Mr Bell, Mr Pickering, honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen
thank you for attending our dinner tonight.
Before I go any further I think that we should show our appreciation
to Mr Bell (then Minister for Tourism & Leisure) and to his Chief Executive
Mr Toohey, who is also our guest tonight, for getting the Isle of Man a
National sports Centre (applause, hopefully).
The athletes have long wanted a track, the public have by
and large supported the need for one but it takes political will to convert
that need into tartan track and sports fields.
Thank you.
And please convey the Association’s thanks to your other
staff members, particularly Mike Ball. Their enthusiasm has extended way beyond
a civil servant's duties.
There were calls for the track before the Berlin wall was
built, and just as the events in Germany have moved so quickly recently, it is
so hard to believe that the track will be laid and open just a year from
Tynwald giving the go ahead.
The ball is now clearly in our court to all pull together to
justify the building of the National Sports Centre.
Since the Isle of Man first
organised the Island games on home soil in
1985 our teams have been enormously successful. In Guernsey
and the Faroes our athletes, and in that term I include swimmers and cyclists
etc, have carried all before them.
Yet despite these successes the important thing is to get
there. It is a pleasure to see Mrs Holt, Chairman of Ronaldsway Aircraft
Company, here tonight because her family have been more important than any
other factor in making sure that our teams have made it to the games. Her
family and her company have played a unique part in the development of our
sport.
Their role in the Manx economy has been massive too, just as
more recently has been the role of the finance sector. How nice it is to see
them supporting us here tonight as well.
The banks are particularly well supported by Barclays,
Lloyds, National Westminster and our good friends at the Isle of Man Bank.
GAM Administration played a crucial role in our fundraising
in 1989 and they are represented here tonight together with three other finance
sector representatives Nationwide Anglia Overseas, Warburg Asset Management,
and Royal Life Insurance International.
Manx Telecom and Manx Airlines throughout their short
histories have a fine tradition of supporting Manx Sport and it is therefore no
surprise that they have come to our aid. Finally, from the world of shipping we
welcome Wallem Shipmanagement. John Dorey, their managing director who is with
us tonight is obviously expecting to have a good time. His company is also
sponsoring the relay walk around the TT course tomorrow and they have entered
their own team. But I notice that he has chosen to walk the last stage.
Before I introduce our guest speaker, I would like to thank
Robbie Radcliffe and our new Treasurer, David Butterworth for their efforts in
organising tonight's dinner. They are two men who look beyond club borders and
are dedicated to putting the needs of the athlete first. They are not unique
but we need more like them.
We also need more athletes like the gentlemen from the Manx
Athletic Club over there. It’s great to see you and I know that you can see the
jigsaw that is fitting together. The athlete is paramount in our sport but the best
athlete cannot hope to be successful without a supportive government,
outstanding sponsors, dedicated officials and sacrificial families.
Ron Pickering is an authority on sport. A former National
coach for athletics, he is well known as the anchorman of the highly rated BBC
athletics commentary team. We all love to find fault with the front man, David
Coleman, as he generates more excitement than any sports commentator, and some
of us like to listen to Paul Dickenson with his more serious descriptions of
events on the field and Brendan Forster exclaiming the virtues of Steve Cram,
his mate from the North East. But it is this man, Ron Pickering, who holds the
team together.
Only Ron is capable of bridging the gap between track and
field. There are many armchair critics here tonight and we all love to find
fault. Recently a letter in an athletics magazine tore strips off the
commentary on the TV. But Dr Phil Thomas concluded: "only Ron Pickering
with his occasional errors and frank admissions that he had made them, came out
with any credit". Those of us who have read the athletics press over the
years will know that praise of that level from that man is surely equal to a
knighthood!
He has always spoken his mind on drug abuse but is careful
not to accuse all Eastern Europeans of being cheats. That is the easy way out.
He has merely asked the question "why have standards fallen so drastically
in certain events". He is president of arguably top track and field club,
Haringay, a club so strong that at one time it was easier to make the Olympic
finals of the 110 metre hurdles than to be selected for the A event for the
club. The club has boasted such members as Seb Coe as well as the
aforementioned Tony Jarrett and Jon Ridgeon, and field internationals such as
Dalton Grant and John Herbert. My belief is that the club is a fine example of
sport pulling people together in a deprived multi racial part of London .
Recently Ron has organised the largest club sponsorship with
East Midlands Electricity, and last year he came to the aid of the
International Athletes Club. Their president, David Bedford, was prepared to re-mortgage
his house to raise the funds necessary to fund the club’s grand prix meeting.
Ron organised an eleventh hour deal with Compaq Computers to avoid this
necessity.
I must make one correction to the press stories at the time
however. The deal was hailed as Compaq’s first ever sponsorship of athletics.
In fact the Isle of Man is not as far behind
as some people may imagine for Compaq had sponsored our Island
games team in the Faroes some 12 months earlier and the team members carried
the Compaq logo on their vests.
Ron is a partner in the Pickering Tolkinson team who advised
the government on the site for our sports centre. He has visited the Island many times before and remembered to say hello to
the fairies today.
His family have shared the limelight over the years. His
wife is a former Olympic champion over 400 metres hurdles ( not sure if I had this right) and has overcome the
greatest hurdle of all in the last two years, the cancer that tried to take her
life. Their son Shaun is a multi talented British international is regularly
throws hammer, shot and discuss.
Ladies and gentlemen - Mr Ron Pickering
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