SATURDAY night was the greatest evening in the history of British athletics, and one of Wycombe’s own sport stars was in the Olympic Park to see it.
Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah all won Olympic gold medals in a frantic 45-minute burst that drove the 80,000 fans packed inside the stadium to delirium.
Ennis, the face of the Games, set the scene when she won the heptathlon. Farah was next on track in the 10,000, and while he was running to victory Rutherford, from north Bucks, won the long jump.
Sitting in the stands at the start of the home straight was High Wycombe cricket captain Matthew Eyles.
He said: “I was there all day and it was amazing.
“I’ve been to Ashes Tests and football matches, but I’d never heard anything like it before. It was ridiculous.
“First you had Jess, but everyone expected her to win. With Mo you weren’t sure and when he was going round the last bend the noise was absolutely unbelievable.
“With about 60m to go you knew he was going to win, but coming around the last bend you didn’t know and everyone was going bananas.
“He definitely the one I wanted to win most. He seems like such a nice guy so it was genuinely feeling happy for him.
“And he was so pumped up before the start. Just warming up, he was revving up the crowd jumping up and down and pumping his fist and really getting the crowd going.
“I was thinking, ‘you’ve still got 10,000m to run yet’.”
Farah’s win completed a track and field hat-trick for Team GB that ramped up the excitement to fever pitch.
Eyles said: “It was the most incredible 45 minutes in sporting history in Britain. It happened so fast and the crowd got so hyped for it. It was phenomenal.
“And we had tickets for the Velodrome last night too. We were so close we could have pushed them off their bikes. It was fantastic.
“So I had a good weekend, but I’m paying for it now.”
In his absence, Wycombe drew with Harpenden but remain on top of the Home Counties League.
Eyles said: “I got the tickets ages ago. I don’t like missing cricket, but I don’t know how I could have turned this down.”
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