Guest Post: Mayfield Goes Racing in 1971... by Richard Forrest

Up until the year 2000, there were two national athletics associations in Ireland... BLE and NACA. Back in 1971, NACA held their 10-mile Championships in Mayfield in Cork City. Thanks to Richard  Forrest for the following piece.

Mayfield Goes Racing in 1971

Sunday, October 17th 1971 (all of 50 years ago) saw a large gathering at Mayfield when the local athletics club, Clannn Éireann hosted the All-Ireland 10-mile Road Racing Championship. The event was run over three laps of the Mayfield – Banduff - Fox and Hounds - Dillon’s Cross -Mayfield course.

 Among the entries were two former national marathon champions in Jimmy Hughes and Noel Ramsbottom. While Cork’s hopes rested on John O’Brien (Ballymore AC), the former national 15-mile champion and Williie Webb (Rising Sun AC). There were dark horses among the runners from Éire Óg AC and Geraldines AC (London) who had preformed so well in the All-Ireland Senior Cross-Country.

Mayfield in the 1970's

As well as individual medals, there were three team prizes also, guaranteed to make it an interesting race. In conjunction to the main event, a boys under-17 race covered one lap of a course starting at Mayfield, going through the Sisk building site and joining the 10-mile course at O’Callaghan’s Garage on the Banduff Road. Boys and girls under-15 raced over the Lower Mayfield – Iona Park course but the event with biggest draw and, perhaps, the most excitement were the boys and girls under-12 and under-14 races confined to local schools.

Heats in those events were run on Saturday with the finals on Sunday. Twenty-five athletes competed in the national championship at Mayfield that day and a ”superbly fit John O’Brien ran the opposition into the ground”. He finished the ten miles 2 mins 45 secs ahead of his clubmate Mick Kinsella in a time of 54 mins 3 secs on, it has to be said, a tough course and in rough weather. 

Willie Webb took the bronze edging out John Fox (Brothers Pearse, Dublin). A special word of praise went to 56-year old Bill McAvoy (Timahoe AC, Portlaoise) who came in 16 th . Millstreet and Ballymore (near Cobh) dominated the underage categories but in the confined boys under-12s the first three were T. Clarke, M. Mulroy and D. Crowley and in the girls, N. Nagle, S. Brett ad G. Hurley.

Addendum: Additional info from Jimmy Murray... "Clann Eireann AC active in the Mayfield area, late 60s to mid 70s., main men there were Bill and Jack Keniry and Eoin Dorney, all now deceased, this was an annual fixture as a non championship event for some years while the club was active, a number of the runners are still with us inc. the first and second on that day, the starter was Paddy Desmond RIP., later President NACAI."

Addendum #2: Additional info from Richard Forrest... "James (Jim) Hughes was NACA All-Ireland marathon champion in 1968 and 1969. The race in 1969 was in Killarney and he won in a time of 2:40.

Hughes was a secondary school teacher from Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan and ran with the Brothers Pearse Club in Dublin. Ramsbottom was with Tinahoe A.C. in Co. Laois."