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John Keddie: A true sporting hero who lived by his faith
THE Eric Liddell story reads like a "boy's own" tale. Only it wasn't a "boy's own" tale. It was a very real story of unusual achievement and undaunted courage – the very opposite of the shame now being heaped upon athletics by convicted drugs cheats, like Dwain Chambers, being allowed to bend the rules to suit their own wishes.
As such, Eric Liddell must be counted as one of the great Britons of his century. Though he received plaudits in his day, this never turned his head. He received popular acclaim, although he was a convinced evangelical Christianity. This makes his story all the more remarkable, and not just for ardent Scots!
Even before Chariots of Fire projected his name into the public eye, his name was a "household word" in Scottish sporting circles as one of the best known and most popular of her athletes.
Eric Henry Liddell was born in 1902 in China. He first came to Britain in 1907 and with his older brother, Rob, was schooled in the School for the Sons of Missionaries at Blackheath (in 1912 the school moved to Mottingham and became known as Eltham College). He was the son of Missionary parents who served in North China, but his roots were entirely Scottish.
In five years running at the Scottish championships, he was never defeated. Sprinting wasn't the only string to his bow. In the winter, he played rugby football, in which his rise to international stardom was as meteoric as his successes on the athletics tracks.
His breakthrough came in 1923 when he won the 100 yards and 220 yards at the English Amateur Athletic Association Championships, the 100 in a record time which remained unbeaten for 35 years. Things were different then. Training was casual by today's standards – perhaps two or three times a week.
There were no track suits, no starting blocks, and no all-weather tracks. There were no special diets, and no weight-training. No, it was all very amateur and casual then.
But that doesn't mean athletes like Eric Liddell were not deadly serious and determined competitors. Through his whole career, Eric Liddell showed himself to be hard to beat, yet always gentlemanly. He would always shake hands with a warm smile at the start of races, an attractive feature by contrast to the single-minded focused tunnel-vision of the modern top competitor.
The 1923 results set Eric Liddell up as a fair prospect for the 100m at the Paris Games of 1924, the "blue riband" event. Enter Eric Liddell the conscientious evangelical Christian. He believed that the Christian Sabbath – Sunday – should be kept free from such things as organised sports and games.
Therefore he would not be available for the 100m sprint if chosen (nor for the relay races which also involved Sunday events). This was behind his taking up the 440/400m seriously in 1924, even though he gave no indication whatsoever that he could seriously challenge for the Olympic title.
Yet on his athletics "day of days" – July 11, 1924 – he ran away with his semi-final (48.2) and final (47.6) in times well below anything he had done before. Besides, he single-handedly transformed the approach to the event by going pretty well flat out from the off and holding on to win by a margin matched since only by Michael Johnson's great run at Atlanta (1996).
By that time, Eric was committed to mission work in the country of his birth, China. He followed his father and brother Rob there in 1925, first for educational work at a Christian College in Tientsin and (after 1937) district evangelistic work at Saiochang in the North China. He had become a congregational minister in 1932.
Married to Florence Mackenzie in 1934, Eric and Florence had three girls, all of whom today live in Toronto. Sadly, he died 63 years ago while interned the in Japanese Internment Camp at Weihsien.
Despite the passage of time, the Eric Liddell story has lost
none of its charm, challenge or attractiveness, even in our
secular day.
No doubt there are three main reasons for the continuing fascination for this story of achievement and Christian principle. Firstly, there is the rarity of it. So few Britons, and fewer Scots, have won athletics' highest honours and accolades.
Then there is the publicity engendered by the Oscar-winning movie, Chariots of Fire, in 1981.
But there is also the attractiveness of the character of the man who stuck to his Christian principles and consistently showed in his short life something of the character of the One whom he professed to follow and serve. And that is a challenge to an age in which Christian faith is in short supply in sport and public life in general.
John Keddie, a Christian minister, and previously writer of the highly-regarded centenary history of Scottish Athletics in 1982 –
and adviser for Chariots of Fire – has written a biography of Eric Liddell, Running the Race, just published by Evangelical Press.
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