BOLTON running greats Steve Kenyon and Ron Hill will feature in a new 'legends' team at the Manchester Marathon this month.

Kenyon, from Harwood, and Olympian Hill, who is not from the town but represented Bolton Harriers during his illustrious heyday, will form half of a four-strong relay team which will also include former top athletes Bashir Hussain and Jackie Newton.

The idea to have a relay team at the Manchester event on April 19 was hatched by 76-year-old Hill who contacted Kenyon – who has run the fastest ever Manchester Marathon, 2hrs 11mins 50secs, when he won it in 1981 – to ask if he was interested in taking part.

"Ron said he was putting together a corporate relay team to do four stages of the Manchester Marathon and did I want to be part of it," said Kenyon, the second oldest of the team at 63.

"I'm just coming back from a bad injury I got when I did the Trotters 5 (Burnden Road Runners' annual five-mile race at Smithills) last year when I went over on my ankle and my leg was a right mess.

"It stopped me from running for nine months. I've been getting back slowly but still only up to four miles at the moment and building it up.

"The other two are the youngsters of the team so I'll run the shortest stage of about five or six miles – it gives me something to train towards."

As well as holding the record for the fastest time in the Manchester Marathon's history, Kenyon was also the last British winner of the Great North Run – in 1985 – until Mo Farah won it last year.

He unfortunately missed out on his best chance of competing at an Olympics due to injury in 1984, but was AAAs marathon champion in 1982 and third in the New York Marathon in 1979.

Hill won the Manchester Marathon in 1969, held world records at four different distances and competed at two Olympic Games.