Tour of Britain
Messenger was an official of the British League of Racing Cyclists, which started during the Second World War to promote massed cycle racing on public roads. The BLRC organised several Tours of Britain under different names and sponsors and then in 1958 secured sponsorship from the Milk Marketing Board. Messenger was the BLRC's event organiser and he and other officials visited the board at a hotel in central London. He said:
- Our first meeting with the sponsor's PRO, Reg Pugh, was a near-fiasco, for the three of us, Eddie Lawton, Les Keith and myself, were working and groping in the dark, having to rely on figures conjured out of thin air by treasurer Ruben Smith. So poor, too, were we at this time that we arrived at the posh West End hotel with only enough money between the three of us to get back home. We came away elated, with more or less the 'Tour' in our pockets. We also came away with a budget well below what was needed for we had promised foreign teams (but no one said how we were going to get them.)
Messenger ran the Tour of Britain, known as the Milk Race, from 1958 to 1965, when he was followed by Maurice Cumberworth.
Read more about this topic: Chas Messenger
Famous quotes containing the words tour and/or britain:
“Do you know I believe that [William Jennings] Bryan will force his nomination on the Democrats again. I believe he will either do this by advocating Prohibition, or else he will run on a Prohibition platform independent of the Democrats. But you will see that the year before the election he will organize a mammoth lecture tour and will make Prohibition the leading note of every address.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“It is crystal clear to me that if Arabs put down a draft resolution blaming Israel for the recent earthquake in Iran it would probably have a majority, the U.S. would veto it and Britain and France would abstain.”
—Amos Oz (b. 1939)