A few Sussex athletes have set national senior records over the past 100 years. Towards the end of last century though, one of these was broken by a county teammate and this is believed to be the only time that has happened.
At the same time a third athlete was just a touch away from breaking the same record.
All three were from the same club and for a few years they - Ginney Birch, Beverley Allen (nee Francis) and Julie Drake of Brighton & Hove AC - remained almost supreme in the 10,000m track walk in the 1980s and into the 90s. Spare a thought for Steyning’s Sarah Brown, who was only a matter of seconds adrift of the B&H AC trio.
Tideway Schoolgirl Beverley Francis was born on the 16th March 1959 and was introduced to race walking by school friend Sue Martin. Sue was the step daughter of Brighton & Hove distance runner Dave Boxall, who moved on to be one of the best British long distance walkers.
Beverley joined Brighton & Hove AC, where she came under the eye of Scottish International race walker and Race Walking Coach, Alan Buchanan. She made steady progress winning Sussex age group titles through the 1970s and winning her first Southern Counties title in 1979 - the U17 crown.
Beverley became the top Sussex walker along with Sarah Brown, until Virginia (Ginney) Lovell moved to Brighton from Solihull to marry Brighton & Hove middle distance runner Frank Birch. Birch already a top British international was a great boost to Sussex Women’s race walking.
At this time there were ample races for walkers in Sussex with regular Saturday competitions and frequent mid-week events. For a couple of decades Sussex became a hot bed of women’s walking as Steyning also had several top class athletes. This also meant that they did not need to continually race against each other but they would general meet in championship events.
It was 1984 that Julie Drake, who was to become the top Sussex women’s walker of all time, raced in an open race at Withdean in July. She had alre
ady established herself as a promising cross-country runner with Patcham High School but she decided to “give the sport (race walking) a try”.
Just three months and five races later, with guidance from Alan Buchanan, Julie won her first major title taking the Southern Counties U17 5km crown at Battersea Park in a more than promising 26:53s.
In 1984 Ginney Birch was the second British walker to finish in a world class international walk at Bergen. It was the Scandinavian countries that produced most of the world’s leading walkers and they had done so for many years, providing most of the Olympic walking champions in the post-war period.
It was in 1984 that Brighton & Hove won their first national team title - the 5km championship, with Lovell placing second, Helen Ringshaw from Steyning sixth and Allen and Sue Till closing in the winning Brighton & Hove team in 8th and 12th places.
1985 was a particularly busy year for the trio with Allen winning the Sussex 5km title but being squeezed into second place in the Southern Championship in a PB of 24:25 behind Birch, who clocked 23:56 after returning from injury, and sixteen year old Drake filled fourth place in a PB of 24:38.
Birch was also to take second place in the National 5km in 24:26, which was a Sussex record and in the UK 3,000m championships in Antrim she won in a new championship record of 13.20 which was also a Sussex record.
Allen, Drake and Brown were also the first three in the Southern 5,000m track walk at Hendon.
Birch was the first British walker to crack the 48mins barrier for the 10,000m in another international race in Sweden in 47:56.3, some 16 seconds better that the then British record, while Allen placed seventh in 50:41.2s. Both went on to the World Championships while Birch won the A.A.A 5000m title at Birmingham in 23:53.47, at the age of 30, with Allen in fourth place.
At the end of the year Drake finished second in the National U17 5km over a short course and Ginney Birch was awarded the National Trophy for the year for her national 10,000m record of 47: 57.3s which was the first time the trophy had ever been presented to a woman. She was also awarded the Best Women’s trophy.
Early in 1986 Beverley smashed the British 10km Road walking record in 47:21 in the Southern Championships, only to discover that the course was short. Then in May she took the National 5km road title at Sheffield in 23.30. Drake was fifth in 25:25.15s and Brown placed sixth, and led the Steyning team to victory.
Also Julie Drake won the English Schools senior 5km title, a title that Brown had won in 1982 and 1983 in 25:10s. She was to successfully defend it a year later in 1987. Julie was selected to represent English Schools at the Schools International match in Nice, while Beverley placed second in an international 5k against Sweden at Plymouth.
1988 saw Julie, at just 19, win the National 10km Road title at Hoddesdon and break 50 minutes for the first time with 49:26s. It was also the year that she finished 11th in the World U20 5000m Championships in 24.37.42s.
With both Ginney Birch and Beverley Allen easing off competitions at the end of 1988 the hopes of further international success was resting on the shoulders of Drake, who was only just out of her teens, and she would not let Sussex walking down.
There was a third place and PB for her in the W.A.A.A 10,000m track championships at Leeds in 48:55s in 1989. This was also a trials race for the Commonwealth Games in New Zealand the following January. There was much concern when she was overlooked by the mainly Northern Walking selectors for a Sheffield woman, who she had beaten in the trials and other events. The reason given was that Julie 'suffers in the heat.' She said: "This was my biggest disappointment in athletics and I have never really got over it."
It resulted in Julie taking off several months, after proving her supremacy, and in 1992 she 
took part in the London marathon so it was virtually a walk free year.
In early 1990 she suffered a couple of defeats by Sheffield international Betty Sworoswski, who had qualified to walk in British competitions, at Sheffield and again at Redditch in fast times of 47:28 and 47:49, but come May she was in great form in another Scandinavian international match. She was dragged to a new British 10,000m record in 45:53.5s, bettering Sworoswki’s time by 43 seconds.
In the World Championships in Tokyo, Julie finished 39th in 49:47s in very hot conditions, and her next competition was in 1992 when she was the fourth Sussex woman to finish the London Marathon in 2:58:22. The following year, she finished third in the inaugural Sussex Women’s Steeplechase Championship at Broadbridge Heath in 12:26.8s.
1993 there was a second place in an indoor 3000m match against the USA at Birmingham in a new British Record of 13:18.63s - a record she improved in the World Indoor Championships at Toronto clocking 13:12.01 in the heat.
A second place in the 5000m at the A.A.A championships at Birmingham in 22:37.47s and 42nd place in the World 10,000 Champs at Stuttgart 50:22 and another British record in the Men’s 20-mile and Women’s 20km National Road Walking Championships at Battersea. Both races started together but Julie was the only woman who took advantage of racing with the men and she was actually lying third overall at the end of her race but the men had another seven and one half miles to go. Julie’s time of 96:58.6s was some four minutes faster than the previous record. Unfortunately a couple of months later the course was found to be some 100 metres under distance so the time was never ratified.
What was virtually her swansong came at Christ’s Hospital in the R.W.A 20km Championships in 108:46.
She never retired but stopped racing and turned to mainly running and triathlons with Arena 80. In 2005 she won the Sussex 3000m championship at Crawley in 14:50.62s while five years later she was the first woman and sixth overall finisher in the Steyning “Open” 10km road walk in 54.38s. In a good class field she would still have been able, despite being in the W40 age group to have challen
ged the best in Britain if she was still training for race walking.
In 2014 she was the winner of the Jack Fitzgerald Memorial Walk at Crawley and as recent as 2019 she again won the Boxing Day walk 35 years after her very first walking race.
For thirteen years she has regularly competed in Park Runs throughout the Country and will no doubt be running again when they are renewed. Her last effort being at Brockenhurst of the 7th March.
Julie holds three of the four recognised Sussex race walking records clocking 13:12.01s for the 3,000m indoors in 1993, 22:37.47s for the 5,000m, and 45:53.9s in 1990 for the 10,000m in and is second behind Jo Hesketh (Steyning) with 108:46s in 1992 to the record time of 107:50s in 2003 for 20km.
On the Sussex All-time lists Allen with 13:37.1s is third over 3000m in 1987 behind Drake and Sophie Hales (Steyning) in 13:37.1s in 2004 and Birch fourth in 13:44.0s in 1984. Over 5,000m Allen is second behind Drake in 23:15.04s in 1987 and Birch is third in 23.20.0s in 1985 while at 10,000m, former British record holder Birch is second behind Drake in 47:56.3s in 1985 and Allen third with 47:58.3s in 1987.
Such was the standard of Drake that she is still third on the British 10,000m All-time list twenty years on with Birch seventh and Allen eighth. Drake is also seventh on the British 5,000m list and tenth over 3,000m.
There can be no doubt that Julie Drake is the greatest Sussex woman walker of all time.