Extract from "The Quest for the Four Minute Mile" by Bob Phillips

..... In 1857 the Copenhagen Grounds were opened at the Shears Inn, at Newton Heath, some three miles from the centre of Manchester, and became one of the most important athletics venues in the country. The track, which varied in length during its existence from a third-of-a-mile to 600 yards or slightly over, was described as being “perfectly level, thoroughly drained, with iron girds at the sides and neat but firm wooden railing”. This was a pioneering “stadium” venture because there was also grandstand accommodation for 1000 spectators. 

       The first proprietor, Tommy Hayes, had been a fine distance-runner himself and had famously beaten Johnny Tetlow in a four-mile race at Aintree Racecourse in 1850 for which, it was said, “the major portion of the sporting population of Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and the other great towns” had turned out. Hayes thus recognised that there was money to be made from pedestrianism and he wasted little time in seeking to establish the virtues and reputation of his new arena to draw in the crowds and the bookmakers. 

         On 28 September 1857 Hayes staged a marvellously competitive one-mile match race in which the famed Midlands-based runner, Tommy Horspool, beat John Saville, of Oldham, by four yards and in the process equalled the “World record” of 4min 28sec which had been established by Charley Westhall in London in 1852. Horspool was 27 and had been born in Lancashire but lived at Basford, near Nottingham, where he was a glove knitter by trade. He had won the “Mile Championship” in Sheffield in 1853, had successfully defended it the following year in a time of 4:29, and had twice beaten Saville in 1856.

         Horspool was proclaimed as “English champion” by Hayes, and as there was no governing body to legislate about such matters promoters were at liberty to give their races whatever grandiloquent titles they fancied and to dub the winners accordingly. Horspool was naturally invited back for a further appearance on 12 July the following year. Again he obliged his mentor, as in the words of the reporter from the periodical, “Bell’s Life In London”, he “traversed the ground in the almost incredibly short space of four minutes and twenty-three seconds”, defeating the Manchester professional, Job Smith, by 10 yards. The credibility of records was much enhanced as they were starting to be set on custom-made tracks. 

        Retiring as undefeated champion to become a publican, Horspool left something of a void behind him and Hayes took a year or so to find a worthy successor......