Even in an era when Britain was blessed with a host of talented and tenacious distance-runners Walter Beavers was an exceptional achiever. On the track he won a British Empire title, three AAA titles and nine Northern Counties’ titles. At cross-country he was twice Northern champion and on his three appearances for England in the […]
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Northern Athletics 5k Championships on Thursday, 12th July 2018
The sun continued to shine on the Silksworth Sports Complex, where Sunderland Harriers host their annual 5k races incorporating the NA 5k Championships. The women’s race is always away first and pre-race favourite, Danielle Hodgkinson had shown her speed on Monday night, when winning a 1500 race. The fast, measured Silksworth course produced one women’s […]

NA women’s 6 stage road relay championship 2018
Women’s 6 Stage 63 women’s teams had entered and the real question was, would it be Leeds City or Rotherham Harriers who would dominate this time? Rotherham won in 2017, with Leeds 2nd; Leeds won in 2016, with Rotherham 2nd. In 2015, Leeds won, Stockport sneaked into 2nd, with Rotherham 3rd. The first leg results […]

In the wake of “The Gateshead Clipper”, Jack Potts, the North-East’s neglected hero
The life story of many an old Olympian was recounted in newspapers the length and breadth of Britain during 2012 when the Games came to London. One amongst them was Jack Potts, almost entirely ignored even by diligent athletics historians for more than 70 years but one of the finest distance-runners in the country during […]
Britain’s least known cross-country champion remembered after 90 years of obscurity
Lewis Payne was the winner of the International Cross-Country Championship in 1927 and died in 2008 at the age of 100. Yet despite his long life he remains one of the least known of Britain’s athletics title-holders of the 20th Century. He was only 19 years old when he gained his greatest triumph, and yet […]

Lincoln Wellington the top act at NA cross country relays
Lincoln Wellington were once again the top act as far as the senior competitions were concerned at the Northern Athletics Cross-Country Relay Championships held at a wind-swept Graves Park, Sheffield. The men’s quartet of Joe Wilkinson, Tom Straw, Shane Robinson and Matt Bowser were defending the title the club won last year while the women’s […]