HISTORY2

In 1940 Eileen Parke of North Belfast Harriers won the local NI title in 12.4 seconds. The following two years the War in Europe caused the Championships to be cancelled and when they resumed on 24th July 1943 at Celtic Park the womens event were for some reason absent. This situations appears to have continued as far as Championships were concerned although the women continued to compete in meetings thoughout the country mainly in handicap races.

Peter Pozzoli reports:

“In 1949 …………….four events were held (for women) with Pat Kennedy winning the 100 yards and 220 yards, Mary Kernohan the Discus and Shot and Shorts and Harland’s the relay. Enthusiam continued to grow and in the early months of 1950 a meeting was held to inauguratee the Northern Ireland Women’s AAA …… the late Tom Ferguson was in the chair and the first elected officers to run women’s athletics in Northern Ireland were:

President: Captain T.D. Morrison
Chairman: Head McMillan
Secretary: Pat Kennedy
Treasurer: Miss McWilliams

The first official Championships were held in Belfast on the 22nd July 1950 with seven individual events and a sprint relay. The Shot Putt and Javelin were added the following year the Pentathlon in 1955, the 880 yards in 1958, the 1500 metres in 1969 the 3000 metres in 1975 and the 400 hurdles in 1977. The most recent additions being the Hammer and Pole Vault and no doubt the 5000 metres and Steeplechase are not too far in the future.

The first two decades of the championships were dominated by three women. Thelma Hopkins, Maeve Kyle and Mary Peters scooped between them an amazing 105 individual local titles between 1951 and 1975 the last of these being achieved by Mrs Kyle in the 400 hurdles and the Pentathlon in Coleraine at the age of 46. Rarely do three athletes of this quality grace the scene at the same time. All three had two things in common. One was that none of them was born in Northern Ireland and the other was a longevity in the sport which is sadly lacking in the female athletes today.

Thelma Hopkins, born in 1936 in Hull made her championship debut in 1951 at the age of 15 winning the High Jump and Long Jump with unexceptional performances of 4’8” (1.44) and 16’ 8.5” (5.09) which gave no indication of what was to come a few years later. One person who had an inkling of the future was her coach Franz Stampfl. The man who was to guide Roger Bannister to the first sub four minute mile was convinced that he had a world class athlete on his hands and he was to be proved correct.

Three years later in Vancouver, Canada, Thelma won Commonwealth Gold in the High jump and Silver in the Long Jump, a combination rarely seen in modern athletics. In the same year she added the European High Jump title. On the 5th May 1956 she reached the peak of her career when at Cherryvale Grounds on the Ravenhill Road she cleared 5’ 8.5” (1.74) to set a World High Jump Record. That performance remained a NI National Record until 1972 when it was beaten by Mary Peters. Thelma’s best legal long jump of 20’ 0.5” (6.11) set in Budapest in September had a longer reign as a National record for although it was equalled on 12 August 1990 by Michelle Rea it has never been broken. Later in 1956 she went to the Olympics Games in Melbourne and returned with the Silver Medal having been beaten by the American Mildred McDaniel with a new world record of 1.76. Thelma continued to win Northern Ireland titles at HJ / LJ / Hurdles / Javelin / Shot and Pentathlon up to 1964 a period of 13 years.

Mary Peters is another English girl who grew up and learnt her athletics in Northern Ireland. Mary’s career has of course been very well documented in Ian Woolridges’s book ‘Mary P.’ although since then she has gone on to become British Team Manager, President of the British Athletics Federation and only last month was at Buckingham Palace to be made a Dame Commander of the British Empire.