Victoria Baths’ Olympic Connections

Victoria Baths’ Olympic Connections

Here at Victoria Baths we love to celebrate our sporting heritage as much as we can – and what better time than during the Olympics! The History Group have gone through the archive to highlight Victoria Bath’s Olympic connections from 1906 to present and there are a fair few to show you…!

James Hickman

‘James Hickman has had a long and successful swimming career spanning three Olympics, three Commonwealth Games and many World Championships. The Bax Challenge Shield that he won in 1991 is held in the Victoria Baths Archive. James is a patron of the Friends of Victoria Baths’.

He swam in the 1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

John Besford

“John’s early swimming career was under the coaching of Jack Laverty at Victoria Baths with the South Manchester S.C. Although Johnny Besford competed in both the Olympic games of 1928 and 1936 (missing the 1932 Los Angeles games because of his dentistry exams at Manchester University) he is best remembered for his performance in winning the 100m backstroke at the 1934 European Championships in Magdeburg. The German authorities had confidently expected their champion Ernst Kuppers to be the victor and a magnificent trophy ‘the Hitler Trophy’ was donated for the winner. Unfortunately for the Germans, John upset their plans and scored a notable victory…pictures at the ceremony show him barely able to lift the trophy”.

Anita Lonsbrough

Anita Lonsbrough, sports personality of the year 1962 and gold medal winner in the 1960s Olympics in Rome, used to come to Victoria Baths to train under Ray Scholey. Scholey, abandoned his chip shop and became a full-time swimming coach, taking over the three pools at VB every other Sunday. He then went on to become the England Coach, where he trained Anita to Olympic gold with a record time.

Rob Derbyshire

‘Rob Derbyshire became the first Briton to break the one-minute barrier (for 100yds freestyle) on September 7, 1907 at Victoria Baths.

Rob swam in three Olympic games but achieved both a gold medal and World Record in the 4x200m freestyle relay at the London Olympic Games in 1908′

The Bothams

‘Roy and Jean Botham, who lived in the Superintendants flat at VB swam in two Olympic Games. They were the first brother and sister to swim in the same Olympic Games, both competing in Helsinki in the 1950s. Roy was also the men’s coach for South Manchester Swimming Club which was based at VB’

Joseph Whiteside

Joe Whiteside 5th from right (at the back) was the Deputy Chief Fire Officer and also a GB Olympic swimmer! He had keys to Victoria Baths and used to let himself in at 7am Monday to Friday and swim 20 lengths before heading to work!

Diane Ashton

Diane Ashton swam in the 1972 Olympic games in Munich coming 6th in her heat. She swam at Victoria Baths from 1960-1933, she also coached James Hickman. The image shows Diane at age 15 with the cup she won at the British Junior Championship in the 110 yards backstroke in April 1971.

Diana Wilkinson

Diana Wilkinson, while not a member of Victoria Bath’s Swimming Club, came to train at Victoria Baths occasionally (see the picture of her outside VB!). She competed in the 1960s games in Rome coming 3rd in her heat and in 1964 in Tokyo she swam the 100m freestyle and the relay coming 5th in both.

Cecelia Wolstenholme

“Cecelia trained and competed at VB and many other local pools, and was a member of Moss Side Swimming Club. Cecelia swam in the women’s 200m breaststroke in the 1932 Summer Olympics in LA coming in 3rd in her heat. In the preceding 2 years aged 15 and 16, she broke a number of world records and won 1st place at the 1930 British Empire Games and 1931 European Championships “

Charles Brand

Charles Brand was made a life member of the South Manchester Swimming Club in the 1950s and represented Great Britain in both the 1948 London and 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games. The image shows the South Manchester Water Polo team in 1954. The team became the top club in the area

A big thank you to the History Group for their hard work in compiling this information for us! Our history Group are volunteers and they were awarded (along with all of our other volunteers) the Ark Heritage Recognising Sporting Volunteers Award this year, for their passion and contributions to the Baths.

If you would like to more information on volunteering with the History Group contact community@victoriabaths.org.uk

Let us know if you want to see more History posts on our blog!

Copyright Victoria Baths // Images from the Victoria Baths Archive – to distribute please contact enquiries@victoriabaths.org.uk

By Bel Moody
on 07/08/24
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