Wheelchairs, Perjury and the London Marathon by Tim Marshall

Author:Tim Marshall [Tim Marshall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912262588
Publisher: Clink Street Publishing
Published: 2018-03-13T04:00:00+00:00

“Dear Mr Gully

Thank you for your letter concerning the forthcoming marathon in which you will be participating.

There is nothing in IAAF rules to prevent your time being completely official. We wish you all the best in the competition.

Yours sincerely …”

Little by little. The international governing body hadn’t expressed any opposition to wheelchair participation, which, apart from the issue of direct or parallel competition, seemed to leave the matter in the hands of individual race organisers.

I discussed how else to pursue the London business with Mike O’Flynn, at the same time as we had decided to go to the AAA and the IAAF. I think it was Liz Dendy who first suggested trying the Greater London Council, then the local authority governing London, and at that time under Labour control (but please keep her name out of it, as a senior officer in the Sports Council). The crucial point here was that the roads used for the race were public roads under the notional control of the Greater London Council, the GLC. If the GLC was known for anything it was for supporting minority or disadvantaged groups: women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and so on. Surely they would at least listen to us?

As with national government, there were two groups of people involved: the politicians and the civil servants; in this context, we’re talking about councillors and local government officers. As with all councils, there were different areas of responsibility: Education, Housing, Social Services , and so on. And in London, Arts and Recreation, which included Sport. The chief officer for A&R was Lord Birkett, whilst the chair of the committee, at that time a GLC councillor but not yet an MP, was Tony Banks. And then we discovered that one of the governors of the race was Illtyd Harrington, who was chairman of the GLC and Ken Livingstone’s deputy. This all looked promising. The approach to the GLC began in June, and stretched right through to the 1983 race (April 17th) and beyond. Unrealised by us at the start, this contact became a hugely important part of the ultimate denouement, and it seems better to present this aspect of the story as an integrated whole, uninterrupted by other matters going on at the same time, but which were in essence isolated events without a contribution to the main story as it unfolded during the autumn and early new year.

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