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Sam Watt, his brother and his father were all members of Clydesdale Harriers in the period immediately before the First World War.   They lived at Lenzie Moss Farm outside Cumbernauld.   Sam was easily the best athlete in the family and on five international cross-country vests as well as winning the SAAA Four Miles title.

He first won major races in season 1908/09.   The annual Clydesdale Harriers 7 Mile Handicap and Team Race was held from Scotstoun Showgrounds and was one of the biggest events on the calendar.  In 1908 it took place on 14^th November and the report in the Glasgow Herald read: “The annual team race and handicap promoted by Clydesdale Harriers took place from the Glasgow Agricultural Society’s Show Grounds at Scotstoun on Saturday afternoon.   The former event was open to all who are eligible to take part in a district championship and the latter to all amateurs.   Twenty one of the best clubs in Scotland were represented in the team race.   Each team comprised six runners.   The first three men home counted in the lowest aggregate for their club.   For the handicap the record entry of 118 was secured – scratch men in the handicap evets were A McPhee, jnr, Clydesdale Harriers, Sam Stevenson, Clydesdale Harriers, and George McKenzie, West of Scotland Harriers, who conceded handicap starts up to seven minutes.   The distance of the race was seven miles, and over the double course.   The trail was laid by members of the Garscube Harriers who were familiar with the topography of the district.   About half an hour after the advertised time, the stewards marshalled the runners (over 200 in number) and a start was soon made, and as was natural in such a crush, there was some jostling before they spread out.   Racing was keen in the leading division.   A McPhee headed the pack on leaving the grounds and on the first round being complete McPhee, Watt and Rodger were in the lead side by side.   The finish caused great excitement and the first three past the post were:   1.   A McPhee, jnr, Clydesdale Harriers (time 45 mins  35 secs),  2.   SS Watt, Clydesdale Harriers (46 min 01 sec), 3.   WG Rodger, West of Scotland, ( 46 min  07sec).  Actual placings, etc, were made known at the social event after the meeting in Glasgow YMCA Institute in the evening.”

The club championship was held over 9 miles in January 1909 and here again he finished second to McPhee with Olympian Sam Stevenson third.   This was followed by the club confined two miles flat race in which he finished second (to RP White this time) with Sam Stevenson again third.   These set him up nicely for the national cross country championship in March which was won by McPhee with Watt in eighth place which was good enough to earn selection for the international.   This was his first appearance in the event and with the team finishing third, he came home with a bronze medal.  It might have been brighter for McPhee fell early on and finished thirty fourth with Jack three places behind him and Stevenson lost a shoe shortly after the start and had to drop out.   Nevertheless it had been a good year for him.

Into the 1909/10 winter season and his first noteworthy appearance was on November 13^th in the 7 Miles handicap and team contest at Scotstoun where he was second – again to McPhee with John Templeman of Bellahouston Harriers third.   On 20^th  November in the club 5 miles handicap, although unplaced in the handicap, he was the fastest man over the course.   In the nine mile club championships and team race at Thornliebank, he was  the clear winner, taking his first club championship title beating McPhee and fellow Scottish internationalist Alex Mann in the process.   He also led home the winning team.   It was now on to the national championship where he had a bit of an off-day and finished won in 21^st place.   There was no international race in 1910 for Sam Watt.,

The national was held that year (1911) on 4^th March in Pollok and Watt won for his first national winners medal.   Shields reports on the race:

“Watt … won the national from 100 competitors representing eight clubs at Sheep Farm Park in Pollok where a large and enthusiastic crowd lined the track.   Watt won by 50 yards from J Duffy who finished runner-up for the second time.”

The Glasgow Herald gave more description of the race: “The preliminary circuit of the ground was completed at a fast pace and the crowd passed out of the grounds almost as closely packed as at the start.   J Duffy (Edinburgh H) was in front, closely followed by A McPhee (Clydesdale) and RF Gilbert (West of Scotland).   Reaching Pollokshaws Road the competitors turned northwards to the old tramway terminus at the Round Toll.   Here, turning into the Barrhead road, they faced a strong westerly wind, which proved very trying on trhe hevy cross-country ground which was immediately entered upon.   The course extended as far to the south west as Kennishead, when the men turned northward joining the River Cart and entering the Pollok grounds at the western extremity of the Pollok Golf Course.   On passing Pollok House the leader was S Watt, Clydesdale Harriers, fully 50 yards in front of J Duffy with Templeman, one of the individual competitors, in third place.   Here it was learned that Alexander McPhee, Clydesdale Harriers, the individual champion for the last two years had retired.   The leaders however seemed to be travelling comfortably, also as it turned out that there was no change to the first three places excepting that the distance between first and second was considerably increased with Watt eventually winning by about 200 yards from Duffy.” 

The international that year was held at Caerleon Park in Wales and both Rangers FC and Celtic FC helped to send the team to contest the international.   Shields again:

“In 1911 snow had fallen heavily for several days prior to the race but a trail of colpoured paper had been laid over a thick cover of snow.   However just an hour or two before the race started, a snow storm covered the laid trail.   The organisers immediately recruited a number of Welsh cross-country runners who were present as spectators, provided them with running kit, and stationed them as stewards with hand flags at strategic points around the course to guide the competitors round the trail.”      Watt finished, as Shields says, ‘a disappointing fourth’ with GCL Wallach being first Scot home in third place.   The team was again third.

Summer 1911 saw Sam collect two SAAA track championship medals, one of which was gold.   On 7th May at Hampden he won the Ten Miles championship from A Kerr and WA Ramsay in 54 min 56.4 sec.    He raced sparingly but he saw no difficulty in turning out for the club on 22nd June at Portobello in Edinburgh in  a one mile team race.   The report said that “West of Scotland athletes had cause to plume themselves on their successes at the Edinburgh Harrier Clubs’  Coronation Sports held at the Marine Gardens, Portobello on Thursday.   A Mann, Clydesdale Harriers, probably the best road runner in Scotland over long distances, won the 11 1/2 mile Marathon race by nearly half a mile , and the Clydesdale Harriers, who were represented by SS Watt, A McPhee, G Findlay and A Loch secured the Mile team race after an exciting tussle with their oldest of opponents, the Edinburgh Harriers.   Watt, who beat WG Dawson by inches for first place, disclosed surprising form and great power of finishing; G Findlay, the old Glasgow High School boy, performed most creditably in gaining fourth place, just behind T Jack, the 10 miles record holder, and some yards ahead of McPhee.” 

Just two days later in the Four Miles at the SAAA Track and Field Championships at Hampden on 24th June, he was third behind GCL Wallach (Greenock Glenpark Harriers) and J Duffy (Edinburgh Harriers), Wallach’s time being 20 min 41.4 sec.   As a consequence, he was selected along with Wallach and Duffy to run in the Scoto-Irish International at Ball’s Bridge, Dublin on 15th July.   Here he finished fourth with Wallach taking the victory.   Reports at the time said that Wallach just did enough to win because he was saving himself for another race: whatever the reason, there was only bronze for Watt this time.

There were races all over the country at this time of the year and at a meeting in Beith, organised by the local football club, on 1st July, Watt was one of the back markers along with Wallach  in  the Three Miles Handicap race.   “1.   H Hughes, West of Scotland Harriers, 170 yds;   2.   A Loch, Clydesdale Harriers, 170 yds;   3.   GH Ramsay, Edinburgh Harriers, 170 yds.   There were 25 starters in this race.   Wallach, the champion was scratch, but he did not put in an appearance.    The back markers, including SS Watt, Clydesdale Harriers, made very little impression on the placed men, and retired at different stages.   Hughes in the last lap fell, but recovered quickly and maintaining an easy pace won by 15 yards, While Loch just got the better of Ramsay to win by a foot for second place.   Time: 14 min 33 sec.”

Clearly running well, Watt did not turn out in any of the remaining important meetings that summer – not even the Rangers Sports or the Celtic Sports saw him in action.

Watt’s second club championship victory was on 20th January 2012 in the race which was held at Paisley Pavilion.   He won from Alex Loch and Robert Findlay – Watt and Frew would go on to represent Scotland in the international championship later that year.      The club’s seven miles confined handicap was held on 10th February with an East race at Gartsherrie and a West Race at Clydebank.  Watt won the Gartsherrie  race from Alex Loch and Robert Frew and went in to the National Championship on 2nd March with two good wins behind him.

It should be pointed out that at this time, Clydesdale Harriers had a policy of not using their best runners in the West District cross-country championships, preferring to use it to give experience to younger and up-and-coming runners so that athletes like Watt who were among the very best when they were young men, never ran in the District championships at all.   The championship was held at Scotstoun and Watt led for the first lap of the two lap course.   Tom Jack from Edinburgh took over in the second lap and in what was described as ‘the closest finish ever seen in a national championship’ with only four seconds covering the first three runners.   Result:  1.   T Jack;   2.   A Kerr (Motherwell);   3.   SS Watt.   The other Clydesdale men to finish were Loch (4), Findlay (12), Mann (15), McPhee (20) and Frew (28) and the total of 81 points placed them second.   Watt and Loch were chosen for the Scottish team to compete in the international championship at Saughton Park in April on 30th March.   Bouin of France won the race and the Scottish team was second behind England: unfortunately for Clydesdale, Watt did not finish and Loch in 25th was out of the scoring six runners so that no international silver came the way of the club!

There was almost certainly some connection between that poor run  and his non-appearance at Hawkhill Grounds on 7th April to defend his 10 miles track title as the ‘Glasgow Herald’  noted that he had been ill and unable to train.   That fact plus the absence of Wallach who was ‘unable to travel’ undoubtedly robbed the event of some of its attraction although it was won by Tom Jack, albeit in a much slower time than the previous year.   Absent for most of the first part of the season, he also missed the SAAA championships on 15th June but by August he was racing again and won the half-mile handicap at the Rangers FC Sports from a mark of 55 yards beating Thomson of Bellahouston Harriers off 69 yards, and Alex McPhee, who was now running for West of Scotland Harriers) off 60 yards.   The winning time was 1:54.2 after a hectic race with all three fighting it out up the finishing straight.   Interestingly enough, he missed the Three Miles despite the fact tan Hannes Kolehmainen was taking part, and the Mile which was won by Duncan McPhee.   On 10th August at the Celtic FC Sports he was again out in the half-mile where he failed to qualify for the final – nor did George Dallas of Maryhill, the other on the same mark.   He was entered for the two miles invitation race on the following Tuesday but however well he ran, he wasn’t in the first four in that race.   He went into winter 1912/13 in good form.

Watt was absent from the annual seven miles handicap and team race on 9th November (the course went round Scotstounhill, Knightswood, Anniesland, Crow Road and Jordanhill) but on 23rd November 1912 he won the club’s 5 miles open handicap at Anniesland from a youngster called Duncan McPhee.   McPhee was the younger brother of Watt’s old rival Alex and would go on to become club captain before leaving the club for some reason and joining up with West of Scotland.   McPhee was fourth in the club championships and team race held on 18th January at Maryhill where Watt was again victorious with Findlay second and JC Thomson.   Watt, McPhee and Peter McGregor were drawn in the same team which finished second.   In the seven miles confined handicap held on 15th February, Watt had the fastest time in a race won by William Henderson, which set him up for the national championships on 1st March at Scotstoun.   Archie Craig of Bellahouston Harriers won by 40 yards from A McDonald, Monkland Harriers, with Watt only two seconds away in third.   Juvisy Aerodrome in Paris was the venue for the race in 1913 and Watt finished seventeenth for the Scottish team.

Again absent for the first half of the season and missing both the Ten Miles in April and Four Miles in June he made a winning appearance at the Rangers Sports on 2nd August when he won the Open Handicap mile off 40 yards in 4:35.4.    Nor was he prominent in the winter 1913/14 season but he led the club team home in the national and did well enough personally to qualify for the international team.   This was held at Chesham in Buckinghamshire and Watt in twentieth place was last scoring runner for the Scotland team which finished second.

Watt’s career, like that of so many others, ended with the 1914/18 War .    It had been a good one with gold, silver and bronze individual and team medals at club, Scottish and international levels and with international vests won on the track and over the country.

AP Findlay

 Lanark Racecourse where the first cross-country championship was held.   Racing was conducted here until 1977 and for several years the course was walkable: it is now country park.

AP Findlay was the first Scottish national cross-country champion and was a stone mason from Ayr (Home address: 66 Main Street, Ayr).   A football player and runner, he won titles over the country and on the track, and when the Ayr Section of Clydesdale Harriers became independent of the parent club, it was marked with a joint run at which Findlay represented the new club as its first president.

Clydesdale Harriers had been founded in May 1885 and Edinburgh Harriers in September of that year and it natural that some kind of inter-club contest be arranged.   It was set up and organised by a sub-committee of the SAAA to be held at Lanark Racecourse on 13th March 1886.   Eleven runners took part – seven from Edinburgh and four from Clydesdale.    The race started at 4:15 in pouring rain and Colin Shields tells us that total gate receipts were 2/- (ie 10p).    With admission charges of 6d, there must have been four paying spectators watching eleven men who were running for over an hour passing before then three or four times!    Findlay, who was at that time mainly a football player, led the field through 10 miles of heavy grassland and won in 62:57 with DS Duncan of Edinburgh second.   There were complaints that the course was under-distance – a charge rebutted in no uncertain fashion by DS Duncan who said that “the course was over 10 miles and up to a dozen Scots runners could cover 10 miles in under an hour.”   When news of Findlay’s win reached his home town of Ayr, preparations were made to meet him off the Glasgow train which would arrive at 9:12 pm.   He was not on that train so an even bigger crowd turned out to meet the next train at 11:20 pm, but again there was no Findlay so the crowd just went home.   Next morning Findlay arrived at 7:40 having walked from Barrhead to Kilmarnock to catch the first train to Ayr on the Sunday morning.

On 28th June 1886, Findlay won the SAAA Ten Miles Track Championship at Powderhall Grounds in Edinburgh in 55:16.8.   He was the only competitor to finish.   This was the first ever national title race over the distance and in the course of the race he set national records for 3 miles (15:54), 5 miles (26:41.0), 6 miles (32:12.0), 7 miles (38:03.0), 8 miles (44:01.0), and 9 miles (49:53.0) as well as for 10  miles with the winning time.   This record lasted until 1891 and John Keddie in his centenary history of the SAAA commented:   “The first SAAA 10 miles championship was held in 1896.   On the Monday after the championship meeting, at Powderhall, the Ayr footballer, AP Findlay, who earlier in the year had won the first Scottish cross-country title, padded round the track forty times to win in total isolation as no other competitor finished.   The next week he was down in London for the AAA race and finished a brave third behind WH Coad (SLH).   On only one other occasion did a Scot place in the first three of the AAA 10 miles before the end of the century and that was when Andrew Hannah (Clydesdale H), like Findlay placed third.” 

He did not run in the National Championship in season 1886/87 but won two SAAA track titles in 1887.   Running as he often did during the summer under the banner of Ayr Football Club, Findlay won the inaugural championship over Four Miles on 25th June, 1887,  at the SAAA Championships at Hampden Park in 21:30.   John Keddie has this to say about the race (and about Findlay): “The first four mile champion was AP Findlay (Ayr FC).   He was already the 10 miles champion and record holder for all distances from 3 miles to 10 miles, except, oddly enough, the 4 miles, but his records had all been set in a 10 miles race, whereas the four miles record (21:16.6) had been set by WM Gabriel (EUAC) in a 4 mile race.   By the next championship Findlay, a small even paced sort of runner, had emigrated to the USA.”   Findlay won the Ten Miles for the second successive year on 27th June at Powderhall in 55:21.6 from W Henderson.

The Scottish Cross-Country Association was set up in season 1887/88 and immediately set out to curb the Clydesdale Harriers power.   The club had set up sections in various parts of the West of Scotland – five in Glasgow alone – and attracted members from all over the country.   Their top men from the various sections all ran as Clydesdale Harriers in the national.   The new Association immediately set three rules on the topic:

1.   Only athletes who lived within a 20 miles radius of the club headquarters would be eligible to run for that club;

2.   Athletes must have completed 5 qualifying Saturday runs from club headquarters before being eligible to represent the club in National championships.

This was seen by Clydesdale Harriers as unacceptable and they set up their own body – the Scottish Harriers Union – and held their own championships with sections racing against each other but refused to join the SCCA.    They did however run in the SCCA championships since this was the only real race of the winter.   In season 1887/88, the club championships were held at the Racecourse Paisley and Headquarters ran against all sections with the exception of Falkirk fielding teams of 10 (5 to count).   It was intended to be over 8 miles but after the first mile was covered in 5 minutes, the trail was accidentally lengthened to 12 miles.   Findlay won by 2 seconds from R Graham with W Henderson 2 minutes behind him.     The official national championships were held at  Hawkhill Park in Leith and again Findlay won.   Shields describes the race as follows: “An excellent event was held at Hawkhill with seven of the runners in the inaugural 1886 championship competing.   Four clubs contested the championship – Clydesdale, Edinburgh, West of Scotland and Kilmarnock – covering a varied 2 lap nine mile course.   The runners covered 600 yards of the cinder track, onto Restalrig Road, across ploughed fields to Craigentinny Farm passing by St Margarets Gasworks and Lochend Road to enter by the main gate.   AP Findlay led from the start, being closely followed by a pack of 6 Clydesdale Harriers and A Robertson (Edinburgh).   Findlay eventually finished a clear winner with Clydesdale scoring an overwhelming victory with 23 points.”   Andrew Hannah was second and J Campbell third.   A bit more detail about the race was given by George Dallas in ’50 Years of Athletics’:    “When Findlay won again in 1888 all the runners went off the trail and Findlay was blamed (probably unjustly) for leading the field astray.   He could keep going indefinitely and the competitors ran about 16 miles that day – some arriving back in cabs and other conveyances.   One or two had to have their shoes cut off in the main streets of Ayr and finished barefooted in the snow and slush and darkness.”   An interesting description – especially the bit about runners in Ayr when Shields tells us that the race was run in Leith!

He continued his good form into the summer and again won the Ten Miles title – the third successive win..   This was won on 7th April at Powderhall in 55:33 from DS Duncan and P Addison.   Unfortunately, when he was running well again, as has been noted above Findlay emigrated to America and Scotland lost another talented distance runner.

James Campbell

James Campbell won the Scottish Cross-Country Championship in 1887 – the second man to do so.

James Campbell came from Helensburgh and had the nickname ‘Teuch’, meaning tough.   Having run in the first ever Scottish Cross Country Championships in 1886 at Lanark Racecourse which was won by AP Findlay (also Clydesdale Harriers) he won the title himself in the second Championships in 1887 run from Hampden Park in Glasgow.    He already had a good record: in 1886 he had been second in the Clydesdale Harriers first ever club championships.   In the words of Colin Shields in the official history of cross country running in Scotland, ‘Whatever the Weather’, “Clydesdale Harriers held their first championships from the Ranfurly Hotel, Bridge of Weir through heavy snow with thick mist limiting their visibility to just 30 yards.   The course was seven miles in length – three miles less than originally intended and WM Thomson won the championships by just ten yards from James Campbell.”

 The race for the second National Championships was held on 19^th March 1887 and was held over 12 miles.   A grand football match between East and West was held during the race and the announcement that the half time and full time results of the international between England and Scotland would be announced helped to attract 600 paying spectators.   The race started in Hampden Park, which at that time was in the middle of the country, and went four times round the track, out of the stadium to the country over Mount Florida, past Hundred Acre Park into Castlemilk Estate, back through Rutherglen to the stadium, then one lap of the stadium completed the first of four laps.   The race was won by James Campbell in 1 hour 14 minutes 24 seconds from his club mate W Henderson.

 James was a good club man too and worked on the Dunbartonshire Section Committee.   He lived at this time in Sinclair Street in Helensburgh which had almost all of the club’s members – 16 of the 20 in the Dunbartonshire Local Section lived there, the other four being from Dumbarton.   The speed with which the sport was spreading in all parts of the country was partly evidenced by the fact that in two years the section had grown to 62 members from the whole of the county.   By 1889/90 he was section captain.

His competitive record over the next few years was good.   In season 1887/88 his track record included 2 firsts and 2 thirds in a scanty programme.   In 1889/90, there were three first places and three seconds.

Clydesdale Harriers split from the Scottish Cross Country Association in 1889 over what it saw as discriminatory legislation and set up the Scottish Harriers Union in which its own sections competed against each other with virtually all of the best men in the country involved.   Before the split was healed, there were parallel Scottish Championships.   In 1890 Charles Pennycook won the SHU Championship from Andrew Hannah in February and then two weeks later the ‘official’ SCCA Championships were held and the race was reported thus by Colin Shields in his history of Cross Country Running in Scotland: “A fast start by the Clydesdale pair Andrew Hannah and James Campbell spread-eagled the field.   The Clydesdale runners together with A Robertson and D McKinlay (both Edinburgh) led at half distance, and it was with just two miles to go that Hannah raced clear of the leading group to win in 52 min 56 sec over 120 yards ahead of Robertson with 1887 champion James Campbell in third place.”

 By 1890/91, having been local captain for three years, he was the Dunbartonshire local vice president. He had one first, two seconds and a third to his name in summer 1891.   Came the cross country season he was first in the Dunbartonshire section cross country championship and third in the National Cross Country Championship won by team mate Andrew Hannah.

By 1891/92 he held no office on the Committee and his racing record was one first and four thirds. He did not return to the committee but his summer racing was as good as ever.   In 1892/93 he had three firsts, seven seconds and a third.   The club stopped printing the athletes’ racing successes that year in an effort to save printing costs but he appears in the club handbook as a club member until 1900 when the handbook ceased to print names and addresses of members.

James Campbell was a doctor by profession – a fairly stark contrast to his predecessor as national cross country champion AP Findlay who was a stone-mason to trade.   You can see from the portrait photographs that he was a professional man.   Nevertheless he was a hard, hard racer who lived up to his nickname, never being afraid to go with or even set the pace against opponents of all standards.