£40k to save the Good Friday International Track Meet

Anyone got £35,000 to spare?

Can you stretch that to £40,000?

That’s what it will take to save the 115^th edition of Britain’s most famous track meeting from being consigned to history. 

The Good Friday Meet, host to World and Olympic champions across the last century, “will not be held in 2018”,  it was announced last  week.

And yet promoter Graham Bristow, organiser since 1984, tells me he still has an option on booking the velodrome for Good Friday 2018.

If he can find a backer with £40,000 he can still put the event on, but time is moving on.

Otherwise, the SCCU simply can’t continue to incur the substantial losses of recent years.

It costs a few thousand to hire the track!

This is the longest running international track meeting in the land, the Southern Counties Cycling Union (SCCU) Good Friday meeting at London’s Lea Valley indoor track.

The event, established in 1903 and until a few years ago held at the outdoor track at Herne Hill in South London, has traditionally been funded by spectator receipts.

But the expense has outrun the income, and Bristow and the SCCU have pockets only so deep.

How ironic that this event be forced to close, with British cycling now the UK’s top Olympic sport. Britain has so many Olympic and World champions – Tour de France champions – all of them punching above their weight in the world’s biggest races.

It is especially ironic because at the Good Friday meeting, once considered the pinnacle of the British track racing calendar, National and local stars always got their chance alongside World and Olympic champions.

In fact, the Good Friday was for years ranked among the most important sporting events on the British calendar, always getting space in the quality national newspapers. The Press Agency (PA) would order copy from whoever was reporting the meeting for Cycling Weekly.

The website - http://veloism.co.uk/the-good-friday-meeting/ - provides an illustrious list of  some of the world’s greatest track riders who have raced the Good Friday.  

They include, from France, Daniel Morelon, Florian Rousseau, Arnaud Tournant; from Germany, Michael Hubner, also Britain’s double hour record breaker and World pursuit champion, Graeme Obree. Also Tony Doyle, double Professional World pursuit champion, and Colin Sturgess, famed also for taking the World pursuit crown.  

National, World and Olympic champions include Germany’s Robert Forstermann, Christian Grassman, Lief Lampater and Nico Hesslich.
There was Australia's Stuart O'Grady Top home riders included Becky James, Jody Cundy, Sir Bradley Wiggins (Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton Andy Tennant and Ed Clancy, Jason Queally plus

Sean Yates and the King of British short-distance time trialling, Alf Engers.

Although the introduction of the indoor velodrome to Britain revolutionised how riders train and prepare, and have been key to Britain’s success this new Millennium,they came with a mixed blessing for outdoor track promoters like Bristow.

 “The Good Friday Meet suffered from the advent of 250m indoor velodromes, as the vast open spaces of Herne Hill appeared to be irrelevant to the development of the British Cycling squads who in earlier times would have attended.” explained Bristow, adding.  “Paradoxically there was never any problem with contracting foreign based stars to appear.”

For many top riders, Good Friday’s varied programme of events freed them from the pressure of conforming to the more rigid programme of the World Cup events, tailored as they are around Olympic qualifying races. 

And so released, they would delight the fans as they rose to the occasion in a medley of races, not just their particular disciplines.

But there was another problem for Bristow. Ironically, the transformation of Herne Hill from a rundown dilapidated facility to a fresh new

locally based community hub also created difficulties for the Meeting. 

The ongoing works rendered much of the site inaccessible to spectators and, with no end date in sight, the Meeting moved to the Lee Valley Velodrome in 2014.

The hope was that the event would return to its spiritual home.

But this was not be, Bristow told me.

“When the Herne Hill renovation was completed the committee considered returning to Herne Hill, but sadly, although it has new club house, the venue is no longer suitable for holding meetings with more than a few hundred spectators.  This, coupled with the ever present Easter weather uncertainties, means that such a return to South London is not an option.”

But times change, says Bristow wistfully. The huge rise in popularity of cycling has come with a twist. He reckons that many of today’s new fans who snap up the tickets come to only to see the Tour and Olympic celebrities and show little interest in the rest of the racing programme.

“They watch Wiggins race then disappear from the trackside.  Same when Hoy (both now retired) came on,  they’d come back in to watch him, then disappear again! They don’t appear to be interested in the racing itself.”

The Good Friday Meet has always been a big social occasion, where young and old acquaintances, fans and riders alike, renew friendships at the opening track meeting of the year.

Spectators were not only drawn by the promise of seeing both home and foreign internationals clash but also talented rising stars, both foreign and home grown, take on the names.  To thrill to the sound of big motors in the motor paced event, always a big draw.

And it would all come to the boil in the final event of the day, the Golden Wheel scratch race, a furiously paced bunched race carrying an eye watering £1000 first prize.

Tony Doyle, one of the Stars at the Good Friday International over the years, recalls some key moments for him.

“I first rode the Good Friday Track Meeting in 1975.  In the 10 minute pursuit I finished in 3rd place behind Alf Engers. I then rode & won the 10 minute Pursuit in 1978.

“In 1981 I rode a World Champions Revenge Match against Dutch rider Herman Ponsteen. I regularly rode the meeting during the 1980's and the meeting regularly featured many Pro Omniums with riders like Danny Clark and Stan Tourne. 

“In 1984 even Gary Wiggins (Bradley Wiggins’ father)  rode and I remember clearly meeting a young cheeky scoundrel, called Bradley.  I regularly used to get preview interviews with both Thames and BBC TV. I always got regular radio spots with Capital Radio and BBC.”

When the world’s best came for the Centenary Meeting

I still have my press pass from the biggest Herne Hill meeting of recent times, the SCCU’s Centenary Track Meeting on the 18^th April, 2003.

It’s one of my valued souvenirs.

The place was packed out. British riders were beginning to make a big impact on the world scene.

This meeting boasted at least four current World champions, three of them British.

They was Chris Hoy, the World kilo and team sprint champion, his World team sprint champion teammate, Jamie Staff.

Chris Newton, World points champion; Sean Eadie, Australia’s World sprint champion.

There was Bradley Wiggins, a Herne Hill regular since he was eight years old, the 1997 junior world pursuit champion in his first season with a first division team, riding for the French outfit, Francaise Des Jeux. (A year later, Wiggo would stun us at the Athens Olympics, begin his march to greatness).

And there was multi-world medallist from Italy, stylish Roberto Chiappa,  another Good Friday regular.

Plus a host of talent to take them on. And it was a sunny, warm day, not a cloud in sight. A perfect day. Super racing. And fun, too, especially the celebration dinner that evening where I recall Wiggins the comic getting all tangled up in the coat hangers in the hotel lobby.