Did you ever know that you're my hero, and everything I would like to be?

The names on a club's trophies in a sense celebrate the sporting heros of that club ... but more on that later ....

The track and field programme at Calliope is now in full swing folks.

Wednesday Jan 27th sees the running of the Tim Hutchings 1500 metre trophy event at the Calliope athletic Club. A crowd of proportions is expected for this long anticipated epic dual among the top track stars at the club.

The Tim Hutchings Trophy is one of the newer cups amongst the clubs collection. Unlike the Bill Taylor Trophy which is age and gender graded, this race is a purely scratch event. Also it is a one off event; whereas the Bill Taylor is held over four events. I have waxed eloquently on this before.

Tim Hutchings was a  top UK athlete, who spent a period in New Zealand in the 1980's and, not surprisingly, had an association with the famous Calliope Club. He is featured here on the Sporting Heros site.

After his retirement Tim became a TV commentator for many of the great world athletic events.

Here is a photo of Tim running in the 5000 m at the AAA championships in 1986.

The 1500 will consist of 5 laps of the 300 metre track at the Osborne Memorial Park in Birkenhead.

For most of the 20th century it was the mile that captured the imagination of the public, particularly as it was associated with the 4 minute barrier.

So the 1500 came to be known as the metric mile, although it is around 109.3 metres short of the full mile distance.

The world record for the 1500 is 3:26 set by Hicham El Guerrouj in 1998. Here is a patchy view of the race.

I suspect there will be no attempt at this world record at Calliope on Wednesday night!

And contrary to some false reports, Zindal Osgood will not be making a comeback to act as pacemaker - so please put that entirely ridiculous rumour to rest folks.