The Ghost Runner

A recent glimpse of some 1960s nostalgia, which included some of the leading British sporting champions of their day, brought home how modest and ill-at-ease they all seemed in front of cameras and in the public eye. Not at all like today's preening 'personalities.'
The stars of the 60s came from a very different background, of course. Most things were different then. Sport certainly was. There were no sponsorships, no TV money, no hype. Cricket was still hampered by self-imposed pro-amateur divisions such scoreboards with initials for some and plain surnames for others (ABJ Fennistone-Haugh c Bloggs b BKN Trumpington-Browne, etc), and by Gentlemen versus Players fixtures. Football also promoted a clear distinction between the amateur and the professional. Even so, 100,000 people would still turn up to watch the FA Amateur Cup Final at Wembley.
As for the Olympic Games, they were solidly (or as solidly as they could make them) for the unpaid (and therefore privately funded) competitor only.
To be fair, these rules merely carried on the policies of the pre-War years. But in the 1950s and 1960s the Games 'amateur only' rule was beginning to be queried. Working class competitors, whatever their sport, could not afford time off work to train, and there was little opportunity for them to gain top level or overseas experience. If they competed in local sports - and many towns held annual sports days then - the award of a Woolworth's glass ashtray or a half-crown postal order for winning the sack race would have labelled them as 'professional' and thus ineligible for the Games.
Some sports, I am sure, devised ways to get around this. And certain Eastern Bloc countries enrolled their best sports men and women into the armed services, which got around the training problem. But it would be another decade before sponsorships (horse racing, followed by golf) came in, soccer dropped its am/pro distinction, and Gentlemen and Players cricket fixtures retreated into history. Yet for a short period between these milestones, problems proliferated.
One man who clashed with the authorities was John Tarrant, born in London in 1932. As a youth in the Peak District he took up boxing, and at 18 won £17. Then he switched to running. But when he tried to join Salford Harriers his application was turned down, and at the age of 20 he was banned from official competitions by the Amateur Athletics Association solely because of the money he had won in the ring.
Tarrant, it should be remembered, was a very good runner with a distinguished record. Some would say a top runner, and he had the 1960 Rome Olympics in his sights. Yet he was banned, and he decided to try to do something about it.
In 1956 an important race was held at Liverpool, drawing big crowds. The race began, and suddenly a figure in full racing strip emerged from the crowd, joined the runners, and raced with them almost to the final line when it veered away and duly disappeared. It made headlines, and for the next few years John Tarrant - or The Ghost Runner - 'gatecrashed' dozens of events throughout the land.
One of the towns which held an annual sports weekend in the 1950s was Holbeach, not far from where I was born. It was also hugely popular, drawing crowds and top competitors, including grass track cyclists. And I am fairly certain - though I cannot find a record of it - that The Ghost Runner appeared here, fleetingly, joining in part of a race and then disappearing.
John Tarrant, who died in 1975, never got to complete in the Olympic Games. But he had made his point, and at least he lived long enough to see the Games begin to open up to everyone.