“Oh my goodness me!” screamed ITV’s lead Formulation 1 commentator James Allen, phrases struggling to grasp the sheer craziness of what was being witnessed. “We’ve obtained a lunatic on the observe!”

When a bunch of protestors from Simply Cease Oil invaded the circuit final 12 months throughout the opening lap of the British Grand Prix, it wasn’t Silverstone’s first run-in with observe invaders. Contrarily, 20 years in the past, the 2003 British Grand Prix was 10 laps in earlier than deranged Irish priest Neil Horan sprinted up the fiercely fast Hangar Straight.

Many drivers needed to swerve to keep away from him as Horan, wearing a brown kilt, madly bumped into the racing line of F1 automobiles rushing at 200mph whereas waving banners which learn: “Learn the bible” and “The Bible is all the time proper.”

The consequence might have been catastrophic if it wasn’t for the fast consciousness of the drivers and the marshal stationed at place ‘Hangar 1’. Volunteering on the British Grand Prix as soon as once more, Stephen Inexperienced bumped into the void of the unknown.

“I didn’t actually assume, adrenaline simply kicks in,” Inexperienced, now 72, tells The Impartial. “I made the choice anyway to attend till a lot of the pack had gone previous. I truly watched it final week on YouTube – it looks as if the man is working up there endlessly and a day earlier than I get to him.

“I feel I simply barged into him! Then he fell over and I simply grabbed his wrists and dragged him. There was a white transit van with safety ready behind the particles fence. I keep in mind what I stated to him but it surely’s not printable!”

It was an astonishing scene. Whereas pitch invasions and streakers have for a lot of an extended 12 months popped up at varied sporting occasions throughout the nation, a reside racetrack is a completely totally different scenario altogether. Extra so than any wider trigger, lives within the immediacy are in danger.

For Inexperienced, although, it introduced a way of notoriety not acquainted to the women and men in orange fits. Quickly after, as soon as the police investigation had subsided and Horan was charged with “aggravated trespass”, the marshal was the second man awarded the BARC (British Vehicle Racing Membership) Browning medal for excellent bravery. The primary was David Purley, 21 years earlier, following his makes an attempt to save lots of Roger Williamson from a hearth at Zandvoort.

In the meantime Horan, laicised by the Catholic Church, didn’t cease there; actually, Silverstone was simply the beginning of his weird interventions. A 12 months later, on the 2004 Athens Olympics, he bumped into the trail of lead Brazilian runner Vanderlei de Lima within the males’s marathon and pushed him into the crowds, ruining his path to gold. Months earlier, he was caught by police on the Epsom Derby.

He additionally appeared on Britain’s Received Expertise in 2009, performing an Irish jig. But that day 20 years in the past introduced collectively two very totally different folks from two very totally different walks of life. Some extent not misplaced on Inexperienced when, peculiarly, Horan obtained in contact.

“Surprisingly sufficient, he emailed me 5 years in the past to ask how I used to be,” Inexperienced says. “We exchanged a few emails and that’s about it.

“Unusual chap, let’s assume!”

The topic of protestors is high of the agenda at Silverstone this weekend. If not for final 12 months’s near-catastrophe, then for Simply Cease Oil’s current interventions at Twickenham, the World Snooker Championship, the Ashes and simply this week, Wimbledon.

“At a nationwide occasion, you all the time run the chance of idiots turning up and doing no matter they’ve obtained in thoughts to do,” Inexperienced says. “There was an enormous tightening of safety after the 2003 incident.

“Final 12 months I simply obtained messages from my mates saying ‘why are you not at Silverstone?!’ There’s a distinction between Simply Cease Oil and Horan although, I feel everybody would say that Simply Cease Oil are literally making an attempt to realize one thing.

“Motorsport is fortunate in lots of ways in which we don’t get as a lot as we might’ve performed. It is extremely tightly managed – given F1 goes everywhere in the world, I feel it does fairly effectively.”

Inexperienced, who nonetheless marshals at occasions throughout the UK after earlier F1 stints within the Center-East in addition to Silverstone, had the rarest of race interactions on that day in ‘03. F1 and the police are on red-alert this Sunday to make sure a repeat doesn’t happen, with the menace degree at an all-time excessive.