Early days with Andy Green (April 2020)

Early days with Andy Green (April 2020)

I used to talk a lot, about Andrew Green with his Uncle, who was a claims adjuster at LLoyd's, as I worked in insurance too. That was even before Andy came down South. It was in early in 1963 I first talked to Andy at the banked, Wembley indoor track. I did an article from an interview with Andy. Andrew Green was 20 then, 6'1 in height and weighed 160lbs. He had at the time run '1:50.5 for the 880 yards but, notched up his first international-class performance, with a good result by coming 2nd to Tokyo, Olympic silver medalist, Bil Crothers of Canada, on the boards at Wembley, over 1000yards.
Andy  remarked "I only started the seasons training 2 weeks before the National cross, and it was after that race I did one weeks training on the roads, followed by a seven day stretch on the track. Three days before the 1000 yards race I did two interval 880's in 2:05.0 on the track, two days before the 1000 yards race but still, I did not really think I stood any chance of even making the final, in fact I only went along to Wembley to put in an appearance in the AAA's title race, which that was, so that I wouldn't be overlooked for future invitations".

In 1963 he lived in Manchester but felt that, although there was competition in the area, like Mike Beresford and the other Sale Harriers are good, he still felt he is likely to be more in the limelight in the south, in the London area. He added "My girl friend Mary Tagg, who is incidentally a half miler, lives south".
In August 1965 they got married. The rest is history and back in 2014 I wrote a long account of Andy's life on our Highgate Harriers website AA talks to...                      

Andy Green was a friendly and helpful guy who was born in 1942 died on the 18th of February 2020