Butts Stadium and Godiva Harriers

Any mention of the Butts Stadium always reminds me of my pal Jack.

And another for Colin -

This is proving difficult, being in black and white! It is a walking race - the first man could be a Worcester walker or it could be a GB vest. Whichever, he was pretty "smoky" as the second walker (at the top of the straight in the distance) is George Chaplin (Godiva Harriers) who was no mean performer. The man doing the timing is wearing an interesting jacket and it looks like an eyepatch [that is not intended as a clever pun]. Will look through some old results to see if I can solve it [ditto].

Another one for you, Colin, from the Arthur Cooper collection on Coventry Digital.

Nice one, NY! Do you know what year? Number 283 on the right could possibly have been me, but I think it's someone who looks a bit like me. I ran for Godiva between 1961 and 1964 and had my club badge (which I still have) stitched on my vest exactly like that.

Come on, NeilsYard.... you ain't half making my life difficult. I'm losing all credibility!!!

Sorry, Johnnie, no date on it.

I'm not sure if this is showing the right way around?

Boy, here we go again!!!! The big building (technical college??) is in the wrong position (perspective?? - see earlier photo). Even if it is the wrong way round (which I question because the trianglar roofed buildings are in the correct position with the stand just out of view on the right of the photo) it still has to be the back straight, so what event can this be? The hurdle spacing suggests it must be near the end of the race but remember the Butts track was only 360 yards - the bottom lane of the cycle track was 440 yards and there was a small narrow lane (for a long time grass as in this photo, bottom left) between the tarmac of the cycle banked track and the cinder track (converted from grass in the early August 1955 to cinders). What could the narrow 'path' running about a yard on the grass inside the track be? Almost certainly a run up to what appears to be a long jump pit (the bags of the long jumpers can be seen just behind and in front of the second hurdler on the grass infield), this idea reinforced by what looks like another run up on the other side of the pit but off set which would have meant a choice of run up to be decided by the direction of the following wind. The hurdles look rather low, the correct height should have been 91cm (99cm if the event was shorter than 440 yards) which means the leader must be hurdling at a height of nearly 2 metres.... no way! That is a high jump!! There is a distinct lack of spectators, suggesting this was an inter club. So what does all this ramble mean? It means I will be spending the next couple of weeks searching back copies of the Coventry Evening Telegraph.

As far as I can gather the pics are the right way round. The big building in the last photo is I think GEC? The zig zag roof has the long edge to the right and the short drop to the left. The photos are taken at different angles with the first looking to the right of the stand. The second to the left of the stand and the third even further to the left (and from the far side of the track as opposed to in the middle). This might help.

The distance between hurdles suggests it could only be a 220 yards hurdles race. The 110 hurdles race would have hurdles in a straight line, and the 440 yards race (what a bugger of a race that was - I did it many times with muscles screaming well before the end!) would have bigger gaps on the back straight, which is, I think, where the long jump pit was.

Just on the Arthur Cooper archive. The latest images seem to be 1962 (Arthur Waugh Snr as Mayor) and most are 1950s. Earliest are wartime. Arthur might have moved to a film camera in 1962, hence the abrupt end to these glass negatives. We're slowly adding what we know to the collection on a spreadsheet, which I can provide access to. There are quite a few races, bike and foot, so any help with these would be most welcome. Please email me if you'd like access. Effectively, we scroll the images, find something we know about and then fill in the caption on the spreadsheet. If someone has been there already, please check accuracy or add further details.

Is this Butts Stadium? Ben

Don't think so, Ben. No sign of the banking for the cycle track. It was all around the outside of the cinder running track and was there right into the 1980's.