Mike Rowbottom: Priceless Ovett, Michael Johnson nightmares and the biggest athletics exhibition ever seen... | Inside the Blogs | insidethegames.biz

Mike Rowbottom: Priceless Ovett, Michael Johnson nightmares and the biggest athletics exhibition ever seen... | Inside the Blogs | insidethegames.biz

I grew up watching Coe and Ovett, and later on Cram, chase world records around Europe in what was a truly 'Golden' period for British middle-distance running as the talented triumvirate of track stars broke world record after world record and collected a record haul of medals at the Olympiads from 1976 through to Los Angeles in 1984. It inspired my brother Richard to take up running whilst at Loughborough University in the late 70's, early 80's when I believe Sebastian Coe was a student there. Richard has run the London Marathon several times as a talented amateur athlete with a best time of 3 hours and 9 minutes which I think you will agree is an excellent time for someone with a family and a job to hold down and who could only train in the evenings and at weekends.

We inherited the running 'gene' from our Dad Leslie Bracey who discovered he had a talent for running in the RAF during the Second World War, when he took part in cross-country races whilst stationed at such far-flung outposts of RAF Bomber Command as Downham Market and Dearham in Norfolk.

Les engendered in the three of us a love of sport that still burns brightly many years after he passed away way back in 1989. Our sister Gill played Women's football in the 1970's before it was fashionable and became the fastest growing sport for women that it is now.

I have given my sporting life to the sport of Rugby Union, having played the sport from the age of 11 until a serious knee injury (ironically playing soccer!) forced the end of a promising (or so I thought...?) Veterans Rugby career with my club Lordswood Dixonians RFC (www.ldrfc.com ).

Lordswood Dixonians or as they are more correctly known nowadays, Edgbaston Dixonians Rugby Football Club celebrates its centenary 1913 - 2013 with a Grand Centenary Dinner on Saturday 14th September 2013 at The Botanical Gardens in Westbourne Road, Edgbaston. in Birmingham.

The club are hoping to welcome in excess of 400 guests and their partners to The Botanical Gardens to celebrate the centenary of the club whose long and illustrious history began with a game between the first Old Dixonians XV and the school side in December 1913 won by the school 16 points to 13 at a ground near Warley Woods in Bearwood, somewhere near the site of the now long gone Warley Abbey.

The Old Dixonians XV contained arguably George Dixon Grammar School for Boy's most famous former pupil, Michael Balcon, later to become Sir Michael Balcon, Head of the Ealing Studios which at one time rivalled Hollywood in terms of quality if not output in world cinematic terms.

In a nod to his old school, Sir Michael called his 'Everyman Copper' George Dixon in the Ealing Studios film: 'The Blue Lamp' where PC George Dixon is gunned down by a young tearaway played by Dirk Bogarde.

Miraculously PC George Dixon was resurrected as a Sergeant for the long-running BBC TV series: 'Dixon Of Dock Green' which ran in black and white on Saturday evenings in the early 1960's through to the early 1970's..... a forerunner of long-running 'police procedural' series 'Z Cars' and more latterly 'The Bill'.

Any Old Dixonians wishing to help us celebrate the centenary of the rugby club should contact me as Former Players' and Vice-Presidents' Secretary of Edgbaston Dixonians Rugby Football Club.