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Athletics in the Beginning.

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Although Scotland’s records do not go as far back as the Tailtean Games in Ireland, yet what we have prove the love of athletics among the Picts, Scots and the gregarious Celts.   From the chief downwards, athletics was the joy of the Gael, indeed the chief was often the most accomplished.   At his door lay the ‘clachneart’, literally the stone of strength or the putting stone and on the arrival of a guest he was asked as a compliment to throw it.   The chief’s followers, and those of his guests engaged in all manly sports, and as the honour of the clan was at stake, it is surmised that in the strenuous contests more heads than records were broken.   The Fraser chiefs were noted athletes, and the father of the late Lord Lovat – an excellent sportsman – was an expert stone and hammer thrower.

In a manuscript lately come to light entitled: ‘Ane breve cronicle of the Erles of Ross’, an account is given of how an earldom was gained by prowess in wrestling.   At the coronation of Edward I there was among those attached to his court in London a famous French wrestler from Normandy who was considered invincible.   But during the gay doings, he was challenged by Farquhar Ross from the North of Scotland, a vassal to the Scottish king Alexander II, and to the amazement and delight of the Scottish king, his wife and a sister of Edward , and the Scottish guests, Farquhar overthrew and signally vanquished the unbeaten champion.   So delighted was King Alexander over his countryman’s ‘notabill vassalage’, as he called it,  that he conferred the Earldom of Ross upon him.   To celebrate his victory and to carry out a vow that he had made, Farquhar erected an abbey, now no longer in existence, but its successor in Kincardine, Ross-shire is still used as the Parish Church.

At the great royal hunts which took place at Braemar and which often lasted for a fortnight, many chiefs with their followers took part.   Malcolm II started at one of these ‘hunts’ the first recorded ‘Games’ by offering as a prize a sword and a purse of gold to the first man to reach, in a race, the summit of Craig Choinneach.   Two McGregor brothers were favourites, but a third and younger brother, who was late in starting won after a terrific struggle.

It was not however till 1832 that the first organised Braemar Gathering took place.   Queen Victoria was keenly interested in these sports, and in 1889 invited society to Balmoral.   Later the Duke of Fife gave the present Princess Royal Park where the meeting is now held.   The clansmen gather at the spot where the Jacobite standard was unfurled in 1715 – which event is commemorated in ‘The Standard on the Braes o’Mar’ – and march to the sports ground.

Since the year 1314 without a break, except during the Great War, the Ceres Games, founded to celebrate the return of the victorious Fife villagers from the Battle of Bannockburn, have been held annually.   It is remarkable that the name of the Fife agricultural village, Ceres, is that of the Latin goddess, Ceres, the protectress of agriculture and in whose honour great sports were instituted.

Carnwath in Lanarkshire holds annually a meeting of great antiquity.   The Red Hose race is the principal event, and local and popular tradition has it that in the event of the Carnwath estate becoming heir-less, the latest winner of the ‘Hose’ would become proprietor!

Under the shadow of the Duke of Argyll’s stately castle at Inveraray, a gathering of the western clans’ representative pipers, strong men and runners has been held for centuries.   Running was a feature of this meeting, for the chiefs of old encouraged their ‘gille-ruith’, or running footmen, to excel in the Geal-ruith, or running and leaping  games.

Among great athletes in Scotland, the two whose names were, and still are, in the mouths of everyone, were Captain Barclay of Ury and Donald Dinnie.   The former was a great and up-to-date land proprietor in Kincardineshire.   Sprung from an ancient and physically powerful family, he lived during the later part of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth.   Educated at Cambridge, he early joined the army and served as ADC to the GOC of the ill-fated Walcheren Expedition.   He was though of little more than average size, possessed of a great strength, speed and remarkable powers of endurance.   Of the latter his great feat of walking 1000 miles in 1000 hours – that is one mile for every hour, was a record to his stamina.   Others who tried this feat broke down at an early stage, but he continued for a period of 42 days and though he lost much weight was at the finish wonderfully fit.   He was a great runner, walker, wrestler and stone-thrower,  and thus resembled Dinnie, who was born in Aberdeenshire in 1837.   Strange to say, Dinnie’s best performances were done when he was approaching forty years of age, and when fifty eight years old was the recognised all-round champion of New Zealand.   Dinnie was undoubtedly the best athlete of his time, and in addition to being heavy-weight champion, excelled in wrestling, leaping, vaulting, running and dancing.

Over a century ago, the Borders had a remarkable man, Will o’Phaup, so called for his farm in the Ettrick valley.   Like Dinnie in the North his name was a household word.   His tombstone at Ettrick Kirk records that for feats of strength and agility, he was not excelled in the kingdom.

In pre-amateur days Scotland was famous for its distance runners, and many feats of endurance are recorded in books dealing with origins and history of Scottish Highland Gatherings.”

Historical Survey

David Scott Duncan: An Appreciation

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David Scott Duncan who, for many years prior to his death was looked upon as the “father” of amateur athletics in Scotland, was born in Monkton House, Inveresk, where his father had farmed for many years.   After a short term in Musselburgh Grammar School, he became a pupil in the Royal High School, Ednburgh, where he remained until he left for the University with a view to qualifying for a legal career.

While in the RHS, he was looked on as a sound scholar, and left with a very good grounding in Latin, Greek, English and French.   He was proxime accessit for the India Prize, and in this competition he was awarded a soecial prize on account of the high standard reached.

While at school he competed successfully at the annual sports; but it was not until 1880 that he took up distance running seriously.   During the following eleven years he won over 150 prizes, and in addition to winning the Scottish Mile Championship five times, he was runner-up three times and held for a short time the records for the two and three miles.   He competed in the AAA Championships and, while never a winner, did faster time at Stamford Bridge than he had ever done in Scotland.   His record for the mile race (4 min 28 sec) stood for some years.

After a short business career in Leith he became the Scottish representative of the Field and continued in this capacity till the Great War.   He was a born journalist; his marvellous memory and intimate acquaintance with all branches of sport gave him a pre-eminent place in the journalistic world; indeed it could be truly said of him that in these islands for many years he stood without a peer in all round knowledge of athletics.

Two years after the founding of the SAAA he took over from Mr AS Paterson, Advocate – a distance runner of distinction – the duties of Secretary, and for the long period of forty years guided the destinies of the Association.    His legal training, scholarship and , above all, his retentive memory fitted him in a high degree for the duties of Secretary, and whether in furthering the athletic contest with Ireland, or in conference with sister countries he worthily upheld the interests of his own.

He was a golfer of more than average ability, being a “scratch” player when he captained the RHS Golf Club, indeed, his method drew, on one occasion from a champion golfer and a friend of his own, the remark “Man, David, if you hit the ball on the back swing, you would be the longest driver in Britain!”   For a time he was the captain of the Royal Musselburgh Golf Club.   In the royal burgh by the sea members of the club still recal his eloquence, fine diction and humour when he presided at their annual dinner.

The Golfing Annual, of which he was editor, stands as a memorial to his research and hard work.   In laying the foundation of this work he met most of the great golfers of his time, many of whom became his fast friends.   But he was at hs best during the visits toIreland with the Scottish international team, and while always anxious for a Scottish win, never failed to congratulate an Irish opponent on a brilliant performance.   As a time keeper and judge, he excelled, and one recalls his indignation when in 1908 at the Olympic Games in London and apparently pre-arranged attempt to shoulder Captain Halswell off the track in the memorable 400 metres race was made, and failed.   It is no secret that in this race, which Duncan judged, it was he who broke the tape when he saw the foul, and “no race” was unanimously declared.

The sentiments of the writer, who met “DSD” for the first time in 1883, and those of his numerous friends, were well stated by an eminent member of the SRU: “He was one of the whitest men I ever knew.”

KW

Athletics in the beginning

Foreword

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FOREWORD

Y50 I Colq

In writing the foreword to Fifty Years of Amateur Athletics in Scotland, I am conscious of the value of the work both as a record of past endeavour and as a guide to future policy.

Our first introduction to athletics is generally gained at school, and it is interesting to remark the extraordinary progress that has been made in cultivating that fertile ground since the inception of the Scottish Amateur Athletic Association in 1883.   At the present moment organised games and sports are as much an accepted feature of school curriculum as are arithmetic or history, and are generally admitted to be of equal importance.

There are those who consider that undue stress is laid upon the physical side of scholastic life, but for myself I cannot admit it.   The average boy is full of a superabundance of energy which must find an outlet.   If that energy be directed into a proper channel, it can be made a vital factor in the building of the boy’s character.   If it be not so directed, it will find an egress in ways altogether undesirable.   The Victorians visualised high spirits as a waste product, which must be eliminated by disciplined suppression.   Our modern view teaches that boyish energy is a by-product of infinite value which can be used with results altogether beneficial, and that games and athletics supply that anchor-hold, that definite background during the critical period of adolescence without which the majority of us would give Satan a congenial task in finding “mischief still for idle hands to do”.

It is difficult to realise the extent to which sport I its many branches has influenced the character of the British nation.   They have given to us, in my view, a balanced judgment, a complete immunity to panic, and a good humoured tolerance which must surely be the despair of the agitator and the revolutionary.

I hold that at the moment Great Britain is the only country where a natural democracy exists.   Democracy demands a common meeting ground, a community of interest.   Sport provides that, and I know of nothing that could take its place.

If we value flattery, then we may claim that the world has accorded us the sincerest form by imitating our methods, by accepting our standards and our valuations with an enthusiasm that we can only marvel at.    What the effect on the diverse mentalities of other races than our own will be, we can only surmise, for national character is not formed in a generation.   Perhaps the lessons they learned from sport will differ from those we have absorbed.   However that may be, I feel they cannot be bad, but, on the contrary, must be good and beneficial in the highest degree.   This book contains a record of Scotland’s contribution to the world of amateur athletics – and indeed it is not a small one.   In it are names honourably known far beyond the Scottish borders, names of men in every walk of life, wh have upheld the high traditions of our race on the athletic field.

We can look in retrospect on that first meeting under Scottish Amateur Athletic Association rules, held in 1883, and trace the rapid growth and development in everything pertaining to the sport until the present day.

We cannot compare the champions of old with the present day athlete – and who wants to?   Their times may have been greater and their distances less, but the conditions under which they competed were inferior in every respect.   Let us, then, leave them that niche they ever hold in the memory f their countrymen; for their hearts were in the right place, which, indeed, is all that matters.   In achieving the position that it holds today, the Scottish Amateur Athletic Association has had no easy road to travel, and all praise is due to those who have guided its destinies along the thorny path of control.

The Editors of this publication have earned the thanks of all Scottish sportsmen for their meticulous care in chronicling events of so great an interest, and for leaving us a record of the traditional and characteristic athletics of our country, and of those who gained fame in the fields of high endeavour.

IAIN COLQUHOUN

Editor’s Note

EDITOR’S NOTE

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It has been truly written that “of the making of many books there is no end”, and in issuing this volume in commemoration of fifty years of activity in the administration and development of amateur athletics in Scotland, the Scottish Amateur Athletic Association adds itself to the increasing numbers of those who desire through the medium of the printed page to mark an important epoch in their life-story.

Owing to the loss of the minute books of the earliest years of the Association it is not possible to give a complete narrative of its origin; nevertheless an endeavour has been made to present a coherent story of its fifty years of existence.   The Editors beg to acknowledge with gratitude the contributions made to this publication by Messrs W Reid (“Diogenes”), JK Ballantyne of Walkerburn, W Maley and WA Whitton, Inverness.   Further acknowledgement is also gratefully made to athletic club officials and others for facilities given by them for the reproduction of many of the illustrations.

Especial thanks are also due to Messrs J Gilbert, T Jack, and J McCulloch (All ex-Presidents of the SAAA) for their valuable contribution to the compilation of the statistical section.

To those whose privilege irt is to gaze down through the mists of the past years this book may help to illumine the memories of their youth, whilst to those whose vision is directed towards the future may it prove a real inspiration to carry on a service so ably begun and to sustain a tradition so worthily created by their predecessors.

Kenneth Whitton

David A Jamieson

Joint Editors

SAAA Office Bearers and Committee

Memories Of A Sports Promoter

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MEMORIES OF A SPORTS PROMOTER

By William Maley

“Just by way of a foreword.   This is not a biography.   Business as usual still finds place in my itinerary.   Tell how I got involved in athletics?   A short story.   Pride of place must be given to the lads of the village – Cathcart the village.   You will notice that I am cutting out the hereditary stuff.   We lads used up all our spare time of athletics.   My strong suits were football, quoiting and running.   I had even a short lived reputation as a cricketer.

 One of the chiefs in my office further advanced me.   He was a big noise in the Clydesdale Harriers – Andrew Dick.   My all round abilities, no doubt, convinced him that I was a suitable subject for his club, which had fast been gaining fame for the infinite variety of its publications.   I found myself among the starters for a junior cross country race.   I enjoyed the novelty: was rather pleased at being placed.   Despite the fact that I had touched wood and missed the water, I was soon able to walk normally.

 To the track was the next command.   On the Abercorn ground, Paisley, I appeared with other sprinters and carried off the prize.   Cathcart was en fete that night – having no Band or Provost, neither turned out.   Pot-hunting I have ever abhorred, so I confined myself to winning an odd prize here and there.   As a matter of fact I kept on doing that sort of thing until one breezy afternoon I varied things by winning the 100 yards championship (SAAU).   I mustn’t go ahead of the pistol. As I had been pushed into it, so I pushed my brother Tom, and right well he responded.   He made his debut at the Queens Park Sports and collared the Open 100.   That is how we celebrated the Jubilee Year (1887).

 Celtic the new football club absorbed me and my time ever since.    Hence the foreword.   Why not sports for the new club?   Why not, indeed!   The MacLeans had their own boat, we will have our own sports.   Hard work it was to convince the Committee, but ably backed up by my brother Tom and the late J.H. McLaughlin I succeeded.   Some audacious deed was that.   Our old enclosure at Dalmarnock Street was all right as a football ground, but as a sports holding enclosure it left much to be desired.   Willing workers had made the ground; they did their best to produce a track.   Certainly it did look well – so long as it was not used.   It bore strong kinsmanship to a garden path.   I am mindful of course that there were very few good tracks at that period.   In the Western area, Hampden stood out as the best.

 At Westmarch, Paisley, then St Mirren ground, Bob Hindle had brought the track to a pretty high state of perfection.   Two Saturdays had been allotted for my first venture as sports promoter.   Filling the bill was the next problem.   The five-a-side stuff for junior and senior players was all right, so too the confined events for the players; but what of track events?   Would the cyclists face the risks that our primitive track presented?   Could we induce the cyclists to patronise our maiden effort?   The answers were in the affirmative.

 Just when the difficulty of apportioning the events had come into being, came a message of help from a good friend of mine in the Manchester area, a member of Salford Harriers.   “’Sonny Morton, Kibblewhite and Parry will run at your preliminary meet if you can arrange an event.”   “Arrange an event?   Most surely; come along with them” was my reply.   I am constrained to say that the visit of this famous trio was the forerunner of circumstances of like nature which made our sports the great feature they were.   Great success were these runners.   Morton’s wondrous finishing sprint simply carried the crowd off their feet and made the doubting Thomases on my committee have faith.   A picturesque wee figure was Morton, and his colour scheme of green and gold delighted.”

 So much for the first sports held at Celtic Park; the second were equally successful with Secretary being Willie Maley and Clerk of the Course Tom Maley.   Reel forward to 1892.

 “Our sports of 1892 were – well mammoth is the best term of description.   I best remember them by the trick the weather clerk worked on us.   Opened the day, sultry and warm. Trooped through the ‘stiles in their thousands the spectators.   What a bill of fare was to be at their disposal!   Out of the heat came an electric storm – as the Yanks call a severe lightning and thunder storm – mercilessly the clouds let loose their contents, and it was a badly soaked crowd which saw the sports from this intervention until the end.   It was simply unbelievable the grip that the sports had on them, for despite the weather they waited to the end.   No words are necessary to tell of the fare and the men – tribute enough was thus given.

I can never forget our first meeting on our present ground.   Here is the bill of fare for the second.   A galaxy of talent: Charlie Bradley, EC Bredin, FE Bacon, Geo. Crossland, Godfrey Shaw, AJ Gould, J King, C Pearce, Teddy Messenger, with the home talent supplying Alf Downer, DR McCulloch, Tom Donovan, A Hannah, S Duffus, H Barr, JR Gow, J Campbell, J Rodgers   together with cyclists of the best type from all three countries.

I have set out to tell you how I came into the sports vortex as competitor and as sports promoter.   My appearance as legislator and President I may not tell, that is with the members of the SAAA.

If in such capacity I fell short, or in any way lacked the brilliance of former occupants of that high office, I can at least claim that gave of my best for the best and for the general good of amateur athletics.”

Cross Country Running in Scotland

 

Sports Miscellany: 22nd July 1912

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[Published the day after the Olympics closing sessions]

Melvin Sheppard, JE Meredith and H Braun were running at Berlin yesterday.   Their next appearance is at Buda Pest, after which they journey to Scotland where they hope to spend a couple of weeks.   Then they go to England, and after running at Manchester, return home for the American championships in September.

*

The Rangers FC are holding a two-day meeting after all – a decision which will be greatly appreciated by all our athletes, who on the whole have not been over-employed all season.   Monday will, as usual, be given over largely to football of the five-a-side order, and six of the leading teams will be invited to take part in the competition.   Besides the usual handicaps there will be several invitation races, the distance of which will be settled when it is known who will be coming to Glasgow for this meeting.

*

Kilbirnie Ladeside Football Club are running a sports meeting on Saturday.   The programme will consist of the orthodox handicaps, with the addition of a three miles event, in which all the better known distance runners will take part.   Duncan McPhee, the discovery of the season, will run, and it will be interesting to see how he fares with the shorter marks he is sure to get in view of his recent successes at Beith and Ayr.   At neither of these meetings was he stretched, and it just about time his resources were subjected to a severer test than he has yet been asked to face.   His win in the mile at Ayr involved little more than a canter.   At some stages, in fact, he had to put the drag on, so as not to win by too much.   No runner has ripened so rapidly as Duncan McPhee of Clydesdale Harriers.

*

JHD Watson, who has come into prominence  as a long jumper this season (he scored a brilliant win in the international at Powderhall on Saturday) will captain Edinburgh Academicals in the rugby field next season in place of  JMB Scott who is said to have retired from the game definitely, which of course remains to be seen.   Watson is a fine all-round sportsman, being good at almost everything he takes up, and he has a variegated career as while representing Scotland as he did against Ireland on Saturday, he is said to have declined a Rugby decoration from the Scottish Football Union owing to his English associations.   Watson will make an excellent successor to Scott, and the fine rugby traditions of the Academicals will certainly not suffer in his hands.

*

 The announcement that Hannes Kolehmainen is to run at Rangers FC Sports has given great satisfaction in athletic circles, and the ‘light blues’ are to be congratulated on their enterprise.   Of the many imposing figures at Stockholm, Kolehmainen was by no means the least; as a matter of fact he has been exalted to the highest position among Olympic winners through having secured three firsts.  The Finn is great over distances ranging from two to ten miles, and is in this respect another Shrubb, whose records at Ibrox Park in 1904 still hold the field.   Kolehmainen still has designs on Shrubb’s figures and it is just possible that Rangers will include a distance race in their programme    with a view to affording this great runner an opportunity of dispossessing Shrubb’s times of the pre-eminence they have so long enjoyed.

*

The Celtic directors met on Friday afternoon and reviewed the arrangements made by Mr William Maley for the sports next month.    These, it is scarcely necessary to say,  are on a very enterprising scale – as enterprising as in 1908 when several American Olympic champions ran at Parkhead.   It is understood that Messrs Lippincott, Meredith and Sheppard are certain starters, and it is just possible that there may be others.   These are all record smashers.   Lippincott and Meredith will be strangers but Sheppard has been both at Ibrox and Parkhead and few will forget his performances at these grounds.   Sheppard is as great as ever over distances ranging from 440 yards to a mile; indeed, we should say that he has no equal anywhere over these distances.   It is rare to see a man who is first-class over 440 yards also first-class at a mile.   Sheppard embodies this threefold distinction and, though he does not come to Glasgow as Olympic champion, as in 1908 he comes as one who figured with great distinction in all three events at Stockholm.

*

The suggestion thrown out by the racing reporter of “The Herald” that the executive of the Ayr Racecourse should include Fair Saturday in their July programme has caused something like consternation in the ranks of the Ayr United Football Club who have had that day for the last twenty years for their sports.   No other day in the summer calendar will suit them and the Race Committee know what will inevitably flow from any attempt on their part to appropriate Fair Saturday.   As it is, the races during the Glasgow holiday week have taken largely from the interest hitherto shown in the sports, and it is believed that an enlargement of the programme on the lines suggested by the racing reporter of “The Herald” simply means death to the sports.   Up to the present Mr Shaw has worked cordially with the Ayr United FC Sports Committee and in more ways than one has shown an interest in the sports.   But, however tempting an increase from two to three days racing may seem, there is reason to believe that in the meantime at least the executive have no intention of falling in with the suggestion to annex Fair Saturday.

*

There are over 100 entries – to be precise the number is 1033 – for the Army Championships at Aldershot on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.   It is only natural such a portentous list should include many whose names are well known in athletic and other sporting circles.   Lieut RJ Simson, the rugby three-quarter back for instance, will run in the 100 yards,over which he had a good reputation  at Edinburgh Academy, and there are others who have also distinguished themselves in the football field.   Lieut Alan Patterson, one of Great Britain’s Olympic team, will figure in the quarter-mile and half-mile, both of which he should win.    Lieutenant Halswell has held these championships, but Army form, as of today, is not of the superlative excellence to which Halswell brought it.   Corporal Hutson, the AAA Four Miles champion, and Sergeant O’Neil of Irish international note, are the leading lights in the distance races.   Hutson, of course, is a great runner, and if he does not win the one mile, the three miles looks a good thing for him.   The Army Championships are a great sporting and social function and Aldershot ill in consequence be a scene of much gaiety and joyous mirth this week.

*

The racing at the supplementary meeting of the Ayr United FC was quite up to expectations.   Evening sport, strange to say, is always of a higher standard than afternoon sport, and the Ayr meeting was no exception in this respect.   Douglas McNicol of Polytechnic Harriers, did not win the 1000 yards but he got second, being only half a dozen yards behind the winner in the fast time of 2 min 17 1-5th sec.   It was a North of England runner who beat McNicol.     The sprints were extra good, the final of the 100 yards resulting in a perfect finish; the proverbial lady’s handkerchief would have covered the lot at the post.

D Macintosh of Bellahouston Harriers (six yards) was the winner.   His maiden win was at the Queen’s Park sports three years ago, and he has broken the tape several times since, though somehow he always hovers on the same mark or thereabouts.   The walk was very diverting, and many would like to see this item more widely recognised by sports clubs.   Everyday athletics are far too serious and austere, and it is events like walking and jumping and obstacles that impart the necessary hilarity.   The cycle races were both interesting and exciting, although Vic Johnston was not in as good form as we have sometimes seen him at Somerset Park.   F Boor, who is coming to the Celtic Sports, beat him in the scratch five miles invitation race after a display of fine racing judgment.   The home riders did well in the open handicaps claiming five out of six prizes.

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