New half marathon organisers in appeal for entrants

THE new organisers of the Henley half marathon say they want to make the event more of a family day.

Henley Rugby Club has agreed to take over the running of the event in partnership with AAT Events after the town’s two Rotary clubs announced that they could no longer run it.

They hope to introduce a family fun run and 5km route alongside the existing half marathon and 10km in a bid to encourage more people to take part in the event on October 9.

The main race, which has been held almost every autumn since 1983, has lost hundreds of entrants in recent years to rival events.

Hawks chairman Chris Nixon said: “It’s about making it a family day. We might even include a bouncy castle and attractions at the end of the races.

“It might not happen straight away but that’s our goal to work on over the coming years.

“At the moment we’re very conscious about getting the date out there and into runners’ diaries because they may have heard the news that the Rotary clubs couldn’t carry on organising it and looked for other events to take part in.

“We want people to register quickly and we want to keep the excitement levels up.”

Craig Thornton, of AAT, a running events company, said: “We’re all pleased that it’s back on as it has been a great event.

“It’s a really important event to have for the community and the organisers have done a brilliant job over the last 40 years.” Rotarian Peter Wilkinson, a former race organiser, said he was relieved the event had been saved.

He said: “We’re so pleased that a local club was ready to commit and put the event back on or else it would have disappeared.”

The Rotary clubs said they couldn’t run the event any more because of the increasing age of their members.

“We’d still be happy to help,” said Mr Wilkinson. “The point of us stepping down was that we couldn’t do the heavy lifting of cones around the town anymore but we could do marshalling on the day.”

The new organisers have started discussions with the town council about road closures and are now hoping to launch a new website and to attract new sponsors to help boost the number of entrants. Mr Nixon said: “One problem is the London Marathon taking place in October, which draws a lot of people in the Thames Valley, but obviously it’ll be okay when it goes back to April next year.”

Mr Thornton added: “The numbers have been dwindling but that’s down to the coronavirus pandemic.”

The event was founded by Tony Hobbs who thought of the idea after running the London Marathon with his friends.

Mr Hobbs, who is a founding member of the rugby club, organised the half marathon until 2003 when the Rotary Club of Henley Bridge took it over and in 2019 Henley Rotary Club became a partner.