by Robbie | Feb 1, 2018 | News
Britain’s fastest middle-distance runner for almost 40 years from the 1880s onwards was a Lancastrian. Francis John Kynaston Cross, known familiarly as “Frank”, had been born in Eccles, which was then in Lancashire and is now part of Greater Manchester, on 14 November...
by Robbie | Dec 31, 2017 | News
Amateur athletics rapidly developed in the second half of the 19th Century in the North of England as factory-workers and the emerging middle classes sought respite on their Saturday afternoons off from their jobs in the throes of the Industrial Revolution....
by Robbie | Sep 22, 2017 | News
Prodigious teenage milers have long figured in the development of the event in Britain, though I wonder how many “Northern Athletics” followers could immediately call to mind the fact that the current UK junior record stands not to the credit of Messrs Coe, Cram or...
by Robbie | Sep 4, 2017 | News
The Blaydon racer lost to history in dark blue shadows A brief account of a forgotten World record Brendan Foster wasn’t the first athletics World record-holder from the North East when he ran his 7:35.2 for 3000 metres at the Gateshead Stadium on 3 August 1974 – not...