About Us
Club History
The origin of the club can be traced back to the start of the second world war. In 1939, the engineering firm of Mellor Bromley was one of the leading industrial companies in the city of Leicester. A cycling club was formed as a part of the company’s social activity programme. It was named “The Mellor Bromley Cycling Club”. This club adopted the MB logo, already used on the knitting machinery manufactured by the company. However, the club was soon to be disbanded following the death of one of its members in a road accident.
Soon after this, a young man named Norman Yeadon decided to re-establish a cycling club, broadly to carry on where the Mellor Bromley club had left off. Norman had joined Mellor Bromley at the age of thirteen and had become a cycling enthusiast along with several friends (including Audrey Colyer – later to become Mrs Pattison). Norman founded his cycling club in 1942 from interested youngsters from both Mellor Bromley and the British United Shoe Machinery Company. As a simple expedient, it was decided to continue to use the MB badge logo but to rename the club “The Midland Bohemians”. Present Ratae Road Club members who joined Norman’s club at that time were Colin Pattison and Jim and Thelma York.
The club flourished during the war years; one of the annual fixtures was the Easter Camp at Whatstandwell near Cromford in Derbyshire. There were frequent early morning games of football; intended to restore blood circulation after a night under canvas in near-freezing temperatures. In fact, football became a significant secondary interest of club members with tea stops on club runs being planned for locations with an adjacent field suitable for a game. As time went on, interest in time trialling and massed start racing developed even more keenly amongst some members and led to friction amongst the membership at large. Matters came to a head following a club run to Fillongley near Coventry, when it was resolved to form a new club dedicated to cycling. In February, 1950, a club run met at the Shoulder of Mutton public house in Foxton where the decision was taken to form a new club, as yet un-named. Jim York took on the mantle of club secretary, having already occupied this position for the Midland Bohemians, and retained that job until 1955 when Dennis Lillicrapp took over.
During this period, the need for a new name and logo was addressed; suggestions were sought from the membership eventually leading to a competition organized by the committee. Ratae (the Roman name for Leicester) and a logo consisting of a wyvern within a laurel wreath were proposed by Don Billesdon and Dave Wood and this was voted the winner. At about the same time there was a move away from what had been the traditional and mandatory all-black attire for time trialling. However, the club decided to retain a basically black strip but with a diagonal red/green stripe running down from the left shoulder to the right hip. This design was carried to numerous victories by the two club stars, Alan Bland and Denis Oram.
One idiosyncrasy of our club concerns the Annual Dinner. The first Dinner was held at the Manchester Hotel in Knighton Lane East but thereafter has been held at a variety of venues. The number ascribed to each dinner is one more than the age of the club, on account of there being two annual dinners during its first year: the first was held in January 1950 and the second on December 15th. Thereafter, the Annual Dinner has always been held early in December.
