Icons: North Road Memorial TT
Held in honour of members lost in the Great War, this event attracted the country’s best
As an uneasy peace descended on Europe at the end of World War One, cycling clubs up and down the country were searching for an appropriate way in which to remember those clubmates who sadly had not returned home.
The North Road Cycling Club had been established in 1885, its founding principle “to promote fast and long distance cycling on the Great North and other Roads”. It was natural for the club to want a race as a memorial to their fallen members but the club already organised popular 24-hour and 100-mile races and the nearby Polytechnic CC already had an established 12-hour race. Wanting this to be a unique event, the club hit on the idea of a 50-mile event with only the 12 best riders in the country over that distance invited to ride.
In July 1920 the club organised the inaugural event. Among those invited were the 1908 team pursuit Olympic gold medallist Leon Meredith, and Dave Marsh — the man who two years later would become Britain’s first official world champion on the road. Four riders were stopped by an “over-zealous police officer” curious to know what they were up to, while Marsh won by 46 seconds. Meredith did not finish. Indeed he would go on to ride the event several times but would never make the finish line.
Despite the police interruptions the event was a success. Marsh defended his title the following year after which Yorkshire’s Andrew Wilson dominated the race, winning three years in a row, prompting the club to award him a replica of the gold memorial trophy in recognition of his achievement.
The king of the 50-mile during this era was Frank Southall, who set a number of records but was initially dogged by ill-fortune in this particular event. He collided with a dog in 1925, finishing fifth, injured and on a bike bent out of shape. Two years later Southall’s luck changed and he claimed his first win, setting a course and event record as he did so. He scored a second win in 1931.
In 1960, to celebrate the club’s 75th anniversary, international riders were invited for the first time. Teams representing England, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, Holland and France rode days after the Manx International Week. The English team took the top three places, with Ron Jowers winning.
In the early 2000s, after an incident in a different event but on a road the memorial race used, the event was moved to a 50km circuit north of Hertford. A couple of years later the club made the event a 25-mile race centred on Guilden Morden in Cambridgeshire. There the event lives on under the name of the Memorial Trophy 25.