Athletics: New book celebrates Holmfirth club’s centenary

Jan 6 2009 by Emma Davison, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

SOME people think that keeping fit is a modern obsession.

But members of Holmfirth Harriers Athletic Club are proving that it goes back a long way.

The club recently celebrated its centenary and to mark the occasion a series of events were held, including a re-enactment of the club’s first training run back in October 1907.

Also as part of the celebrations, a book charting the history of the club, entitled ‘See How They Run: The History of Holmfirth Harriers Athletic Club’, was commissioned and has now been published.

It was written by three of the club’s long-standing members, Graham Ellis, Norman Berry and John Buckingham and involved years of painstaking research, trawling through archives and club records and interviewing relatives of early members of the club.

The idea to put a book together to help mark the Honley-based club’s special milestone began over three years ago, when Graham Ellis, a member since 1967 who has had much personal success with Holmfirth Harriers, was entrusted with the mammoth task of compiling a book covering its last 100 years.

Graham says: “We had quite a few events planned to celebrate the club's centenary, the committee thought it would be a nice idea to put together a book on the club’s history and I volunteered to take it on.

“It was a really big project. I’ve been a member since 1967, so I know quite a bit about what happened from then, but I didn’t know too much about the history before then.

“I asked Norman and John to help me and they got involved a year later. Norman did most of his research from the club secretary’s reports, while John used his own archives and recollections from his time at the club.

“There was 100 years to cover and it was quite frustrating at times, but very rewarding.”

The 667-page book charts the club's significant moments and members and includes results from the various running events the club has taken part in since its existence.

The first section starts with the beginnings of the club, which can be traced back to a meeting held by a group of local amateur athletes in the Elephant and Castle Inn in Holmfirth on October 1, 1907.

It was there that, according to the minutes, “It was resolved to form a Harriers Club” and a fixture list for the 1907-8 season was drawn up at a second meeting two days later.

Then, just days later on October 5, the inaugural Holmfirth Harriers club run took place, which 10 runners took part in and started and finished at the Elephant and Castle.

The popularity of the club grew from there, from its relatively modest beginnings to the 700-strong membership it has today.

And the successes it has notched up over the past 100 years have been many. Its first win came in 1909 at the Senior Huddersfield and District Cross Country Championships.

Other highlights include when the club first won the Yorkshire Cross Country Championships in 1982 and then went on to win the Northern Cross Country Championships a year later.

Holmfirth Harriers members have represented the club in both local and national events, and has boasted many star athletes.

They include George Frederick Roberts, who was the club’s first big success story when he won the Yorkshire Junior Cross Country Championships in 1913.

Star athletes in the 1930s included Norman Haigh, who later became instrumental in saving the club when it got into difficulties. Norman soon emerged as a top class athlete, winning the club’s first fell race to the top of Pule Hill.