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Established September 1978

Bedfordview Country Club (or Kensington Polytechnic as it was known) was founded in 1925, when a meeting was held at the Rhodes Park Tearoom and a decision was made to form a Sports Club. The club remained at Rhodes Park until 1957, when the Jo’burg council decided that Kensington Polytechnic would have to change their name to Rhodes Park Sports Club. The die-hard club members did not approve and decided to move to the present ground, which had been vacated by Old Parks. The club went through the name changes, Marists-Polys, Bedfordview-Polys, until in the mid-seventies it was decided to call it Bedfordview Country Club. To many sportsmen and woman, the club will always be known as Polys. (The hockey was known as Kensington Polys, the cricketers as Marist Polys. Arthur Hall had the vision to unite all as Bedfordview CC and was instrumental in getting the Council to underwrite the whole venture and take an active part in maintaining the facilities. The council paid the staff and groundsmen who all became Council employees.

BCC was a multi-faceted sports club featuring about 12 different sports which were played either in summer or winter, or all year round – tennis; bowls; badminton; squash; men and woman’s hockey; senior and junior soccer; cricket; senior and junior baseball and softball. Each of the sections mentioned had their own committees, which were elected to coincide with their particular season’s activity, and the club itself had an Executive committee, which was responsible for the overall running of the club and the playing fields and bowling greens. Sectional Chairmen met monthly to report back to the club on the past months activities and future competitions.

One evening after soccer/hockey training, while cooling off with a cold beer, and talking about the upcoming prospects for the Comrades Marathon, and discussions about whom, if anybody, posed a threat to the great Alan Robb. This led to the question being asked – ‘why don’t we start a running section at the club’.

At this stage there were a couple of members running for Germiston Callies Harriers, and they decided to investigate the matter to see what the requirements were for starting our own running club. They approached Callies for advice and were referred to the Transvaal Road Runners Association. TRRA said that they needed to sign up 20 members as runners and to make an application to them, where it would be considered. TRRA approval was needed to be able to compete in official events like the Comrades. It was only after this that we were required to buy a licence and therefore benefit from the insurance cover, which came with it.

Only 3 or 4 active runners were available, so 20 seemed like a big ask. However, the same soccer/hockey players cooling off after training with cold beers a few weeks later did not think that this was a problem, as they would all sign up as runners. These people(from memory), were Audrey Krynie; Mike Jefferies; Neville Kruger; Johnny Neilsen; Neil Alexander; Rupert Scott; Doug McClymont; Judy Haley; Scotty Steele etc. (Jack Quail was a former mayor of Bedfordview and we also had Councillor Julius Civin- after whom Civin Drive is named - running for us at about this time but not a founder member.)

And so the number required by TRRA was easily filled. Our application was duly submitted and we were asked to attend a TRRA meeting at the Wanderers Club to meet the committee and tell them what our intentions were. (There was an objection from Mike Hay (Chairman of Spring’s Striders), who thought it was not necessary to have another running club on the East Rand. (A few BCC members thereafter boycotted the Strider’s race).

We were duly accepted and were asked to put in an application to stage a road race. We applied for a marathon early in the year and a half marathon about August or September. We were allocated a 21km in January and a 10km race in August.

The ATHLETICS SECTION was established in September 1978.