'I want to run 100m at 100' - The remarkable 90-year-old Yorkshireman still competing in athletics

“Maybe I am an inspiration,” he notes. “Several people have called me a legend. It’s strange really. I feel like I’m a very, very well-blessed person.”

It’s three years this month since Tony suffered a stroke, which put a pause on his sporting streak, at least for a little while.

"I was completely paralysed,” he says. “But because I was so fit at the time, it didn’t take too long to recover. I continually worked at keeping active.”

Tony spent eight days in hospital before he was discharged to his home in Guiseley on the outskirts of Leeds.

There’s lasting consequences - but it hasn’t stopped him from still taking part in track and field events after becoming a nonagenarian earlier this year.

"The stroke affected my right hand side,” Tony says. “What I do now with hurdles is I run to them and step over them. I haven’t got a spring in my right leg to hurdle properly so I step them now.”

In September, Tony took part in the British Masters Athletic Federation’s (BMAF) track and field championships in Derby.

"Whatever I competed in, I was guaranteed to do well,” he says. After all, he was the only runner in his track events in the 90-plus age category.

Tony had competition in the field events but still walked away with a haul of five gold medals in the 100m, 200m, long jump, triple jump and 80m hurdle events. He took home silvers in discuss, javelin and shotput.

Tony had also wanted to compete at last month’s European Masters Athletics Championships in Madeira but “because of my age and condition, I can’t get insurance,” he says, the disappointment evident in his voice.

“I’ve always been a very competitive person. I always try to test myself. I’m still doing it because I love feeling fit - I train three times a week. It’s been part of my life all of my life.”

Tony first took part in athletics when he was at junior school in Middlesex, keen on sprinting and hurdling and winning prizes from an early age.

He remembers as a teen going to watch the 1948 London Olympics with his father and seeing Arthur Wint win Jamaica's first Olympic gold medal for the 400 metres. “It gave me great inspiration,” he says.

His parents, “two ordinary people who were interested in sport”, were always encouraging. “They’d be extremely proud of me (today),” Tony reflects. “In fact, when I’m competing, I often think of them sitting in the stands and cheering me on.”

In his late 20s, Tony took a break from competing as an athlete, instead finding sporting enjoyment in both tennis and hockey. But he found his way back to athletics 20 years later as a ‘master athlete’ – the name given to anyone aged 35 and upwards taking part in events.

Since then, to use the words of Leeds City Athletics Club, where Tony is a member, he has “broken more records than it is possible to keep track of”.

At the age of 71, he became the oldest winner to lift the trophy in the famous 110m New Year Sprint at Musselburgh, also known as the Powderhall Sprint.

Then, at 85, he broke the British M85 200m record, carving more than four seconds off the previous time.

“I enjoy competition, feeling fit, and the exhilaration when I’m competing,” he says. “And the camaraderie between us all because you keep meeting the same faces year in and year out, talking about good times and bad times.”

Tony has had his fair share of the latter, particularly in his later years. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he lost his wife to the virus, as well as suffering from the illness himself.

He’s also had problems in the past with his heart health and has previously been treated at Leeds General Infirmary for an abnormal heart rhythm.

"I had two heart attacks when I was about 70,” he says, noting that he’s also suffered from heart failure.

"They rushed me to hospital and I thought I was on my last legs,” he recalled in a past interview. “In fact, I said goodbye to people at home. I didn’t think I was coming back, but they pulled me round.”

Tony believes the key to keeping fit in his twilight years is to “do everything in short bursts”, but says “I am very fortunate and must have the right genes”.

Aside from athletics, he also keeps active with dancing, enjoying the likes of ballroom, salsa, and the cha cha cha. He and his dance partner once reached the last 100 of the Strictly Dance Fever television programme.

"We also won a Strictly Come Dancing competition on a cruise, with Craig Revel Horwood judging,” Tony says. "We get lots of compliments on our dancing.”

At 90, despite his health issues, Tony has no intentions of giving up his sport just yet. In fact, he’s aiming for another decade in athletics – and has had the same goal in mind for several years.

The adrenaline rush from competing is “unbelievable” he says. “When you’re competing, especially if you’re winning it’s a marvellous feeling.

“After I go training, when I come back, I have a shower, sit down with a cup of tea and feel like a million dollars.”

“Before I had a stroke, my ambition was to run 100 metres when I was 100 and live to 120,” he adds.

“I don’t feel at all bad at the moment. I will keep on running for as long as I can because I absolutely love it.”