Unsung hero who broke ground in Kenyan athletics

By PETER NJENGA

KENYA: In 2002, Archie Evans visited Kenya for the last time to celebrate Athletics Kenya’s 50th anniversary, an association he helped establish in 1952 under express authority of the colonial government.

Evans marveled at the development he had initiated with contentment. He had always followed Kenyan athletics and sporting prowess in the international circuit.

He died in 2010 in Cumbria and there is none better to tell his story than his son Rodney Kendall who chose to settle in Kenya.

Evans and referee Sir Derek Erskine had set up the Kenya Amateur Athletics Association so that Kenya could start competing in international competition.

Kenya fielded a team at the Vancouver Commonwealth Games and Melbourne Olympics. Evans was the manager of the following athletes: Arere Anentia, Bartojo Rotich, Joseph Leresae, Kanuti arap Sum, Kibet Boit (captain), Kiptalam arap Keter, Nyandika Maiyoro and Wanyoki Kamau.

Results were encouraging and there was no turning back. Evans embarked on professionalising the way amateur athletics would be run. He also launched a general sports day with races of indeterminate length and field events duly measured.

During Evans’ tenure, the rules were that no professional taking part in the Olympics and Commonwealth Games could be awarded blankets, lamps or bicycles for winning races. Only medals were allowed. But Africans did not want medals, they wanted rewards. That is why in the 60s through 70s, blankets and lamps were the preferred awards in athletics in Kenya.

 Evans set about with enthusiasm. Grass tracks were laid throughout the country and football pitches measured to the inch.

He had the first cinder track laid at Jeans School (later the Kenya Institute of Education) comparable to what was available at the time in the UK and Europe  then.

Top global athletes

He managed to arrange visits by top athletes from overseas including Mal Whitfield and Bob Mathias (top American decathletes) to help the Kenyans. Tom Finney and Stanley Mathews who were arguably the best footballers of their era also paid Evans a visit.

 Evans came to Kenya during the Second World War and joined the Border Regiment, an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army. He was promoted to an Adjutant in the 4th Uganda Rifles Battalion and Kings African Rifles South East Asia Command.

After the war, Evans took the sports angle and in 1946, he was appointed the Athletics Officer for the 70th East African Brigade. He was promoted to the post of Kenya Sports Officer at Jeans School in Kabete which later became the Kenya Institute of Education before eventually becoming a constituent college of the University of Nairobi; specifically to train servicemen.

 His job description read as follows: “To foster and encourage athletics, sports, games and other physical and recreational activities amongst post-school youth and adults of all races. These include the organisation of national sporting events in collaboration with respective associations and running courses at all levels for active athletes, coaches, and officials in all sports with assistance of government and commercial firms.”  

Sponsors

According to Evans’ son, much of the finance came from commercial firms like Erskine and Duncan as well as the Nestle brand Milo.

  “My father took the first Kenya athletics team to the 1954 Vancouver Commonwealth Games and Melbourne Olympic two years later by  drumming up sponsors from the commercial arena at the time,” says Rodney.

 Nyandika Mayoro was the first Kenyan Athlete to make a name anywhere. He finished sixth in the 5000 metres.

“My most vivid memory is that Mayoro  came sixth (I think) behind Banisters and Snells at White City in London, where they were all intent on breaking the four minute mile at the time. Mayoro ran on cinders in bare feet as it was more comfortable but it was a bit of a sensation,” says Rodney.

Enroute to Melbourne, Rodney remembers the Kenya team representing the British Colony had a two-week stopover in Cambria where they were housed by Evans prior to departure with a view to understanding the different culture they were about to experience.

First class coach

After indepedence, the government encouraged Evans to lay a firm foundation for Kenya’s sports. As a referee, Sir Derek Erskine’s wrote this in Evans CV in 1963. 

“Mr Archie Evans has been the Kenya Sports Officer since 1946. During this fifteen-year period, he has been in complete charge of all aspects of recreation throughout the whole territory and has achieved, in this time an astonishing measure of success and a countrywide reputation as a first class administrator, organiser and coach. Today, Kenya is recognised, internationally as a sporting country and its athletes are world renowned and I attribute this to Mr Evans’s unremitting and dedicated efforts.”

According to Rodney, Evans was never recognised for the work he did in Kenya and he left in 1964 when his job was taken over by William Yeda, one of his early students.

“He returned to the United kingdom and was offered jobs with Arsenal but decided to take a post up North in Cambria since his children (my brother, sister and I ) were schooling there .

He was finally awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the UK for his work with athletics, rugby and cricket in Cambria - he did it all over again !

“Archie loved Kenya and believed in our sporting prowess and some recognition for the work he did would not go amiss,” he concludes.