Arthur Whitford was crowned British gymnastics champion 10 times and became the first person to be individual champion in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The Swansea YMCA gymnast went to the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam as a teenager and was the top British finisher. He also went as coach for two British teams at later Olympics.
Educated at the Hafod Primary School and Glanmor Road Central School, Swansea, Whitford took up gymnastics at the age of 12 at the Vivian Hall. When the club closed in 1924, Whitford and his shoemaker father built a gym in the back garden of their Sketty home. He then joined the Swansea YMCA Gymnastics Club, one of the leading clubs in the UK. Swansea had supplied four of the eight British gymnasts for the 1924 Olympics.
Former army PT instructor, Walter Standish, who was responsible for identifying and coaching the squad of potential Olympic gymnasts for the 1928 Olympic games, got hold of Whitford and steered him to the British title in 1928. He had missed out to Swansea clubmate Bert Cronin in the Welsh championships and both men went to the Games.
In 1933, Whitford opened his own club, the Sketty Olympic gymnastics club. With no British teams entered for the 1932 and 1936 Olympic gymnastics competitions, he wasn’t able to build on his nine successive British titles (1928-36). The prospect of competing in the 1940 Olympic Games brought him out of retirement and he won his 10th British title in 1939. He remained in the sport post WW2 and was involved with the 1948 and 1952 British teams at the Olympic Games in London and Helsinki, when his younger step-brother, Jack Whitford, was a competitor
Arthur John Whitford (Gymnast and coach) Born in Swansea on 2 July, 1908; Died in Swansea on 7 January, 1996
