Manchester Olympic Sportsmen & Sportswomen

Manchester
Sports & Olympic Champions (4 of 8)

June Croft

(Born 1963)
Olympic Swimming Champion
Born in Ashton-in-Makerfield in Wigan in 1963, June Croft is a member of the Wigan Wasps Swimming Team, and trained at the Wigan International Swimming Pool. She was British record holder and champion from 1974-1984, breaking the world record for the 200 metres at the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane in 1982 by completing the distance in under 2 minutes. In the 1980 Olympic Games she won silver and bronze medals and has been three times Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist.

Peter Kane

Peter Kane

(1918-1991)
World Champion Boxer
Born on 28th February 1918 in Heywood, Lancashire, Peter Kane trained out of a gym in Golborne, where his family had moved to live when he was a very young child. Kane was a blacksmith in the neighbouring district of Lowton, and lived in a bungalow on Liverpool Road, Pewfall, near St Helens for most of his professional career.

Following in his father's footsteps, he began boxing at 16 years of age and took the professional name 'Kane'.

He went on to win lasting fame as a boxer, and became World Flyweight Boxing Champion retaining the title from 1938-1943.

Kane was rated as one the hardest hitting flyweights of all time, his power, no doubt, down to his well developed upper body resulting from his continuing life as a blacksmith, even though his career was put on hold while he fought in the Second World War.

Controversially, the ownership of his birthright is still fiercely contested by Warringtonians and Wiganers alike, both claiming him as one of their own.

This probably came about when the district of Golborne was 'transposed' into Wigan Metropolitan County Borough in the 1973 boundary reorganisation which created the Greater Manchester Metropolitan County and effectively took many old Lancashire districts out of that county.

Numerous other similar boundary changes occurred. Natives of Golborne, I understand, still defiantly regard themselves as belonging to Warrington in Lancashire, despite official boundary changes which have placed it in Greater Manchester for the last thirty-odd years.

In 2001 Wigan MBC created Peter Kane Square in Golborne and placed a £120,000 commemorative monument there in his honour, to the evident displeasure of other Warrington Lancastrians, and the author of this entry has received several emails concerning the dispute, which he fears will never be completely resolved.

Peter Kane died in 1991 but will always be remembered as a fighter who won 127 of his 137 professional boxing tournaments.

Books, VHS and DVDs about Mike Atherton

Mike Atherton

(b. 1968)
England & Lancashire Test Cricketer
Born Michael Andrew Atherton on 23 March 1968 in Failsworth, Manchester, he attended the Manchester Grammar School, where he was captain for three years.

His early potential was spotted at school and, by the age of 16 he had already captained the England Under-19 cricket team.

He toured with England Young Cricketers to Sri Lanka in 1986-87, and to Australia in 1987-88, while studying History at Cambridge.

He made his debut for Lancashire in 1987 and won his county cap in 1989. His First Class Cricket Test debut was against Australia at Old Trafford, Manchester in 1989.

Later, a match against New Zealand established him as the youngest ever Lancastrian century-maker with a score of 151 at Trent Bridge Cricket Ground.

He was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1991. In the summer of 1993 the England team selectors offered him the position of captain - he was then just 25 years old. However, his relationship with the press was not always a happy one and earned him the title of "Grumpy".

His remarkable powers of concentration, an inborn northern stubborn streak, allied to an immaculate technique made him a leading all-rounder, though it is as a defensive player that he will be remembered.

Only a degenerating back condition ruined an otherwise promising career as a leg-spin bowler, and he actually took over 100 first-class wickets Injuries ruled him out of many test selections, and increasingly he has found himself most frequently writing about, rather than playing, cricket.

He made his 100th Test appearance against the West Indies at Old Trafford in 2000.

Shortly after he announced his retirement from first-class cricket.

Harold Walden

(1889-1955)
United Kingdom Olympic Soccer Team Champion
The last United Kingdom team to win the Olympic Soccer Champions title at Stockholm in 1912. It included three men from the north-west region, Walden, who was born in Ardwick, Manchester on 10 October 1889, Berry from Liverpool and Hoare from Glossop. These three scored all of Britain's 15 goals!

Harold Walden entered the army by joining the Cheshire Regiment in 1903, and served in India and Ireland. He played for the Army against the Navy in 1910 and 1911, and after leaving the army went into the music hall as a performer in Yorkshire, where he died, in Leeds in 1955 at the age of 66.

Source: James W Bancroft Archive

Books by Frank Tyson

Frank Tyson

(b.1930)
Northamptonshire & England Cricketer
Born Frank Holmes Tyson on 6 June 1930 in Farnworth, Bolton, he became a leading player in the Northamptonshire and England Cricket Teams.

He made his Test Match debut for England against Pakistan at the Oval in London in 1954, and played his last Test Match against New Zealand at Aukland in the 1958-59 season.

He was named as Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1956.

Not exactly a tall man but with his distinctive long run up and powerful right hand bowling action he was a devastatingly fast bowler, who was known as 'the typhoon'.

Unfortunately, a hard cricket ball blow to the back of his head from Ray Lindwall forced him into a shortened career and early retirement, after which he took up coaching.

Tyson's bowling speed was actually measured at the New Zealand Aeronautical College in Wellington in 1955, when he bowled a test ball through a sonic beam - it was measured at 89 mph - then one of the fastest bowls ever recorded.

Only Harold Larwood had produced significantly faster results when measured by high speed photography at between 90 and 130 mph! Tyson was at his best on the Australian tour of 1954-55 when he took 28 wickets at an average of 20.

By the age of 70, he suffered some immobility following several operations to replace his knees which he stated had been "worn out by fast bowling."

His lengthy run-up and demanding action restricted him to only 17 Test Matches, and injury blighted his career.

He was regarded by most who played against him as being the fastest bowler they ever faced.

John Ephraim Sibbett

(1895-1950)
John Sibbett was born in Ancoats, Manchester in 1895, and was one of Britain's most distinguished racing cyclists. His career began in 1919, and his first major win was in 1922 when he came first in the national 5 mile championships.

He excelled in both short distance sprint and long distance events - in 1925 and 1927 he was national quarter mile champion and in 1929 he was national 25 mile champion. However, his biggest impact was probably the national tandem championships which he won eight times, five with his partner, E. H. Chambers.

In this partnership, Sibbet won the Olympic event in 1928. He also participated in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, when he was a member of the Manchester Wheelers Club. Later, racing bicycles bearing his name became internationally popular and the likes of champion Reg Harris usually rode a Sibbet bike. He retired from active competition in 1938 and devoted his time to judging cycling events, on the basis of which he became British Team Manager for the 1948 and 1949 World Championships in Holland and Denmark.

After a spell working at the Ford Company factory during the Second World War, he continued making handmade cycles from 1946 onwards until his death in 1950 at the age of 55.

Source: James W Bancroft Archive

Books by & about
Reg Harris

Reg Harris

(1920-1992)
World Champion Cyclist

One of the all time greatest names in international cycling was Reg Harris, born in Bury in 1929. He went on to become World Champion Cyclist, World Amateur Sprint Champion in 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952 and 1954.

Harris had left school aged 14 and had in the course of his career been a successful businessman in his own right.

He won his first prize as a cyclist at the age of 16 (a chiming clock), and by 19 he was captain of the British Cycling Team in the Italian World Championships.

Unfortunately, was was declared and the team withdrew, and he had to wait until after the war, until 1947, when he won his first World Championship.
In 1948 he went on to win 2 silver medals at the Olympic Games.

Before he retired he would be named Sportsman of the Year twice and awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

He attempted a short comeback in 1974, but in 1975 he retired finally. He died in hospital in Macclesfield in June 1992, after collapsing while (still) riding his bike at the age of 72!

A memorial statue now stands in the Manchester Velodrome (the National Cycling Centre) in honour of his great achievements in cycling.

Books by & about
Chris Boardman

Chris Boardman

(b.1968)
Olympic Cycling Champion
Christopher Miles Boardman was born at Clatterbridge on the Wirral in 1968, and joined the Manchester Wheelers Cycle Club as a junior.

He helped the club win 20 National and team titles in five years, and from the earliest days of his cycling career it was clear to those who knew him that he was destined to be a great cycle champion.

In 1991 he moved to the GS Strada Team, based in Staffordshire, attracted by good sponsorship backing. Within that year he had become reigning British Champion at 25 miles, 50 miles and the Pursuit event, and placed 9th in the overall World Championships.

By the 1992 Olympics at Barcelona, Chris had a new bike, an unauthodox streamlined machine, designed especially for him by Lotus Engineering, and he was sporting his new helmet, which earned him the nickname "Darth Vader".

In the Horta Municipal Velodrome, he went on to produce the fastest ever outdoor time in the 4000 Metres Individual Pursuit event, and in the final he took the World Championship and the Gold Medal.

His new cycle caused a great deal of interest, and revolutionised cycle design afterwards. He was awarded the CBE in the 1993 New Year's Honours List.

Since those games, the rules of the Pursuit event have had to be revised to take account of the new technology in cycle design, and Boardman has become World Record Holder of the 4000 metres and the 5000 Pursuit events.

In 1993 he achieved the World One Hour Cycling Championship, at Bordeaux in France, covering a distance of 52.270 kilometres in the time.

Fred Perry

Fred Perry

(1909-1995)
Champion Tennis Player
Born 18th May 1909 in Stockport, Frederick John Perry was the three-time Wimbledon Champion tennis player (from 1934 to 1936), the first player to win all four Grand Slam singles titles, and the last Briton to win the All-England men's title. As well as his three Wimbledon Championships, he also achieved three US Championships, an Australian, a French and subsequently went on to pursue a successful and lucrative professional career.

Perry was a latecomer, not taking up tennis until he was 18 years old. However, he had been playing table tennis (Ping-Pong) for many years, and with good coaching, he took to the game quickly. Perry became known for a devastating backhand delivered with surprising pace. Somewhat of a poseur on court, Perry was a handsome figure with regular features, raven black hair, and the 'perfect' tennis players physique.

From 1933 onwards, Perry led the British team to significant victories over the USA and France, and brought the Davis Cup back to Britain after 21 years absence. Britain was to retain the Cup through 1936 as Perry was to win every singles match he played. England had not produced a Wimbledon singles champion to compare with him for a quarter-century. Perry also went on to win the US Pro Championships in 1938 and 1941. After his playing career ended, he was, (and is) associated with the manufacture of tennis clothes, as well being a tennis correspondent and commentator for radio and television coverage of tennis matches - particularly at Wimbledon.

He was elected to the Wimbledon Hall of Fame in 1975 and died on 2nd February 1995 in Melbourne, Australia, and will be long remembered as possibly England's greatest ever tennis player.

Books & DVDs by
John Virgo

John Virgo

(b.1946)
Snooker Champion
Born in Rochdale on the 3rd of March 1946, John Virgo is perhaps best known nowadays as a television personality on the BBC "Big Break" show. However, during the late 1970s and 1980s, he was rated as one of the best players in international snooker. Virgo was at one time a bank clerk, and learned his snooker skills in the Potters Club in Salford, (still popular among many professional snooker players today). He went on to win the National Under-16 and Under-19 titles in 1962 and 1965 respectively.

There followed a succession of victories and in 1977 he was persuaded to turn professional and reached the UK semi-finals in that year. He also reached the UK quarterfinals in 1978, with his best ever ranking at 10th position.

Though apparently serious and even morose at the snooker table, Virgo has a ready wit, and his exhibitions were always in great demand, as much for his comedy impressions as his trick pot-shots. This led in turn to the development of what was to become, effectively, a second career in entertainment - fortunately, as his snooker fortunes tended to decline during the late 1980s, and he subsequently quit the professional snooker circuit in 1994.

However, the 1990s saw him doing a great deal of exhibition playing and comedy routines. During this time, besides his now successful cabaret act, he was chairman of the World Professional Billiards & Snooker Association for two years. Inevitably, TV commentating was to follow. And, when BBC Television planned to launch "Big Break", a peak viewing snooker based gameshow in the mid 1990s, Virgo was offered the job as partner to Jim Davidson. The show, and Virgo's part in it, was a popular success throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

John Virgo's honours include:

• UK Professional Champion - 1979
• World Professional Snooker Championship semi-finalist,1979
• Professional Snooker League Winner, 1984
• Pontins Professional Champion, 1980
• National Under-16 Snooker Champion - 1962
• National Under-19 Snooker Champion - 1965
• National Pairs Champion - 1975 ( with Paul Medati)

See Also : Manchester Footballers