Oxford’s most famous sportsman bar none, the first sub-four-minute mile runner Sir Roger Bannister, is commemorated in a new sculpture unveiled two week’s ago by his widow at the University’s elite sports club Vincent’s.

The work of the celebrated South African wildlife sculptor Bruce Little, it depicts Bannister crossing the line at the Iffley Road track on the momentous day of May 6, 1954.

Display of the work in Vincent’s club house could hardly be more appropriate, since Sir Roger had been the club’s president for the year 1949/50 and made it the venue for celebrations following the record run.

As Simon Lee wrote in his history marking the club’s 150th anniversary in 2013, this was “the defining moment in the club’s public profile”.

This is not to forget the 1964 visit of The Beatles to Vincent’s, which was arranged by Jeffrey Archer – the later politician, novelist and jailbird – who had persuaded them to perform at a charity event for Oxfam. Archer was a member of the club at the time; indeed, still is, for election to the club is for life.

Simon Lee added: “When [Bannister] and others involved went to Vincent’s to celebrate that evening, the fame of the Club was confirmed.

“The seemingly exhausted and straining Roger Bannister at the finishing line, with much going on inside the track, is an abiding image of greatness in sport, as is the picture of the world’s first sub-four-minute miler with his two pacemakers, Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, shortly afterwards, a byword for fellowship in sport.”

The unveiling of the sculpture by Lady Bannister (Moyra) took place during a happy event at which her two daughters Carol and Charlotte were also present. The latter is well-known in Oxford as the Rev Charlotte Bannister-Parker, the associate priest at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin.

This event was the presentation of the 2019 Vincent’s Club Awards to 17 of the university’s leading sportswomen and men. Funded from a pot this year of £28,000 generously donated by supporters, these assist recipients in balancing their sport and study commitments by reducing their need to do paid work (or raiding The Bank of Mum and Dad).

Sir Roger was an enthusiastic supporter of the scheme and regularly attended to congratulate the students, the last time two years ago, a few months before his death, aged 88, in March of last year.

This year’s awards were presented, as is traditional, by the University’s Chancellor, Lord Patten of Barnes, who was welcomed to the club by its president, Harry Fitzpatrick.

Lord Patten said: “I am delighted to be here again. Vincent’s does a wonderful job in the University and these awards are particularly important in allowing their recipients not only to deliver their essays on time or go to the lab sufficiently frequently but also to pursue their sporting interests as well.”

He hailed Roger Bannister as “a wonderful example of the corinthianism that ought to be a leitmotif of Oxford sport”.

Lady Bannister also addressed the matter of the work/sports balance, reminding us that Sir Roger was not a workaholic but a man who loved a party.

“He would love to have been here tonight and he would have shaken everybody’s hand and congratulated them on what they do.

“His scheme here in Oxford was to try to convince all the dons he knew not to turn a boy or girl down because they were good at sport.

“It enraged him when people said, ‘The rower would take too much time off, so we can’t have a rower.’ Nonsense. All statistics show they do better.”

Running her eyes around the club walls, she said: “There’s a photo of Roger somewhere here and he looks about 12 in it. At that time he had to take a team to America. He was captain and the chaps in the team were all older ex-servicemen who had been in the war. We still had rationing, and when he saw platters with meat falling over the sides, he saw the chances of winning anything evaporating.

“Young as he was, he had to tell the team members, ‘Please moderate your diet, or you won’t win a single thing.’”

Lord Patten told the company what an “enormously kind” man Sir Roger had been and supplied a story to illustrate the point.

“He found out – I don’t know how – that my wife’s father, who was killed in the Second World War in Normandy, had run in the 1936 Olympics and held the high hurdles and championship record until the late 1960s. Roger went through every athletics book he had to find every reference to my wife’s father and photocopied them and presented them to me.”

Truly, as the Vincent’s president Harry Fitzpatrick said: “It is very difficult to think of any past member who represented [the club’s] values as effortlessly and well as Roger Bannister did.”