THE MAURICE BURTON WAY
Maurice Burton and Paul Jones
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On a still summer evening in June 1974, Maurice Burton rode away from an elite field, on the broad concrete loop of Leicester’s Saffron Lane Velodrome, to become Britain’s first ever Black cycling champion. The event was televised; his parents were watching at home. For his Dad, it was a moment of intense pride; Rennal arrived in 1948 from Jamaica and made his home in South London, a member of the Windrush generation. Now he watched as his 18-year-old son climbed onto the podium to receive his flowers and the red, white, and blue striped national jersey. Boos rang out around the stadium.
The crowd’s response to Burton in 1974 was symptomatic of the treatment meted out to him by the cycling establishment and wider society: racism, calculated indifference, and exclusion. After being overlooked for Olympic selection despite beating those selected, he turned his back on the UK and moved to Belgium where he rode professionally on the “6-day” circuit across Europe and around the world; a rolling circus of intense indoor racing; a realm of extreme effort, heroes, villains, spectacular triumphs and savage falls. He was the first black 6-day rider since the era of Major Taylor, some 75 years before. He rubbed shoulders with Eddy Merckx, Felice Gimondi, Patrick Sercu, and a legion of household names, riding against and beating the best, night after night.
His career was cut short by a life-threatening injury at the Buenos Aires track in 1984. He returned to London and eked out a living as a cycle courier, before taking on De Ver Cycles in Norbury and becoming a successful business owner in South London and a community leader. Maurice Burton is a cultural and sporting pioneer, a visible representation of triumph over adversity.
“I was never encouraged at school, I never felt I was outstanding at anything. There had to be more for me, a way out.”
THE MAURICE BURTON WAY is the authorised biography of Maurice Burton, written by Paul Jones. It brings his story to the forefront of the British sporting narrative, and reasserts his place as a pioneer in our collective cultural history. The book looks in detail at his formative years, his experiences as a child of a Windrush generation father, his parents’ marriage and their challenges as a mixed race couple in 1950s Britain, as well as his experiences growing up in South London. It moves through Burton’s experiences cycling in the UK, before switching to the continental 6-day circus; in Gent, Berlin, Milan, Paris, Buenos Aires, and Amsterdam, then his return to London in 1984 and success within the cycling industry. It is a vivid and inspirational account of a life lived to the fullest, in the face of huge challenges.
