The only sporting silverware I’ve ever won as an individual: the John Cooper cup was awarded to me in 1972 or 73 in Clifton College, Bristol. I was the first runner home of North Town for the feared Long Penpole cross-country running race. I remember well the infamous starter which wrecked many runners' start off the line: “When I say GO, go... GO”.
The Long Pen was notorious for its length, mud and hills; participation was “voluntary”, meaning massive peer pressure, particularly for those of us in the school cross-country team.
The Long Penpole 1972 was run towards the end of the Spring term over a traditional route of about 12 miles in North Somerset; a typical schools’ country course at the time was between 6 and 8 miles. The start of the Long Pen was at Portbury, up the muddy track in Prior’s Wood and through dairy farmlands with their unforgettable whiff, back to the finish of Clifton College’s cross-country match course at the school playing fields at Beggar Bush Lane. Some ran on back to Clifton but most piled in to the maroon “Biscuit Tin” school buses that were light enough to be allowed across the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
The John Cooper cup was handed back by the last year’s winner when it is awarded to the next year’s front runner from North Town; making the photograph was my way of remembering.
Whence the name? Penpole Hill is in Shirehampton, on the north side of the River Avon. I ran in cross-country races in the Seventies in the woodland between Blaise Castle and Penpole Wood. There’s a monument and sundial at Penpole Point. I surmise that the original course was from there back to Clifton, which would be about the same distance but even in 1972 was through suburbia.
I ran for Clifton 1st VIII and got my running colours 72-73. Being a good runner helped my survival in the bear pit of public schoolboy life. Still running when I can: I wish we had the kit we have now back then, particularly the shoes.
My guess is that the John Cooper named on the cup is John Anthony Cooper (b.1931), who became Captain of the running VIII, left 1949 to a military and commercial career.
OCs have been told the Long Pen 2026 will be run from a start in Ashton Court Park.
My scan is from a bromide print I made at the time; although it’s sharp enough to make out the crest of North Town, I can’t read all the letters, even on the original prints. It is my first fully-lit photograph, I must have lit the silver cup using desk lights and push-developed to uprate the Kodak Tri-X film to 1600 ASA.