Flying Scot who found Godspeed
FOR THE GLORY: The Life Of Eric Liddell by Duncan Hamilton Doubleday, £20
ERIC LIDDELL’S athletic prowess was immortalised in the 1981 movie Chariots Of Fire. But award-winning biographer Duncan Hamilton offers a more detailed and equally engrossing insight into one of Britain’s greatest sporting heroes in this compelling new biography.
While a student at Edinburgh University, Eric Liddell was also a Scotland rugby international and already renowned for his impressive speed.
So a friend suggested he enter the prestigious university annual sports event in 1921 and he won the 100-yard race after just six weeks’ training.
The thrill of success aside, Liddell was also keen on a change of direction from a dangerous sport like rugby.
However he needed a good coach if he was to build on this success. He approached Tom McKerchar, a visionary athletics coach who knew that diet and training were as important as physical conditioning. Under McKerchar’s tutelage, Liddell became almost unbeatable.
However Liddell’s commitment to athletics came second to his commitment to God. After the United Free Church persuaded him to become a preacher, he spoke to growing crowds wherever he appeared.
In 1923 Liddell won six Scottish AAA Championship titles including the 100-yard and 220-yard sprints, breaking Scottish records for both events. Liddell’s times remained slower than the English records so the English athletics establishment didn’t see him as an Olympic contender. But he duly competed in the British AAA Championships in London breaking the English 100-yard record.
With the 1924 Paris Olympics looming, Liddell was among the favourites to win gold in the 100 metres. But his main event was scheduled for a Sunday and his religious conscience forbade him from competing so he withdrew from the 100 metres amid intense criticism.
Instead he entered the 400-metre race and, after only five months’ preparation, set a new world record, also winning a bronze medal in the 200 metres.
In the wake of the First World War, the public craved the escapism of sport so lucrative sponsorship and commercial deals awaited Liddell. He was already a star in America where people were fascinated by the quirky “Flying Parson”.
However he walked away from fame and fortune to become a missionary in China. This was the country of his birth, where his family lived and where he felt he belonged. But political unrest was plunging the country into civil war and it had become a dangerous place for foreigners and particularly Christians.
Having made this sacrifice, Liddell’s true heroism was forged in virtual obscurity on the other side of the world.
At the Union Church in 1926, he met a Canadian woman named Florence Mackenzie and they married in 1934, Liddell becoming a father to three daughters. But Japanese occupation of China was making life increasingly difficult. In 1941, when Florence was pregnant with their third child, they decided that it was unsafe for her to give birth in China.
She sailed for Canada with their two daughters while Liddell remained, his conscience preventing him from breaking his contract with the London Missionary Society.
In April 1943, Liddell was taken prisoner by the Japanese. An inspirational leader, he continued to preach until starvation, exhaustion and ill health took their toll and he died in 1945.
For The Glory is in turn triumphant, harrowing, moving yet ultimately uplifting. It also cements the status of Duncan Hamilton, twice-winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, as the doyen of biographical sports writing.