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Webwise Stop surfing around and let AW Basics do the legwork for you instead. Every week we profile the most informative and inspirational sites on the net THE fictional athlete Alf Tupper proved an inspiration to children in comic books from the late 1940s right through to the 1970s. A working class hero, he lived off a diet of fish and chips and overcame his underdog status time and time again to beat his rotten rivals. The Tupper character has stood the test of time, though, because even modern day athletes are often described as “Alf Tupper-style characters”. And now, thanks to the website toughofthetrack.net, his exploits will continue to live on in cyberspace. Newcomers to athletics won’t learn any great advice from researching the history of Tupper, but reading about his exploits are definitely inspirational and the basic themes of hard work, guts, determination and fair play are messages that have, like Tupper, stood the test of time. “Enjoying Alf’s weekly adventures were certainly a factor in why I became a runner, albeit not very good one, after I left school," says website editor Mike Scofield, “having been indoctrinated into this marvellous world of spikes, cinders, athletics clubs, baggy 1960s tracksuits and by the stories in the Victor comic. “I didn’t realise at first how many people remember Alf and his stories with so much affection, but it became clear after some internet searching that this character really did make a mark on the impressionable youth of the 1950s, 1960s then on into the 1990s.” ► READERS interested in Alf Tupper and other comic book sports heroes should read Sporting Supermen by Brendan Gallagher (Aurum Press Ltd). |
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