How Durban Athletic Club started
The founding of Durban Athletic Club is synonymous with the start of athletics in Durban - the reason why to this day that the Club uses the City’s Coat-of-Arms in its badge. 130 years after the Club’s founding DAC athletes proudly wear the kit and insignia that has been worn by some of the finest athletes the country has produced.
In 1870 a gymnastics club was formed called Durban Athletic Club which operated in a room off Smith Street. Some members tired of indoor gymnastics and formed a running section of the club. They trained on a flat area of grassland in the centre of town now known as Medwood Gardens. With increasing fitness came the urge to race and before long small meetings were held on the rough and sandy track, with races over irregular distances conforming to no set rules. The number of the Club’s running members grew and in 1879 the Wasps Football Club laid a cinder track around the perimeter of their ground at Mansfield Park. Organised athletics in Natal dates from 1880 when the Wasps Football Club staged a track meeting at their grounds. The sport made further progress with the formation of the Natal Amateur Athletics Association in 1884 whereafter the first Natal Championships were held.
Minutes of club committee meetings suggest that interest in road running began in 1909. In 1910 a committee record indicated discussion about a walking race between Pietermaritzburg and Durban (early anticipation of the Comrades Marathon perhaps?).
Acknowledgement: Adapted from the History of Durban Athletic Club 1879 to 1979 which was written by Vernon Jones to mark the club’s centenary in 1979.
Bob Calder joined DAC in 1931 and won the SA 100 yards championship in 1931, 1933 and 1935. Grace Calder also earned high honours at club and provincial level. Both Bob and Grace went on to serve athletics for many years as President and Secretary/Treasurer of the Natal A.A.A.
Harold and Cliff Sulin joined the Club in 1907 and 1909. The two brothers had won the Natal High Schools 220 yards championship in their final years at school. They went on to play major roles in Natal and South African athletics for more than 50 years.