Athletics club set to reunite runners for 50th celebration
FIFTY years ago I exclusively revealed in the Daily Mail that Roath Harriers, of which I was a member, were going to amalgamate with their rivals Birchgrove Harriers to form Cardiff Amateur Athletics Club (AAC).
And on November 2, at the Cardiff City Stadium, members of this highly successful club will be celebrating the club’s 50th anniversary.
One Cardiff AAC member who had a long and successful career is Bernie Plain MBE, who represented Wales not only on the track but on the road and at cross-country.
And why he hasn’t been inducted into the Welsh Athletics Hall of Fame must remain something of a mystery.
Bernie just missed out on a bronze medal in the marathon at the 1974 European Games when he was pipped for third place by that great Belgian athlete Gaston Roelands.
He had previously beaten Roelands but went through a bad patch that day and, when he got going again, he was finishing faster than the second and third runners but alas all too late.
In 1973 when Dave Bedford set a world record for 10,000m, Bernie took third place in that historic race.
He told me: “I will never forget taking part in that race as it was such a wonderful occasion.”
Bernie, who finished runner-up to Akio Usami in the world famous Polytechnic Marathon in 1974, went on to win this prestigious event in 1976 and again in 1981 when he was aged 42.
Unlike the top athetes of today, Bernie had to work for a living.
If it wasn’t for the support of his wife Thelma, who was a PE teacher, he says he wouldn’t have been able to compete all over the world as he did and represent his country.
He’s still the holder of the AAA
10-mile track championship, which he won in a time of 48 mins and 25 seconds in 1973 – the event has not been held since.
On another occasion, he came close to setting a new world record for 20 miles on the track.
To list all of his achievements would really take a book.
One of Roath Harriers’ finest was Norman Horrell, a versatile athlete who won Welsh titles on the track from 880 yards to nine miles cross-country.
Norman ran for Wales at the 1958 Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff and he finished third in his 880 yards heat to the legendary Australian miler Herb Elliott.
Unfortunately for Norman, only the first two qualified for the final. For some reason or other, England’s E Buswell – who had finished second – did not turn out for the final.
Norman won the Welsh Senior Nine Miles Country Championship on three occasions – in 1957, 1961 and 1962.
In 1959 he had finished runner-up to David Richards.
In doing so, he led Roath Harriers to victory in the team race over arch rivals Newport Harriers for the first time in five years – incidentally, I was a member of that winning team.
The comic strip hero Alf Tupper “The Tough of the Track” could have been based on Norman.
He was a hard-working manual worker from the Rhondda who would often turn out for his club after a hard morning’s work.
He sadly died in hospital after a long illness in 2001.
Tickets for the Cardiff AAC 50 years celebration dinner, which cost £40, can be obtained by emailing office@ cardiffAAC.org
BRIAN’S BLAST FROM THE PAST
IN THE Cardiff Post on August 9, 2007, under the heading “I’ll be proud to see my name on the trophy”, this is what I had to say:
“I had a big surprise when I attended the opening of the Bats, Boots and Balls exhibition at the Old Library, The Hayes, Cardiff, recently as one of the exhibits was the EW O’Donnell Roath (Cardiff) Harriers Senior Cross-Country Championship Trophy.
“You see, I had won this trophy in 1959, and when I looked up my training log for that year I had written, ‘Club 9 Miles cross-country championship. I was in fifth place for most of the way and made up a lot of ground on the last two laps.
“‘Brian Perkins gave me a run on the last lap. Just pipped him.’
“As far as I recall, Perkins was the fastest half-miler in his age group in the UK.
“There were 10 starters and Brian Griffiths was third, John ‘Buster’ Jones fourth, Doug Mends fifth and my brother-in-law Mac Beames won the handicap race held in tandem.
“The previous year, 1958, I had finished runner-up to Norman Horrell and in my column I had written that the trophy dated to 1898 when it was won by E Fairlamb and that there were plans to add the names of past winners not already on the trophy.
“Whether this has been done perhaps I’ll find out on November 2!
“The trophy is named after Eddie O’ Donnell who was the secretary and president of the Welsh Cross Country Association.”
You can send your stories and pictures to Brian Lee, Cardiff Remembered, South Wales Echo, Six Park Street, Cardiff CF10 1XR or email brianlee4@virginmedia.com – please include your telephone number.