W A (John) Jordan
1920 - 2006
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John
was one of the original founding members of the Club and was also our
1st Club Captain from 1949 to 1952. He has been our President
since 1980. The Club would like to extend our deepest sympathy
to Pam and to his family.
There
was a minute's silence following his passing at the home fixture with
Potton in his memory.
John
Jordan's funeral was on Tuesday 11th April. 2pm at Sandy Church.
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A man of many
parts
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From
racing Cars....
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....to
flying aeroplanes
The Spitfire above, AB910, is the last
survivor of all the 232 Spitfires flown by John.
'Biggles' is of
course well known for many aerial exploits
famous and infamous
We will not embarrass him by listing them
here.
John was born in
Sandy near the town centre roundabout and as a youth used to race up
and down the nearby tomato field in souped up
cars he had modified himself. During the Second War he worked as a
transport pilot flying new planes across the Atlantic and delivering
them to airfields around the country.
After the war
wanting to play rugby and not happy to sit on the bench at the Wanderers
he helped start the Club. He went looking for a suitable field for a
pitch when there was a field right next to the mill – Capon’s Meadow.
John was club captain from the start in 1949 for the first three years.
He was an immense figure in those early days helping with the pitches,
the first clubhouse and of course the bar. More details of the
early history of the Club can be read in “Fifty Years of the Biggy
Boys” some copies of which are still available.
John has been
President since 1980 and has guided the association through many
difficult years retaining his enthusiasm and love of the Club and the
game throughout. John was
80 on December 9th 2000.
Some archive pictures of the late Mr
John Jordan,
former Biggleswade Rugby Club president and founder member. His
passions were aeroplanes, rugby and motor-racing and he owned some
fantastic cars including an ex Le Mans Ford
GT40 which
he raced in the lat 1960s!
 This picture is of John
in his McLaren M8e taken in the mid 1970s at Silverstone. The car has a fearsome
7 litre engine and was built for the Can-Am series in the USA. John
raced it in the mid to late 70s and held the Silverstone
club circuit lap record.
 This is John’s Lola T330 Formula
5000 being
driven at (pos Snetterton) by Tony
Trimmer in
May 1984. Mr Jordan owned a number of Lola’s which were built (and
still are) at Huntingdon. John did drive the Lola’s himself mainly in Formula
Libreraces
 The last picture is of
the BRM P230 Formula One “ground effects” car of
1979. It was part of the assets of BRM brought by John
Jordan and
was to be run as a Jordan-BRM. The car was built to compete in the 1979
Grand prix season but BRM ran out of cash before it could be developed, only ever completing a shake-down run at Donnington driven by Neil Betteridge.
Included in the assets were other F1 BRM cars including one that was
rebuilt for the Aurora British F1 Series
and driven by Tony Trimmer, for team Jordan-BRM ( not to be confused
with the fictitious “Jordan BRM” team that stared in the film Grand
Prix)!!
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