SPORT fans will be glued to the box this Bank Holiday to watch if Britain's athletes can run, jump and fling their way on to the medals podium. The ninth World Athletics Champion-ships is a festival of fitness, pitting the globe's finest and fastest against one another.

Many of North Yorkshire's large band of runners will be taking a close interest in the events from Paris.

This area boasts thriving athletics clubs, and the membership is passionate about their sport, as the wrangle over the future of the Huntington Stadium track has emphasised.

Yorkshire's history of competitive athletics stretches way back. And we need your help to fill in some gaps. More about that soon.

According to volume two of the Victorian History Of Yorkshire, first printed in 1912, "it is well-nigh impossible to state when men first began to run races for wagers in Yorkshire, but the county is certainly one of the first homes of pedestrianism."

To prove this, it quotes from the Sporting Magazine of October 1792: "In the beginning of the present century there was one Levi Whitehead, of Bramham in Yorkshire, who was noted for his swiftness in running, having won the buck's head for several years at Castle Howard, given by the present Earl of Carlisle."

When Levi was 22, the journal reported, "he ran four miles over Bramham Moor in 19 minutes; and which is still more remarkable, in his 95th and 96th years he frequently walked from Bramham to Tadcaster (full four miles) in an hour."

Another extraordinary Yorkshireman was Leeds-born Forster Powell. In November 1773 he made a £20 deposit for a wager of 100 guineas that he could go by foot from London to York and back in six days.

He managed it with more than five hours to spare, and went on to smash that record with future wagers.

Coming more up to date, Easingwold resident Mick Liversidge sent in these marvellous photographs of York athletes from the first half of the last century.

"They are related to the York Harriers running club," he writes. "I wondered if you would be willing to publish them in your Yesterday Once More feature to see if any of your readers know anything about them, the history of the club, etc."

The photographs, which Mr Liversidge estimates were taken in about 1910, were converted into postcards and have no information on the back. So can you help us with information about the York Harriers?

Two specific questions Mr Liversidge asks are: in one picture the shield reads "York Harriers Headquarters". Where was that? Detail from another picture leads him to speculate that it could have been on Fulford Road near the barracks.

Secondly, where was the picture taken of the race getting underway on grassland behind terraced houses?

The York Harriers were certainly going strong in 1897, because in that year the Evening Press reported controversy surrounding its race meeting, won by the YMCA team.

Harriers lodged an appeal against the result, arguing that only two of the YMCA's four runners had finished the race.

Of the others, one runner miscounted his circuits and ran one lap too few, and the other gave up after being lapped by all four Harriers competitors.

Half a century later, and members of the Harriers ran around the city walls bearing torches to celebrate the Queen's coronation in June 1953.

If you have any information about the history of the York Harriers and these pictures, please contact me at chris.titley@ycp.co.uk, at The Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN, or on (01904) 653051 ext 337.

Thank you.

Updated: 09:34 Monday, August 25, 2003