Club pays tribute to track superstar Janet (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Club pays tribute to track superstar Janet

11:29am Tuesday 31st August 2010 in

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A WORLD class athlete who was a star of Basingstoke and Mid Hants Athletic Club died earlier this month.

Janet Ruff, who ran for the club during the 1950s certainly set the pace for the club’s members, breaking unofficial world records.

She set the world’s best time for the 440 yards at London’s White City Stadium in 1956 at the Women’s Amateur Athletic Association Championships and beat it by a fraction the following year with a time of 56.4 seconds.

Reg Eade, Basingstoke and Mid Hants’ long-standing president was saddened to learn of Janet’s death.

She was 73 and had been battling cancer.

Describing her as an all-round athlete, he said: “She was our senior lady member, who pioneered for the current international crop of today’s athletes.”

He said Janet joined the club around 1953 and soon proved to be top class.

Impressed with what he saw on the running track, Reg recalled: “She showed athletic talent and eventually trained with the senior men as her progress took her to higher levels of competition.

“She was coached by Wilf Stocker, who was one of the club’s founding members after it was reformed in 1948, and he was very good coach. The 440 yards was her main event.”

“We used to go to White City on coaches to support Janet, who was competing there on invitation because of her athletic ability.

“The floodlit invitation meetings were wonderful to watch – it was the atmosphere – the crowd were very rowdy and noisy, especially when the races were very tight.

“We got really excited because Janet was up against some top-class athletes and she didn’t let us down.”

Despite achieving record times, her achievements were not officially recognised.

“They couldn’t say they were world records because women’s races weren’t recognised by the International Athletics Federation in those days.

“Apart from one or two field events, I think no women’s world records were accepted for distances over 220 yards.

“Had women’s athletics been recognised I’m sure she would have run for Great Britain.”

Nevertheless, Janet’s club records still stand.

Reg said: “She held the club’s record for the 100 yards, when she ran in Havant on May 21, 1956, in 11.2 seconds and the 220 yards in 25.4 seconds, on May 26, 1958.

“On June 29, 1956 she ran a mile in five minutes, 13.4 seconds, in Southampton and the 880 yards in two minutes 15 seconds at Southend-on-Sea on July 28, 1957.”

Other club records include the shot and the discus. Here in Basingstoke, at the club’s base, which was at Queen Mary’s Grammar School, now the Vyne Community School, she cleared 16 feet, 11 inches in the long jump, on May 9, 1959, at a trophy meeting.

“These are all of her records and they haven’t been beaten,” said Reg with a twinkle in his eye.

“They were in imperial measurements – they’ve been beaten metrically, but you can’t compare them.”

Reg said Janet was very much respected by the club’s members.

“She didn’t boast too much about her ability, but I think she knew she was admired by the friendship she made in and out of the club. She had an outgoing personality and was what we would call one of the boys.”

Janet, whose sister Brenda still lives in Basingstoke, moved to Manchester in about 1960 to find work as a commercial artist.

And it was here that she found a sport in which she could represent her country – international hockey.

Leaving behind the world of athletics she proved to be a prolific centre forward and scored a hat-trick on her England debut against West Germany, at Wembley, in 1960, before going on to win 24 caps.

She also turned her hand to golf and journalism, writing for The Guardian as women’s hockey correspondent.