IAN WARD (1929-2006) a personal appreciation by Derek Benning.
“Drive, drive, drive!” The advice was heard weekly on a Wednesday afternoon as “Wardie” encouraged his sprint group on the redgra area which was Madeley College of Education’s track in the 1960s and 1970s. Heaven help you if you were caught mimicking his distinct accent and jutting chin. To be one of his squad was a privilege. On seeking admittance to the elite band he told me “Derek you will never make an athlete but join in at the back.” I’d like to think I partially proved him wrong but you always respected his comments, were never late for one of his sessions and always said thank you at the end.
IAN WARD sadly passed away on Wednesday March 8 aged 77 in his adopted home of Todmorden. His father, Frank, a builder by trade, became a professional footballer for Preston North End, Bury, Southampton and later Chorley. He was also an accomplished boxer. Ian was born on February 25 1929. He was educated at Hutton Grammar School and then went to Loughborough College where he obtained his teaching certificate in physical education. Masters degrees followed at Leeds University and later the University of North Carolina where he attended on a Graduate Fellowship. Ian was awarded his PhD from the University of Liverpool in 1985 for his work on “Lakeland Sports in the Nineteenth Century”.
Ian played rugby for several seasons for Preston Grasshoppers but it was as a pole-vaulter that Ian first made his mark in British Athletics. He had competed at the World Student Games in Germany in 1953 and was AAA’s Champion in 1956 (3.96m.) and 1957 (4.08m) at the White City, in those days using a metal pole. He was runner up in 1960 (4.11m.). It was during the 50s that Ian won the first of his sixteen international vests for Great Britain over an eight-year period. He represented England in the 1958 Empire Games.
After a period as a Lecturer at the University of Birmingham, Ian became one of the AAA’s National Coaches for a short while, with special responsibility for the North-East of England but continued with his pole vaulting. He became a professional vaulter because the amateur regulations of the day would not allow him to draw a salary from the AAAs and to compete in amateur competition. He regularly competed in the Grasmere Sports in the English Lake District setting a meeting record in 1964 of 3.81m. I remember his story (and it may have been just that) of the year he had won the Grasmere title with his spiked metal pole when a voice from the crowd shouted “here’s a fiver if you can break the record.” Ian dutifully responded by clearing the bar first time, vaulting from grass onto grass! He also competed on the Scottish Highland Games circuit.
In 1962 Ian wrote a revised edition of the AAA Instructional Booklet on Pole Vaulting. A second edition appeared in 1966 and in 1967, along with co-author and fellow National Coach Denis Watts, appeared his major text “Athletics for Student and Coach”.
It was in 1964 that Ian joined the physical education department at Madeley College of Education, one of the then ten PE Wing Colleges in the country. By this time he had achieved coaching success with Alan Simpson (4th. In 1960 Olympic1500m), Steve Hollings (Olympic steeplechaser), Derek Boosey (Mexico Olympic triple jumper), Kendrick Jackson (international long jumper), Gron Davies (hurdles) and pole vaulters Mike Bull and Trevor Porter amongst others. He quickly established a reputation as a first class coach (of a number of events). The Madeley College sprint relay squad took the AAA Indoor title in 1966 and thereafter top athletes were drawn to Madeley because Ian was there. Many of us who were at Madeley at the time were heavily influenced by Ian. It is often not realised that Max Jones, Dave Sunderland, Kelvin Gyles, Alan Jones, John Crotty and others who all went on to leadership positions in higher education and/or athletics, were students of Ian’s at Madeley. We all owe him a tremendous debt.
Ian Ward was also a well-respected and witty lecturer. He taught a course in Comparative Physical Education (a subject area hardly heard of in those days), initially basing his lecture content on his athletic travels around the world. We learnt that graduate assistants in the USA might earn a few dollars “sweeping the leaves off the stadium bleachers” and of the problems facing athletes in emergent nations (“there was only one hammer in Egypt”). His work for the IAAF Development Commission took him, for example, to Mauritius, Egypt and Taiwan. His Xmas present to me after the latter trip was the Taiwanese Athletic Coaching Manual…..in Chinese! Ian also taught biomechanics to the PE specialists. He introduced the course by saying “I teach some good courses here at Madeley; this is not one of them. Having said that, it is still better than most you will get.”
Ian left Madeley in 1970 to take up a position as Director of Sport at the University of Liverpool, a not altogether happy period of his life. Once there he set up one of the first taught M.Ed. courses in the country and many of us enrolled and made the weekly Friday trip to Liverpool at the end of a hard week’s work to listen to Ian’s knowledgeable sessions on ‘sport in other nations’.
After Liverpool Ian took up an athletics development position in Wigan at the Robin Park Stadium working with Max Robertson. He spent several happy years there with the staging of the ESAAA Championships in 1989 as one of his proudest moments. He briefly took up some northern squad coaching (triple and long jump) while based at Wigan. He left the Wigan job at the end of March 1990
Part-time teaching then followed at Edge Hill College and some supply teaching in local secondary schools. He took over a class who had driven the previous PE teacher to a nervous breakdown. He walked in on the first day (so he used to tell me) and said “my name is Ward and I’m here to teach you basketball. We’ll warm up, do a few skills and finish with a game. Whatever you do don’t take the piss.” Three years later Ian bumped into one of his former pupils who greeted him with the comment “hello Mr. Ward you taught us basketball.”
Ian was the complete all-rounder. At Madeley he taught us basketball and gymnastics as well as athletics. One fine summer’s day he took us outside to do gymnastics in the sand pit. He said to us “Gentlemen, you may take your shirts off”. I think we all achieved a back somersault of a fashion that day. When Basil Ashford the swimming lecturer was absent one day , “Wardie” walked into the swimming pool and said “Mr. Ashford is not in today; I’m teaching you. What were you doing last week ?” He then taught us breaststroke leg kick as if it was his forte.
Humorous, often sarcastic but always witty, Ian could command attention at all times. Skiing at Aviemore in 1968 as part of our outdoor activities course I remember him putting us in our places. After a hard day on the slopes we retired to our bunks in the Norwegian Huts ,then unheated, wearing bobble hats and trackies. A game of “knock knock” ensued. Staff were billeted next door. After several attempts to quieten us, “Wardie’s” voice bellowed “Knock Knock” to which we replied “Who’s there ?” The retort came “ Ian Ward -go to bloody sleep”. You could have heard a pin drop.
With increasing age Ian became sceptical of the way both sport and academia were developing. He parodied the National Coaching Foundation and the British Society of Sports History respectively inaugurating his own “National Coaching Forum” and the “Association of Sports Historians” using headed notepaper printed at the shop of a 75-year-old friend in his then home village of Croston!
For my own part, I always wanted to be like Ian, working in a college, running the athletics team, teaching sports history and comparative studies. This I did for 30 years starting at Madeley College in 1974 and retiring from Staffordshire University in 2004. Thanks Ian for being the architect of so many of our careers.
Ian was given a humanist send-off at Skipton Crematorium on Thursday March 16 2006 in (as he wished) a cardboard box.
Derek Benning (Madeley College 1967-1971)