Chapter Seventeen: The Last Two Years in Charge at Reading

Then it was back to work on the 1993 Reading Half Marathon. There was no major sponsor forthcoming, although a great deal of work went into trying to find one, but it was the height of recession and so the race had to go ahead without one. The entry was not quite as large as in the past, but it did produce a really great race.

Sitting in the lead car, which I always did on race day (mainly because I could not trust that the course was going to be correctly directed), I watched a tall blond runner, Paul Evans from Belgrave Harriers, stride around the 13.1 miles. It was obvious from the first couple of miles that something special was going to happen, and as each mile rolled off in something like 4:40, and the ten miles went by in forty-seven minutes, it was obvious the record for the course was going to go, and there was no easing up on the pace into the final 3.1 miles, which he covered in 14:38, to arrive back at the finish in the excellent time of 61:38. It really was a superb run, and it was a pity that the whole race was not televised or videoed. Paul was well rewarded for his splendid run with a cheque for £1,000 and a new Ford Fiesta. It really was a great run, and it was my privilege to be one of only three or four people to see the whole of that great run.

The first twenty-one runners beat seventy minutes. The runner-up was Peter Whitehead in 63:32, with Joseph Keptum (Kenya) third in 63:46. Three times winner Steve Brace was fourth in 64:43, with a Russian Vladimir Shtyrts fifth with 64:55. The event winner from 1988 and 1989 Paul Cuskin, was sixth in 65:37.

The wheelchair race also produced two other records and two new winners, when Ian Thompson won in 59:23, and Tanni Grey (Grey-Thompson) won the John London Trophy as first lady in the new record time of 67:18.

The first local runner was again Tsegay from Reading Roadrunners; this time with 69:48 (nineteenth); and Tom Munt (Reading AC) featured for the first time, finishing just behind Tsegay in 69:50 (twenty-first). The team race was won by Bridgend AC for the fourth successive year, with Reading Roadrunners just grabbing second place from Les Croupiers Running Club (Wales). But the Welsh club picked up two of the other team awards; the Women’s and the Athletic Club Veterans. The Royal Mail team won the companies category, which gave them fourth place overall in the team race. The Kempton Children’s Ward at the Royal Berkshire Hospital won the Charity Team award, and the men’s over seventy category winner was Ralph Batten in 101:26. In the Reading Leisure Mini Marathon, the winner was Daniel Getliffe in 11:58, with Jo Winterbourne first girl to finish in 13:51.

The battles with the police and Reading Borough Council, that I had during the life of the event, continued. They did not seem to appreciate the importance of the event, either as a race, a community activity, or as the major fund-raising event that it was; or at least that was the impression they liked to give. These battles continued throughout the history of the race up to 1994. There were good years and not such good years, with regard to relationships with the council, and those connected to the event had to be strong-willed not to give in to pressure from these bureaucrats to abandon the race. I remember John London saying to me one day in the early years, that he would have to walk away from the event because he could not stand the attitude of the council. Even the council employee who sat on the original organising committee stated on one occasion, that the event would be much better with proper support from the council. John London did eventually do just what he threatened to do, and walked away from the event. I carried on for a number of years, striving to make the event one of the outstanding running events of its kind.

The media as well were difficult to please, although they were coming round to giving the event the support it deserved. We always had a battle with the local papers because they both said that only one could be officially involved with the event. This remained a problem throughout the history of the event. These problems were sent to try us, and we sometimes wondered why we were doing it. It was certainly not for the money, as none of us were being paid in the early years. It was something that I think the Town Hall mandarins could not understand in their cosy little world of well-paid jobs.

The hot and cold attitude of the local council built up from the time we moved to Rivermead, and came to a head in 1994 after a couple of difficult years. First of all they started to charge for the use of the facilities there, and the cooperation was almost nonexistent. Then the police brought in charges for their services, based on the fact that if we were paying the council, we could pay them. There were other ways in which they did not cooperate with the event, that made the task of keeping it going even harder. This was not the fault of the staff of the council, as the individuals I had dealt with over the years had always been friendly and cooperative. The problem was the policy makers and senior management, who resented the success of an event they could have controlled from day one, but chose not to. First of all they started to charge for the use of the facilities and many of the small things that they did around the event. Prior to the 1994 event, I had a lot of problems with the police. Instead of dealing with someone of senior rank, like a superintendent or above, the race came under the control for policing purposes of an inspector, who turned out to be not very stable and totally inadequate. He did not understand, or did not want to understand the event, but I did try to work with him, and everything possible was done to meet their requirements. Reading Leisure Services promised to supply marshals from their Over 50 Club and to give us other help, but this help did not materialise, and it became obvious that this was all part of their plan to grab the event. As a result of a public appeal, we did man all the crucial points of the route. In fact their whole attitude was to be very unhelpful to an event that was well established and brought credit to the town.

In spite of all the problems and lack of cooperation the race went off well, and as in all the twelve races I controlled, there were no hazardous incidents. The race was held on a difficult date; just one week before London; which did effect the entry quite considerably. Both the running entry and the wheelchair entry were well down on normal, and the event had an air of a local run like that first event in 1983.

The winner was not local though. Andrew Leach, a thirty-year-old from Bingley Harriers in Yorkshire, headed the field of 2,500 runners to the finish. His winning time of 66:46 was the slowest to date for the race, but that still gave him a two minute plus lead over second placed runner, John Matthews (Bracknell AC), who was running on this occasion for the Imperial Cancer Charity Team. Bob Treadwell (Redhill and Surrey Beagles) was third in the race and first veteran, in 69:42, to repeat his category win of the previous year, with Ian Van Locken (Burnham Joggers) fourth in 71:22. The winner of the ladies’ race at last was Tanya Ball (London Olympiads AC) in 84:40. It was her fifth attempt at winning the race, after finishing in the frustrating position of fourth in her previous four runs.

In 1988 we had set up a Reading Half Marathon Supporters’ Club, and the members of this exclusive club had helped to keep the event alive by their annual subscriptions and support each year. I was sorry when this club had to disappear with the changeover in the management of the race.

Things really came to a head after this race, even though the race went off well as usual. There had been increasing problems with both the police and Reading Borough Council from when we moved to Rivermead Leisure Complex at Caversham in 1991. First of all the council started charging for parts of the administration around the event that they had previously covered as part of their sponsorship. These costs included those related to the road closures, cleaning up after the event, and a charge for the use of the leisure facility. Somehow the problems snowballed, as the police found out that the council were paying for nothing, they did not see why they should provide their services free of charge, so they passed on a charge to the event of several thousand pounds. I don’t think that I even realised then what dirty tricks were being played, and I had no idea what was to follow.

After the race it was agreed that we would have the usual ‘wash-up’ meeting, and I duly went along to the Civic Offices to the meeting. Normally these meetings would have representatives from the police, Reading Transport, St John Ambulance, Reading Leisure Services, the chief marshal and myself. I duly arrived at the Civic Offices at the appointed time, only to be kept waiting quite some time. I then went into the room where we were due to meet, only to find people there I did not expect to see, and what was worse, it was very obvious that a meeting had already taken place. It was equally obvious then, as now, that the two main people responsible had only been involved in the town for a very short time, and both left within a few months of this meeting. They were the Chief Executive and the Chief Superintendent of Police. In fact the police chief had his own problems with his officers, when some of them complained to the local paper about poor morale, and he did not last long in the town after that. At this stage it was clear that the Reading Borough Council were going to get more involved with the event, and not necessarily to the advantage of the event. In the room was Roy Brown who ran the Reading Leisure Services, and the meeting concluded that I should talk to him about the future. I could still be involved and I could sort the details of how it was to work with him.

Over the next few months there were to be a lot of meetings between him and myself. The negotiations went well initially, and we had talks about a joint venture where I would carry out some of the work on the event for a set fee. Part of our negotiations were around the overdraft of the event, which I had guaranteed for around £15,000. I gave permission for Brown to speak to Barclays Bank, but instead of doing any good it actually made things worse. While these discussions were going on, I agreed to let him have a list of the previous year’s runners for a sum of £1,000. Promises were made by him but were not kept, and in the end I lost control of the event, and was left with a direct debt of around £18,000, and an indirect linked debt of around twice that amount. The loss of the event in this way cost me around £40,000; some of which was paid out by me over a period, and a sum of £18,000 that I had to pay Barclays Bank to clear my guarantee on the sale of my home in Caversham in 1998. The loss of this total sum was more than any money I had received for the administration of the event by me and my staff over the twelve years.

No satisfactory announcement was ever made about the change, and to this day I know that a lot of people think I still have a connection with the event that I set up and ran for twelve years, but my only connection in recent years has been as a columnist for the Reading Evening Post and writing for and about the event. The only money ever received from Reading Borough Council was that £1,000 for a list of runners which they could target for 1995, when Yellow Pages had been taken on as sponsor of the event. Something I have never understood till this day is, why they, Yellow Pages, could not have been part of the event in the really good days. The unsatisfactory situation was never resolved, they stole the event and left me with the bill. I was entitled to Legal Aid, and I tried to get some legal support and did spend money on legal advice as well, but it was all to no avail. Legal Aid would not touch the case, because they thought the chances of winning a case against a large council was not good, even though it was accepted there was a case. In fact on one occasion a prominent local councillor was heard to remark that they did not care what action I took, no one could win against them. I learned just how hard it is to get help and support when you hit hard times. Even my own solicitors, although sympathetic, would not help to pursue the matter, because they also had Barclays Bank as their clients.

Within months of the chief superintendent disappearing from the scene, the Chief Executive of Reading Borough left for pastures new. This left just Roy Brown from that stitch-up squad, but in 1999 he finally disappeared from the ‘Reading Mafia’ as well. I think he was the unfortunate who was left to do the dirty work of the council.

Since the council took over the event, no accounts have ever been published and no one knows where the money goes, or how much the sponsors put into the race. With income each year of up to £80,000, without the sponsorship, there are some questions to be asked about the current structure of the event. The total income, with free services provided by support sponsors, must now be well in excess of £120,000. The costs of staging the event should not be any more than half that, as they still do not pay many of the volunteer helpers, and the prize money at the event has not increased. So where does the rest go? I believe that the sponsors share the responsibility for this, as they do not declare what resources they actually contribute to the event. They are not the same quality sponsors as Digital were in the first six years. They were very straightforward sponsors, and there was a very good working relationship with all levels of management in that company, and they worked hard with the organisers to build the foundations for the great success it was to become.