VINCENT HANCOCK

1944 – 2006

Photo by Ray O’Donoghue

Members of Hercules Wimbledon AC were saddened and shocked to hear of the death of Vince Hancock from cancer on August 19 at the age of 62.

Resident in France for the past few years, the enthusiasm and joy of running by Vince – we never called him Vincent - went a long way towards making HW one of the leading M50 teams in the country with most of his best performances being provided as an M55.

It was as an M55 that Vince collected British Masters titles over 10 miles on the road and 3000m indoors, with individual medals also earned over 10,000m (track) and 10km (road).

Pleasing as these titles were, selection for England in the 2001 Masters International Cross Country probably gave him the most satisfaction, especially after being controversially selected as a reserve the previous year. Such was his obvious everlasting pride in having been selected; his English vest was draped over the coffin during the funeral held at the L’Eglise du Saint Vincent church in the village of Savignac-de-Duras.

Relatively speaking, Vince’s time as an M55 provided the most success in his athletic career with numerous Surrey County titles coming his way over track and country.

He was also three times a member of the HW’s winning M50 Surrey Road Relay team including the 1999 race where the team provided a course record with an overall winning margin of over four minutes.

Golden team medals were also secured by a Vince led M50 team in the South of England Road Relay championships in 2001 but it was at Sutton Coldfield in the 1995 British Masters Road Relay that arguably provided the most memorable performance by both Vince and the rest of HW six-man team.

In what is considered to be the most competitive event in the Masters’ calendar, Vince went from 42nd to 11th position on the second stage with the team going on to claim the bronze medals behind the mighty Northern teams of Hallamshire Harriers and Bingley Harriers. The following year, HW came close to repeating this effort when placing fourth, and yes, Vince was once again on his favourite second stage.

As an M45, Vince ran a more than useful 55:07 for 10 miles (road) which is still an HW record for that category and later was to set M55 club road records over 5 miles, 10km, 10 miles and half-marathon.

Vince joined what was then Hercules AC in 1957, along with a host of talented young athletes from Wandsworth School who came under the wing of one of their teachers, who, due to some of his legendary tough training sessions, was known as ‘Killer Clarke.’

With his brothers, Bob, Bill and Jon also members, Hercules AC boasted a formidable quartet of Hancocks.

Vince went on to represent both Wandsworth and London Schools but at the age of 17, was advised to discontinue athletics because of a hole-in-the- heart which, almost 10 years later, proved to an incorrect diagnosis.

Ten years unnecessarily out of the sport, Vince returned to running but with the added handicap of having one leg shorter than the other due to having suffered from osteomylitis shortly before his first birthday. The condition led to Vince being completely encased in plaster from the waist down to his ankles for some five months.

The return to running occurred when Vince was employed as a Structural Engineer in Nigeria, shortly after qualifying as the youngest ever Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers, and such was his enthusiasm, he was instrumental in forming a local club known as Eko Runners named after the then recently constructed Eko Bridge. Vince also organised a Lagos Marathon, for which the conditions were so hot, that no one finished the race!

Among the non-finishers in Lagos was Vince and here his brother Jon recounts the tale of what happened next. “Vince came back to London on leave and ran a marathon on Battersea Park track – on his own – early one morning. I was there and ran with him for a few laps to keep his morale up. He just scraped under three hours – solo.”

On March 17, 1983, Vince joined Hercules Wimbledon but it was the previous year, on the occasion of the second London Marathon that he met up with members of the club and as a result incurred the wrath of race organiser Chris Brasher.

Vince and two of his brothers, Bob and Jon, wanted to compete and to increase their chances of entry they each had applications forwarded from both Nigeria and London. By chance all six entries were accepted with three of them being passed on to HW athletes and when six ‘Hancocks’ went to collect their numbers, Brasher sent a telegram asking for an explanation!

An unknown side to Vince was his generosity which was first put to use when ‘Killer’ Clarke retired to Herne Bay and shortly afterwards received a large donation of funds from Vince for a project to set up an athletics track there.

Also, in 1998, on the occasion of a dinner celebrating the 65th anniversary of the founding of Hercules Ladies AC in 1933, Vince generously provided funds for the supply of souvenir mugs.

The funeral, at which many personal and moving tributes were paid to Vince, saw Jo Wackett in attendance not only on behalf of HW but also as a close friend of the family.

Our thoughts at this sad time go out to Vince’s wife, Carmelina, who herself often wore an HW club vest in competition, and their daughter Anastasia, also known as ‘Archie’ and who in recent months has been seen training with Dennis Roll’s squad at Wimbledon Park.

Pete Mulholland

Dereje Kebede 1981-2006

It is with deep regret that Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club report the death of Dereje Kebede who was a member of the winning Ethiopian team at the IAAF World half-marathon championships in Bristol in October 2001.

His performance in Bristol where he finished 62nd in a personal best of 64:30, an improvement of almost two minutes on his previous best half-marathon time, was probably the highlight of his short and traumatic life.

Kebede's father was murdered when he was just seven and although he was in the Ethiopian police force he was subjected to considerable ill-treatment. Despite knowing that he would be leaving his family behind (he mother and sister still live in Ethiopia), Kebede decided to seek asylum in Britain.

He joined Hercules Wimbledon towards the end of 2002 and regularly raced in road running events across the country setting course records in the Leeds half-marathon and Stratford Shakespeare half marathons in 2005.

He was also a talented cross country runner, finishing runner-up in the Surrey cross country championship at Banstead in January 2003. He was selected to run in the UK Inter-Counties championship that year. He also won the South of the Thames five miles race in Richmond Park race in November 2005.

Soon after that he settled in Britain he came under the care of Dr Michael Korzinski, co founder and clinicial director of the Helen Bamber Foundation Dr Korzinski arranged for Kebede to live in various hostels around the capital. Following an investigation into Dereje's death, the St Pancras coroner ruled it was not suspicious but could not decide the precise cause although he considered it was clearly related to his suffering from epilepsy.

Last year, he arranged for Kebede to spend two months training in Kenya. Unfortunately, he appears to have picked up a bug while in Africa and when he returned to London he fell ill. He was treated at University College, London where experts from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine were unable to identify what was ailing him but they did discover he was suffering from epilepsy and he was put on medication to treat his condition.

In March this year, he was granted British citizenship and his aim was to run for Britain at the Beijing Olympics. Earlier this year he moved into his own flat in Islington. It was there that he was found dead on June 5.

A post mortem failed to identify the cause of death although it is thought it was related to the epileptic seizures he had been experiencing.

Roehampton University's Sports Performance Assessment and Rehabilitation Centre gave Kebede sport science support and along with the rest of his support team are trying to raise funds to enable Kebede's body to be flown back to Ethiopia where he is to be buried alongside his father. They are holding fund-raising raffle at All Bar One in Wimbledon, in Wimbledon Hill Road, next Wednesday, (June 28), at 8pm. As many Hercules Wimbledon members and anyone else who knew Dereje are urged to support this venture.

Ceri Diss, senior lecturer in Sports Science at Roehampton University is helping to coordinate the fund raising and anyone wishing to contribute to the fund should email her at C.Diss@roehampton.ac.uk