The Great North Run, which takes place on Sunday, celebrates its 25th birthday this year, but a quarter of a century ago few could have predicted the hold it would have on the public imagination. Nick Morrison looks at the origins of the world's biggest half marathon.

IT was about 5pm on a winter's night towards the end of 1980, and five men were meeting in Room 320 of the Five Bridges Hotel in Gateshead. On the table was a plate of sandwiches and ten cans of lager, two for each of the five. Two hours later the meeting broke up, having decided to organise a road race on Tyneside for the following summer.

It was only their first meeting, but key details had already been agreed. The race would be a half marathon. It would take in the Tyne Bridge, the North-East's most recognisable landmark. And it would finish by the coast in South Shields. They had even come up with a name: the Geordie 5,000. With luck, they hoped that number of runners would take part.

Just seven months later, on June 28, 1981, 12,500 people took part in the inaugural race. It had been a phenomenal achievement to get it off the ground in such a short time, not least because their ambition of running across the Tyne Bridge had failed to take into account the fact that the bridge had been closed only once before, when it was officially opened by George V in 1928.

Police permission to stage the run was also a cloudy issue. Northumbria Police Chief Constable Sir Stanley Bailey had replied to a letter from Brendan Foster, one of the five in Room 320, to say: "...it is not my policy to encourage sponsored events on the highway, in view of the obvious danger to all concerned. If, however, you decide...". With no official permission, but a hint of a blind eye, the race was given the tacit go ahead.

But once plans for the race had been publicly unveiled, it was apparent that it had caught a tide of enthusiasm, and it soon became clear that the original name would no longer do. They were likely to attract far more than 5,000. The five men met again, and tossed around suggestions including the Tyne Race and the Newcastle-Shields, until John Caine, a former Gateshead Harrier and then manager of Gateshead Stadium, recalled the time he had hitch-hiked from Newcastle to Nottingham up the A1, the Great North Road. "I said to the guys, how about the Great North Run? Just like that," he says.

Twenty five years on, the Great North Run attracts a field of around 49,000 runners, and is the world's foremost and biggest half marathon. More than 650,000 people have run the 13.1 miles from Newcastle Central Motorway, across the Tyne Bridge and ending up at South Shields, including 146 who have taken part in every race.

The idea for a race on his native Tyneside had originally come to Foster when he was in New Zealand in early 1980. Training for the Moscow Olympics with David Moorcroft, he had taken part in the Round the Bays Race, which wound its way around Auckland's Waitemata harbour. The sight of 30,000 people lit a spark in his mind.

"It made a huge impact on me. I had never seen anything like it," he says. "The atmosphere was wonderful, everyone was running along the seafront. But at the same it was a shambles... some people were on roller skates, others on bikes. It was chaotic, in fact it was amateurish. But the spirit of the whole thing was absolutely fantastic."

Moorcroft, who was running alongside Foster, recalls the moment two miles into the race when the idea began to form: "I was too knackered to speak, but Brendan was chatting away. As we were running, in this glorious free for all, on a wonderful sunny day, he turned to me and said, 'I am going to do this in Gateshead in the North-East'. I said, 'That's a great idea, good on you', and even then it was obvious that he would do it."

The first men's race was won by Mike McLeod, in 1:03.23, and the women's race by Karen Goldhawk, in 1:17.36, but even before the first runners crossed the finishing line, it was clear that this was to be no one-off. The public response to the event meant there was no question that it would become a permanent fixture.

Within a few years, it started to attract some of the biggest names in distance running. The 1984 women's event was won by Norwegian Grete Waitz, the reigning marathon world record holder, and the following year Portugal's European marathon champion Rose Mota took the laurels. Subsequent winners include Ingrid Kristiansen, Liz McColgan, Sonia O'Sullivan and Paula Radcliffe.

But the appeal of the event lies not in the stars, but in the mass of club runners and fun runners who take part, as well as the sprinkling of celebrity runners. One of the more poignant stories of last year's race was the participation of Findlay Young.

Twelve months earlier, he had been sitting in a hospital room waiting to hear if his cancer had returned. The news that he was all clear inspired him to commemorate that day, and exactly 12 months later he arrived in Gateshead by helicopter to take up his position behind the elite runners. Such was the interest stirred by his participation that he was followed around the course by a camera crew.

The race moved to September in 1990 to accommodate television coverage, but has continued to go from strength to strength, now an established part of the road race calendar. The Five Bridges may now be the Swallow Hotel, but the legacy of that meeting in Room 320 lives on.

* To mark the 25th anniversary, The Great North Run: The First 25 Years and My Part in It (£25), has been published by Kensington West Productions, featuring the history of the event, results of all 24 races so far, and recollections from some of the celebrities who have taken part.