This is because he's the son of Bill Hartley, the British athlete of the 1970s,

Bill Hartley was Britain's second-best 400m hurdler of his day, behind Alan Pascoe, and won silver at the 1974 Commonwealth Games. He and Pascoe were both in the England 400m relay team that won silver at those games and the British team that won gold in the sasme event at the European Championships the same year.

This was in an era when medals for British athletes in major championships were rarer than they are today. 

There's an article about the Hartleys, father and son, on the Cricketer website.

The history of the cinder track in Welland Park, Market Harborough

When I posted a USAAF aerial photograph of Market Harborough during the war, I noted the large oval in Welland Park and asked if it was a long-vanished cycle track.

The answer to my question is yes. There was a cinder track laid out in the park and both runners and cyclists has plans for it, but they appear to have come to nothing.

Here's the Market Harborough Advertiser and Midland Mail for 9 February 1934 reporting on a meeting of the urban district council:

The Welland Park Scheme

The Clerk said the Surveyor and he attended the Ministry and from what happened there he thought there was a chance of getting the application for the Welland Park through, and he thought it would be as well to pass a resolution that the matter go forward. 

The Surveyor (Mr. Barlow) said he had prepared plans and estimates which he described. The plans included a cinder running track (five laps to the mile). This would not expensive be an job as it could be made largely with clinkers from the destructor. 

The ministry in question was the Ministry of Health and 'the destructor' would have been apparatus used to burn domestic refuse collected by the council.

Then on 4 June 1937 the same newspaper's Sports Gossip column by R.H.O. reported:

I hear that several enthusiastic sportsmen would very much like to see an Amateur Athletic Club formed in Market Harborough. They are willing, providing there is sufficient interest in the project, to set about getting a club formed right away. 

With an officially recognised A.A.A. track in the Welland Park there would be no difficulties regarding facilities for holding trials and training. Already the Urban Council has been approached with a view to having the track banked and widened and there seems no reason why a club should not be run on successful lines. 

We have rivalry in cricket and football between the factories in the town  - why not include running, walking and cycling? Personally. I am pretty certain that we have some really useful athletes in Market Harborough. 

I have been asked not to divulge any names this week, but it can be taken from me that the sportsmen interested in the project are willing to spare no effort to get a club going. They are anxious to get the feeling of the youth of the town, and anyone wishing to give them support should drop a line to this office. A meeting is to be called shortly.

But on 2 July R.H.O. had to report:

With enquiries still coming in it is no exaggeration to state that within a few weeks the newly-formed Market Harborough and District Athletic and Cycling Club, will be able to boast of a membership of something like 70.

Members of the temporary committee of the Club inspected the track in the Welland Park this week. The track in its present condition is not very suitable for athletics. and could be very much improved. 

The main path leading from the Farndon-road entrance of the Park, which cuts through the track at two points, needs diverting and on top of this the track not wide enough.

And if you study the photo in my earlier post you will see the path doing just that.

I can find no report suggesting that any improvements were carried out, and then came war. On 7 March 1941 the newspaper reported a meeting of the council's water and markets committee. The committee's chairman and the chairman of the council had inspected Welland Park:

They recommended that all the area inside the running track be ploughed and used for growing potatoes, and it was recommended that this be done, and that the seed potatoes be purchased without delay.

The report was adopted.

There was to be no post-war renaissance of the track. On 10 December 1948 the paper's In and About Harborough column recorded:

It was news to me - as it may be to you - that there is (or perhaps was) a cycle racing track in Welland Park, Market Harborough. 

According to some of the cyclists who were attending Welland Valley Wheelers' annual dinner at Harborough on Saturday, the track was laid out. but was used only once - for the Coronation sports rather over ten years ago. 

They think the track could be restored and banked with very little expense - cinders and other waste could be used they sav - and that it could be put back into commission if a path in the park were slightly diverted.

For the last reference I can find to the track came only a week later, in a long letter about the town's sporting facilities by Benny Foster:

When the Welland Park was laid out, a running and cycle track was included, now sadly overrun by weeds, and to all intents and purposes merely a footpath.

Benny Foster, incidentally, was not just a writer of letters to his local paper. He became manager of the British international cycling team and brought the world cycling championships to Leicester in 1970.

The track may have come to nothing, but I want to end by paying tribute to foresight of the old urban district council in providing such a park for the town. When I came to Harborough in 1973, there were still parkkeepers employed there and two putting courses.

The photo at the top shows the bandstand and tearooms in the park, which now houses a café again after many years. When the sun shines you can see what an attractive example of Thirties architecture it is.

Scottish ultra-marathon runner blames injury and jetlag for using car in race

Our Headline of the Day Award goes to the Guardian for its coverage of an interesting innovation in distance running.

GUEST POST Why the Progressive Alliance is irrelevant in Batley and Spen

Matthew Pennell says those arguing for a Progressive Alliance in the Batley and Spen by-election don't understand the seat.

I’m a massive track and field freak and I learnt an important life lesson from an Athletics Weekly editorial a while back - it talked about having a ‘no short cuts’ approach to the sport. 

This wasn’t, as you’d expect, about not taking performance enhancing drugs, but weight loss. It’s known that getting on the Slimfast can boost your performance in the short term but what you gain in speed you lose in strength so you’re far more likely to get ill/injured in the long term. Adopt a ‘no short cuts’ approach to life in general and you won’t go far wrong. 

For this reason I smell a rat in the recent calls for a Progressive Alliance in politics as it seems like a classic short cut approach.

You may have already noticed calls for a Progressive Alliance in Batley and Spen, they’re utter drivel and I’ll explain why. Batley and Spen isn’t a classic red wall seat, it’s toggled between Labour and Conservative throughout the years and has never been a particularly safe Labour seat since Mike Wood gained it in 1997. It’s competitive, Labour know it’s competitive, how much does Labour want to win?

What’s the pathway to Labour victory in Batley and Spen? 

This seat has developed a micro-climate which Labour will have to negotiate in order to reach the winning post. Unlike Hartlepoolm there’s no overwhelming Brexit sentiment in Batley and Spen, the Brexit party polled far lower in 2019 and Reform UK isn’t standing this time. There was a major third party, however, last time out - the Heavy Woollen District Independents (HWDI), who polled a whopping 6432 votes. 

This is a rare example of localist politics breaking through at a general election. This smacks of disaffection with the political establishment, but it’s not an overt right-wing Eurosceptic statement - HWDI aren’t standing this time. 

Due to problems with their candidate the Greens aren’t standing this time either, If you aggregate Brexit, HWDI and Green votes from 2019 that amounts to 8800 - this voter cohort will be crucial in determining the result on July 1.

Another ingredient in the micro-climate is the latest chapter in the George Galloway’s Massive Ego show. He’s standing under the Workers Party banner, with what looks like a straightforward Blue

Labour platform, and has already been very active in the constituency. Early polling suggest the Workers Party pulling in 6 per cent of the vote, enough to be a spoiler for Labour.

For those wanting Labour to win, there are four key outcomes:

• Labour retains its vote from 2019
• Labour manages to persuade some Conservatives to switch back to them having left Labour due to Brexit and Corbyn
• Labour wins over 50 per cent of Heavy Woollen District Independents votes 
• Labour neutralises the threat of the Workers Party

If Labour is successful in doing the above it will win the seat, and quite frankly the voting behaviour of Lib Dems and Greens, who would be shoehorned into a Progressive Alliance, won’t matter. 

The notion of a Progressive Alliance simply isn’t relevant to Batley and Spen, and most of those who do don’t live there, aren’t campaigning there and clearly don’t know its recent electoral past and present.

Matthew Pennell blogs at returnoftheliberal and you can follow him on Twitter.

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