|
The Brickwood Pewter and the
Orion Mob match
Those who
lined up for the 40th running of the Club 10,000m
Championship at Norman Park on 27 May 2009, this year might well reflect
on the thumping loss handed out to BBHAC by Orion Harriers in the mob
match earlier in the year. In remembering the Orion mob match they might
be surprised to learn that they would be delving back into the origins
of the Brickwood Pewter and the embarrassment of an Epping Forrest
defeat by Orion Harriers.
 The
10,000m championship was first run in 1970 in the first season of the
metrication of the track championships for the club. Nick Mandeville was
a worthy winner on the cinders of Ladywell track in a time that has not
been bettered since 1989. The 40 winners (there was a dead heat in 1979)
in the 39 years up to 2008 are all recorded on the pewter although it
was not the practice to engrave the winning times until 1993.
In the
context of not having lost to Orion Harriers for 34 years, back in
December 1973 the Gazette (586,76,8) reports: There was only
one way that this race could ever become news - if Blackheath lost.
This race was news. Scoring 17 a-side Orion ran out winners by 295
points to 300 points, despite Blackheath providing the winner of the
race in Mick Hamlin, who was later coach to Mark Steinle over several
years. Tony Oldfield, the President at the time had to live with the
ignominy that he was ‘the President who had lost to Orion’, the Gazette
correspondent further remarked that … this result will be remembered
much longer …than winning the Whitbread 5 mile Road Race . How times
have changed! This year Orion, winners in each match from 2001,
continued in their winning ways easily seeing off the challenge of
Blackheath & Bromley HAC and our President, Tim Soutar, now joins Tony
Oldfield and many other PP’s in shame.
On that
fateful day 8 December 1973, the Blackheath team of Ian Wilson, Chris
Haines, Peter Horwood and Chris Woodcock travelled to Portsmouth to run
in what was then the Whitbread 5. A flat, 3 lap 5 mile road race near to
Alexandra Park. A home course for Peter Horwood, who was then in the
Royal Navy, and also for Chris Haines, who is really a country boy up
from Hampshire. Despite Cambridge Harriers having two runners in the
first four, Blackheath ran out winners of the 3-to-score team race by
four points, with Ian Wilson leading the team home in 6th
place in 25:33, Chris Haines all of 6 seconds behind in 10th
place and Peter Horwood a further second down in 11th place.
In those days it was a great win for Blackheath. The prize for the
winning team was the Brickwood Pewter (Brickwood’s Portsmouth brewery
had been taken over by Whitbread).
The eagle
eyed-reader will have noticed that this all happened in 1973 but that
the Club 10,000m Championship was instituted in 1970. Shamed by the
ignominy of a mob match defeat by Orion on the same day, our miscreant
runners in Portsmouth had no hesitation in designating the Pewter as a
worthy trophy for the 10,000m Championship. It was retrospectively
awarded to the winners of the 1970-73 races and engraved accordingly.
The first real holder of the pewter, in 1974, was John Baldwin
whose memory of his victory has faded somewhat. The fastest time is that
of Jon Wigley, whose 29:28 was run at Norman Park, mostly in lane 2,
lapping the entire field. Tim Soutar won the 2009 race perhaps making
the ignominy of losing to Orion Harriers in this year’s mob match easier
to bear
Chris
Haines, May 2009
(A version
of this article appears in the Winter 2008-9 Gazette, 651, 118, 28-29)
|
Winners of the
Brickwood Pewter |
|
|
|
|
1970 |
A. Mandeville |
31:39.4 |
|
1971 |
C. Woodcock |
31:28.0 |
|
1972 |
C. Woodcock |
31:04.0 |
|
1973 |
I. Wilson |
31:37.9 |
|
1974 |
J. Baldwin |
31:11.2 |
|
1975 |
E. Pepper |
32:41.4 |
|
1976 |
F. O'Gorman |
32:03.0 |
|
1977 |
R. Cliff |
32:37.0 |
|
1978 |
P. German |
33:36.0 |
|
1979 |
C. Woodcock |
32:52.0 |
|
|
M. Athawes |
32:52.0 |
|
1980 |
L. Roberts |
32:02.0 |
|
1981 |
L. Roberts |
31:26.8 |
|
1982 |
J.Wigley |
29:28.0 |
|
1983 |
L. Roberts |
30:28.0 |
|
1984 |
J. McGee |
33:22.0 |
|
1985 |
L. Roberts |
30:30.7 |
|
1986 |
P. Barrington-King |
33:15.0 |
|
1987 |
G. Arthey |
32:05.8 |
|
1988 |
M.A. Colpus |
33:16.5 |
|
1989 |
M.A. Colpus |
31:13.1 |
|
1990 |
M.N. Farrell |
33:22.8 |
|
1991 |
K.W. Pike |
32:10.7 |
|
1992 |
T. Cherchuk |
33:02.9 |
|
1993 |
M.N. Farrell |
34:00.3 |
|
1994 |
R.D. Smith |
32:50.7 |
|
1995 |
R.D. Smith |
32:17.9 |
|
1996 |
R.D. Smith |
32:02.3 |
|
1997 |
R.D. Smith |
32:32.0 |
|
1998 |
R.D. Smith |
32:32.1 |
|
1999 |
R.D. Smith |
32:45.1 |
|
2000 |
R.D. Smith |
32:00.3 |
|
2001 |
R.D. Smith |
32:11.9 |
|
2002 |
C.D. Keen |
35:17.8 |
|
2003 |
P. Cavallo |
36:12.6 |
|
2004 |
J. Thorpe |
34:23.6 |
|
2005 |
J. Thorpe |
33:55.0 |
|
2006 |
P.R. Tucker |
34:37.9 |
|
2007 |
N. Humphreys |
35:33.2 |
|
2008 |
J. Thorpe |
34:11.2 |
|
2009 |
T. Soutar |
35:44.3 |
Jon Wigley running at Crystal Palace in 1982
|
