The History of the
Lune RCC

Origins

The 1950's
& 1960's

The 1970's & Morecambe Weekend

Scale Hall

Present Day

Strictly speaking Ian was only half an original Lune man because although he qualified going to Buttermere with us, he went into the R.A.F. soon after. He stayed with the L.C.C. until he came out of the RAF in 1951, so he could ride the N.C.U. races on aerodromes etc. with the Manx International thrown in as a bonus, and he was third in 1950.

By the time the 1949 season got under way, the club had grown a bit with the McPherson brothers (Pete and John), Tom Baines, Eddie Harling, Alan Nicholas, Leslie Smith, Jim McClelland, Dave Rutherford and Derek Smithson having joined.

The first race was a club time trial around Abbeystead and Jubilee Tower on 27th March 1949 . To put the record straight Fred Adcroft, Tom Baines, Ian Brown, Geoff Bye, Brian Dowthwaite, Leslie Smith, Derek Smithson and myself were from the L.C.C. with Geoff Bye being one of the key movers as we were at Morecambe Grammar School together (along with Adcroft, Baines, Brown, Dowthwaite, Larrad and Smithson).

It was Geoff more than anyone else who forever spurred me on into starting the club.

Interestingly, Parry Robinson and Bert Clarke came from the Kent Valley which has always had close connections with the Lune. Although Parry and Bert never raced with Kent Valley they were climbers par excellence.

Bert could have been a double for Pantani. He was about 5ft 6ins in height, of light build and had no hair (since he had alopoecia). So he always wore a pudding cloth (cap with no peak) on his head and to use the Lune jargon of the time he looked a real ‘quoise’ grimpeur.

Later from the Kent Valley , there was Geoff Downham, Bill Hodgson, Bill Townsend, Ged Brear, Mike Howson, Ronnie Martin, Bob Swailes and Phil Leigh who were all something special.

In the early 1950’s there was also another small club (Kendal R.C.C.) organised by Mike Cranston, which helped to keep the B.L.R.C. flag flying. Whether the Kendal lads were in the Lune or not never really mattered as some of them always went to Buttermere with us and, as it’s a bit easier (40 miles shorter) from Kendal, this eventually became a Kent Valley ride.

This suited me fine because when my parents moved to Carr Bank I had a few years in the Kent Valley myself.

To get back to the 1949 season, our first open road race was the Rhos-on Sea Mountain Time Trial on 8th May over Denbigh moors. About eight of us road down to Llanrwst via Warrington , Chester and Corwen and then road home again on the Sunday doing over 300 miles in the weekend.

This was a hell of a long way, particularly for the juniors, and none of the seniors was more than a few months over 18 either. Although the miles took the edge off us a bit, we didn’t do so bad (Nowell 4th , Robinson 11th , Clarke 19th and Juniors Dowthwaite 28th, P McPherson 33rd).

A week later an Australian Pursuit on the cobbles at Bury was disastrous with all our lads puncturing or crashing. From then on in the season things got better and we started to pick up a few wins (Nowell-Peak Velo Road Race and Holcombe Circuit, Robinson – Denbighshire G.P.)

Although there were not a lot of races, they were all very hilly and hard, so we prepared for them by doing lots of miles on the blank weekends with a regular programme of evening club time trials on the Abbeystead circuit. The results of all our early races from 1949 to about 1953 are shown in the record books.

Little did we know what we were starting when we were sitting up in Savage’s loft at the inaugural meeting in January 1949. Who would have thought we would produce someone like Ian Brown who was in the first British team in the tour of Spain in 1955 and held the yellow jersey in the Tour of Champagne in 1957.

Then we can’t forget Jonny Larrad who was another star performer and improved us all by making us kill ourselves trying to beat him.

When Ian left to ride abroad, Walter Shepherd became our best known rider who I think won more races than anybody else before or since.

Later there was Bill Nixon, Gordon Helme and Alan Dent who was probably fastest of the lot. I remember seeing him win a hard stage of the Tour of Ireland in 1979 and it was spectacular, straight down the middle of the road with nobody else in the dozen or so left in the bunch being able to get past his wheel.