Fifty years ago this weekend Guernsey’s men athletics team won their ninth ‘Burton’ inter-insular athletics match in 10 years, aided by a record-breaking run over three miles by Dave Kreckeler. Only Lee Merrien in recent times has surpassed Kreckeler’s brilliance in distance running. Kreckeler v. Merrien would have been a mouth-watering contest had the two greats career paths crossed and, on inter-insular day, Rob Batiste looks back at the former’s career with the help of athletics historian Ray Hollis

MORE than 100 Guernsey athletes across the age-groups travel to FB Fields this weekend for the annual track and field showdown with the Jersey Spartans.

Back in 1948 when the first Burton Trophy clash took place at Springfield and women were cooking and sewing as opposed to running and jumping, Guernsey won it with a team of nine.

Six decades on Guernsey lead the series by 27 wins to 15 and a certain Dale Garland takes centre stage.

But in looking back over the history of the meetings, no Guernsey athlete stands out more than David Kreckeler, the legendary distance runner from 1954 to 1970.

Throughout his career, Kreckeler competed in every Burton Trophy match that was held, setting new meeting records year after year in the three miles.

Probably his ‘finest hour’ came in the 1963 one at Cambridge Park. With several athletes missing, a depleted team pulled off the impossible by winning the closest and most exciting match of any of the previous encounters.

Kreckeler inspired the rest of the team by winning all three of the distance races, the half-mile, one mile and the three miles.

Kreckeler introduced himself to athletics in 1954 as an 18-year-old latecomer to the sport, having decided to start training seriously after participating in some 1st Guernsey Scouts official road runs.

He soon began setting club and island records on the track for both one-mile, three miles and six miles.

After winning the Liberation Day seven-mile road run in 1954, he went on to record a staggering 13 consecutive victories (14 in all) and still holds the course record of 34m. 39sec. set in 1966.

Not even today’s crop of top athletes, including Lee Merrien, have managed to better his time.

He was also the number one over cross-country, winning the annual club championships for the Beaulieu Trophy no fewer than 10 times. His best time of 24min. 01sec. set in 1966 stood for 30 years before it was beaten by Alan Rowe.

He also led the Guernsey team to victory in Jersey when, in 1963, Guernsey won the inaugural cross-country inter-insular. He was also a regular Hampshire county representative at inter counties championships on the track and cross-country.

Although the distances raced are now metric, it was only this year that Merrien clocked a time of 13-57.66 for 5,000m, which is intrinsically superior to that of Kreckeler’s three-mile time of 13-52.8, set in the Southern Counties Championships in 1962.

Kreckeler’s six-mile record of 28-54.6., set at the Hampshire Championships of 1965, still remains far superior to any equivalent 10,000m metric time recorded by any Guernsey athlete and his club marathon record of 2-29.44 has only ever been surpassed by Guernseyman Peter Bourgaize in Australia.

Throughout his career, Kreckeler, a dedicated athlete who was self-coached, did all his track training and racing on a rough Cambridge Park grass track, when it was not banned from use, and the majority of his distance work on L’Ancresse Common.

He raced frequently in the UK in track and cross-country events and for a time raced for Walton AC, a club he joined when he had a short period of living in England.

Kreckeler took distance running in Guernsey to heights that others could only admire. It was a big disappointment to him when his athletic career came to a premature end due to a health problem, which was in later years resolved.

In an era when athletics was only a Cinderella sport in Guernsey, without any real facilities, he was the forerunner for the sport as we see it today.

His remarkable performances have overshadowed those of many a modern-day athlete and Merrien, for one, understands the commitment and dedication he must have had for his sport.

‘He was clearly a great runner of his time and it’s no surprise that his records have stood for so long.

‘His six-mile time is outstanding for a Guernsey athlete. Although this is not a regularly run distance the 10k is and his equivalent time shows how strong it actually is.

‘His performances over such a stretched period of time along with the fast times make him one of the finest athletes in local athletics’ history.’

Eric Waldron, a former Guernsey track champion himself, readily recalls many of Kreckeler’s performances and the sheer dedication of a man for whom the book and film title The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner was so apt in describing this Guernsey sporting great.

While Kreckeler, now 72, remains reticent to talk openly of his athletics career, Waldron is among those keen to do the job for him.

‘He was ultra-dedicated. He slept, ate and breakfasted athletics. He was unremitting.’

‘I well remember when the embryonic Salemites cricket team were playing at Cambridge Park, he was always up there training.

‘He never asked for a penny and yet he went back and forward to Southampton time and again to run.’

* For a more detailed account of Kreckeler’s career and that of other top Guernsey athletes, further details of the history of the Montague Burton Trophy can be found in two books, The History of Guernsey Athletics Part 1 and 2, written by Ray Hollis and available in local book shops.