19th June 2013 01:45
Few stadiums could have celebrated a world record the first time they put down a new track, but Gateshead did; only a handful of stadiums have been home to the 100m world record, but Gateshead was.
And the man who started it all will take his seat with pride wondering what the old place has in store this time.
It is 39 years since Brendan Foster kept a promise to the people of the North East of England that he will mark the re-opening of this iconic venue by writing his way into history.
When he looks back to 3 August 3 1974 he now realises what a crazy vow it was.
It was the end of 1973, a year when Foster had smashed the Two Miles world record at Crystal Palace and he heard that plans were being made for renovations at the Gateshead International Stadium which had been built in 1955.
He wanted to mark the occasion in style.
Speaking on Wednesday, Foster recalled the events of that amazing period.
He said: “The council held a reception for me in the town hall to celebrate my world record.
“At the dinner, and I had not had much to drink, I stood up to make a reply to the speech made by the mayor.
“I said ‘We have heard rumours that you are going to lay a new tartan track at Gateshead, I really hope you do, I will come back in the summer time and help organise a meeting and I will break the world record’.
“That was in the December and looking back on it, it was a stupid thing to say.
“But we organised the event, I had athletes I knew competing, such as Alan Pascoe and David Bedford, and I decided to go for the 3000m world record.”
At the time it stood at 7:37.6 and was held by Belgium’s Emiel Puttemans. As Foster added: “It was a very good record and I was thinking ‘How did I get myself into this?’.”
But there was he. And there, history was made.
His training partner Mike Baxter paced him over the first three laps before Foster took over and crossed the line in 7:35.2. “It was fantastic,” he said.
Foster became European 5000m champion in Rome just weeks later before winning bronze in the Olympic 10,000m in Montreal in 1976.
But in that space of less than eight minutes in 1974, Gateshead had found its place in world athletics.
It was just the beginning.
In 1989, it was the setting for the European Cup, the predecessor to the European Athletics Team Championships.
Britain had never won the trophy before but their men’s team triumphed on a raucous weekend with victories for Kriss Akabussi, Steve Backley and Colin Jackson among so many others.
Eleven years later, same place, same outcome, as Britain’s men won the Cup again and then on June 11, 2006, Jamaican Asafa Powell stormed to 9.77 for the 100m to equal his own world record.
Foster, whose company Nova International have been involved in the organisation of these European Athletics Team Championships in Gateshead, would normally be working for BBC television on a major track and field occasion such as this one.
Not this weekend.
He will be watching from the stands with the many guests from across Europe and though he has a motto of ‘always looking forward, not looking back’, if his mind does wander to 1973, he could probably afford a small smile about that extraordinary time, and the day Gateshead became more than just a stadium in the north east of England.