Page 177 - Mind, Body & Spirit Number 104 2020/21

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REFLECTIONS
GYMNASTS, JUDO PLAYERS, BASKETBALLERS, ATHLETES AND FENCERS
Terry Goulding
No, this is not an enactment of Bed knobs and Broomsticks, but an my account of decades of (R)APTCIs involvement in sport and is my submission following an appeal by our
Regimental Secretary regarding a shortage of articles from retired members. But my memories are not just related to sport, but that of the many pranks and Corps members who have specialised and attained personal achievements at the highest levels in a wide variety of sports, from unit to Olympic representation, all of which have inspired me to write a few artefactual reflections.
Before and during World War Two, I already knew that the AGS/ APTS boasted many professional athletes; some were successful in joining the then APTS and according to the RAPTC Museum notes, the Corps attracted over 100 professional football players, including International stars such as Stan Cullis, Joe Mercer, Billy Wright, Frank Swift, Walley Barnes and Tommy Lawton - big names that disappeared on posting to the big gym.
The APTS/APTC also had gifted athletes. The recent passing of two athletic legends such as Bill Nankerville and Eric Cleaver. Trooper (Tpr) EAR Clever (later Lt Col), served with the 5th Tank Regiment during WW2 as part of British 11th Armoured Division on D-Day. His regiment advanced into France, Belgium, and the German-occupied Netherlands before crossing the River Rhine and moving northeast to capture Lübbecke. His Regiment was the first to enter and liberate the interns in the horror conditions at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. After the war, the young Cleaver attended his PTI courses and involved himself in army athletics.
It was while attending his advanced physical Training course in the winter of 1946-47 that he noticed a small fair-haired chap running night after night around the ash track of the Aldershot Military Stadium; whatever the weather, it did not interrupt his nightly run. Intrigued, the inquisitive Cleaver asked a member of the School Staff who the chap was. The reply to his question more than surprised him, “Oh! That is Bill Nankerville, who is the British, British Empire, and current European record holder for the one mile.”
This was Eric’s first brush with someone quite famous. He subsequently found out that the person he had asked was none other than Billy Wright, Captain, of Wolves and England Football teams. Lt Col (Retired) EAR Cleaver competed for England in the discus at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff and the European Championships in 1962.
Bill Nankerville was a British national champion mile runner who won the Amateur Athletic Association’s one mile title four times in five years between 1948 and 1952. His best recorded time was 4:08.8 set in 1949. Then a certain Roger Bannister spoiled his run of success in 1951, as history determines Bannister’s sub-4-minute mile. Bill Nankerville, the father of Bobby Davro, also experienced Belsen’s liberation and had shared the same advanced course as Eric Cleaver.
While the Army team toured the British Army of the Rhine in the mid-1960s Eric Cleaver, by now an SMI and a young SI Bill Tancred, now Doctor Bill Tancred, threw against each other twice. They shared the honours, each winning once but getting first and second places between them in the match against the Bundeswehr. Bill Tancred, an ex-Royal Anglian, was probably the most gifted discus thrower the army ever produced but forced to retire to pursue his athletic career in civilian life - a travesty of ‘amateur justice’ A pity really as he competed at the 1968 and
1972 Olympics in the discus and achieved successive bronze and silver medals at the Commonwealth Games from 1970 to 1974. Bill Tancred, a seven-times British Champion, held the British record for 25 years. He also remains one of the top ten British shot putters.
The (R) APTC continued to attract many top international athletes. Younger readers will have known Kriss Akabusi. Kriss is an enthusiastic chap, and his personality is contagious. While he is famous for his many Gold medals, another of his greatest triumphs was playing with the Corps in an extraordinarily successful Inter Corps basketball team during the 1990s.
Other Athletes of my era showing great promise. SSI Pete Seddon represented the 3 AAAs against Ireland and France in the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica. SI Glyn Morris (later Major) whilst representing the Army v. Scotland in Dunfermline, broke the Welsh National Pole Vault record with a vault of 13 ft. 5 inches but SI Peter Lyons (later Major), held the army record using the old rigid metal pole, a record he still holds in perpetuality. On the rare occasions we could watch athletic matches from Fox Gym’s outside balcony, I was in awe of seeing Peter Freeman tearing around the track. Peter Freeman had represented the Army at the Mile for many years and achieved a time of 4 min. 14 secs at the Inter-Services competition.
My student and staff times at the ASPT saw some quite extraordinary activities. The school staff were top of their profession. They were Gods! With both gymnasiums and the swimming pool used for the main PT courses and the corridor of excellence providing for judo, fencing and gymnastics, the ASPT brimmed with talent. In Fox gym, army standard, Judo, basketball, and athletics took place in the evenings–with the infamous Brown gymnasium used for the gymnasts - and Henslow gym for Fencing.
I started my courses in 1960, triggered by the then SI TF Hammond (later Lt Col, MBE) who believed in my Corps potential as I showed promise at basketball and gymnastics. The latter I enjoyed when a member of Jack Scrivener’s Southern Command gymnastic team, but when I saw the Corps members in action in Brown Gym, I decided I was not of a bendy toy disposition, even though gymnastics appeared to be the ‘in’ sport. You only had to stand on the Fox gymnasium balcony (outside the old museum), to see the early pioneers’ achievements of our APTC army and British gymnasts.
In 1950, the APTC gymnasts introduced gymnastics as part of fitness programmes at the ASPT. Heading the lists were CSMI