Johannesburg Harriers Athletic Club

The club was founded on the 27th January 1904 in one of the lounges on the first floor of the Carlton Hotel. On that day a score of people gathered to discuss the formation of a sporting club to give some recreation to the citizens who had been attracted to the town. Discussion went on till a late hour and when those 20 odd people emerged to the street below, they had firmly laid the foundations of "The Johannesburg Harriers and Athletic Club".

 

But it is easier to form than to build, it is easier to build than maintain. Who amongst those 20 odd people ever imagined that they had started something that was to last not merely for the days of their own youthfullness or even their own lifetimes, but for the generations to come - for their children and their children's children.

 

So it was and so it is. The Johannesburg Harriers and Athletic Club has survived. It has survived two World Wars. It has outlived an economic blizzard. It has overcome it's own economic insolvency, it's occasional dwindling membership. And like a ship battered about on the high seas, the club has grimly faced and beaten the lack of it's own home, a roof over it's head. Like the children of Israel it has wandered the dessert of Sinai, and like the children of the Voortrekkers of Afrikanerdom, it has had the indomnable spirit to survive, and to breath and disseminate the voice of sportmanship, good fellowship, decency, humbleness in victory and honour in defeat. "Celer et Liber" - swift and free has been it's motto through all it's years of existance, and the many members who have graced it's colours, have upheld it's tradition to the highest peak. Let all those members of the past, let all those members of the present and most certainly of the future read these pages with an external pride in belonging to 'The Harriers'.