We already have two members who have been in the Liverpool Century for over 60 years: Alan Rumbles joined in 1946, Dick Watson who joined in 1949
We now have two more members reaching their 60 years membership this month:
Les Thornley and Pete Gilroy.
Pete and Les both joined the club at the same meeting in February 1951 at Derby House, Rodney Street, and Liver-pool. At that time applicants for membership had to be proposed, seconded and attend a meeting. They were asked to leave the room while their application was being discussed. The process is rather different now!
At the same time Sidney Donnolly, Ernest Maddock, and Alexander Kinder also joined the club.
Les was always a very active cyclist until a few years ago. He was a keen tourist and racing man. He also played a part in helping to run the club acting as a sub captain and committee member for many years. He also acted as Social Secretary in the 1950’s. Those days saw a very active social season with coach trips to Blackpool along with theatre and Dance trips. Les was also a member of the Open Events’ committee during the 60’s.
He rode many time trials and played his part in marshalling at many events. Les was Handicap Trophy winner in 1953 receiving the Oscar Dover Trophy, also finishing fourth in the Club Time Trial Championship in the same year
At that time we held an interclub 100 with other local clubs. Les was member of our team winning in 1956 and 1959. The team came second in 1953 and 1955. He was a member of the club team which finished second in our Open 100 in 1955 (beaten by 10 seconds by Liverpool Unity).
Les was a very strong rider, always determined to win the sprints for signs on club runs. He organised one club run round to the Trough of Bowland, but as he thought that was not hard enough, he decided to lead us out of the middle of the Trough via Langdale Castle through miles of rough stuff. That was some day! Les took part in many Youth Hostel weekends. He was also the leader in a club tour around Ireland in 1966. He made sure we stayed in a hotel with a TV so we could watch England in the final of the World Cup. This was watched in this company of some Ger-mans and so was a very good night (but very few miles the next day!)
After retirement, Les took to riding all the big cols in Europe with Liz his wife. They eventually rode over all the major cols.
Pete Gilroy was a ‘class’ rider with many achievements during his racing career. . There was a big division between two cycling bodies (NCU and BLRC) which gave rise to problems for riders of that era. I leave the reader to look up the details if they are interested.
Pete was very active in Road racing when there not many events in England He was asked to take part in the Ama-teur Tour of Britain but declined. An indication of the level of his ability.
Pete actually declared a non-amateur by the RTTC as he had competed against independents (Semi –Professionals) in a Road Race. (Thus making him the first rider in the Century to leave the amateur ranks) Subsequently, Pete was banned by the club from riding any club events. Pete had to agree never to ride against independents again. This was accepted and Pete was allowed to ride time trials again.
A measure of his ability is indicated by the fact that Pete held the club 50 record from 1955 to 1971. He was club time trial champion in 1958 and 1959. He also won the Tom Gerrard Trophy for fastest 50 in 1954, fastest 50 in 1955 and fastest 100 in 1956.,along with winning the BAR (Joyce Trophy) in 1955.
Pete has made sure he took part in our Christmas rides. At one time these always included novelty event. One such event was a free wheeling competition in Parbold. As club champion he also won that!
In a similar way to Les, Pete along with Jim Booth visited France and rode many of the big cols including the Gali-bier and the Glandon –during the nineties
Pete never seems to have been off his bike. (Although he did come off his bike last year and broke his collar bone which stopped him riding for some time.) He still rides many miles every week with a group of friends which include Tour rider Stan Brittain. Pete every year attends what we would call a cycle ‘rally’ in France. Several thousand rid-ers take part in a week long event riding every day along roads marshalled by police Pete and his friends play a full part in this, enjoying the friendly welcoming cycling atmosphere. A few years ago, he went to see a few stages of the tour accompanied by Rob Pleavin, Jim Booth (who reaches 60 years membership in October this year) and Ray Myers. They all tried to ride up Alpe D’Huez. They all did well but it was Pete that manage to ride all the way to the top
The club congratulates Pete and Les on attaining sixty years membership demonstrating a commendable loyalty to the Liverpool Century.
Eddie Sims