Forgotten Olympian

OLD Adolf looks awfully agitated, swaying back and forth in his grandstand seat in the manner of a demented rocking horse, albeit a rocking horse with a daft tash.

He also keeps rubbing his right knee, probably a result of advancing years. None can dictate to the rheumatiz.

It’s a wonderful YouTube clip of the 1936 Olympics 10k in Berlin, the initial cause of Adolf’s angst that the field is led by Jack Potts, a miner’s son from County Durham.

Jack Potts, eh, the name that launched a thousand bingo promotions?

Unlike his cartoon counterparts, John Henry Soulsby Potts really was a winner – a reluctant hero and, until now, very much a forgotten one.

One small step, he has finally been remembered in the creation of a 5k walk around his birthplace, near Stanley, in north-west Durham.

“He never talked about it and no one’s ever done anything about it,” says Ann Brooker, his daughter. “It’s an awful shame that, even in Olympic year, my dad’s name never seems to be mentioned.”

JACK was born at Bushblades Farm, Kyo, in 1906, began running during the depression days of the 1920s, reckoned that the best training was scarpering from the polliss who insisted on interrupting the lads’ clandestine games of pitch and toss.

Persuaded to join the 1926 strike by his father, he discovered that races organised among the men offered food parcels for the winners. “Someone threatened to take away his amateur status for the sake of a couple of bags of potatoes,” says Ann, who lives near Alnwick.

“I was reading an article about how much modern athletes get and it made me quite depressed, thinking what they tried to do to my dad at a time when men and their families were starving.”

He joined West Stanley Harriers in 1926, moving – apace – to Saltwell Harriers two years later, trained on Lobley Hill store field. He stood just 5ft 7in, weighed under ten stones.

Unusual among his contemporaries, he neither smoked nor drank.

Jack’s first big race was in the North-East cross country championships at Gosforth Park, which he won from a field of 130 that included two internationals. “I didn’t think I had the remotest chance of winning,” he told the papers at the time.

He took the English cross country title in 1931 and 1936, won the AAA (Amateur Athletics Association) six miles in 1932 and the steeplechase in 1938, earned several international vests and had been measured for his uniform for the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles when told he wouldn’t be going after all.

Alec Burns, his friend and rival from Elswick Harriers – times so hard that they were said to have the only two tracksuits in the North-East – did go to the US, was seventh in the 5k and was to be fifth in the Berlin 10k. Richard Burns, his grandson, was the 2001 world rally champion.

Jack renewed his determination to make the 1936 Games. “He never talked about it,” says Ann. “I only knew he’d been in the Olympics at all because one of my uncles told me.”

She has now compiled a book – “mainly for my grandsons” – based on cuttings and other mementoes found in the attic after her mother died in 1997 and on interviews after an appeal in the local paper. Jack had died, aged 80, ten years earlier.

“I contacted Saltwell Harriers, but they knew nothing and didn’t seem much bothered,” says Ann. “It’s lovely that at last he’s being remembered back where he belongs.”

THE Jack Potts Walk is one of several with a sporting theme being promoted in County Durham by the Ramblers, the national walking charity. “It’s clear that the nation needs to get moving, we are urging Britain to get to its feet,” they say.

It begins at the Plainsman in Annfield Plain, directions in danger of having to be rewritten before they start. The pub was gutted by fire last week, notices on the security fencing outside indicating that it is being demolished.

In truth, the fire has left little to knock down.

There are, of course, other watering holes. The Queens Head has a sign depicting the diamond monarch and a blackboard advising that jubilation means opening until 1am; the Democratic Club has a group of smokers standing, spluttering, outside.

It may not be what The Ramblers mean by getting Britain to its feet.

It’s last Sunday morning, the streets bunting decked. Annfield Plain is turned out bravely, rather like the Cratchit kids on Christmas Day. It begins badly. We take a wrong turning after five yards, which may (or may not) be a record. What’s needed is not a Plain man’s guide, but an idiot’s.

There are no way marks, no biographical notices, no indication that the 3.4-mile walk is dedicated to a proud Olympian of that neighbourhood.

The pub in West Kyo is called Ye Olde Earl Grey, a noble gentleman who may never have been anywhere near the place. Why not rename it the Jack Potts?

Doubtless there are also those who know their New Kyo from their West Kyo, their Harelaw from their Catchgate from their Collierley. We are not among them.

The walk’s pleasant, interesting and, inevitably, litter-strewn. Whether Jack Potts trained up and down those lonnens goodness only knows.

We cross the line in 91 minutes; it may be considered a personal best.

THAT YouTube film’s in German, the crescendo commentator a sort of Deutschland David Coleman. The excitement transcends boundaries. Like the field, the crowd seems cosmopolitan.

You can tell the Geordie boys’ supporters – they’re the ones in the flat caps and, quite possibly, smoking the Woodbines.

There’d been no heats, the 30- strong line-up including wonderfully named runners like Don Lash (USA) Odd Rasdal (Norway) and Walter Schonrock from Germany. Then as now, there were also the flying Finns.

Jack’s early lead didn’t last, nor did the three Germans give the Fuhrer much about which to get excited (though he seemed pretty excitable, nonetheless.) Ann, and the Ramblers, believe that Jack finished seventh. The official record insists that he didn’t finish at all, the Finns in the first three places. “I’ve had a number of thrills in my lifetime, but none equalled the thrill of that race and of being a member of that team,” he said.

The Northern Echo of Monday August 3, 1936, acknowledges both Jesse Owens’ 10.2 second world record in a heat of the 100 metres – “Negro beats world sprint record” – and the Flying Finns 10k triumph, but doesn’t even record what happened to Jack Potts.

Things were different then. Our preview two days earlier, the day of the Games opening, barely covered half a column.

In 1939, Jack joined the RAF, worked after the war for a belting company in Newcastle –- “still went down the pit when anything broke down,” says his daughter – died in Gloucestershire in 1987.

“He’d have been very familiar with much of that walk,” says Ann. “I hope to do it myself, and remember an earlier Olympics.”