By David Scott – Club President
John Haworth.
A past prominent member, John is now in a care home in South Wales near where Pat’s family live, suffering from severe dementia. He could sense this approaching which is why they moved from Hellifield. For those few members who knew John, and the many who never did, John is the main reason why Clayton-le-Moors Harriers still exists.
In the late 1960’s a ‘Special General Meeting’ was called because a significant group of some of our best runners wanted to join Blackburn Harriers and for the two clubs to be amalgamated, meaning the Clayton club name would be no more. A lot of discussion, quite heated at times, took place and at one moment it looked as though the ‘breakaway group’ would win. However, at that moment John stood up, removed a large piece of white paper from his jacket pocket and proceeded to list all the reasons why Clayton should still exist. This speech changed the balance of the meeting, and although when the votes were counted it was a close run thing, the ‘Remainers’ won the day, the ‘Breakaways’ lost. They all soon resigned and joined Blackburn
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