Bill Teasdale: Shepherd and legendary runner who won Yorkshire Dales fell races with broken ankle and head wounds dies

Bill Teasdale was known for winning races even after sustaining injuries including a broken ankle and head wounds that required numerous stitches – which he would later remove himself.

During his pomp in the 1940s and 50s, he was so famous in the north that he was considered as much of a sporting celebrity as footballer Stanley Matthews, cricketer Len Hutton and runner Roger Bannister. He lived in the Eden Valley, but was a regular at fell races attached to several Yorkshire country shows.

His death was confirmed by fellow fell runner Roger Ingham to the Craven Herald.

Teasdale won the Kilnsey Crag Race twice while bleeding from his head, once because another competitor had landed on top of him during a notorious 40ft vertical drop. At the Dent Sports village competition, he finished first with a broken ankle.

He won Kilnsey seven times and broke the Ingleborough Mountain Race record in 1952 by more than six minutes. Due to amateur regulations, he competed mainly at agricultural shows and village games, but in 1954 illicitly entered the Vaux Lake District Mountain Trial, and finished more than half an hour ahead of the man who was officially awarded the victory.

The only other fell running legend Teasdale could not best was gamekeeper Ernest Dalzell, whose record in the Burnsall Classic set in 1910 stood for nearly 70 years. Dalzell was killed in World War One, and Teasdale came closest to his time in a 1953 attempt before Fred Reeves finally broke the record in 1977.