Five years ago the future of the club looked precarious but it is now thriving both on and off the track
After over 130 years of unforgettable memories and moments, the unthinkable looked plausible. “We were concerned we would lose Herne Hill Harriers”, says Keith Newton, who served as President of the club from 2019 to 2021.
In October 2019, Newton arrived at his desk to a large in-tray and immediately set his sights on updating the then 35-year-old eight-lane all-weather track.
With the normal lifespan of that type of track being 20 years, an upgrade was well overdue. The surface had been patched up but it desperately needed an overhaul.
Within months of Newton being elected President, the Tooting Bec Athletics Track – the historic home of Herne Hill Harriers – lost its competition license status.
“It looked absolutely disastrous and everything was compounded by the pandemic kicking off,” Newton states. “The funding streams had also dried up. At the time it was described as the ‘most significant thing’ in the club’s recent history.
“The surface had worn out a lot and there was little to no bounce left. Even for training there was very limited footwear that the governing body recommended wearing. There were risks of running in spikes, which obviously for sprinters is critical for training.”
As a result, a small task group was established with the main purpose of re-establishing Tooting Bec as a top facility in the heart of the community.
Keith Newton (Tim Adams)
Herne Hill Harriers was founded in 1889 after a group of boys in the area decided to set up an athletics club off the back of paper chases – a cross-country race in which the runners follow a trail marked by torn-up paper.
By 1908, the club had an Olympic champion in Joe Deakin, who won gold for Great Britain on home soil in the three miles team race.
Herne Hill Harriers moved to the Tooting Bec Athletics Track in 1937 and since then athletes in the club’s red and black hoops have trained and competed at the venue.
Those who were part of the club ran on a six-lane cinder track but in 1984 that was upgraded to the eight-lane all weather surface, securing the future of Herne Hill Harriers for a generation.
Fast forward to 2019 and the club needed a financial package from Wandsworth Council to guarantee its status in Tooting Bec for the foreseeable future.
Jade Johnson (Getty)
Within months of the news breaking out, athletes past and present came out publicly in support of Herne…
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