I’m sure after you read on you will permit me feeling a great sense of pride today following Daniel Dubois’ stunning knockout of Anthony Joshua last night to retain his IBF world heavyweight title.
Let me explain.
In 2005 I had the pleasure of hosting a special Sportathon event at the Royal Artillery in Woolwich attended by school children from across the Borough. It was special because this was the day that the decision was being made as to which City would be staging the 2012 Olympics, London or Paris. When I announced that London had won, the excitement and pride on everyone’s faces was fantastic to see.
A year later in the summer of 2006 I was invited in my role of Commercial Director of Charlton Athletic Football Club by the Leader of Greenwich Council, Cllr Chris Roberts to become a founding trustee of ‘Greenwich Starting Blocks Trust’ (GSB) – the charity established by Greenwich Council to financially support talented Greenwich-based athletes and to help them achieve their sporting dreams. I was pleased to be asked, but my initial thoughts were ‘great idea but in reality, how many elite athletes have we got in Greenwich?’ I was soon to find out that the answer to that question was ‘quite a few actually’!
Seven years later and just months before the start of London 2012, I stood on stage at the Indigo2 as host of the annual Greenwich Starting Blocks Trust Dinner introducing our chief guest, Lord Seb Coe. That night, probably for the first time, there was a general realisation that Greenwich-based athletes supported by Greenwich Starting Blocks and our associate partners Greenwich Leisure Limited Sports Foundation (GLLSF), would be taking part in the 2012 Olympics. Singer Heather Small, our special guest at that Dinner, completed what had been a fantastic evening by singing the 2012 anthem, ‘Proud’ – it couldn’t have been more apt.
None of us connected with GSB or GLLSF will ever forget the huge sense of pride we all had when we knew that our dream of having Greenwich Athletes at the London 2012 Olympics had become a reality, with the confirmation that we would have 5 of our athletes in the Olympics and Paralympics. Gemma Gibbons (Judo) and Zoe Smith (Weightlifting) were chosen to represent Team GB and Tosin Oke (Triple Jump) was selected to represent Nigeria, while in the Paralympics, Greenwich Starting Blocks athletes Andy Barrow (Wheelchair Rugby) and Susie Rodgers (Swimming) were chosen to represent Team GB.
You can therefore imagine our intense pride when Gemma won the Silver medal and gave us arguably, one of the most iconic images of London 2012 when, at the exact moment she knew she had won she looked upwards and mouthed ‘I love you Mum’. But Gemma’s fantastic success wasn’t our only achievement as we also had Zoe making a national record lift and Susie winning an incredible three Bronze medals.
This success was followed up four years later at the Rio 2016 Olympics when our own Daryll Neita won a bronze medal in the Team GB 4x100m Relay, while Susie Rodgers carried on where she left off In London by winning an amazing one Gold and two Bronze medals.
At our initial athlete awards ceremony at Woolwich Town Hall in 2006 we gave bursaries to seven talented young Greenwich-based athletes. By 2018 we had well over 100 Greenwich-based athletes across 23 different sports with National and International champions as well as athletes looking towards Tokyo 2020. Two of the athletes in the 2018 Alumni were Daniel Dubois and his talented sister Caroline.
Sadly, after a hugely successful annual Dinner held in October 2019 at Magazine London, which I hosted and which featured an on-stage interview with Daniel and Caroline Dubois conducted by Olympian Steve Backley; the world came, just a couple of months later, to a grinding halt due to the Covid pandemic.
Being a small charity with no staff which was entirely run by its trustees, many of whom being extremely busy senior officials from companies such as Berkeley Group Plc, Knight Dragon Ltd, Martin Arnold Ltd, GLL and Barton Willmore (now Stantec); the almost two years of Covid-induced inactivity – and it must be said, a change of direction by the new leadership at Greenwich Council, saw the sad but inevitable demise of Greenwich Starting Blocks Trust.
In the 14 or so years Greenwich Starting Blocks Trust, superbly supported by Greenwich Leisure Ltd Sports Foundation, was in operation, our athletes brought Olympic, Paralympic, World Championship and Commonwealth Games medal success to Greenwich.
So hopefully you won’t begrudge me raising a glass today to celebrate Daniel’s great victory last night and to acknowledge the sporting success that my colleagues and I at GSB Trust, supported by GLLSF, brought to Greenwich.
Greenwich Starting Blocks Trust was a small charity but, and please excuse the boxing idiom, ‘we punched well above our weight’.
