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This article first appeared in the club's magazine, The Blister, for the club's 15th anniversary in 1995

It was dissatisfaction with the organisational standard of the 1980 NSW State Marathon which prompted a small group of runners to meet at Charles Coville’s Artarmon flat to discuss forming a club. The running boom was in its ascendancy in 1980, but local standards of event organisation, runner care and training information were generally poor by most international yardsticks. Of the runners at that inaugural meeting, only Charles himself is still a member, although three others who joined soon afterwards will soon celebrate the 15th anniversary of their membership. Charles Coville’s passion for distance running goes back over a decade before the formation of Sydney Striders. An expatriate South African, Charles had grown up with the highly developed club running scene in that country, with its heritage based upon the 90km Comrades Marathon. A scrapbook of press clippings from Charles' early Comrades running days makes fascinating reading today. We find a record of one C.H.Coville finishing the 1969 "down" run in 392nd place out of 587 finishers in a time of 9:48:25. First place went to Yorkshireman Dave Bagshaw of Durban Savages in a record-shattering 5:45:35, the first of his three Comrades victories.

By the 1973 Comrades, won by Cape Town University student Dave Levick, the event had become a focal point for radical protest over an entry ban against non-white competitors. The press cuttings, yellow with age, show Charles Coville heavily involved in the student protest movement. A dozen black Africans, all unofficial entrants, ran in the Comrades that year. "They ran but they got no glory" was the headline in The Natal Mercury. "The marathon is one of the greatest road races in the world and I think it is a disgrace that non-whites are not regarded as official participants.......The spectators were fantastic, but it was sickening to see the attitude of the officials who pretended the black runners were not there and completely ignored them." One group of Comrades finishers from previous years felt so strongly that they "awarded" their medals unofficially to the first black African finishers, Zwelitsha Gono and Simon Mkhize. "Comrades to stay White" was the Mercury's verdict for the 1974 event. Public opinion was divided and emotions ran high. "Our democratic right" said club chairman of Collegians Harriers Athletic Club, who had voted by a 70% majority to keep the Comrades all-white. That year, black runner Isaac Thoka, aged 26, a gardener of Johannesburg, was stopped by a traffic policeman 32 kilometres into the Pretoria Marathon, ordered off the road and threatened with arrest for "illegally" participating in the race. He was told "This is a race for whites only." "Comrades runners urged to wear black armbands" quoted The Daily News of March 30th, 1974. "My message of protest is as follows: All competing Comrades who object to a closed race should run with a black armband": Thus spoke Charles Coville, Comrades number 686, of University of Witswatersrand Cross Country and Marathon Club. Perhaps this was an early indication of our founder’s determination and character. At any rate, the South African security forces didn't get him and Charles eventually emigrated to Australia in 1978. By 1975 some things at least had changed in South Africa. Non-whites and women runners were allowed, for the first time, to officially enter the 50th Comrades. Lesotho mineworker, Vincent Rakabaele, pounded his way into the pages of history by becoming the first official non-white finisher, in 20th place. Elizabeth Cavanagh struck the first official blow for women. In the twenty years since 1975 much more has changed in South Africa. Apartheid is over and, in one of the miracles of our times, Nelson Mandela is South Africa's President. The link Sydney Striders holds with South Africa and the Comrades has been strongly forged with almost 10% of the club's current membership having completed the race, now an international event. Some hold several finishers’ medals and have made their own friendships with runners in that country. Each year Striders’ members compete in the Comrades, runners and spectators alike still ask after Charlie Coville. (Tony Crosby gets the odd mention, too).

Since 1980, the club has grown into what it is today; Sydney's premier road running club. Wearers of the green and white have competed in events on virtually every continent and even run at the North Pole! In the 15 years to the end of June the club distributed 77 editions of its club Calendar, staged 13 Open Half-Marathons in the Lane Cove River Park, ran 641 Sunday Training Runs with a total distance of approximately 20,000 kilometer's, (the equivalent of a run from Sydney to London), and saw its club magazine, The Blister, grow from 4 stapled-together foolscap sheets to the current format between Edition #1 and the edition you are now reading.

From all of us, Charles Coville, a sincere thank you for what you inaugurated twenty years ago. Here's to the next twenty!