Bay Sheffield foot race a fixture at Adelaide's beachside Glenelg since 1886 on proclamation day for South Australia
R. Steele wins the 1946 Bay Sheffield foot race at Glenelg from Peter Judd and Reginald Allen. Inset: An unknown early winner and his coach.
Images courtesy South Australian Athletic League
The Bay Sheffield foot race was held every year from 1886 at the Adelaide beachside suburb of Glenelg on December 28 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the South Australian province being read there.
The South Australian Athletic League, formed in 1898, hosted the Bay Sheffield Carnival every year at the Glenelg’s Colley Reserve, except for 1966-1969 (due to reconstruction work) and 2001-2003 (after the league had a dispute with the Glenelg Commemoration Day Sports Association).
The first Bay Sheffield in 1887 was won over 100 yards by H. Quinn off a handicap of 11 yards in 9.4 seconds. Thirty-eight runners nominated for the inaugural race for the £14 first prize. In 1999, 104 runners nominated and the first prize was $13,650. A. Polkinghorne and F. Woollard finished in a deadheat in the Bay Sheffield 1893 final between, with Polkinghorne the winner in a runoff.
The 1901 final saw a protest lodged against the first across the line, J. Mongan, for not supplying the correct amount of information for the handicapper to judge his ability. Second placegetter W.E.Palmer, was then awarded the race. In 1982, licensed bookmakers could legally operate on races at the Bay Sheffield carnival but they were dealing under cover at the event. The practice of runners assuming different names was stopped in 1990 when winner Norm Claxton ran as “F. Pierce”.
Many well-known South Australian league footballers* won the Bay Sheffield. The 1924 winner, Bruce McInnes, a Port Adelaide footballer, was the first to run the race in "even time". Since South Adelaide club's Darren Kappler’s 1985 win, pre-season training demands sidelined league footballers from the race. Six Bay Sheffield winners won the Stawell Gift in Victoria. They were: Fred Ralph (1930/1932), Alec Reid (1939), Dallas O'Brien (1979), Dean Capobianco (1990), Steve Brimacombe (1991) and Andrew McManus (1999).
Scottish sprinter Jim Thompson, winner of the 1982 Bay Sheffield in 12.02 seconds off 3.0 metres, was the fastest man to have won the race if handicaps are taken out of consideration. Famous basketballer Al Green ranks second for his first win in 1983 – a year before he completed the double. In 2012, Josh Ross was the first person to win the Bay Sheffield Gift from scratch.
Victorian Jessica Payne won the 2016 history-making edition of the women’s race that - with additional state government funding – offered prize money equal to the men’s race for the first time.