WITH London 2012 in full swing, it might be apposite to look back at the Olympic achievement of a modest man from Worcester who stunned the athletic world back in 1936 when he anchored the British relay team to gold in the 4 x 400m relay.

The thin man with the thick glasses and mop of unruly hair who broke the tape for Britain that day at the Games in Berlin went on to become one of Worcester’s bestknown and longest serving grammar school headmasters.

Godfrey Brown (more familiar by his initials AGK) was in charge of Worcester Royal Grammar School for 28 years from 1950 until 1978.

He retired to live in Sussex and died in 1995, but never lost his love of the athletics track and the Olympics.

He always declined to comment on the antics of Adolph Hitler, who famously walked out of the Berlin stadium after black American Jesse Owens won the 100 metres.

Keeping politics out of sport was at the heart of the amateur creed of which Brown, born in India and son of a missionary college principal, was a prime exponent.

Not doing much by way of training was another characteristic of the English amateur.

Brown, however, did rather more than most, and worked out his own routine of miles and miles of slow jogging for an hour and a half a day, relying on the Olympic heats to bring him to top form for the 400 metres final.

Despite drawing the difficult outside lane, he ran a marvellous race and was only narrowly beaten by the favourite, Archie Williams of the United States, to the gold medal. In the process, he set a new European record and knocked a full second off his best previous time, but he felt he could have done better.

A shy, reserved man with a typically stiff British upper lip, Brown never let his true feelings known, but his greatest moment was to follow hard on his greatest disappointment.

He was chosen to run the final leg of the 4 x 400m relay against strong American and German teams.

Alongside Brown, who was in his second year at Cambridge University reading history, the British team consisted of Freddie Wolff, Bill Roberts, a powerful quarter-miler who had just missed a bronze in the 400m individual event, and Godfrey Rampling, an Army officer and relay silver medallist from the 1932 Olympics.

Preparation for the race was wonderfully unscientific.

Duncanson and Collins recalled Rampling saying: “Look here chaps, we really ought to practise some baton-changing,” but adding: “We soon got bored and packed it in.”

However, Brown was less casual.

He had watched the Americans and was convinced the British had the talent to win. Wolff ran an indifferent first leg but Rampling ran a great second lap, making up the deficit and giving Roberts a slight lead, which he extended to six metres.

On an exciting last lap Brown left the American Al Fitch struggling in his wake as he cruised away, bringing home the gold medal in style by 15 metres. It was Britain’s only track gold medal of the games and Arthur Godfrey Kilner Brown was still only 21.