JACK HOLDEN was a British international track, cross-country and marathon runner who underlined the extraordinary length of his sporting career when he won the European marathon championship in Brussels in 1950. Wearing a blanket over his shorts and vest, he was presented in the royal box to Prince Baudoin of Belgium. Having been four times the international cross-country champion before the Second World War, Holden bowed. “Glad to meet you, sir, ” he said. “Met your father and grandfather before you.”

Recalling this, when in his nineties, the old Tipton Harrier chuckled: “You couldn’t arrange to meet three Belgian kings, not even in a pack of cards.”

Born in Bilston, Staffordshire, the John Thomas Holden was first interested in boxing and had a few bouts while he was working in a foundry. But after watching a three-mile race, organised by a local publican, he decided to have a go himself, was first home and earned the prize of a pig. Years later, quite erroneously, this prize caused his amateur status to be queried. Even when working as a groundsman at a local sausage factory he had to be described as a labourer because of the amateur laws.

Holden was to represent England in the International cross-country for ten years, 1929-39, and won the race in 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1939. Having served in the RAF for five years during the war, he finished sixth — first Englishman home — when the event was resumed in 1946.

Four times the AAA marathon champion between 1947 and 1950, as well as three times the AAA six miles track winner before the war, perhaps the bitterest disappointment of his remarkable career came in the 1948 London Olympics. A possible marathon winner, Holden was in the lead when severe blistering of his feet caused him to drop out after 17 of the 26 miles and 385 yards.

Encouraged by his wife, Holden came back in 1949, and in Auckland, February 1950, he won the Empire Games title in two hours 32 minutes 57 seconds — having run the last nine miles barefoot when his waterlogged plimsolls burst, and avoided a great dane which leapt out of the crowd at him.

Six months later Holden completed a remarkable double when he won the European marathon title by 32 seconds after some gamesmanship in the dressing room with the Russian runners. “I pointed at the Union Jack on my vest and said it would be the last time they’d be seeing it until the finish. For me it was all about King George against Joe Stalin when I finally pulled away from them.”

Jack Holden, runner, was born on March 13, 1907. He died on March 7, 2004, aged 96.