Jackie’s walk into history was 50 years ago this week
Ray Flynn recalls the wonderful feat of legendary Calry AC athlete Jackie McGowan, who completed 100 miles inside 24 hours in London back in 1971
BACK in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ireland was a simpler place. Where I lived in Calry was no different. Our entertainment centred around the local church and hall and a couple of fields where we would meet to play the odd game of soccer. Taking the knee was what you did at Mass and only the odd dog was seen with a muzzle. We had a thriving athletics club which was formed in 1964. One of its leading lights was a local farmer from the lower end of the parish in Tully named Jackie McGowan.
Around 1970, some of the well-established athletes in the club went back to their first love – playing for Calry Bohs in the Junior soccer league, a thriving institution at the time in which clubs from Sligo town tended to dominate. It was left to Jackie McGowan to recruit a younger breed to the athletics club. I was one of those. It was a move that probably shaped my life more than anything else I did in my early years.
Martin Cunningham, Francis Feehily, Pádraig Davey, Jim and John Gilligan, Gerry Cunningham and my brother Paul were among others that Jackie brought to the old FCA hall for our first training sessions.
Jackie was a very busy man on his farm and he soon changed the location of our training base to nearer his Tully home. The houses of Johnny McGoldrick (known as ‘Figure’) and Jimmy Murray were our new meeting places and our meeting time was always 9.30pm, summer and winter. Inevitably, Jackie would always be late and whichever house we would leave from would be populated by local farmers as they were both renowned rambling houses. Sometimes it could be as late as 10.30pm before we would hit the road. Of course, it was always dark and we would usually cross the border into Leitrim heading towards Dromahair and Newtownmanor. Indeed, we caused many locals of that area some anxious moments as they made their way home from rambling houses and heard the clatter of feet behind them approach – many of us dressed in white on dark nights. Sometimes we would be running, but race walking was our main event. We travelled all over the country and again Jackie played a leading role being our chauffeur in his brand-new red Fiat 124 car with a registration number still etched in my brain, HEI 393. Jackie was our motivator as well as our leading athlete and he instilled a winning mentality in us. Every race he ever went into he went out to win it and relied upon us to help win the team race.
It was against this backdrop that he suggested we travel to London to take part in the toughest assignment yet – a hundred mile race walk in Surrey, London, in June 1971. Times were tough, money was scarce and it was a daunting challenge, so not too many put their hands up to travel. Jackie insisted we needed three to make up a team so myself, Jackie and a young lad from Carraroe, Michael McDaniel, made up the team. The race finished in 24 hours. To become a member of the elite Centurions Club you had to finish within the time limit. I did the necessary paperwork, writing to race organiser George Halifax. We headed off from Sligo on Thursday, June 24, for a race that started at 6pm the following day, June 25.
We hitch-hiked to Dublin, getting our first lift via a lorry to Boyle. Then we were picked up by a man from Boyle, who was also an athlete, and he dropped us off on O’Connell Street in Dublin.
Jackie, a staunch Fianna Fáil man, insisted we visited the Irish Press newpaper offices to inform them of our intentions. It was there that I discovered for the first time Jackie’s age. He was 36.
We got the 8pm Aer Lingus flight to Heathrow – it was my first time to fly. Captain Graham came on the tannoy during the flight to assure us that all was well and that we were 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Jackie saw this as a good omen for the task that lay ahead. We were met at the airport by Mr Halifax, who took us to our pre-arranged accommodation. Friday afternoon came and we were picked up to go to the race start in Ewhurst, Surrey. As always, Jackie was supremely confident. But the words of one of the local ramblers in Jimmy Murray’s house were still in my head. Patrick Feeney, a very wise and learned man, said to me that I may return in a coffin as he said it was too much to walk 100 miles at my tender age of 18. “It’s all right for McGowan, his muscles are made,” Patrick had said.
The race started at 6pm and of course Patrick Feeney was right. I was gone at 42 miles.
Michael McDaniel, a year older than me at 19, reached 62 miles.
Jackie did it, finishing on Saturday evening in 22 hours 24 minutes and 4 seconds to become Centurion number 484. It was an awesome feat and he was not helped by torrential rain during the night and blazing sun on the following day.
The Irish Press gave us a phone number to ring with the report of the race, which duly appeared on the sports pages of Monday’s edition.
The report caused consternation in the TullyCalry area. Jim Boey, an
avid reader of papers, broke the news of McGowan’s accomplishment, saying that he knew by the print on the paper that it must have been a brutal race. “A wisp of hay won’t be saved in Tully this year,” predicted Bowie. This week we celebrate the 50th anniversary of this great achievement by Jackie. And he went on to attain many more honours.
Only two years ago he won the Men’s O-80 race walk in the Athletics Ireland National Masters Championships. At 86 years of age he is still keen to hear all the sporting news and takes a particular interest in our rowers, a sport he also took part in as a leading member of Holywell Rowing Club. I also suspect he will be keeping late hours watching the forthcoming Olympic Games.
A walk to the shores of Lough Gill is named after legendary Jackie and I’m sure this week, as he surveys that walk, his mind will wander back to his greatest walk ever – 50 years ago in Surrey.
They don’t make them like Jackie McGowan any more. Happy anniversary, Jackie!