Runner Facebook group is on the rise
A social media community that thrives off vintage clippings from old issues of AW is approaching 12,000 members.
The “I Was, Or Am A Runner!” page on Facebook started on March 2 in 2014 with the humble aim of giving athletes and ex-athletes in Surrey a place to chat about current and old results, but it now has more than 11,700 members from all over the UK and the world.
“When I started it, I never imagined it would grow so big,” says John Mather, who created the page almost four years ago.
A former decent club-level runner with Belgrave Harriers, Mather now drives a cab in the Heathrow Airport area and uploads photos of past pages of AW from his phone in between his jobs. But the site has grown so large he now has three fellow administrators who help – Katey Ross, Andy Rodgers and Rob Tudor.
The page allows runners to take a jog down memory lane where they reminisce over old races and results. But there are also heated debates about the health of the sport, helpful tips about injuries and training, plus useful posts about current athletes and their performances.
“Before the group started, I noticed lots of athletes were posting results on their own page,” Mather says, “and it dawned on me that it might be better if everything was posted in one common place.
“We got 50-100 members quite quickly and it was ticking over nicely. Then we reached 900 in the first year and I was quite happy with that. But to have more than 11,700 now is bizarre!”
Such is the appeal of the site, it has attracted members such as Kenyan marathon legend Douglas Wakiihuri and US 800m icon Johnny Gray, plus dozens of well-known British endurance athletes from past and present.
Initially Mather generated interest by posting pages from old magazines he owned. But he soon ran out of material so posted some from photographer Ray O’Donoghue. Then he began using AW magazines stored at Lauriston Cottage in south London.
Mather says he enjoys digging out old material and if people ask him to look for old results from a certain race, he is almost always happy to oblige if he has time.
On the ethos of the site, Mather says: “We want to promote club athletics and to improve the visibility of grassroots athletics.
“We do talk a lot about the past as well but today’s athletics is also very relevant and there is much discussion on the page about the current sport.”
As with most social media sites, though, it needs to be policed and a list of rules is pinned to the top of the page.
These include an intolerance of trolling and abuse, a policy of not running photographs of athletes under the age of 16 and a ban on advertising.
