This Saturday will see Round 5 of cross country competition head back to Willandra for the McCaffrey Challenge.
Did you know the Nowra Athletics Club was founded by running guru and distance runner Frank McCaffrey in 1960?
The cross country event this Saturday 28th April will remember the founder Frank McCaffrey who died in 2002 in what has now become the annual McCaffrey Challenge. The Challenge is held over two matches with Kembla Joggers Club. A point score system is in place to match the two clubs against each other across all the distances. Everyone counts so please come along and participate in your chosen distance.
An afternoon tea will be held after the running so please bring something to share.
For the newcomers a little bit of background information about Frank McCaffrey…
McCaffrey was considered the father of fun running. Fitness became the basis of his life at a relatively young age. He took up running longer distances as a teenager, and it served him well.
Born near Belfast in Northern Ireland in 1919, Frank developed an early love for the outdoors. It was while doing a mandatory six weeks training course for the Royal Navy that he discovered his special talent for running and beating many of his mates and peers. After many years living around the world on military service, he selected Nowra to start his new life back in Australia. He worked in Nowra as a newsagent but before long became involved in organising fitness events, mainly running. He founded the Nowra Athletics Club helped by Rod Gibb, to whom, typically, he gave all credit for the club’s foundation. It has been said that Frank always insisted that the athlete – any athlete – was what it really was all about. Yet his enthusiasm and readiness to approach the big names led to the Nowra Athletics Club becoming one of the leading clubs anywhere in Australia. Within one year the club, with Frank and Rod Gibb at the helm, held two of the major athletics events in Australia, the State Road Relay Championships and the Nowra Open Athletics Meeting. Many of the greats of Australian athletics of the past came to this country town to take part, including Olympians Betty Cuthbert, Dave Power and Alby Thomas, and others like Peter Vassella (400 metres finalist, Tokyo 1964), Warwick Selvey (Commonwealth Games gold medal discus thrower, Perth 1962) and Dave Prince (double Commonwealth Games silver medal hurdler and later to become president of Athletics Australia).
When he left Nowra Frank joined Western Suburbs AAC, where he became involved with and helped athletes such as triathlete Greg Welch, Commonwealth Games 5000m gold medallist Andrew Lloyd, and great road and City to Surf runners Danny Boltz, Quentin Morley and the Brennan twins. Giving of his time, money and other material things, as well as encouraging and helping others, regardless of ability or achievement, was what Frank McCaffrey was always all about.
When Fun Runner magazine started in 1979, at the beginning of the jogging and running boom, Frank was its roving editor and the real face, as well as force, behind what would eventually become the bible of running for fun and fitness in Australia. Frank really made this magazine and at the same time fun running, not only in NSW but all around Australia. Everywhere he went with his Volkswagen van with the name of his column On the Run emblazoned on its side, people flocked to see and hear this wonderfully entertaining man who could outrun many who were decades younger than himself. He became almost a cult figure but never lost any of his humility.
Frank travelled the world running in some of the most famous and popular people’s marathons, including Berlin (three times), New York (five times), London, San Francisco and of course, Fun Runner’s own Sydney Marathon. The Sydney City to Surf was another favourite event, as was the San Francisco Bay to Breakers.
Source: http://nswathletics.org.au/Events/Events/nowra-club-celebrates-50-years