The ‘Ampthill Cross Country Trophy’ meeting was established in 1974 from an idea by Dave Goodwin and Harry Clifford of Bedford & County AC. Over the next 25 years the cross country race became an important fixture that attracted huge entries. Athletes traveled from far and wide to compete in historic Ampthill Great Park – map.
The first meeting attracted 550 athletes who raced up to 5 miles according to age. Men had the dubious pleasure of tackling ‘Breakheart Hill’ which is an unforgiving rise.
Here is the race programme for the very first meeting and two newspaper reports.
Tony Simmons (Luton AC) won the first of his seven Ampthill meeting titles in style. The race reports barely mention GB athlete Ian Thompson (3rd) who had just won marathon golds at the European and the Commonwealth Championships.
1974 prize winners:
The Ampthill Trophy Cross Country Meeting ran for 25 years. 1998 was the final meeting. Many know the race as the ‘Beefeater Trophy’ because Beefeater Steak Houses was the main sponsor (1988-98).
Click – for the history for the Ampthill Trophy Cross Country meeting (1974-98), the race reports and prize winners by year.
In 2003 Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers re-established the ‘Ampthill Trophy’ – race website.
Based on the collection of papers kindly donated by John Milward (1929-2011) of Bedford & County AC.
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