Keswick AC: dozens of hill-running champions have been produced by the club over the years
How it began
Keswick Amateur Athletic club members made their first competitive appearance in front of three spectators and a dog at a wet and cold Musbury Tor Relay race one afternoon in 1974. So new was the club that members hadn’t yet received their yellow and green kit, so the motley crew assembled on the start line dressed in old jumpers, shorts of varying length and colour and unsuitable footwear to face the cream of British fell running talent. Totally unprepared in mind, body and running kit, it all went wrong for Keswick at the start of the second leg, the club’s runner having forgotten his gear and forced to race in a pair of hiking boots and a large brown raincoat borrowed from his dad. When the first runner came in to hand over in the relay, the coat got stuck over his head, with rival team members gamely but ultimately unsuccessfully joining in to help remove it. Keswick were last on their first competitive outing, but this was the beginning.