Manchester Olympic Sports Personalities

Manchester
Sports & Olympic Champions (3 of 8)

James Borland

(1911-1938)
Olympic Ice Hockey Champion
James Andrew Borland, born in Manchester in March 1911, came to public attention during Hitler's 1936 Winter Olympic Games in the picturesque Bavarian ski resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The games were controversial, taking place as they did in Nazi-dominated Germany, and Baron de Coubertin who had founded the modern Olympic Games, excused himself from attending.
The British Ice Hockey Team won the tournament, taking the Gold Medal, due in no small part to the founding of the British Ice Hockey Association and superb facilities at the Empire Pool in Wembley. Britain went on to hold the World Championship in 19937 and 1938. The fact that Britain won, by holding the American team to a goal-less draw, is down to the stonewall defending by Jimmy Borland.
Though born of a Manchester family, Borland had emigrated with them to Canada while he was still a young man, and it was in Canada that he had been introduced to ice hockey. In 1934 he was back in England, playing for a Canadian team, when he was spotted and selected to play 5 matches for Britain in the World Championships. By 1936 he had become captain of the Brighton Tigers Ice Hockey Team.
By trade he was an electrician, and also enjoyed playing golf, fishing, baseball and swimming. After just one season with Brighton, he returned to Canada and died within the year.

Source: James W Bancroft Archive

William Roberts

William Roberts

(1912 -?)
Olympic Relay Champion
Bill Roberts was born in Salford on 5th April 1912, the son of a furniture shop owner in Tatton Street in Ordsall. He attended Trafford Road School for Boys and began his adult life as an apprentice carpenter. In 1926 he joined Salford Athletic Club. He was also a keen musician, playing many different instruments, and performing in local dance halls with his own band.
As an athlete he was a keen and able middle distance runner, specialising in the 400 metres and quarter mile events. In 1935, having taken the train to London straight from work and without a rest, he won three international races at the Empire Games, as well as smashing the AAA's 400 metres record. He was selected to run in the 400 metres and the 4 x 400 metres Relay event at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. His team won the Relay Gold Medal in a time of 3 minutes 09.0 seconds, with Robert's leg having been timed at 46.4 seconds, the fastest in the event. Roberts ran in London a week later in a British Empire versus United States competition, and won his leg of the relay event, being voted "Champion of the Year" for his excellence.
Roberts was married in 1937 and lived thereafter in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, and working at an engineering factory in Eccles. In 1938 he won several events in the British Empire Games at Sydney, Australia, but was dismissed from his job at the engineering works for taking too much time off! He joined the RAF during the Second World War. In 1946 he gained the Silver Medal with the British Relay Squad in the European Championships at Oslo, and was made Captain of the British Athletics Squad for the London Olympics in 1948.
At the time of writing, Bill Roberts is living in Timperley near Altrincham in Greater Manchester, where he spends most of his time in the garden and playing and writing music.

Source: James W Bancroft Archive

Max Woosnam

Max Woosnam

(1892-1965)
Olympic Tennis Champion
The 1920 Olympics were a hastily put together affair, after the devastation of the World War, and with most European countries having bigger things to think about than sporting tournaments, but it marked the introduction of the 5-ringed symbol, and was held in Antwerp from 14th to 29th August.
Britain won a total of 15 Gold Medals at the tournament - it was the last time Britain got into double figures. Taking part in the lawn tennis tournament was Max Woosnam, one of Britain's greatest all-round sportsmen.
Born in Liverpool in 1892, Woosnam was educated at Winchester, and played football and squash, and was captain at cricket and golf. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he played against Oxford at football, lawn tennis and golf. When the First World War was declared, Woosnam was in Brazil with the Corinthians Football Club, but he immediately returned to England and enlisted into the Montgomeryshire Yeomanry, later transferring to the Royal Welch Fusiliers.
After the war he returned to Cambridge and was elected captain of the First XI Cricket Team. Yet, of all the sports which he played so well, he regarded Football as his main sport, and in 1920 he signed up to join the Manchester City Football Team. He made over 90 appearances at centre-half position in the first two seasons, becoming the club's only amateur captain ever. In 1922, a broken leg brought his football career to an end prematurely.
He went on to concentrate on his lawn tennis and joined the Northern Lawn Tennis Club in Didsbury. Woosnam was selected to represent his country in the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, in the doubles tournament, partnering Noel Turnbull. They took the Gold Medals, 6-2, 5-7, 7-5, 7-5. He was also in the winning doubles team in the Davis Cup in 1920, and partnered Randolph Lycett of Australia to win the Wimbledon Doubles Championship in 1921. In 1923 he joined the firm of Brunner, Mond & Co in Northwich as Employment Manager. The company became part of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in 1926, and in 1940 he became a member of the company's Board of Directors, working in London.
He was Personnel Manager at ICI until 1954, and died in Westminster, London on 14th July 1965, aged 72.

Source: James W Bancroft Archive

Rex Crummack

(1887-1966)
Olympic Hockey Team Champion
Reginald ("Rex") Crummack was part of the British National Hockey Team at the 1920 Olympics. The team included John Bennett (2nd from left), and Reginald Crummack (just visible, circled, 5th from left). Britain had established an International Hockey Board in 1900 to control the sport, set out rules and organise international competition. Hockey was introduced to the Olympics in 1908, and the new Great Britain team beat Belgium 12-1 and Denmark 5-1 to take Gold Medals.
Crummack was born in Salford in February 1887, and was educated at Rossall School in Fleetwood, on the Lancashire coast. He then went to London and trained for a career in the cotton business. When he returned to Lancashire in 1908, he joined the St Anne's Hockey Club, with whom he represented the county. He also played football, but he considered golf to be his main sport. He joined the Royal Lytham & St Anne's Golf Club, and eventually became captain.
At the outbreak of war in 1914, he was commissioned as Captain in the South Lancashire Regiment, winning several decorations, and being badly gassed, which was to affect his health thereafter. After the war he moved to live in Heathbank Road in Cheadle Hulme, continuing to play hockey with the Alderley Edge and Timperley teams. He played his last game in 1926, and in 1931 he was appointed an international hockey selector. He also played cricket for Stockport. His last golf tournament was in 1946, when he effectively retired from sports.
He died in hospital in Stockport on 25th October 1966 aged 79, and his funeral took place at Altrincham Crematorium.

Source: James W Bancroft Archive