ISOH Member Greenberg elected to Athletics Hall of Fame

ISOH Member Greenberg elected to Athletics Hall of Fame

by Philip Barker

Long standing ISOH member Stan Greenberg has been inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame in recognition of his contribution to the sport.

“It feels as if now is the right time to honour a man whose knowledge, passion and expertise has graced our sport for more than seven decades,” said Athletics England’s official record of the ceremony.

“There can surely be no journalist, broadcaster or statistician alive who has witnessed as many magical athletics.”

Other inductees have included Harold Abrahams, Paralympic pioneer Sir Ludwig Guttmann, Lord Coe and ISOH founding member Peter Matthews.

A Londoner by birth, Greenberg first attended the 1948 London Olympics at Wembley and was also present at the 2012 Games.

He was a founding member of the National Union of Track Statisticians and worked for many years alongside his great friend Mel Watman and Matthews.

He watched athletics in more than 30 countries and was present at nine Olympics, 13 Commonwealth Games, 13 World Athletics Championships and 13 World Indoor Championships.

A telephone call from athletics expert and Guinness Book of Records co-editor Norris McWhirter led to Greenberg “helping out”  meetings for BBC Television beginning a working relationship of around 30 years in which he worked alongside the legendary commentary team of  David Coleman and Ron Pickering.

At the 1972 Munich Olympics, it was Pickering who insisted that Stan should visit the gymnastics hall to watch one of the emerging stars. Her name? Olga Korbut.

Greenberg also seized the opportunity to meet Jesse Owens. The photo of the pair shaking hands was published in the Journal of Olympic History many years later.

Greenberg also served as Advisory Statistician advisor to the selection committees for British athletics for nearly 30 years.

“It is often said that throughout the late sixties, seventies, eighties and early nineties, there was no-one who would have had a better idea of what was happening in a stadium than Greenberg.”

Greenberg also  authored Olympic Facts and Feats, the Olympic Fact Book and Olympic Games, The Records.

He was awarded the ISOH Vikelas Plaque in 2008 and in 2016 received the Ron Pickering Memorial Award for services to Athletics.

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