Foreword
Four decades is a long time for any athletic event to survive, but to achieve it in a relay format on the open roads is unprecedented in the UK. I researched old results when the roads were far less busy than today. The London to Brighton existed from 1921 to 1935, and a little more recently the Manchester to Blackpool was held annually from 1932 to 1963. Both races had ten legs in the traditional relay format and both were held over a distance of approximately one quarter of the Welsh Castles Relay.
So how did it all start? After some discussion I found the original concept of a relay touching as many castles as possible in Wales belonged to Rob Evans. It was mooted at the Club AGM on Sunday 24th January 1982, held immediately after the club Handicap 10 miles, and the venue in those days was the Les Croupiers Casino in St Mary Street. A fair amount of alcohol had been consumed been and we'd reached "Any Other Business" when the idea was first discussed. The then Chairman, Dave Walsh said "your idea - you organise it!". That might have been the end of the idea, except that a couple of days later Jeff Aston and Rob Evans got together with a collection of ordnance survey maps, and a route through Wales was formulated.
This original relay, heading northward from Cardiff Castle to Caernarfon Castle, started at midnight on Saturday 17 July 1982, and was to celebrate an upcoming Welsh Tourist Board initiative, the Year of the Castles. It was only after the event that the thought occurred of a challenge to other teams on the now familiar Caernarfon to Cardiff route. Rob put together a very detailed account of this run, including photographs and interviews with the participants, and this appears on Les Croupiers website on the Welsh Castles Relay page, and appropriately is entitled "Welsh Castles Relay - In the Beginning". It was written in 2021.
Not only is it remarkable that the event still exists, it's equally remarkable that the results of every edition also exist. As a statistician, I regularly get requests for individual results from early editions of the London Marathon. You'd think an event of that influence and wealth would retain this information. Not so. We do.
However, examination of the original results reveals a problem. Not only is the quality of the printing relatively poor, but the early format of the results was simply an initial and a surname. Only later did we include the full first name. Army teams, who competed until 1996 also appeared by rank rather than first name. Plenty of room for ambiguity.
I was delighted to learn recently that Dominic Shields was putting together a comprehensive Welsh Castles Relay database. His expertise from working in the National Statistics Office was invaluable and anyone who has seen the fruits of his labours cannot fail to be impressed. However, as Dominic has only been in the sport for around 20 years, he kindly asked me to write this "Foreword". I also felt compelled to sift through all my old results to try to provide additional information regarding first names, plus enlist the help of other interested parties. Therefore, whilst this new database is infinitely more impressive looking than anything before, it should still be viewed as "work in progress".
Mick McGeoch