Birchfield Harriers is an

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competi ...

club, founded in 1877. Its home is at

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

's Alexander Stadium,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. As well as welcoming recreational runners they cater for all levels of experience up to and including

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece bet ...

athletes whether able-bodied or

wheelchair A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, used when walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, problems related to old age, or disability. These can include spinal cord injuries ( paraplegia, hemiplegia, and quadriplegia), ce ...

-using athletes. The Club's

motto A motto (derived from the Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of an individual, family, social group, or organisation. M ...

is ''Fleet and Free''.

History

The Harriers were named after the Birchfield district of Birmingham. Their previous home (from 1929-77), at nearby

Perry Barr Perry Barr is a suburban area in north Birmingham, England. It is also the name of a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. Birmingham Perry Barr is also a parliamentary constituency; its Member of Parliament is Khalid Ma ...

, was Alexander Sports Ground. It still carries their badge, a running stag, rendered in this case in

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

style, carved in 1929 and attributed to

William Bloye William James Bloye (8 July 1890 – 6 June 1975) was an English sculptor, active in Birmingham either side of World War II. Life Bloye studied, and later, taught at the Birmingham School of Art (his training was interrupted by World War ...

.Public Sculpture of Birmingham, George T. Noszlopy, Liverpool University Press, 1998, Both venues were named for members of the Alexander family, who were prominent members of the club. Tom McCook, a former athlete and club chairman, was the club's President from 2001 until standing down at the end of 2013.

Honours

*800m and relay runner Pat Cropper was made a

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) for her running achievements. *In the

2000 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2000 for the United Kingdom and New Zealand were announced on 31 December 1999, to celebrate the year passed and mark the beginning of 2000. The ''Honours list'' is a list of people who have been awarded one of the various ...

, heptathlete Denise Lewis was made an

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(OBE). *Coach Norma Blaine was made an MBE in the New Years Honours announced on 31 December 2010, for her services to athletics.

Members

Ainsley Bennett Ainsley Bennett (born July 22, 1954, in St Catherine, Jamaica) is a British former Olympic and World Championship sprinter from Birmingham, UK. Early life Brought up in Birmingham, West Midlands, in the UK, Bennett attended Naseby Secondary Mod ...

Louise Butterworth Louise Butterworth (born 22 February 1985) is an England, English pole vaulter from Paignton, Devon. She currently competes for Birchfield Harriers and has represented Great Britain. Her personal best jump is 4.21 metres, achieved in June 2008 i ...

Daniel Caines Daniel Stephen Caines (born 15 May 1979) is an English former athlete who mainly competed in the 400 metres. Early life Caines was born in Solihull. He was educated at Solihull School, a British independent school in the affluent West Midlands t ...

Stewart Faulkner Stewart St. Ledger Faulkner (born 19 February 1969) is a male retired British athlete who competed in the men's long jump. At 1.93 metres tall, he weighed 86 kilograms. Athletics career He was born in Northampton, Northamptonshire, to parents ...

Helen Frost Helen Marie Frost (born March 4, 1949) is an American writer and poet. She is best known for the young-adult novel ''Keesha's House'', which was a Michael L. Printz Award honor book in 2004. Frost was born in South Dakota South Dakota ( ...

Ashia Hansen Ashia Hansen, (born 5 December 1971) is a retired British triple jumper. Fourth in the 1996 Olympic final, she broke the world indoor record when winning the 1998 European Indoor title, and went on to win gold medals at the World Indoor Cha ...

Louise Hazel Louise Victoria Hazel (born 6 October 1985) is an English track and field athlete from March, Cambridgeshire, who specialises in the multi-event heptathlon. She has competed in four major international championships. The first was in 2006 when ...

* Helen Karagounis * Du'aine Ladejo *

Diane Leather Diane S Leather Charles (7 January 19335 September 2018) was an English athlete who was the Mile run world record progression#Women, first woman to run a sub-5-minute mile. Early life Leather was born in Streetly, Staffordshire. She was one ...

* Denise Lewis *

Mark Lewis-Francis Mark Anthony Lewis-Francis, MBE (born 4 September 1982) is a retired British track and field athlete, specifically a sprinter, who specialised in the 100 metres and was an accomplished regular of GB 4 x 100m relay. A renowned junior, his great ...

Gladys Lunn Gladys Anne Lunn (1 June 1908 – 3 January 1988) was an England, English track and field athlete from Birmingham, England who competed in the 1934 British Empire Games in the 1938 British Empire Games. Gladys was a member of Birchfield Harrier ...

* Doris Nelson Neal OBE *

Joel Fearon Joel Fearon (born 11 October 1988) is a British sprinter and bobsledder. He represents the Birchfield Harriers and he is recognisable in the National Trials for wearing a black vest and lycra shorts. His coach is Michael Khmel, who also coache ...

Katharine Merry Katharine Merry (born 21 September 1974) is an English former sprinter. She won the bronze medal in the 400 metres at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was the fastest woman in the world over 400 m in 2001, with her career best of 49.59 seconds. She ...

* Peter Radford - subsequently Chairman of

UK Athletics UK Athletics (UKA) is the governing body for the sport of athletics in the United Kingdom. It is responsible for overseeing the governance of athletics events in the UK as well as athletes, their development, and athletics officials. The org ...

and Professor of Sport at

Brunel University Brunel University London is a public research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It was founded in 1966 and named after the Victorian engineer and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In Jun ...

. * Mike Rawson * Scott Rider * Archie Robertson - Birchfield's first Olympic gold medallist (1908). *

Beryl Randle Beryl Randle (born 16 December 1928) is a former race walker and an athletics administrator. She raced for Birchfield Harriers. She took up competitive walking in 1946, after coming last in a 100-metre sprint, and was coached by Doris Nelson ...

- world record race walker *

William Snook William Snook (3 February 1861–9 December 1916) was an English running champion, whose life was mired in controversy and ended in poverty. Early life Snook was born on 3 February 1861 at Belle Vue, then in the parish of St Julian's, Shrew ...

, athlete (1861–1916). After he died in a workhouse hospital, his funeral was paid for by the club. *

Kelly Sotherton Kelly Jade Sotherton (born 13 November 1976) is a British former heptathlete, long jumper and relay runner. In the heptathlon she was the bronze medallist at the 2004 Summer Olympics and, following the disqualification of two other athletes, a ...

* Ian Stewart *

Bob Weir Robert Hall Weir ( ; né Parber, born October 16, 1947) is an American musician and songwriter best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the group disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead ...

Patrick Makau Patrick Makau Musyoki (born 2 March 1985) is a runner from Kenya. He is a former world record holder in the marathon—His time of 2:03:38, run at the 2011 Berlin Marathon, was the world record for two years, until it was beaten by Wilson Kipsa ...

* Phil Brown

Bibliography

* *

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.birchfieldharriers.net
Walter Freeman interview
Recorded 1980 with a former Harrier 1877 establishments in England