Kelly a hero against the odds

The former Bury & Radcliffe Athletic Club sprint star had a glittering career in the 60s and early 70s appearing in two Commonwealth Games, two European championships and the Mexico Olympics.

It was a career that blossomed against the odds as the teenage Barrie was a chronic asthmatic who lost a large chunk of his schooling to frequent stays in hospital.

But his story is one of singleminded determination and drive - the kind that builds winners - and that's just what Barrie Kelly was.

In his early days at Fishpool County Council School Barrie enjoyed his running and remembers winning 60 yard dashes down the sidestreet adjacent to the school.

But soon after moving to Bury Church Central senior school he began to suffer very badly from asthma and the teenager's life was a difficult one.

"I really was a wreck as a young man," said Barrie who lives in the town's Galgate Close.

"The illness stopped me from doing any outside activities like running or football and the only thing I could take part in was gymnastics, which I enjoyed.

"I was spending three mornings a week at Bury General Hospital on rehabilitation courses and because of that didn't fulfil my education.

"In those days, the 1950s, the used to inject you to send you to sleep for a number of hours, that's all they could do, at that time asthma was a killer."

It wasn't until his late teens that Barrie began playing sport again, turning out with his mates for Bury Amateurs FC.

Stuck out on the wing he recalls going on one lung-bursting run down the touchline and almost having to leave the field he was struggling for breath so much.

Barrie's mother, A former Lancashire sprint champion, reminded her son that he always had an aptitude for running before his health turned for the worst and as his attacks began to recede he made a momentous decision.

"I decided to go down to Bury Athletic Club with a friend of mine from work, Peter Monaghan," Barrie explained.

"I met the secretary at the time, Roy Fishwick, who welcomed me and asked what my event was.

"At the ripe old age of 22 I said I didn't know and perhaps I was a sprinter.

"Roy said "great, we're short of sprinters, come on in" the rest was history."

Within six weeks Barrie had run 10 seconds flat for the 100 yards which surprised himself and pretty well everyone else at the club.

He was encouraged to enter miners' welfare handicap events all over the north and began to clean up scores of prizes.

And as the fledgling athlete began to absorb more advice from his mother, coaches Vera Duerdin, Dick Laver, Ken Oakley and Roy Fishwick, reality kicked in that he had a special talent and more importantly the will to succeed.

"I always had that burning desire to win," he added. "I think it came from not doing as well at school because of my illness and my mother's singlemindedness.

"But if you are an athlete it's the one thing you need - without that desire you are nothing!"

Soon the lad from the two-up two-down in Barker Street, Buckley Wells with no junior athletic record was running against athletes from Oxford and Cambridge Universities and senior internationals - not just running against them but picking them off, one by one!

As far as the athletics world was concerned he had come from nowhere and amazingly enough he only missed out on going to the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 by the skin of his teeth, registering 10.5 four times for the 100 metres (the qualifying time was 10.4).

He proudly picked up his first international vest in 1965, two-and-a-half years after wandering onto the running track at Market Street.

Over the next six or seven years Kelly was the outstanding British sprinter, winning every domestic championship he entered.

His first major international breakthough was winning the European Indoor 60m title at the inaugural championships in Dortmund, Germany.

His record was to stand for 19 years until Mike McFarlane broke it in 1985.

That was closely followed by his first Commonwealth Games in Jamaica a few months later.

"I always remember it was a hot sticky night and I finished sixth the same as I had done in the European championships in Budapest.

"They are achievements I'm proud of to this day as I'd only been running for four years and one of those I lost through a groin injury."

From then on it was the Mexico Olympics in 1968, the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games in 1970 and European championships in Athens.

He appeared in 33 internationals for Britain, a record for a sprinter at that time and captained the British mens' athletics team on seven occasions always keeping his asthma a secret from officialdom.

"I was lucky to be working at Wiggins Teape at the time," added Barrie.

"The General Manager George Meadows was very understanding in giving me time off and the company even gave me spending money to go to the Mexico Olympics.

"Thinking back a lot of people in the town gave me a good deal of help and I will always be grateful to them.

"Roy Fishwick was especially instrumental in my success, I'd never have had my best years without his input. He really knew how to get the best out of me, even when I wasn't training well.

"Facilities weren't like they are today and I did some of my indoor training at the Derby School.

"There used to be a long corridor in the school building that I used to practice my 90m sprints down.

"The cleaning ladies used to have to stick their heads out of the doors of the classrooms off the corridor to see if I was coming, then nip across to the next class quickly.

"If I'd have collided with one of them I'd have killed them and wouldn't have done myself much good either!"

The unorthodox training methods certainly worked for Barrie as that long-standing indoor record showed.

The icing on the cake would have arrived in 1972 when, but for injury, Barrie was expected to be named British athletics team captain for the Munich Olympics.

"Chairman of selectors, Sir Arthur Gold spoke to Lynn Davies and I about the captaincy and Lynn said he didn't want to be considered as he was concentrating on taking the long jump title from the world record holder Bob Beaman.

"That's when Arthur said to me 'well you'd better keep your nose clean.'"

In hindsight the Bury man admits he trained too hard from then on.

Already in the team he pushed himself too much then ran in too many races, only to get injured.

Although he still has a passing interest in athletics Barrie is somewhat disillusioned by the drug taking that casts a giant shadow over his former sport and wonders when the perpetrators ever learn.

"In my day I was 11 stone 8 pounds and that was considered a good weight for a sprinter yet nowadays most of the competitors are like heavyweight boxers.

"I could half squat with 500lb on my back when I was running and still couldn't bulk up to the size of some of these fellows. I just wonder how they achieve it.

"In retrospect I look back on my career and three things spring to mind: I couldn't have done any better, I couldn't have been more motivated and I didn't take a single drug, even though steroids were available in my day."

One pharmaceutical aid that could have boosted Barrie into the highest level of international competition would have been a Ventolin inhaler, if they'd have been around during his golden years.

"I couldn't believe the difference when I first used one and they are okay to use in athletics," he said.

"They aren't illegal because anyone with normal lung capacity would get no benefit, but for an asthmatic it just levels the playing field by opening up your lungs.

"I honestly believe if I had used one during my best years I could have been a Commonwealth or European champion and made it to the Olympic finals, it just wasn't to be."

Married to Jean for almost 40 years, with three children, Janette, Neal and Paul and two grandchildren, Louise and Laura, 61-year-old Barrie's fiercely competitive nature has continued to serve him well in a brewery sales career, firstly with Watney Mann and latterly Manchester's Joseph Holts.

Major back surgery and a dodgy knee - a legacy of his years on the track - mean his running days are over and a game of golf up at Rossendale is now his sporting preference.

A keen wildlife photographer with shiploads of awards to his name, he recently returned from a three week trip to Canada that had an element of danger - taking pictures of black bears and grizzly bears.

But tonight he'll be leaving his camera at home and, along with work colleagues and guests of his company, will enjoy the spectacle of the current crop of Commonwealth stars doing their stuff.

"They have always been the 'friendly' games and I'm told by people who are still competing that they still are," he said.

"When you get the Commonwealth athletes together such as the Aussies, New Zealanders and African nations there is always a great camaraderie, but that's not to say you are lovey-dovey once the gun goes and you are running down the track!"

Barrie does admit to being surprised that no athlete from Bury has come along to emulate his international exploits in the past 40 years.

"It is about time some young runner assumed my mantle after all this time," he declared.

"After 40 years you'd really have thought we'd have had another international competitor from the town.

"I'd love to see someone come through like me, I'd be the first to congratulate them."

And what advice does Barrie have to any youngster who is able and willing to grab the baton.

"All I'd say to any up-and-coming athlete is that they should enjoy their sport and when they feel they are ready to take it up seriously make sure they have the desire to win because without that they will never succeed."