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Finchley "20" - 23 April 1949
We
received the above picture from Jean Rydon, daughter of one of our top
runners from an earlier era - the late George Chantler - a member from
the 1930s through to the 60s. George was an excellent road and
cross country runner and Jean sent us the club Honours Badge which
George wore with pride on his racing vest in marathons and other road
events.
George
put plenty back into the sport when his racing days were over. He
became our starter and, living in the Feltham area, formed a brand new
athletic club in 1957 - Feltham AC. He was that club's President
until his death. Jean raced regularly as a youngster for Feltham AC -
which changed it's name to Borough of Hounslow AC - and eventually
merged with Windsor, Slough & Eton.
George is wearing no.
144 and an immediate guess put the date at around 1950. Perhaps
the race might be something like the Finchley
"20". It wasn't long before an old road
runner identified 177 as Geoff Iden of Victoria Park Harriers. A
trawl through the magazine Athletics for 1950 didn't reveal these
two names together in a road race but a photograph in the June 1949
issue of that magazine leapt out at our researcher, for in the
background was the same building shown in the picture above. The
photo is shown below left and is captioned 'The Finchley "20"
- the large field start out on their long journey'. What an
inspired guess!
Closer
examination of the picture, below left, reveals George again (second from the left)
and no. 145 on the extreme left. From the result of that race held on
St. George's Day 1949 we have now been able to identify the runners
above as:- George Chantler (144) who placed 17th in 2:08:04, Dick
Towndrow (145) also of Belgrave, 11th in 2:03:32, Geoff Iden (177) of
Victoria Park Harriers, 8th in 2:02:30. The fourth runner in the group is almost certainly
wearing a Thames Valley Harriers vest and is probably H. (Harry?)
Dennis, 9th in 2:02:40.
The
race was won in 1:57:19 by Tommy Richards of South London Harriers, the
1948 Wembley Olympic Games Marathon silver medallist. Tommy's son,
also Tom, is still a South London Harrier today, a respected Field
Events Judge. Richards wears number 1 in the picture below right
and is racing alongside the man who placed second that day - Stan Belton
of Surrey AC.
The
report in Athletics implies that it was a four lap race and
looking at the spread of the finishing places of the runners shown in
the top picture it is likely that it shows the athletes at the 5 or
possibly the 10 mile point. The team race was won by Polytechnic H,
35pts from Belgrave H 86 and Blackheath H 97. 185 runners started and
137 finished.
Richard
Newbold, one of today's Victoria Park stalwarts writes to tell us that
Geoff Iden placed 9th in the 1952 Olympic Marathon in 2:30:42 (a race in
which the first eight home, headed by Emile Zatopek, all beat the
previous Olympic Record) and was 6th in the 1954 European Championships
Marathon in 2:28:02.8. Geoff remains the holder of the Victoria
Park Harriers Marathon record - 2:21:51 dating from 1956.
