Hastings Half Marathon: Remembering how the popular race started in 1985

The running boom started with the first London Marathon in 1981, and I and many others started to run, and this naturally meant running around our home town of Hastings in training, and trying to find other events to take part in.

There will be more articles on the history of the Hastings Half Marathon in the coming weeks

The idea of a Half Marathon at Hastings was discussed by The Hastings Lions Club in 1983 as a possible fundraiser and to promote our town of Hastings.

SEE ALSO Hastings Half marathon: All hail the £5m race | Man completes Hastings half marathon in his house | Remembering the Hastings Half Marathon - picture specialThe initial route was developed by me and the Great Terry Cox. Terry was a wonderful character and a good athlete, and once we had decided that the perfect start/finish area would be on the seafront at St Leonards, utilising the Old Bathing Pool facility, Terry worked tirelessly running and cycling around Hastings to get the measurement roughly needed.

But this was the easy and pleasureable part of the idea!

Permission obviously had to be sought from Hastings Borough Council and the police, and this turned out to be a nightmare.

Upon approaching HBC, the response was ‘maybe’, but only if the police also agreed.

Approaching the police brought a mixture of disinterest and horror at the disruption around the town.

Bearing in mind that these were in the days when, except for London Marathon, it was very unusual for events of this nature to be allowed to disrupt the roads.

This situation of an impasse between police and HBC, with each saying they would consider it if the other would, continued for over a year, with neither party wanting to make a decision.

The breakthrough came from a chance meeting with the Chief Constable of Sussex, at a Lions convention at Lewes.

I asked the Chief Constable why we could not have a Half Marathon at Hastings? He replied there was NO good reason and that it would be good for police PR to be seen to be involved. He suggested that I wrote to him, with a copy to Hastings Police, stating our case.

The response was amazing and quick. Two days after posting the letter, I was summoned to a meeting at Hastings Police Station by the Chief Inspector.

The climate of the meeting was totally different from previous meetings, being made very welcome, and the Chief Inspector stating that he felt that an event for Hastings of this nature would be good for Police public relations to be seen supporting the event.

With the inspector was the head of the traffic division and he laid down a number of requirements, which we immediately agreed to carry out, mainly concerning road closures, warning signs and public awareness.

Following this meeting, I was able to go the HBC and give them the news and they immediately agreed to allow the event to go ahead.

It had taken nearly two years to get there, but at last we had the go-ahead.

The work realy started now in earnest, with the date of the event agreed for March 17, 1985, a month before the London Marathon.

The route, with slight changes requested by the police, was officially measured by a member of the Road Runners Club, with permission for use of the bathing pool facilities, and a start time of 10.30am.

But we needed commercial sponsors, and put out the news locally, and had great response to support the event from Anglia Building Society, RN French,Ltd, JVC, Newtime Foods and the Hastings Observer.

We still needed a shoe sponsor, but had no initial responses, until I noted an Advertisement in Runners World for a new running shoe company, ARROW.

The name was too good to resist, and I telephoned ARROW and asked to speak to the Marketing Director. At first this was resisted by the telephone operator, until I said please tell him I am from Hastings ‘1066’ and The Arrow. Next thing I knew was a very keen ARROW person speaking to me and wanting to know more.

A meeting was arranged at their London offices and a deal was struck for them to be the first commercial sponsor of the ‘ARROW Hastings Half Marathon’

It was the perfect match-up for a shoe company and Hastings.

It was also vital to have an athletic partner ‘on board’, and this came when approaching a friend from Hastings Athletic Club - Lionel Parr. He was to become one of the greatest servants of the event and an invaluable asset.

Lionel arranged for the team to collate the finishers times and positions and results and everything to do with the start and finish, plus getting our first starter, Leo Boardman, and our race commentator, the experienced Paul Martin. He also introduced us to Derek Stevens.

Derek was as a giant of Athletics in the 80s, a GB international, and posted very fast times for 5,000, 10,000, Half Marathon and Marathon.

His times still stand the test of time today, especially his marathon time. He was a class athlete, and being a local runner he was great for our area and the race. A lot more about Derek another time.

Entry forms were produced and distributed locally, and around Sussex to sports shops and sport centres, and ads place in national running magazines.

I always remember that the first batch of entry forms delivered to Wisdens in Hastings were gone by the following day.

The Hastings Lions Club announced that the event would raise funds for an eye laser at Royal East Sussex Hospital.

The entry process worked by entrants returning their forms, with entry fee (£3.50), which meant a lot of work by Lion John Cattaway, who was amazing in how he coped with this massive job of processing all the entries and then the results.

Another vital person was Len Payne, who took on the task of chief marshall and carried on this job for 30 years. He split the route into 12 areas, and had 12 area marshalls, with marshalls aimed at all road junctions. Alastair Rowland produced all the signage. Lions Club in Sussex offered to help.

The Hastings & Dstrict Scout Association agreed to man all the five water stations, John Hollands and family undertook to post the race number and information out to entrants, and this was complicated by having different numbers and colours for male and female entrants. Stamps even had to be licked.

As instructed by the police, warning signs were erected two weeks before the event, and leaflets delivered to houses on route by hand by Hastings Runners on training runs. We arranged everything that we could think of, or were asked to do.

We accepted nearly 1800 entries and the day arrived.

The bathing pool site was not in the best condition, but it served its purpose by having a power supply, water and toilets and changing area. Derek Stevens was most impressed that he had a chalet of his own.

It was a good weather day, and the start went well, Stevens was naturally the first man home in 1.06.58, with Caroline Horne the first woman to finish in 1.16.8. The last finisher was Margaret Sloan in 3.27.29 in 1495th position.

The timing was carried out by HAC under the expert eye of Lionel Parr,worked very well, except for the peak time, when it was a little overwhelmed, but every finisher was recorded by hand.