Clubmen – Page 2 – Anent Scottish Running

Brian McAusland: … and afterwards

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Admin

Leaving the track at Coatbridge – I’m hiding behind Charlie Thomson and Jim Orr.

(If you look closely you’ll see Douglas McDonald, James Austin, Derek McGinley (Clydesdale), Alex Gilmour, Sam Wallace, Pat Morris, Tam Rhodes and Bob Anderson (Cambuslang), Graeme Getty (Bellahouston), Hugh Forgie (Law), Mike Gallacher (Maryhill) and Alex Chalmers (Springburn)

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Second : as an administrator

I came out of the Army in 1958 and was on the Committee in 1961. It was a very different Committee from most in recent years. First, it was always well attended, second there was almost always competition to get on to the Committee at the AGM and third the top jobs were all held by experienced members. You had to wait your turn – which might never come if the others didn’t think you would make a good Secretary, Treasurer or President. I was unlucky that my first important job in the club came when club treasurer Jim Shields was asked to go to India by Singer’s and one January evening I had a rapid course in book keeping in Jim’s house in Vanguard Street. The job lasted until the AGM when Jim Sweeney took over and I became Assistant Secretary for a year then Secretary – the first of four stints in the post. I didn’t mind doing it because most of the work was done in your own time and didn’t interfere with training. So long as you were organised it was straightforward enough. I represented the club on the Dunbartonshire Committee with David Bowman for two years and attended SAAA AGM’s as club representative for several years.

In 1976 it was suggested by David Bowman and agreed by the Committee to put my name forward for membership of the SAAA and at the AGM in 1977 I was elected on to the General Committee of that body. That involved at least one night a month at Committee Meetings which alternated between Glasgow and Edinburgh. I also served on the West District Committee and the Joint Coaching Sub Committee as well as on a couple of ad hoc sub committees. Again I learned a lot about organisation – for instance I was convener of the Senior National Decathlon Championships for three consecutive years. I stood down in 1980 because of the pressure of work, club commitments and family duties – Liz was 10 and David was 8 and we were thinking of moving house at that point. Thereafter I served on the club committee off and on for the next twenty five years or so. I was lucky enough to hold the posts of President, Secretary, Assistant Secretary and Captain more than once each as well as the very short period as Treasurer.

With Sean Kyle and Alex Naylor at the BMC Conference, Jordanhill, in 1985

Third : as a coach

In 1961 the continuing saga inside the club was the lack of coaching and coaches. A meeting was held and several members went on coaching courses as a result. At that time there was a qualification for ‘Club Coach: All Events’ and I did that one. I then started coaching the Ladies Section where I was lucky enough to work with some excellent athletes such as Lynn Dollin, Ann Hannah and Carol Campbell. All went well until I married in 1966 and handed the job over to a very good group of coaches. The next coaching venture came when Robert McWatt, George Carlin and Dougie MacDonald asked me to coach them in the mid 1970’s. That went well and Robert picked up two Scottish Junior International vests as well as a good collection of championship medals and Dougie became President of Glasgow University with a collection of Scottish Universities’ international vests. The group grew to include many good club runners like Charlie McIntosh, Paul Ross, James Austin and Peter Halpin.

We did our training as a group on Wednesdays at Coatbridge so as not to take the guys away from club nights on Tuesday and Thursday. When Frank Horwill (founder of the British Milers Club) recommended to Hugh Forgie of Law and District AAC (a 3:48 1500 metres runner/1:53 800 man) that he train with our group it added a new dimension to the coaching. His presence not only provided a new challenge to the group but also brought along others of a very high standard such as Alex Gilmour and Eddie Stewart of Cambuslang. At one point there were ten current Scottish Senior Road and Cross Country Internationalists training with the group. I had my first GB Internationalist when Sam Wallace (who had twice won the British Junior Indoor 1500 metres) was picked for the Under 20 match against Poland and East Germany. The higher profile saw me asked by Alex Naylor in 1986 to take on the post of Scottish Staff coach for 5000 and 10000 metres events. I did that and my education as a coach progressed.

Meanwhile I was Scottish Secretary for the British Milers Club putting on six or seven paced races a year designed to help runners get fast times and in one of these Paul Forbes set a new Scottish All Comers record for the 800 metres. The BMC involvement meant travelling south of the Border for coaching week ends and actually working with squads of top class athletes from other countries. I was emboldened to hold the BMC’s AGM and Training Weekend at Jordanhill with Peter Coe (Seb’s coach and father), Jimmy Hedley (Steve Cram’s coach), Sean Kyle (from Ireland), Malcolm Brown, Alex Naylor and of course Frank Horwill all in attendance and all of those who came (over 100) profited from the experience. I was made President for a year and then life member of the BMC. But the work in the club and with the Scottish group was taking so much time that I had to stop the actual hands on stuff with the BMC to concentrate on that although I did more travelling – almost once a month – to Stretford for the BMC Tuesday night races with many athletes and not just the very top men. This contact with the best coaches in Britain was invaluable.

Domestically, I was asked by National Coach Andy Vince to move over from the 5000/10000 metres job and become Scottish Coach for the 800/1500 metres which I did for three years. Then in the mid 90’s I was invited to be Group Coach for all the Endurance Events from 800 to Marathon (and including Race Walking of which I knew nothing!) The money paid at that time was £240 a year which you could not claim in one go; it was £120 at six monthly intervals – it really didn’t cover the phone calls – and you had to provide receipts. All the Staff Coaches were in effect subsidising the SAAA’s.

The one assisted the other. For instance, via the BMC I managed to get Steve Cram to come to Largs and speak to a group of younger Scottish athletes (ie Under 20 and Under 17). Then when the BMC Grand Prix series of five meetings devoted entirely to Middle Distance events started, it took two years of hard work and planning to get them to hold their final race every year in Scotland at Scotstoun in Glasgow. The first year had seven men’s 800’s, four men’s 1500’ three women’s 800’s, two women’s 1500’s and a 3000 metres for each of them. It was only after I resigned and the races were organised by Scottish Athletics in Edinburgh on a Friday night instead of a Saturday afternoon, that the momentum was lost and the meeting was lost to Scotland. The point was that in both cases BMC contacts were being used to the benefit of Scottish middle distance running.

When the organisation of Scottish Athletics was reshuffled in 1996/97 I stood down and did not apply for any subsequent post at national level preferring to work more locally.

Another Career: Clydesdale Harriers Men’s Team Manager

Some of the Men’s team in 1994

I became team manager in about 1983 and kept it until 2002. Realising that it was an impossible job for one man, I decided I’d be a co-ordinator rather than an overall selector and only deal directly with the Middle Distance group (partly so that I could give my own athletes the races they needed at any particular moment) and Billy Hislop took charge of the sprinters. We then gathered a very good group of coaches to work with us; Scott Govan became a Senior High Jump Coach and a hurdles coach, David Gibson took up pole vault coaching and was Scottish Staff Coach for the event for a while, Bobby Bell took over the Throws and specialised in Shot and Hammer. The coaches did a lot of their own recruiting and selected their sections of the team which did superbly well. Without all the help it would not have been a success: at that time I was working with four or five really top class runners who needed a lot of maintenance, serving as Scottish Coach for one event or another and doing a lot of lecturing at various venues and of course there was the day job and family commitments.

And that’s it. I enjoyed it all – mind you, I just wish I were running in races in the club vest again, that was the best time of them all! Whatever fun and pleasure you get in athletics – and it is considerable – I was probably happiest just running and racing with people I liked and respected.

Handing over to Barefoot Bobby Shields in the Midlands Relay, 1962

Brian McAusland: as a runner

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Admin

Why me? Well a couple of people profiled commented that it was difficult to talk about themselves with the question about whether I ever did it? I had the same comment when I was doing books of profiles of Clydesdale Harriers so I eventually did a self-portrait. Thii is simply a reproduction of that, so when I mention ‘the club’ it’s Clydesdale Harriers I’m talking about.

Taking the baton from Neil Buchanan in the Midland Relays, 1960’s

When I joined the club in 1957 I was halfway through my two years National Service and running for the regimental cross country team. I had always been interested in sport – in post war Clydebank it was hard not to be. At that time we were exposed to all sorts of sport in the papers (there was coverage of football, boxing, cycling, athletics, golf and just about every sport conceivable in all the papers) and in the town itself there were three Junior football teams, the Harriers, the Swimming club and two swimming Baths, two cricket clubs, a boxing gymnasium, the Lomond Roads Cycling Club, two golf courses, a hockey team and tennis courts and putting greens in every public park and of course bowls. We lived in Singer’s Building (erected to house key workers from the factory) and among our neighbours were Junior football players, a boxer who appeared among the supporting bouts on many Glasgow Bills, bowlers, harriers, golfers of course and a cricketer. We were within easy distance of Glasgow with its six senior football clubs and there were annual sports meetings of note at Ibrox Park and at Shawfield Stadium. Nowadays football demands exclusivity and many of the above sports are not represented in the Burgh.

My favourite was always athletics with the local focal point being Singers Sports at the factory’s sports ground. They always had a top personality as a chieftain – one year it was Dorothy Lamour the Hollywood film star, another year it was June Foulds the Olympic sprinter for instance. There was also a lot of athletics on television and Dunky Wright reported on athletics on the Saturday evening ‘Sports Report’ on radio. I wasn’t good enough to join the Harriers like many of my schoolmates – Bobby Clark, Jim McDonald, Hudson Scott, Evelyn Graham, Ellen Gray and company were all Harriers with Bobby being quite outstanding. Moira Wright, John’s cousin, was in my class and every Monday would talk about John’s running with the Harriers.

At that time when boys became eighteen, they had to do two years National Service in the Army unless they were in a reserved occupation. I wasn’t and was called up for my National Service. It had us all running cross country on a frequent basis soon after call up. I liked it, found I was not too bad at it and then ran for the regiment in local cross country races, training five mornings a week before breakfast. (When we represented the regiment we were transported in the back of a three ton Army vehicle and given rations for the day of three sandwiches – one cheese, one with a fried egg in it and one with corned beef. No expense was spared.) Meanwhile Moira had been bugging me by post to join the Harriers and eventually I asked her to send me an application form. I sent it off with my five shillings membership fee and that was me in the club. On demob in September 1958 I went along with school friend Tom McAllister who had also been in the Army and was already a member of the club and we started regular training. Had it not been for National Service I would never have been a Clydesdale Harrier. Allan Faulds and several others have said that this ‘would have been great loss to the club’ and Allan insisted that I include the remark but my own thoughts are that there is always someone who will do the work. Training and racing with the club my philosophy soon became that of my mentor in the Harriers, David Bowman – one of the finest gentlemen ever to grace the sport – ‘do what your club needs you to do’. So I did a variety of things and it is easier to look at them in compartments although the reality was that they were often mixed in with each other or layered on top of each other. It was seldom if ever that only one role was filled.

First : as a runner

The usual winter pattern included the McAndrew Relays, the Midland District Relays and the County Relays (there was no National Relay then) with the Edinburgh to Glasgow eight stage road relay being the focus of the first half of the winter. The Nigel Barge race at Maryhill was at New Year and then the second half with the County, District and National Championships completing the season. The gaps were filled in with inter club meetings and club championships. The inter club meetings were held on a home and away basis and normally three packs (slow, medium and fast) went out. The usual clubs involved with us were Dumbarton, Vale of Leven, Greenock Glenpark, Springburn and the week before the National was always with Vicky Park and Garscube at Milngavie.

The start of the Dirrans Road Race: 53 Hugh Mitchell, 52 Pat McAtier, 138 Charlie McAlinden, 51 David Simpson, Bobby Calderwood

I had come into the sport to run and did just that and nothing else for a while: I ran road, cross country, track, and some hill running (Goat Fell once, the Mamore Hill four times). On the track, I ran in the County, District and National Championships at Three Miles, Six Miles and Ten Miles as well as the Marathon at the Scottish Championships. Preferring the roads and as a member of the Scottish Marathon Club I ran all over Scotland with the fixtures having a wider range of distances (if fewer races in total) than now when there are far too many 10,000 metres road races on the calendar. Then for instance there was the 10 miles Tom Scott Memorial and another 10 miles at Kirkintilloch Games, the 12 miles Marathon Club race at Springburn and at the Dundee ASA and of course at the Balloch – Clydebank, the 13 Miles at Dirrans Sports in Kilwinning, the 14 Miles at Gourock and at Shotts, 14½ at Dunblane, 15 at Babcock’s in Paisley, the 16 Miles of the Clydebank – Helensburgh, the 18 Miles at Rothesay, the 20 miles at Strathallan, the 22.6 miles from Edinburgh to North Berwick and the 30 miles plus of the Two Bridges Race. The Strathallan Race originally appeared on the entry form as being 20 miles, when you got there the programme said 21 miles but when you raced it you found it was really 22! They later owned up and it appeared as 22 miles on all documentation. Like all runners in search of a good marathon time I ran in marathons wherever I could including the Shettleston and Glasgow Marathons, the annual Scottish Championships from Meadowbank over various trails, in Rotherham in 1976 and Boston in 1977 and the Scottish Veterans Marathon at Bellahouston. But like the E-G the marathon running was more notable for the number and average time than for the quality of any one race. I did 15 or 16 marathons, was once outside three hours (Boston in 80 degrees heat) and twice outside 2:50, had a personal best of 2:32 and an average time of just outside 2:45. Of all the surfaces, I enjoyed the roads most – there was no necessity for a good sense of balance as there was in cross country, there was no crowd or other athletes watching you in action as there was on the track and I think I was better at it. It might be that my first two races ever influenced that preference: I ran in the McAndrew Relay and pulled in 21 places to be the fastest club runner. The following week it was the County Relays at Kirkintilloch and it was really dire. Mud everywhere unless you went off the trail somewhere – always a danger with me on the country.

I reckon that I ran about 1200 races for the club in total. I was proudest of doing 21 consecutive Edinburgh to Glasgows with my best running there being in the early 1970’s when I was not doing anything but run and race – ie no coaching or officiating. And of course the runners that I was racing with at that time were high quality athletes – Ian Donald, Doug Gemmell, Ian Leggett, Phil Dolan, Allan Faulds and the rest. The feeling of the E-G, including the weeks leading up to it was like nothing else in Scottish athletics and the demise of the event was nothing but bad for Scottish Road Running. I ran on seven of the eight stages at one time or another – it could have been eight but in 1962 when I was the scheduled sixth leg runner, there was snow everywhere and cars were being abandoned in the streets of Airdrie. The selection committee of Billy Hislop and George White switched me to second and Cyril O’Boyle to six! Neither of us ran well.

On the track, the club entered teams for the many Two Mile Team Races that there were at particular Highland Games meetings and we contested almost all of them. The favourite was the race at Cowal where there were only six or at most seven teams entered with the Longwood and Saltwell clubs from England regular participants. Of course when you ran in the team race you always entered the handicap mile as well so that was two hard races in an afternoon. In the County and District Championships I always ran in the Three Miles (later the 5000 metres) and usually added the Mile at County level. When I was staying in Lenzie and the West Districts were at Coatbridge – as they were for many years – Doug Gunstone, Alistair McFarlane and I were transported by car to the venue, where we raced then ran home together (7½ miles) afterwards. Then there were the Highland Games on grass where there was usually a road race as well as a long track race so the choice was there. Finally on the track there were the inter club contests which we usually held with Springburn, Greenock Glenpark, Garscube and other ‘local’ clubs and for some time we were in the Men’s Track League where it was usually the Mile and the Three Miles every time. In general there was at least a race a week on a year round basis. Then there was the time when I ran for Jordanhill College in an inter club against St Andrew’s University and Ayr Seaforth and turned out in the Mile, Three Miles and Six Miles on a five laps to the mile track!

My personal best times were –

Distance	Time	Date	Distance	Time	Date
One Mile	4:24	1964	Two Miles	9:45	1964
Three Miles	14:45	1959	5000 Metres	15:00	1975
Six Miles	31:34	1966	10000 Metres	32:33	1975
10 Miles	52:30	1971	16 Miles	1:29	1964
Marathon	2:39:13	1975	Marathon (Veteran)	2:41:36	1981

I have included the unusual distance of 16 Miles because the annual 16¼ mile road race from Clydebank to Helensburgh was one that I enjoyed and ran more than most: three times inside 90 minutes which is 5:32 a mile was a good record on a course where the prevailing wind was from the West. That and four first handicap prizes! These times were hardly earth shattering but when Allan Faulds described me as ‘a solid, dependable club runner’ it was a great compliment given the standards prevailing at the time.

Jim Logan

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Admin

Jim Logan in 1968 with the VPAAC Christmas Handicap winner’s trophy

When I started on the centenary history of Clydesdale Harriers in 1985, I was advised to contact three people for information, advice and guidance – Jim Logan was one of them. Despite the fact that our clubs were based only three or four miles apart and our territories overlapped considerably, I had never met him. In the event he was very helpful with a degree of insight and knowledge that I did not possess. When I was given a collection of ‘The Scots Athlete’ magazines, I immediately recognised the name on many of the articles contained therein and would like to comment on his contribution to that very important publication.

The editor Walter Ross persuaded many involved in the sport to contribute to the publication and names like Emmet Farrell, George Dallas, Eddie Taylor, George Barber and Jim Logan were all frequent contributors. Emmet Farrell was the first and best known but Jim Logan was not far behind. The first issue appeared in April 1946 and James L Logan contributed his first article in August 1946. His last article for the magazine was in the penultimate issue of March 1958. For twelve years he contributed considered, thought provoking articles on a vast range of topics. Some of the topics in his first year –

* Plea For The Pole Vault

* Specialisation Should Begin In School

* Importance Of Minor Clubs

* To Pay Or Not To Pay

*Incentive of Club Standard Awards

* The Distance Track Race

* Raise Your Sights

The one which elicited the biggest response was the one on ‘To Pay or Not to Pay’ on the topic of broken-time payments to athletes on international duty. He wrote almost as many articles and wrote every bit as as well as Emmet Farrell but is not as well known. Why is that? Almost certainly because his friend wrote principally on cross-country and road running which was where the main interest lay in the post war period and because Emmet could cover many items in his columns. Jim had to do one article, one topic. His writing was clarity itself – for example:

Look back on your own activities in the past season (and this is also addressed to those who have long since said good-bye to their teens). Did you improve on your best performance? If the answer is “no”, then you have a worthwhile job on your hands for next season, or better still during the winter months if facilities are available then, for practice. Unless of course you are satisfied that you have reached your peak: that is, you have added to your natural ability the maximum of technical efficiency. And I doubt if there are half-a-dozen athletes in Scotland who can lay claim to that.”

The pole vault demands pace, spring, agility and body-power – and a dash of daring. The man who, by some wonderful work of nature, has been gifted with all of these attributes in a superlative degree is indeed a superman: in fact another Warmerdam. But we are not concerned with supermen. We are considering the opportunity which exists for a young Scotsman to make his mark in home athletics. The important factor in the pole vault is the co-ordination of the athlete’s resources.

It is all so clear that it appears obvious – and that’s the quality of his writing. Logan the writer will be mentioned below in other contexts but the essential facts were there, and amplified, in his early writing in The Scots Athlete’

Jim’s ‘Scots Athlete’ photograph

Colin Youngson was a friend of Jim’s when he ran with Victoria Park. He contributed the following profile.

When he died on 28th February, 1974 at Gratnavel Hospital, Jim Logan was only 56. He had been active in Scottish athletics for over thirty years as a writer, coach, judge and, as a veteran, competitor. As an athletics writer, Jim enhanced the pages of many national and local papers, ‘The Scots Athlete’, ‘Athletics Weekly’ and ‘Athletics in Scotland’. His name was synonymous with scrupulous accuracy, perception and entertainment. A more knowledgeable writer on the subject of athletics (particularly Scottish athletics) would be extremely hard to find. Jim wrote club articles in the local ‘Milngavie and Bearsden Herald’, reports on meetings, athlete profiles and technical coaching articles for the ‘Scots Athlete’, reports, factual articles and thought-provoking pieces for ‘Athletics Weekly’ He also wrote fiction as one of D.C. Thompson’s anonymous writers of sports stories for the boys’ papers ‘The Hotspur’ and ‘The Adventure’.

As a coach of long and triple jumping, Jim not only recruited, coached and trained athletes for his club, but also supervised SAAA coaching sessions for many years at Nethercraigs. These were excellent sessions staffed by many of the best coaches in the land with guest coaches travelling up from England to contribute their knowledge. Jim’s lifetime of service to athletics as coach and official was rewarded in 1970, when he was appointed as a long jump judge for the British Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.

It was due in no small measure to him that Victoria Park AAC emerged as a formidable force in horizontal jumps during his time. Athletes like David Hay, Ron Fullelove, Colin Watson and Peter Cameron all reached top class under Jim’s guidance.

Then at the age of 50, he took up active athletics and actually won his club’s Christmas Open Handicap for the Jimmy McClure Trophy. He took pride in completing the course in a fifteen mile road race and at one stage had a secret ambition to run a marathon in 4 hours.

Colin Youngson adds: I ran for Vicky Park between 1971 and 1973. As an improving young senior distance runner, it was a novelty to find that a reasonable race performance could be applauded in print! I remember Jim Logan as unfailingly polite, interested, sympathetic and very encouraging. His athletics column in the local newspaper – The Bearsden and Milngavie Herald – regularly praised VP members to the skies, when even good Scottish-standard results might earn a grudging aside in The Glasgow Herald and be totally ignored elsewhere. Yes, at times the B&MH seemed to be a VP fan mag, but we all secretly enjoyed a little publicity and were motivated to earn more!

Jim also contributed to the VPAAC club magazine. I have two editions: one (1971) containing a short but fascinating article about cross-country running from Milngavie, from its origins in 1885, tracing its development up to the feats of current stars like Andy Forbes, Ronnie Kane, John McLaren, Bobby Calderwood and Pat Maclagan.

The other James Logan piece that I have kept is from the local newspaper in 1973. Jim was kind enough to name me ‘Victoria Park Athlete of the Week’ when I first won the classic Drymen to Scotstoun 15 Miles Road Race and was awarded the ‘Dunky Wright Trophy’ by the great old runner himself. The event was run in conjunction with the Glasgow Championships – mainly athletics but including 7-a-side football and gymnastics (vaulting and tumbling)! Jim wrote: “There are some good names inscribed on this handsome cup, including Commonwealth Games gold medallist Lachie Stewart and multiple Scottish marathon champion Alastair Wood, who is off to South Africa today to compete in the famous Comrades Marathon from Pietermaritzberg to Durban.” (Cramp may have put paid to Alastair’s attempt over there, but his outstanding Drymen record of 1 hour 17 minutes 55 seconds was never beaten.) “Colin, who hails from the North of Scotland and is still a second-claim member of Aberdeen AAC, was recently a running-mate of Wood and others in an epic John O’Groats to Land’s End Relay record by the Aberdeen club, and was third to Alastair, one of Scotland’s all-time greats, in last year’s Scottish marathon championships. The greatest name on the cup, of course, is that of the man who made this race over the Stockiemuir his own in the days when it finished at FirhillPark. It was fitting that the trophy for the modern race should bear the name of Dunky Wright, who was on familiar territory as he sped past Bearsden Cross. Dunky was a pupil of the school there when it was known as NewKilpatrickAcademy.” Such an article certainly helped me to increase my training in the hope of faster racing, which might earn further good reports by Jim Logan!

Later on when I moved to to Edinburgh and joined Edinburgh Southern Harriers, Jim Logan’s equivalent was Jimmy Smart, in his youth a good middle-distance athlete, but thereafter an invaluable, one-club man who did all he could for ESH – official, coach, journalist, motivator – and also died too young, to be sadly missed but leaving behind a fond, grateful memory in the minds of all who knew him.

JL PMcG 1 The picture above was taken at an inter-club run at Milngavie in November 1969 In the picture you might spot

John McLaren, Wallace Crawford, Emmet Farrell, Andrew Forbes, Peter McGregor, Pat Maclagan – and Jim Logan (fifth from right in club vest)

The comments above are from a man who ran well for Victoria Park for a short time and knew, liked and respected Jim – what follows comes from a VP member of much longer standing, Pat Maclagan who knew Jim well and profited from his knowledge and advice. He writes:

Memories of Jim Logan

Jim Logan was above all an enthusiast. The uncle of Wallace Crawford, a long-time member and official at Victoria Park AAC, he regularly attended events – track and field, road and cross-country – as often as not with his camera. On Victoria Park club training evenings, and for many local competitions, he would turn up on his bicycle, having pedalled (or freewheeled!) downhill from his home at the top of Great George Street in Glasgow’s Hillhead district. A spare, rangy figure, I can clearly recall his cycle clips round his ankles as he proceeded to dismount.

Jim had a serious interest in what these days we would call sports science. Matters of nutrition and physiology, and their relation to athletics performance, fascinated him. He was a regular contributor to Athletics Weekly, covering Scottish athletics. His ability as an articulate wordsmith can be seen in a piece he wrote on Bill Stoddart in AW 23^rd October 1971. He also wrote a weekly column (actually much more than a column!) for the Bearsden & Milngavie Herald, where his reports on the achievements of Victoria Park athletes exploited to the full the fact that the Scotstoun club had its cross-country base seven or more miles away at the Milngavie Community Centre in Clober Road!

Peter Macgregor tells us that when Ronnie Kane took him to Scotstoun for the first time, he was greeted by Jim, who took one look at Peter and said “Ah, so you’ve brought me a high jumper!” (Peter would go on to be a sub 2:30 marathon runner) Peter also spoke highly of Jim’s friendliness, deep knowledge of athletics and readiness to share information at all times.

The career summary above was based on the obituary printed in the excellent ‘Athletics In Scotland’ magazine published by George Sutherland for April 1974. The photographs were supplied by Colin Young and Peter Macgregor.

Graham Bennison

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Admin

Graham running in the Three Towers

Fife AC has been blessed with many good officials – covering a wide area with many club organised open races covering most of the county for most of the year it would have to be the case. Pe0ple such as Dave Francis, Eleanor Gunstone, Donald Macgregor and Ian Docherty are all life members. Graham Bennison was suggested as a representative of all the club members who put in such hard work all year round.

Graham Bennison of Fife AC is known as a seriously hard working club official – he is pretty well an ever-present throughout the year at cross-country, road and track & field meetings. What is less well known in that he was a very good runner in his own right with best times ranging from 1:59 for 800 to 2:29 for the marathon, and races up to the Two Bridges and London to Brighton. The photograph above was taken during the Three Towers Fell Race, which was a 20 mile race organised by Bury AC and was raced between the mid-60’s and 1990 when it was discontinued. Graham was kind enough to complete the questionnaire below and we can start there.

QUESTIONNAIRE

Name: Graham Bennison

Club/s: Bolton United Harriers, Barnet & District, Fife AC

Date of Birth: 21/08/46

Occupation: Retired

How did you get into the sport initially? I’d done a bit of running at various sports as a teenager but it was at Trent Park Teacher Training College in 1965 that I was asked to run a colleges cross-country championship. A few of us did quite well and formed a cross-country team. Back home that summer a work colleague of my mum’s asked would I be interested in joining Bolton United Harriers. Initially I was running 440 yards and 880 yards but the following winter’s (1966/67) cross-country saw further progress as a distance runner, setting a college course record that lasted until John Bicourt broke it in 1969. I represented Bolton UH for 21 years covering everything from 100m to 100km and was lucky enough to compete in a golden period with the likes of Mike Freary and Steve Kenyon as training partners as well as club colleague Ron Hill. I worked as a teacher in the south of England from 1968 – 1972 and represented Barnet & Dist over track, road and country. I was always’s being called upon to make up the 4 x 400m team.

In 1973 (25^th August) two Bolton colleagues invited me to join them at the 36 mile 158 yds Two Bridges Race. I placed ninth amongst a strong field in 3 hours 53 minutes 09 seconds, my ultra debut. It was quite a week…. the previous Saturday as a warm up I’d run the slightly uphill Preston to Morecombe Milk Marathon in 2:38.21. On the 21^st (my birthday) there was a special 3,000m at Leverhulme Park, Bolton to highlight a Bolton member Peter Lever who had emigrated to Canada and represented them at the marathon. In the local press myself and another runner Gordon Entwistle were not in the reckoning but at the bell it was Gordon who sprinted home (8.53) with me in chase (8.55) leaving a star field behind. I’d had a few wins over road and country before but never was second so pleasing !

In 1974 I debuted at the Isle of Man 40 Miler and in 1977 achieved 4 hours 13 minutes 24 seconds. More followed……London to Brighton, Woodford Green to Southend and in the early 80’s the Bolton 40 Mile where long time friend Dave Francis placed 1^st and I was 2^nd.

Moving to Fife in 1987 re-kindled my love for the country although in August that year as a veteran over 40 my tendons seriously broke down at the ten mile point in the Two Bridges (I finished…silly sod!) but could never again compete over long distances on the road.

Personal Bests? We didn’t have computerised results back then so some like 200m can’t be precise.

100m 12.9. 200m 24 something. 400m 52.5. 800m 1:59.2. 1500m. 4:10. Mile 4:19. 3,000m 8:55 . 5,000m 15.20 Track 50km. 3: 19 ?

Road 10km. 32.08. 10 Mile. 50.36 Half Marathon 68. ? 15 mile – 80 minutes ? seconds (Sale 15). Marathon 2:29.40 (Boston April 1975).

Two Bridges 3:51.6 (25/08/79). TT 40 – 4:13.24 (1977), Woodford to Southend 40 – 4:23.44 (1976). London to Brighton (52.5 miles) 6:14.05.

Thank God I’ve still got some of the certificates otherwise I wouldn’t be sure of some !

Has any individual or group had a marked effect on either your attitude to the sport or your performances? Mike Freary, former UK 10,000m record holder was an inspiration. So often Ron Hill would break the course record running second leg for Bolton in many road relays. Mike would run third leg and break the time Ronnie had just set !

What exactly did you get out of the sport? Friendship, confidence, travel, health.

Can you describe your general attitude to the sport? Always optimistic, the challenges are out there even as an over 65 veteran.

What do you consider your best ever performance? Winning a big field half marathon at Swinton (1979) in 72 minutes something. I felt so, so easy and was way ahead at the halfway turning point, coasted over last few miles ! Running at Boston in 1975 with Ronnie was a big thrill and an experience.

What goals did you have that remain unachieved? Just to try to keep running.

What has running brought you that you would have wanted not to miss? The camaraderie.

Can you give some details of your training? Too spasmodic now but I still would recommend to younger athletes twice weekly speed sessions and the long Sunday Run. Back in the 70’s early 80’s I used to notch up 100 miles a week in the summer months.

AS AN OFFICIAL/COACH/ADMINISTRATOR

Describe briefly your career as a club official/committee member, noting posts held. Too many schools official posts to mention, committee member of Bolton UH and Fife AC. President of Fife AC

Do you have any qualifications as a coach or as an official? No !

Do you see yourself mainly as an administrator, coach, official or team manager? (Or even all of the above!). All.

Are you involved in athletics outside the club? ie at school or local authority member. Yes many years at school level and am still involved.

Are you a member of any group as club representative? Ie at County, District or National level? No.

Graham (centre) running in the first London Marathon

It is very clear from the above that although Graham is maybe seen as an official, administrator or Press reporter, he is really a runner. Any distance runner from the 60’s right through to the present can identify with all, or at least most of the above. The man whose tendons packed in at ten miles but went on to finish a 30+ miles race! The club man who would run in whatever his club needed him to, regardless of distance. A runner from the 70’s who did 100 miles a week with 20 (or 20+) miles on the Sunday and who sought the hard races. When he started out the only graft that most runners received seemed to be safety pins and blisters.

1979 Graham Bennison Graham (holding the Trophy) with the Bolton team after the 1979 Two Bridges.

It can be seen from the questionnaire that Graham is now in the M65 age group – and he is still running and his ambition is to be able to go doing just that. If we look at his recent racing as noted in the Power of 10 website, then we see that at the time of writing he has run in 22 races at distances ranging from 800m to 8 miles between April and August. The 800m was in a League Match for his club at Aberdeen and the 8miles was at Ceres. His times at standard distances are One Mile 7:17, 5K 25:11, 5 Miles 43:59. There have been 4 League Matches, 7 Parkruns and 5 Mile races. He has been first in his class 4 times, and second three times.

Referred to in the Fife AC website as “the multi talented Graham Bennison“ he has filled many roles within the club since his arrival there. Like any good clubman, Graham served on the club committee roughly from 1990 to 2003, the honour and duty of being club President over the two years 1991-2 and 1992-3 and his subsequent election as Life Member of Fife AC where he is in some very good company indeed including well known athletes, officials and administrators such as Don Macgregor, Allan Faulds, Andrew Lemoncello, Terry Mitchell and Eleanor Gunstone.

GB race

As a former school teacher, Graham has been involved in Schools athletics for decades and was an ever-present at local, District and National Schools Championships. I well remember seeing him immediately after the end of a long drawn out Scottish Schools Indoor Championships at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow – these events always over ran considerably – note book in hand, leaning against the wall dictating all the results to local newspapers in Fife so that they would have them as soon as possible – and then setting off on the long journey back. He has in fact coached two Primary School sessions a week for eight years, with one of the schools involved winning the Fife Primary Schools P6 and P7 cross-country championships. Some time ago he was Fife AC Boys and Youths Team Manager – mind you that was when Andrew Lemoncello was in the Under 13 age group.

Fife AC is known for its varied programme of open races with interesting names – the Strathmiglo Straddle, the Gauldry Gallop (now sadly defunct), the Strawberry Novice and so on. Graham has been race organiser of many of these races and assisted at many more. He was on the club road race committee for many years and organised many, many races for the club. A fellow club member said “Graham came up to Fife from Lancashire in the mid 1980’s and immediately got involved with the club. He became a committee member and was always a good publicist writing weekly columns for all the local papers and as you know over time became athletics correspondent for the Courier with a particular emphasis on the club. He was also one of the prime guys to encourage the club to organise the many races it does. In particular he was probably responsible for the Hill of Tarvit race and the Ceres 8. He also helped inspire our Summer series held over five races and the Tour of Fife which is five races over five days.” Others have commented on his knowledge of athletes. Another commented on his knowledge of runners – “Graham certainly was pretty good as a results man knowing most of the runners by sight and with a very good memory for placings etc immediately after races. ” He could be seen after races with his notebook and pencil writing down places, names and times as the runners crossed the finishing line, often having a complete list of results before the computer had done its work.

Speaking of newspapers, it seems a good place to mention his penchant for communication. Graham has his own Twitter and Facebook accounts, but as far as athletics is concerned, he is listed at linkedin as an ‘independent newspapers professional’, in which capacity he reports on all athletics connected items, particularly to do with Fife AC of course, to the many papers in the Kingdom.

Graham has also been team manager for the Fife AC Track & Field team and he has been noted to run in events where the club was short of a runner. While not a qualified coach, he has assisted Dave Francis with the younger runners.

For the work that he has put in over the years he was nominated to be a carrier of the baton for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. This was announced in several local papers after he had created a particular ice-cream cone in celebration of the Games – I quote from one of them:

St Andrews athlete Graham Bennison has launched a special Cone to celebrate the arrival of the Queen’s Baton at local institution Jannettas Gelateria, just hours before his stint as Baton bearer. Father and grandfather Mr Bennison (67), who is well-known for his coaching in local primary schools and his athletic prowess, unveiled the triple red, white and blue ice-cream cone to celebrate the arrival of the Baton in St Andrews.

The colourful creation, which was made within the Jannettas Gelateria premises alongside the shop’s vast array of other flavours, combines blackberry sorbet (red), vanilla (white) and blueberry (blue) and will be available until Sunday 29 June 2014 at the special price of £3 for three scoops.

Owen Hazel, Jannettas Gelateria owner said, “The Queen’s Baton Relay arriving in St Andrews is an exciting event for the town and we thought it would be fitting to create our own delicious themed cone, not only to mark the day itself but the significance of the games themselves which are guaranteed to enthral communities throughout Scotland and further afield. Graham Bennison is a local athlete who, due to decades of commitment encouraging and building on local youngsters’ talent, thoroughly deserves to be part of the relay celebrations.”

Graham with the Commonwealth Games Relay Baton, 2014

Once a runner, always a runner but what do runners do when their peak has passed? Well Graham has continued to run but now serves his club and his sport as race organiser, press reporter, team manager, coach and all round clubman.

Eric Fisher

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Admin

Eric (33) centre stage after the 1976 Tom Scott Road Race

Eric Fisher was born on 31st May 1946 and would become a very good runner indeed, a very good coach and organiser as well as being a key figure on the Edinburgh Boys Brigade scene. I first met him as a marathon runner in the SAAA Championships at Meadowbank in the early 70’s. A friendly, unassuming runner who got on with everyone, he turned into an excellent all round distance runner with medals on the road and over the country. How did he get started in the running business in the first place?

Eric first got into the sport through the Sunday School picnics where all the races were short sprints which he could never win. He wanted longer distance races as did another youngster by the name of Doug Gillon. The picnics were all held at Dalkeith Country Park and when such races were introduced they used to beat everybody else, just ran away from them. He really started in the sport however at the Boys Brigade of which he had been a member since the age of nine, starting as a Lifeboy. The Leith Battalion had a big field which had been purchased for them by AJ Letham (Captain, 1st Leith Company) and the Battalion Sports were held at Letham Park every year.

There were only races at 100 and 220 yards at first but by the time he was 14 there was a half mile – he ran in it and won it. There was a cross-country championship in March but Eric’s Dad, who had been a PTI in the Royal Artillery and ran the mile at such meetings as Cowal and Ibrox, refused to let him run against 18 year olds. He relented when it was pointed out to him that he was running away from these same 18 year olds in training. Came the Battalion Cross-Country Championship – Eric was second and selected to run in the Inter-Battalion Cross-Country Championships for Leith Battalion. The race was held at Port Seton and was won by a big boy from Motherwell called Brown! Eric was 23rd in the Senior race against older boys. He represented the Brigade in all sorts of races. For instance –

E Fisher (4th Leith Co, BB), aged 18, on Saturday won the annual race to the summit of Arthur’s Seat (800 feet) and back in 19 min 7.5 sec. Second was A Kennedy (Restalrig YC) and G Jones ((Colinton YC) was third. The team prize was won by 4th Leith Co, BB

Glasgow Herald, May, 1969

He was however more involved in football playing centre forward for his school. He was selected for the Leith school team. Peter Cormack (who went on to play for Hibernian FC, Liverpool and Scotland) was in the team at outside right.

He never took any notice of athletics until 1966 when he was about 19 years old and Claude Jones of Edinburgh AC who worked in Ferranti’s asked if there were any runners in the factory who were not involved in the sport. Eric was pointed out to him and he was invited along. The first night there he was involved in a 2.5 mile race: it was a handicap race but all athletes started at the same time. He saw one guy he knew and told the handicapper he could beat him. It turned out that it was Doug Gillon (again) who had been attending Watson’s College and was ranked number 3 in the United Kingdom for the steeplechase in his age group. Eric kept up with them for about 100 yards, fell away and finished between two and three minutes behind them. That wasn’t bad for a youngster on his first night though.

Knowing nothing about training he thought he could get fit for the National the next year after three months of training but Eric soon realised the sport was a wee bit harder than that. He was coached initially by Claude Jones but was later helped by JT Mitchell, a senior club member who became President of the SCCU. Mitchell was a janitor at Drylaw Primary School and he had training sessions on a Tuesday night which involved gym work and weight training as well as running. After that he was motivated by club members such as Jim Alder and being in the team with all the other guys. He ran on the road, on the track and over the country. He reckons his best cross-country race was at Drumpellier Park on the first occasion EAC won the team race. He was hoping to be the sixth counter – in fact he finished 41st and was fifth counter. Claude and JT told him the win was partly down to him since he had improved so much, finishing 60 places higher than they had estimated he would!

I always think of Eric principally as a road runner where he was ranked in the annual rankings seven times in 10 years between 1972 and 1981. His best time was 2:27:03 in 1977 when he was seventh fastest in Scotland. Remember that we are talking about what was maybe the highest peak ever in the event in this country. He also won a bronze medal in the SAAA marathon championship in 1978 with a time of 2:28:14. The race was won by Anglo-Scot Ian Macintosh with Donald Macgregor second. Eric told Colin Youngson and Fraser Clyne about his run that day for their book “A Hardy Race – The SAAA Championship 1946 – 2000.” “He remembers that Willie Day, sensing a chance of Commonwealth marathon selection ‘went for it, despite the heat. On the return journey, an EAC team mate told Eric that Willie was ‘coming back.’ However Eric couldn’t spot his rival on the long road ahead. Eventually, at Joppa, a distant view was achieved, and Eric succeeded in passing Willie on the big hill up to Jock’s Lodge. At the top of the rise, Eric finally dared to look back, and was relieved to find himself safe, 150 yards ahead. Willie writes that he was impressed by Eric’s excellent run’ but does say that his left knee had become painful because the gristle in his new Gola shoes had snapped at the heel and was giving less support. At the end, Eric followed tradition, unhygienically cooling his blisters in the steeplechase water jump, and sharing his race tales with the other marathon survivors.”

His marathon ranking appearances were 1972 2.48.53 ranked 25; 1975 2.38.41 Ranked 19th; 1976 2.42.34 23th; 1977 2.27.03 15th; 1978 2.28.14 18th; 1979 2.39.30 52th; 1981 2.36.07 61st and in 1978 he was Scottish Marathon Club champion. The championship was decided over four races – the Clydebank to Helensburgh 20, the Strathallan 20, the SAAA Marathon championship and the Springburn 12. It came down to the last race where Eric was battling Willie Day and Davie Wyper for the championship. If Willie Day (FVH) beat Eric, he won the championship; failing that, if Eric beat Davie Wyper by two places, he won. Willie Day had problems with public transport and missed the start and after the race, Eric and Davie (West of Scotland) were tied in points. There wa only one champion and it was decided on who was first home in the SAAA marathon. Eric had beaten Davie, so he was the proud holder of Scottish Marathon Club Champion, 1978!

He was inside 2 hours 30 minutes for the distance six times with a fifth place at Rotherham in 1977 where he was first Scot and finished in front of Jim Alder, Cavan Woodward and several other weel kent runners. There was also another very good run as part of a large group of Scots at Enschede in Holland in 1971. Abebe Bikila was there in his wheelchair to support his compatriot who was running in the race.

Start of the 1969 SAAA Marathon from Meadowbank’s incomplete track: Eric is on the left with the hankie round his neck.

The other measure of distance running talent on the road was the Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay. Eric ran in five relays between 1967 and 1978. This was the period when Edinburgh AC was seriously involved in Scottish championships on the road and over the country. It was also the time when many Anglos were brought up from England for the major races, so to ‘make the team’ was no small feat. How good was Eric? Well in 1977 he ran on the eighth stage and turned in the second fastest time of the afternoon and the following year he had the third fastest time of the day. Remarkable running at that point in Scottish road running history. Of the 1977 race he says that he took over in the lead with Martin Craven breathing down his neck and Stuart Easton of Shettleston not far behind that. Martin passed him after about a quarter of a mile but he didn’t hear Stuart getting closer until about the last mile. He realised from the increasingly frantic pleas from the Shettleston supporters to Stuart to keep it going, not to give in, etc that Stuart had possibly started too fast and he determined to do his best to keep him at bay. His best was not only good enough but actually gave him second quickest time behind Martin. His only regret on the roads is not getting inside 50 minutes for the Tom Scott 10 miles, 50:11 was his best time there.

He also ran on the track for his club, where he remembers travelling with Bill Walker as part of a team trying to qualify for the BAL. Bill doubled up the 400m, 400mH, steeplechase and 4 x 400 while Eric doubled up on the steeplechase and 5000m! Best times on the track: 15:16 for 5000m, 32 min for 10000m.

Before his racing days were over he started coaching and soon showed him to be a very good coach indeed. How did he get into that aspect of the sport?

Coaching began like running with the Boys Brigade involvement. On BB training night they had set training but Eric kept adding bits on until he was doing up to 3.5 miles. He was then asked to take over the training. He was by then a Staff Sergeant, aged about 17, and started doing BB training courses. These courses were organised by Ron Small from Jordanhill College. He would come to the BB National Training Centre at Larbert on particular weekends. The Saturday started at 3:00 pm but since Eric and some others were racing on Saturday they arrived at 5:00 in time for a lecture, there was a meal about 6:00 pm, gymnastics, box work and so on were covered and although the day was scheduled to end at 10:00 Eric and his friends kept it going for quite a while longer. Then they carried on on the Sunday until about 5:00 pm. He did this course for three consecutive years.

He was also helping Claude Jones at the club but what really turned him on to coaching was the Commonwealth Games in 1970. He worked on the marathon and long road walks. He did the Assistant Club Coach award and was asked to help Alex Naylor at an Easter Scottish Schools training week. Also on the course were men like Eddie Taylor, Sandy Robertson, Bill Walker and David Morrison. He was given various tasks to carry out such as being asked to take the endurance group for a particular type of session and he could arrange the content himself. At the end of the week, Frank Dick said that they had been testing Eric out, they were all satisfied and he had got his next coaching certificate! Having trained with John Anderson and worked with Frank Dick, he has great admiration for both of them and thinks that it was a real pity that they never worked together – Frank’s organisational skills linked with John’s motivational gifts would have been pretty well unbeatable. Frank was the man whom he credits with organising the Edinburgh parents into a very good coaching force. He asked John for help when he was a runner and when asked what he wanted to do, said that he wanted to win a particular club race. John replied that that was no good, aim for a Games medal in the steeplechase – if you aim low, you’ll fail. Aim high. Eric won his race and a cup.

After the Games in 1970, Meadowbank was swamped with new young aspiring athletes while runners like Adrian Weatherhead were trying to get some training done. So he and Bill Walker took a hand and Eric was working with the younger ones before passing them on to Bill Walker at 13 or 14. One of the youngsters he was working with at that point was Paul Forbes and tells of the time when Paul as an under 13 Junior Boy won his first cross-country championship in the East District event at Grangemouth. Paul crossed the line and kept running back to Eric and shouted “We’ve done it, we’ve done it!”

He also coached Yvonne Murray to World Cross-Country Championships for Scotland, and then she went to the Brisbane Games. It was after that when point Bill Gentleman, who was one of her school teachers, decided to take over since he could train her during the day at school. Eric currently has a good group including Lauren Stoddart, Emily Strathdee, Joe Arthur (fourth in the Scottish Cross-Country Championship and Scottish Schools Champion Alex Carcus.

Tributes about his work that have appeared in the public domain come from Jake Wightman, Brian Aitken and Martin Ferguson. Currently listed on his club website as a middle distance coach, he is also noted as being a coach for Cross-Country, Road Running and steeplechase. In a recent interview in Athletics Weekly in the ‘How They Train’ series, Jake Wightman says that over the years he’s been grateful to Eric Fisher and John Lees at Edinburgh.

Young Brian Aitken became involved in running via the Boys Brigade and took part in a race against Leith BB at Riccarton and says –

“After the race, Edinburgh AC coach Eric Fisher invited me to come along to Meadowbank to train. I never took him up on the offer for a number of months, too busy playing with my pals and trying other sports. My running journey was, however, about to become more time consuming and serious.

Eric Fisher’s training was tough but fun. The up-and-down the clock circuit in the underbelly of the main stand at Meadowbank in the winter months was painful as much as it was beneficial. The Monday evening was concluded with hurdles, a form of low level plyometric drills, mixed with sprints afterwards gradually developed strength, cardiovascular and muscle endurance. It was then out on the roads for a lap or two of the Meadowbank perimeter with a few nasty hills. I did not know why I was doing the sessions but it was doing me good. Even though at times, I felt like a boxer in the last round of the thriller in Manilla. Often the intrepid training group would trot to Lochend park and with nearby road lights acting as floodlights to pierce the winter darkness we would do countless hills reps; the running style and muscles becoming more honed and toned.

The Thursday sessions include 12 slow fast 200 metres progressing to 20 as the winter months went by. Another session was a hill loop at the back then a jog to do a 300 m on the track. Eight or twelve of these had one concentrating on good technique to conserve energy and complete the session. The noise of the of the metal spikes striking the road at transition from hill to track a welcome break from the concentrated effort of a most demanding cold, dark evening session. Often the sweat could be seen evaporating and swirling off and above the working runners as they came together during the jog recovery. There was also the odd bit of banter to maintain moral and disguise the pain.

Sometimes in the depth of winter the track would be iced up and the stride would have to be shortened coming off the final bend as you felt your heel skid on the unwelcome surface.

Spring was speed endurance time.- 2-3 sets 4 x 200m with 30 seconds recovery at 800m racing speed or up and down the clock from 150 to 200 and back in 5 metre increments.. Then it was pure speed. 3 x 300m with 10 min recovery or 8 x 150m with a jog back recovery.

A favourite tactical improvement session of Erics’ was when everyone in the training group was given a secret number. A number was called then from 400m to 150m to go the group would jog until the number called decided to put the throttle down. Cat and mouse would take place until someone kicked for home either from the front, middle or the back of the pack. The real speed merchants would wait until 160m and then put the foot to the pedal while the slower guys would wind it up from 350m. Eric always insisted that speed was king and should never be neglected at the expense of endurance, the simple reasoning that endurance could be developed at a later in life more easily than speed once it was lost.”

Martin Ferguson a great club runner over all distance races for many years was also influenced by Eric: “On Saturday 6th February 2010 I fortunately won my first Scottish title after 30 years of trying! But first let’s go back to 1980 when l was 15 and a first year youth. I got knocked out of the 1500m heats and my coach at the time Eric Fisher (yes the same one) asked me why l had not entered the 2000m steeplechase. I managed to finish 3rd in the young athlete’s final in 1979 when l was a second year Senior boy but being a first year youth the following year l had not ran a chase as there were two better runners who were second year youths, John Blair and Nikki Robertson. The Steeplechase is all about confidence as l had not ran one that year l felt it was too big a step running the Scottish final, Eric understood.”

Eric has also worked on the club committee, where he did a lot of work organising the Edinburgh to North Berwick for several years, but his big involvement in administration has been with the Forth Valley Athletic League. He has been treasurer for the past five years.

The one aspect that he has not tackled is that of qualifying as a technical official of any sort – which of course doesn’t mean he hasn’t worked in such a capacity at meetings.

A high quality athlete who is now serving his club as a coach and serving on an area league committee plus his work with the Boys Brigade, Eric Fisher is about the best role model for a club athlete as you can find and his club and athletes are lucky to have him. Catherine, Eric’s wife of 40 years, has given her support: travelling in various cars along the route of the Edinburgh to Glasgow relay race, at water-stations on the North Berwick road race and races in Scotland and England. Now with coaching and admin, she describes herself as ‘an athletics widow’ – a description that could apply to the wives of many athletes.

Hugh Stevenson

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Admin

Hugh Stevenson is well known by sight to everybody whose club takes part in the Scottish Athletics League where he has been Treasurer for over 30 years, He is always in the control room, usually as an announcer but he always helps out elsewhere if required. At one point in the 1980’s he was announcing but taking time off to run in the sprint hurdles for his club, Victoria Park AAC, before returning to the announcer’s chair. Well liked and respected, Mike Clerihew who has worked with him on the League committee says, “he was a great person to work with on the committee and a fine, extremely knowledgeable commentator at league and many other meetings.” One of the best of club men, Hugh is well known all over Scotland. He deserves to be better known, so we should maybe start by looking at his athletics career chronologically. Much of the information below came from his club mate and athletics journalist Doug Gillon.

He was educated at Daniel Stewart’s College in Edinburgh before it amalgamated with Melville College, Edinburgh College of Art and then at Edinburgh University where he gained an honours degree in fine art. A regular member of the University athletic club, he captained Edinburgh University AC in 1968. He has however spent all his working life at Kelvingrove in Glasgow in the Museum and Art Gallery where he became curator of British Art. He also competed for Edinburgh AC, Octavians, Red Star Belgrade, Edinburgh Southern Harriers and Victoria Park. Frequently his job involved international travel, as chaperone to works of art being exhibited abroad. He also studied for a year in Belgrade where he became fluent in Serb (of which more later).

Hugh (right) running in Bislett in 1967

He competed in the hurdles in the Schools International in 1964 and as a schoolboy was ranked nationally in both high jump and sprint hurdles. He was a very decent and stylish 110m hurdler, adept at (very exaggeratedly) aping the style of contemporaries. His main events as an athlete were the sprint and one-lap hurdles races although he competed well in both high and long jumps. How good was he then? He was ranked at one time or another in all four events. His winning time of 14.9w in the SAAA 120 yards hurdles in 1965 stood as a Championship Best Performance until the distance switched as metric. He was eight times in the top ten and his personal best performances were:

120 yds Hurdles: 15.2 (1966, ranked 5th); 440 yds Hurdles: 56.7 (1967, ranked 5th); 110 m Hurdles: 15.6 (1969, 8th); 400m Hurdles: 55.9 (1969, 9th); LJ: 6.60m (1966, 12th); HJ: 1.78m (1965, 11th)

Away from the track, Hugh is also reliably reported to be an excellent vocal mimic, if not in the Rory Bremner class. Beside his gift for art, he lampooned many of his friends and colleagues. Some of his cartoons, as well as his paintings, hang on the walls of friends.

He studied in Belgrade and joined the Red Star athletic club while he was there. As a result, he was Yugoslav team attaché for the European Indoor Champs in Glasgow (1990) on account of his fluency (having studied in Belgrade). He made such an impression that he was promised free accommodation if he went to the European outdoor champs and helped them that summer in Split. However, the country was on the brink of civil war and in some disarray. Hugh’s billet in the Croatian coastal town was not forthcoming, but he managed to share with a friend. Attempting to repay hospitality with beer, he stood at the bar, but was studiously ignored for at least 10 minutes. When asked by another guest what one had to do to get served, the barman said words to the effect that he was not serving that “Serb b*sta**”. Hugh’s accent was so perfect, he had passed as a Serbian native. Suffice to say, war broke out inside a year.

Despite his history of athletics involvement including Edinburgh and Belgrade, he has been and is a loyal member of VPAAC since 1972. He is the type of unsung volunteer without whom the sport would not survive. His soup teas after the Edinburgh to Glasgow were famous and he also holds open house after the McAndrew Relay hosted by his club. The entertainment at both of these inevitably included his performance using his excellent powers as raconteur and mimic. Always witty and mischievous but never spiteful.

He is reported by all who know him to be very gregarious, with passions for real ale and cycling. A member of CAMRA his knowledge of pubs around Scotland is said to be prodigious and he has recently made a beer tour of Belgium by coach. The comments by some of his friends and club mates make interesting reading. Alistair Johnston meets him regularly on a Tuesday night at The Three Judges, at Partick Cross – one of the best real ale pubs in Scotland. He says that Hugh is an expert (among many other things) in real ale and pubs in general and cycles many miles since his recent retirement around local areas visiting their hostelries. This is a thread that keeps coming through when Hugh is mentioned although Colin Young gives a slightly different perspective on this fact later. Alistair, Hugh, Albie Smith, Dave McMeekin (and various guests from athletics from time to time) of course talk a lot about their running days and how the standard has fallen and how good we were in comparison!!

Hugh also now travels to Europe a lot – particularly to the likes of Bosnia and Croatia (where he spent time as a student) and other ex-communist USSR countries – he also speaks some of their languages! He visits their museums and art galleries, etc – at home he worked for forty years at Kelvingrove Art Galleries as an art curator. He did’nt like to talk about his work and when he did it was usually something negative about the management! However, he must have been well thought-of in his field because he appeared occasionally in TV documentaries – it was always a bit of a shock, says Alistair, seeing him on screen wearing a jacket and tie and speaking eloquently about Scottish artists, history or whatever, compared to the ragged, beer-swigging eccentric (slightly exaggerated) we see at The Three Judges! He can still be seen in this capacity on youtube in fact.

He is still very friendly with many of his ex Edinburgh University athletic pals – Alistair Blamire, Dave Logue, Iain Hathorn, Jack McFie, etc – whom he meets regularly including going with them to big athletic meetings abroad and rugby internationals at Murrayfield. .

A former member of the club and still at heart very much a Vicky Parker, Colin Young re-inforces the convivial Hugh Stevenson image and says –

“My main memory is going with Hugh and several others – Ian Binnie is the only one I can recall – to some of the interesting pubs in Glasgow after training. The Old Toll Bar at Paisley road Toll and Kai Johansens stick in my mind. This was due to Hugh’s interest in the architecture and stained glass had nothing to do with beer – the rounds were not expensive being mostly shandy! My own interest in art and antiquities was building up at the time so it was good to be with somebody like Hugh.

I was on and off the committee a few times in my later spell with VP and would guess that Hugh was too – but I am not sure! It was only relatively recently – in the last few years- that I learned from a casual conversation on a coaching course that Hugh was still very much involved with VP! “

A man of many sports, we are told by Jim Preacher of a rugby playing incident:

In 1988 on an I.A.D.S. tour to Dublin Hugh was persuaded to don his rugby boots as the team were a man short in a match against Guinness RFC. He was asked to play on the wing but told nothing was expected of him and that should he receive the ball he should boot it into touch.

We were up against it and eventually won a line out after fifteen minutes of play. We spun the ball through the three quarters where it ended up with Hugh. His brain went back twenty years and he tucked the ball under his arm and took off down the wing. I was yelling “kick it ! kick it out ! ” but Hugh ran into the covering Guinness back row, each one build like a keg of the product.

A crack pierced the air. Hugh had broken his shoulder in his first touch of a rugby ball for some years. He was taken to hospital, patched up and returned to join us in the bar where he led both teams in a rendition of Limericks that lasted over twenty minutes. The old theatre expression ” the show must go on” sprung to mind.

But Hugh always had style and class – long-time friend Alistair Blamire comments

Re the stylish Hugh, he always won the “Style Prize” at the University Sports. We often make reference to this when we see someone showing a bit of “class” in any walk of life, whether lampooning them (in the Hugh way…) or giving them a stamp of approval.

Henry Summerhill

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Admin

Henry Summerhill, second from right

Henry Summerhill, a tall, easy-to-recognise runner with his spectacles and head to one side running action, was an interesting athlete. He never served on District or National committees, never held major office within his club but nevertheless was an outstanding clubman. Henry Summerhill and Shettleston were synonymous. It is common to assume that good clubmen are automatically also multi-task people. This is not automatically the story – eg Doc MacPhail was never a top class runner, but he WAS a top class club man. Henry was a runner, pure and simple but a superb and loyal member of Shettleston. He has earned his place in this section.

He spanned at least two generations of Shettleston Harriers and ran with the best of both generations of stars, earning his place with them both. He turned up at the club’s Christmas Handicap in 1955 as Eddie Summerhill’s wee brother and went on to out-do Eddie as a runner. He was spoken of above as ‘spanning the generations’; for proof we only have to look at his record in the Edinburgh to Glasgow where he ran 15 time including a streak of fourteen right off the reel.

Year	Stage Run	Team Position	Year	Stage Run	Team Position
1959	Five	First	1967	Eight	Second
1960	Four (Fastest)	First	1968	Eight	First
1961	Four	First	1969	Seven	Fourth
1962	Two	Fifth	1970	Five (Fastest)	First
1963	Six	Fourth	1971	Eight (Fastest)	First
1964	Two	Six	1973	Eight	Six
1965	Four	Seventh	1975	Eight	Fifth
1966	Six	Seventh

15 runs; Six gold, One silver; Three fastest times on stage.

Over the country, he was the same reliable, hard working, club runner but it was 1962 before he broke into the top team and finished twelfth and second counter (behind Joe McGhee) in the winning team. In 1963 he was first counter when he was tenth in a team that was fifth; in 1965, he was first counter when he finished seventeenth in the fourth placed team; in in 1966 he again led the team home (twenty sixth) into fourth; in 1967 the order was Summerhill 19th, Wedlock 21st … with the team again fourth; 1968, Henry was twenty seventh, third counter and the team was fifth; 1969, he was twenty third, third counter in the second placed squad; 1970, he was twenty first, fourth counter in the third placed team; 1971 he was sixteenth in the winning team; 1972, twenty fourth and the team won again; 1973, fifty seventh and last counter in the silver medal team; 1974, nineteenth in the fourth placed team; 1975, twenty fifth in the third team and in 1976, Henry was fortieth and the team third. Thirteen races, three golds, two silvers, three bronzes. Not a bad haul. And then there was the quota of District and County awards. And the four London to Brighton relays. And being in the winning team in the first Allan Scally relay, and in the winning team in the third Scally Relay. Oh yes, and he was club champion five times! Henry Summerhill was a very valuable member of several Shettleston teams.

On the track Henry raced in many team and open races and was ranked eleven times over seven years in the 60’s with best times of 9:20 (2 Miles), 14:29.0 (3 Miles) and 30:38.0 (6 Miles) with a third place in the SAAA Six Miles in 1962, but it is as a cross-country and road runner that he will be remembered by most of us.

When I asked around about Henry the word among those who really knew him was the same – a hard running, hard training, good guy. First John Wilson, who trained with Henry for a long time before he moved to England said that Henry worked in a printers office, he thought it was somewhere off St Vincent street (or thereabouts) where he only got something like a 40 minute lunch break so he had a tight schedule if he was to fit a run in. John worked in Dial House (next to the Kingston Bridge) and would jog down to meet Henry at his work place so that there was no waiting. Henry would be on pace from the start. The route was often up Argyle Street, turn at Kelvin Hall and loop back via Sauchiehall Street and finishing with a series of short sprints up several steep hills in the Heron House area. Henry was relentless and if the streets were busy he’d zig- zag his way through people, cars but not slow up. Once a car nearly ran into them and, so the story goes, Henry, placid as he was, almost punched the windscreen in to tell the driver off. This could have been kind of hazardous given that you never knew who the driver was but Henry was undeterred as he was in the right!

John reckons that this gave him an insight into Henry’s commitment to quality training no matter what. Limited time, traffic and pedestrian congestion, obnoxious drivers or the Glasgow weather as he always finished with the short hill reps even when there was ice or snow – no doubt he would also be running that evening whereas often for John the 3 miles with Henry was like a race and all he could reasonably do that day!

Then there is this comment from Tony McCall who trained with Shettleston Harriers for several years and was an admirer of Bill Scally as well as of Henry. I reprint it as Tony gave it to me:

I trained at Shettleston for a couple of years. Henry had been injured and started back a few months after i ahd been there, training with Bill and a few others.

Henry did not mess about; having been injured or no, he was into fast long sessions almost immediately. He ran a pace I struggled to keep up with but being a gentleman he would wait for me (and others) if a significant gap had developed. From the hut at Barrachanie we covered Lenzie, Steppes, Chryston, Cambuslang, Dechmont, and bits of East Kilbride all at a good pace . Some of it on the road and some of it over the country. Most of time, these runs were at the weekend. Steady but fast; I certainly benefitted from them. The distance would vary between 13 to 20 miles depending where we went.

During the week normally Tuesday and Thursday the runs would be between 8 an 10 miles and the last few miles were very pacy particularly if Bill was along. I was always blown away no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t live with them nor could anyone else.

Henry talked a fair bit on the run; mainly about running! one of his favourite expressions was – ‘Youv’e got to gut yourself in training to get the best out of yourself – always remember that’. He gutted me a few times.

Sometimes we would do a paarlauf arounf Barrachnie on a Tuesday. It was a mile circuit and there was two teams of half a dozen or so. Bill and Henry headed the teams. If my memory serves me it was 5 or 6 miles pretty well flat out. I was always in Bill’s team. Bill always paced it to keep the team together for as long as possible. Henry being Henry ‘gutted’ it from the start and his team were all over the place within a couple of laps. Some even gave up. ‘He’s murdering me’ was quite common. He never finished with a full team. Some of the boys called him Henry the Horse – but not to his face!

He always believed, like Bill, in a high mileage training regime. Hard sessions were always the order of the day. He took his cue from Andy Brown. He admired Andy a lot. ‘The first guy in Scotland who was running 100 miles a week’.

I remember once at the University race Bill and Henry were warming up around the track together. If they ran a mile they ran 4; the sweat was running off them like a wee stream. The laps got faster the longer they went. I watched this and thought to myself -‘your knocking lumps out of each other on a sort of personal I’m no giving in to you basis’. I thought ‘ Your leaving your effort behind on the warm up track’. But I was wrong I had a decent run that day but they ran a good race and finished pretty high up the field. Theri fitness levels had coped with what I thought was an excessive warm up. Henry was right about his ‘gutting theory’!

I remember the Western District Relays took place at East Kilbride one year in the early 80s. The Shettleston team was Henry, Nat, Laurie Spence and Bill and Shettleston won it with two vets in their team and won it well. Bill ran the last leg I always remember watching it and was really impressed. I was training with these two guys and they had just beaten some of the best runners in the west area and they were vets!

i can’t tell you much more about Henry. He was a very likeable guy, he admired effort from others no matter the level they achieved and gave out encouragement when he thought it was warranted. his attitude like Bill’s was nothing will be achieved without hard work and he certainly knew all about that. He didn’t have time for people with a half hearted approach to training or racing and he probably upset one or two along the way. But he was club man and always wanted the members to do their best for the club.

He never went near the track when I trained with him, neither did Bill. Road and country only. He eventually suffered from internal bruising in his calves probably caused by his printer’s job as he stood at his machines all day. He never really got back after that; I’m sure he suffered from cramps quite a bit and then he had his heart problems as well. He reckons caused by running the E to G with a virus. ‘ I gutted myself but was 2 minutes slower than I expected’-. Because it was the E to G he ran because he didn’t want to let the team down – that was typical of Henry.”

The picture is of a man who would run anywhere, anytime, no matter how he felt at the time, for his club. The expression “he would run through a brick wall for his club” certainly applied to the outstanding Henry Summerhill.

Robert Anderson

Posted on December 25, 2013 by Admin

When it comes to hard working clubmen, Cambuslang’s Robert Anderson has few equals. The living embodiment of the “You do what your club needs you to do” philosophy, he has served as athlete, official, administrator, recruiting sergeant and anything else that required some action. I was told once when I asked where a new club member had come from that Big Robert had signed him up when he was on holiday in the Highlands, and the information was quickly followed by “Don’t laugh, we’ve got three members in Barra from the time he went there!” As a runner he was very good but as Percy Cerutty once said of one of his stars, “He might run faster, but he doesn’t run harder than me.” Robert always ran hard, none of the stars who ran for the club ever ran harder. And yet despite all the stories, he remains friendly and affable – the only time he ever ignores anyone is when Cambuslang is racing and he has a man to shout on. He was profiled in a magazine in the 1980’s but I didn’t recognise the picture painted. The following profile is a tribute to an excellent club man and a lot of help was receibed from Dave Cooney, Cambuslang Harriers team manager for over two decades (and counting!).

Born on 12th February, 1947, Robert joined the club in 1963 at the age of fifteen and has had 50 years in the club. Given what has been said above it might be best to look at his involvement in the various areas in which he has functioned.

AS A RUNNER

It should be noted that Robert worked for many years delivering coal for the family business, even on a Saturday morning before competing later in the day – hardly the ideal preparation. It did however make him stronger than almost all of the opposition. His first individual medal was in 1965 when he was second in the Midland District Youths Cross-Country Championship. The first six were Eddie Knox of Springburn, Robert, Colin Martin of Dumbarton, R Colvin of Springburn, Alistair Johnstone of Victoria Park and Martin Mahon of Shettleston. He was in very good company indeed! He went on in the same season to be ninth in the Youths National. Eddie Knox won that one too with John Fairgrieve (EAC) second and Colin Martin third. Finishing in the top ten was nevertheless a noteworthy achievement with several good runners left behind – eg Alistair Johnston was twelfth n this one. Probably needless to say but he won the Cambuslang Youth championship that year and also won the Junior title. In fact his run of club senior titles took in Senior victories in 1968, ’70, ‘ 71, ’72 and ’73. He continued running in the National – and County and District Championships until the 1990’s and then went on to run in the veterans championships. The 60’s were a good decade for Robert and he also competed on the hills well enough to win the tough Ben Lomond Race 1967 and 1968. On the track he ran 6 Miles in 31:43.0 to be ranked 25th Scot in 1968.

Of course the biggest event for endurance runners in winter, other than the national, was the Edinburgh to Glasgow eight man relay. Robert ran in this for the first time in 1970 when the club ran an incomplete team, turning out on the hard sixth stage. The club missed out in ’71 but were back in ’72 when their twelfth place was good enough to win them the medals for the Most Meritorious unplaced performance. Robert ran on the sixth stage again. He ran on the eighth stage in ’73 pulling the team up one place. Back on the long stage again in ’74, he kept the club in 17th position with another solid run. ’75 saw him again on the sixth stage but in ’76 Robert was on the third stage where he picked up one place. The talk that day was all of John Robson who, when running the third stage stopped altogether and reportedly threw away the baton. No fear of that with Robert who would always do his very best for the club. In ’77 he was again on the final stage for the team which finished eleventh. In ’78 the team finished sixth and Robert was on the seventh leg for a team which was getting stronger all the time with Rod Stone, Colin Donnelly and the Rimmer brothers wearing the colours. ’79 saw the team further strengthened by the addition of Eddie Stewart and improvement to fifth – it was Robert on the seventh stage who picked up from sixth to fifth. Missing ’80, when the team was second, and ’81, he was back on E-G duty in ’82 when the team, minus the Rimmers and Rod Stone but with Eddie Stewart and new man Alex Gilmour formed the backbone, Robert ran the final stage to bring the club home in tenth. That was to be his final run for the club in the Edinburgh to Glasgow but it had a noble stint on behalf of the club.

On the country in the 70’s he was a member of the first Cambuslang team to win a District team medal when they were third in 1976 behind Shettleston and Victoria Park and two years later he won the Lanarkshire County 10 Mile Road Running Championship.

So he was adept at cross-country and road running, then there was track running where in the 1980’s he returned to the Scottish ranking lists for the first time since that 6 miles in 1968. This time it was in the steeplechase where h recorded times of 9:59.1 in 1980, 9:54.1 in ’81 and 9:53.1 in 1982. The ’80’s were in general another good decade for Robert. In 1981 he was a member of the team that took bronze in the Scottish 4 man cross-country championship running first in a team with Lynch, Stone and Stewart. Incidentally the Young Athletes team of Sam Wallace, Pat Morris and David McShane won their race. Becoming a vet in February 1987, he was a member of the Cambuslang team that was second in the Scottish vets cross-country championships in 1988 and again in 1989. Unfortunately from 1990 he suffered increasingly from niggles and injuries that curtailed what running and training he could do. They were beginning to take their toll and although he kept on running an turning out for the club, his last notable race was when he was National M65 cross-country championships in 2013. It was a long career as a runner an he is probably not finished with the vets scene even yet … the latest open race result I have seen is for the Cairnpapple Hill Race in 2012 when he was first M65 and 35th overall.

Robert, third from the left, unusually for him, in the background

AS A COACH

It used to be a common thing to go to any club on a training night and see older runners standing with a group of younger athletes getting practical advice from his experience. It’s not such a common sight any more and the sport is the poorer for it. Robert was an excellent role model for youngsters – he had run on the road, over the country, up and down the hills and on the track, all with some success. How does he rate as a coach? Well, first and foremost he is dependable. It does not matter if an athlete misses a session, or even two, over the winter. If a coach misses one it is a cardinal sin. Robert would be an ever present. Mike Johnston of course is currently top man and there is a great deal of assistance from Owen Reid and Jim Orr.

His approach is said by a clubmate to be a demanding one but he leads by example. His two maxims are “There is no such thing as pain” and “You can always find time to train if you want to.” The first is maybe a bit overstated but there is no doubt about the truth of the second. Has he been successful? Over the years he has helped to coach and mentor many Scottish individual and team medallists and has contributed greatly to the national success which Cambuslang has enjoyed since 1979 when the Under 13 team won bronze medals in the Scottish Cross-Country Championships. Let’s just list them:

U13 Boys Scottish Cross Country Champions 1992 -96 (runner up by 1 point in 97), 98 – 2000, 2006 and 2013 when his grandson Drew Pollock was a counting member.

U15 Boys Scottish Cross Country Champions 1979, 1992 – 96, 2002, 2005 and 2008.

U17 Boys Scottish Cross Country Champions 1982-85, 1991 -93, 1995 and 96, 2003 and 09.

U20 Boys Scottish Cross Country Champions 1983-85, 1987, 2000, 2002 and 03 and 2013

Senior Men Cross Country Champions 1998 -1995, 1997-2000, 2003 and 2004, 2006 and 2008.

AT Mays Trophy for the Best Male Club at the Scottish Cross Country Championships

Inaugural winners in 1989, 1991- 97, 1999-2006, 2012 and 2013.

Cambuslang has won the trophy on 18 out of 25 occasions.

That is quite a formidable list of medals. Although others did their share of the work, Robert is almost certainly the main driving force.

AS A RECRUITING OFFICER

Robert is famous as a recruiting sergeant for his club. Always on the lookout for new members, he will often just stop runners in the street and ask them if they are interested in joining Cambuslang. Over the years he has been responsible for attracting many new athletes to the club – names such as David Cooney (team manager now for well over a decade), the best known duo in the club of Alex Gilmour and Eddie Stewart, Scottish internationalist Jim Orr who was better than he himself thought he was, hill runner Colin Donnelly, the brothers Joe and Kevin Kealy and Mark McBeth. Involved in the local primary and secondary schools, he was quick to latch on to the new phenomenon of parkruns and now gives out club leaflets at these events held in Glasgow every Saturday morning.

AS A COMMITTEE MEMBER

Inevitably a clubman such as Robert has done more than his share at Committee level and in organising social events, away weekend training expeditions, club relays, Christmas handicaps. He even has a role that not many know about as a GROUNDSMAN, mapping out and maintaining two grass tracks in the summer nights on the rugby pitches at the club since there are no local track facilities available.

Robert on the left at a team mate’s wedding

It was mentioned above that in May 1988 “Scotland’s Runner” published a club profile of Cambuslang Harriers and included in it was a pen portrait of Robert Anderson. This extract says a lot about him.

“He lives, eats, breathes and drinks the sport. As a promising youngster in the club in the 1960’s he would spend a hard morning carrying coal sacks up closes on a Saturday morning, finishing work well after one o’clock, before rushing off to a race at a time when Cambuslang had little hopes of any real success. Like many traditional harriers, he is now suffering the injurious effects of more than 25 years in the sport – many of them spent pounding the pavements in inadequate footwear, something that many youngsters tend to forget in these days of hi-tech footwear.

‘I still manage about 35 miles a week. More than that and I seem to get injured. Who knows, maybe next year … ?’ he says wistfully. But despite the seemingly constant injuries, he has managed a run every day this year.

Anderson never gives up. A current Member of Parliament (and Cambuslang Harrier) claims that Robert gave him the hardest run of his life. It was the day after the Mamore Hill race when a Cambuslang pack, under Robert Anderson’s guidance decided to do a 90 minute run through the mountains. Robert had the watch. But, being a ruthless coach, he stopped the watch each time any of the hungover lads was compelled to visit the bushes. Unfortunately, being hungover himself, he got the timing wrong. All too soon Robert was starting the watch whenever anyone had a call of nature and stopping it whenever the pack actually started running. A massive commitment to the Scottish mountains had been made before the dreadful truth emerged … the denouement involved two hours more than scheduled and a chest high fording of a mountain current. They still talk about it at Cambuslang (in hushed tones) with the sort of admiring horror that every true harrier reserves for those killing days when, somehow against all the odds, you make it home.

Yet the Robert Andersons of this world claim that it was all part of their master plan to take the club on to winning the Scottish Senior Cross-Country title four years later. Without them, our sport would drop dead.”

To finish with a heartfelt tribute, John Wilson who has known Robert for decades and remembers when he first started at the club pays him this compliment:

I joined the club as a boy in the 60’s. Though this period the club’s fortunes waxed and waned as football was the predominant sport in the area and a constant drain on younger members. Often it was Robert’s due diligence alone (chasing everyone up, making travel arrangements and even paying fares to get kids to events!) that kept the club going and being represented at events.

The older stalwarts were invariably injured (Andy Fleming, Willie Kelly) and Gordon Eadie tended to train on his own. For most of the decade Robert did not have consistent club competition or training partners at his level. Charlie Jarvie was about the same as Robert but he and others moved away, Davie Lang and George Skinner made guest appearances on some club nights but in the main Robert was left to train with boys, youths and juniors.

To get some quality training Robert started to attend the Tuesday session at Shettleston Harriers (which was often a fast 10 mile with Bill Scally, Henry Summerhill, Dick Wedlock). Our own club nights were Monday and Thursday and on one miserable winter’s night I went to the club and I was the only one there! We had had several weeks of numbers dropping off and the fear was the club would just simply fold. On the Wednesday Robert told me he was thinking of joining Shettleston.

Firstly had he joined Shettleston Harriers (this was around 1969/70) with the undoubted step up in high quality training, Robert would have fulfilled his potential and become an even better runner and secondly , in my view, Cambuslang Harriers would have ceased as a club as the members had dispersed and Robert was the main driving force to get people out at club nights and into running events. (As well as driving the training sessions)

Following his decision not to join Shettleston, Robert seemed to launch himself into an out and out recruitment mode targeting lapsed members, schools, and anyone he saw running in the area. Obviously he kept this practice going. In those days there was nothing to suggest Cambuslang Harriers would ever attain the success it has done. Robert was the driving force at the clubs most critical time and there is no doubt he sacrificed his own running development to ensure the continuity of Cambuslang Harriers.

I asked Robert to complete the questionnaire – unusual for this section – because I felt he would add a lot to the profile himself. The replies are below

Name: Robert Anderson

Club: Ronhill Cambuslang

Date of Birth: 12:02:1947

Occupation: Owner/Driver HGV (Retired.)

Personal Best Times: 800m 2:00; 1500m 4:04; 3000m 8:42; 5000m 15:27; 10000m 32:25

How did you get involved in the sport initially: School sports.

Has any individual or group had a marked influence on either your attitude to the sport or your performances? First Coach – Andy Fleming

Can you describe your general attitude to the sport? I love the sport but find young ones now do not want to put enough time or work into it.

What do you consider your best ever performances? 28th October 1967 in the Midland District Relays. I ran on the third leg and brought the team from eleventh to fourth – 33 seconds faster than Gordon Eadie who was going really well at the time.

What goals did you have that remain unachieved? Since the late 1960s, my ambitions have all been club based. I do not think there is anything left to win. We have had individual champions in every age group (male) and have won every team title. I would like to go back to proper coaching but no one is at present prepared to take the kids coming in the door. My wins with your help as coach:

Junior Men (Under 20): 1983, ’84, ’85, ’87. Youth (Under 17): 1982, ’83, ’84, ’85. Junior Boys (Under 13): 1992, ’93, ’94, ’95, ’96, (1997 second by one point to Law), ’98, ’99

***

Thanks, Robert – a lot of the Scottish athletics fraternity would agree heartily with your comments about the present generation and their attitudes. I reckon this is true of new athletes in all age groups. Keep up the good work!

John Morgan

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Admin

John Morgan standing on the right.

Johnny Morgan, who joined Clydesdale Harriers in season 1936/37, was always easy to recognise because of his very small stature. He maybe had to look up to Harry Fenion. However his contribution was immense at a time when many such as Andy McMillan, James P Shields and David Bowman were also making big contributions. John was one of the most respected men in the club when I signed up in 1957. Like so many good club men of whatever outfit, he did some running but his main contribution to the club was as an official, an organiser and a coach – he was also the recognised club starter. The club records for the period 1936 – 1939 have him turning out in only six races. In October 1936 he was eleventh of eleven in the club Novice Championships, in October 1937 it was the same position (11^th of 11), December 1937 he was twenty fourth of twenty four in the 5 Miles Handicap, on 25^th December 1937 he was sixteenth of thirty in the Christmas Handicap, a year later he was fourteenth of 21 in the Christmas Handicap and in February 1939 he was sixteenth of twenty in the Seven Mile Handicap. After the war started he was tenth of fourteen in the 1940 Christmas Handicap and that was his last race until he went into the Army in 1942. What he was to do for the club and for athletics generally after the War cannot be over-estimated.

John was club secretary from 1939/40 to 1942/43 and 1946/47 to 1950/51. The two spells in office were broken by his war time service in the Army. John served in Burma with the Chindits so must have seen a lot of the action. The Chindits were the Indian Division of the British Army in World War II and carried out guerrilla warfare on the Japanese in Burma (now Myanmar) under the command Brigadier General Orde Wingate. The name came from the mythical beast half lion/half eagle that was placed at the entrance to Burmese temples to scare away evil spirits. He also contracted malaria there and as is the case with the disease suffered off and on afterwards from recurrences. Many other local athletes also served in the Far East: one of these was Alex Kidd a member of Garscube Harriers and well known and respected throughout Scotland. He also came home suffering from malaria and although they made light of it, the disease had to be respected and showed itself from time to time. After one race on a particularly bad day at the Woodilee Mental Asylum (as it was called at that time) in Lenzie, the Changing Room became flooded because of a burst pipe. Alex was lying on a bench shivering and shaking and as the others all scrambled out with their clothes and gear leaving him there, he was saying, “it’s all right – it’s just the malaria!”

Although John joined the club as a runner he ran mainly in pack runs and inter club fixtures with no major trophies to his name. His racing record has already been detailed. His running after the War was seriously affected by the malaria but he used to turn out every now and then with Andy McMillan, James P Shields, Dan McDonald and Jim Murphy just for a run. In my time in the club he was best known as the official club starter and kept the two guns and ammunition at his house. He was an ever present at club fixtures and championships whether track, road or cross country

His big contribution to the club and to the sport was as an administrator and official. He attended a few committee meetings in the 1930’s before he was elected as club secretary a mere three years after joining the club. This was not simply because no one else was capable of doing the job or wanted to do the job – it was because he was recognised as being a good administrator. Came the war and he was elected as secretary to the war time committee whose job was to keep the club in good order until the cessation of hostilities. He worked well in the job and only left the committee when his Army Service took him off to Burma. This service left him as already noted with malaria and he had to take quinine for the rest of his life. One story is that when he said he would have to go home to have some quinine, the others remarked that he meant “Queen Anne” which was a type of whisky.

As soon as he was back home, it was not long before he was back on to the committee and his second spell in the hot seat was possibly his best. The club race results book opens a new page with the following:

SEASON 1946-47

In which it is hoped to carry out our full

Pre-war runs programme.

(John Morgan, Secy)

He was not only on the club committee but he was a member of the County Association and served on the Committee of the SAAA – the governing body of the sport in Scotland. He not only sat on the Committee of the Dunbartonshire AAA’s but was one of the pioneers of the organisation and the club representative in the setting up of the association. In addition to his committee work he did a lot of coaching and was the club’s official starter. He had two guns of his own and the ammunition was supplied by the club. The part he played in the organisation of the Clydesdale Harriers Youth Ballot Team Race when it started up in 1947 was such that the trophy awarded to the winner was named the Johnny Morgan Trophy and it is still in the club’s possession. The picture below is of Eddie Sinclair winning the Johnny Morgan Trophy.

Eddie Sinclair winning the Clydesdale Youth race, 1954

At that time he was always very helpful to the younger committee members and Alex Hylan said that he would come before the meetings and ask if he, in whatever capacity, needed any help in preparing for meetings. John also donated the Zetland Trophy for the Ladies Track Championship and named it after the Zetland Estate where his parents worked – the earldom of Zetland was created in 1838 for Laurence Dundas (of Port Dundas fame).

In the mid 1950’s the club had a quite superb Ladies Section with many first class athletes including not only Scottish but also British champions and international athletes. The section was led by Jean Struthers and John was the main coach. Then in the late 1950’s Tom and May Williamson formed a new club to be called Western AAC and it would be based at Kirklee in Glasgow. They attracted girls from all clubs and the effect on several clubs in Glasgow (Springburn Harriers Ladies, Bellahouston Harriers Ladies and Clydesdale for instance) was devastating. When one of the best runners in Bellahouston Harriers joined up with Western, she was asked by her regular training partners in Maryhill Harriers Ladies why she had not joined them if she was leaving Bellahouston. Her reply was that they had never asked her! Virtually all the Clydesdale Ladies left en bloc to join this attempt to form a ‘club of champions’. These outfits keep appearing – Sans Unkles’ and Dunky Wright’s Caledonia AC, the Robson brothers and their Edinburgh/Reebok/Leslie Deans/Mizuno Racing Club and so on – and seldom last long. The damage inflicted on other clubs is at times considerable. John Morgan was so upset that he gave up coaching on the spot and another coach had to be found. He stayed to work for the club at Committee level and as starter and timekeeper at club and county races.

Runner, committee man, coach, official club starter – and one of the first class group of men who kept the club functioning after the war. When he died in November 1967 the ‘Clydebank Press’ said: It is with deep regret that I have to announce the death of Mr John Morgan one of our older members. Johnny as he was known to young and old alike served the club well in many official positions since the War and although he was dogged by illness in recent years he still turned out as an official SAAA starter when needed. His services were not limited to Harriers activities as he was well known for the help he gave to local schools and Youth organisations and often at considerable expense to himself. We in the club will miss Johnny greatly and extend our deepest sympathy to his family.”

David Bowman

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Admin

David Bowman was a member of Clydesdale Harriers from 1935 until his death in 2007. He held every important office on the committee and outwith the club he served on many national bodies. At one point he was president of four athletics organisations at the same time. David was my great hero in the club and there were two things he felt important: you always did what your club needed you to do, and the club should take its place in the wider world of Scottish athletics. One of the best ever clubmen in any club in the land, what follows is a profile that I wrote as part of a book of club profiles.

David Moir Bowman joined Clydesdale Harriers in 1935 – exactly 50 years after the formation of the club and has had an unbroken membership since then with only a spell in London from 1937 – 1938 when he ran with Queen’s Park Harriers to interrupt things. He had initially been invited to train with a group of runners from half a dozen clubs from the YMCA in Peel Street in Partick in Glasgow with the large plunge bath in the basement as an added inducement. The building had originally been part of HyndlandSchool and before the bare concrete bath was built in the basement four or five at a time would cram into an ordinary sized bath and scrub each other’s backs. Eventually a wrap around shower was added to the big bath. Starting as a sprinter, David gradually moved up through the distances until eventually specialising in the marathon. He raced at County, District and National Championships as well as at all the local meetings and Highland Games at Shotts, Cowal and Strathallan.

It was in the mid-forties that he started ‘a wee bit of road running and this led to running in the Greenock to Ibrox Marathon in 1949 on the advice of Jock Semple. On one of Jock’s visits they were out on a run when the good advice was given. In the race itself he was sixth of twenty four finishers, defeating the club road race expert, Eric Paton. The 1950 Scottish Marathon Championship was held at Meadowbank and was won by Harry Howard of Shettleston Harriers in 2:43:56 with David being tenth in his first marathon in 3:02:51. The times were all slow by today’s standards but it should be kept in mind that apart from shoe technology, diet and clothing being much less well developed, the course organisers tended to look for tough courses in keeping with the marathon’s tough man image. The Isle of Wight Marathon was notorious and the Scottish Marathon from Westerlands in Glasgow out to the Vale of Leven and back was a series of long difficult hills and climbs. The 1952 SAAA Championship went from Methven to Dundee with the start being ‘beside a telegraph pole in the middle of nowhere ‘ according to the ‘Scots Athlete’ magazine. In a star studded field including CD Robertson (the winner), Joe McGhee (from Hadleigh AC), J Paterson of Polytechnic Harriers, Emmet Farrell and others.

David was eleventh in 3:02:49. The 1953 marathon from Laurieston to Meadowbank was his best where he was fifth in 2:48:18 – ten minutes behind the winner. 1955 saw the race go from Falkirk to Edinburgh with Joe McGhee winning by almost ten minutes in 2:25 and David finishing tenth in 2:52:22. He picked up standard medals for the marathon on no fewer than six occasions and as an athlete is best remembered for his road running which included the Helensburgh to Clydebank road race – much harder than the more familiar Clydebank to Helensburgh version since it included the long drag and climb up from the start at the Pier Head in Helensburgh to Dumbarton.

From the club point of view, David was the ideal club member and official. He was a first class ambassador for the club and the sport and great example to all members. He filled in wherever necessary and held every office on the Committee. He was President for ten years and treasurer for twenty two. He turned his hand to whatever the club needed whether the need were expressed or not. For many years he produced on his own initiative a single sheet containing the list of Committee Members, trophy winners, fixtures for the coming year and any significant dates in the coming season. This was neatly handwritten on a single sheet and folded to a size that would fit into a pocket diary. At presentation time he would personally collect the club’s many trophies, take them to the engraver and collect them in time for the presentation. In the 1990’s he added to the number by donating the David and Evelyn Bowman Trophy for the club’s top Field Events athlete. He had already presented the Janice Moir Wright Trophy (in memory of his daughter) in 1978 for the top Youth/Junior in the National Cross Country Championships. He also chauffeured many, many athletes to and from meetings and generally did as much as he could, often much more than could be expected, for the club. A remarkable record but arguably his biggest single contribution to the club was his work with Andy McMillan and others on the war time committee. The club had completely shut down during the 1914-1918 war for the duration of hostilities and lost out when the fighting was over because they had to start up again practically from scratch. The war time continuation committee from 1939 to 1945 kept the club ticking over while the action was taking place and met officially to start up again on the cessation. David was Vice Captain in 1945, Captain a year later and went on to be one of the longest serving of Committee Members.

*YEAR*	*POSITION*	*YEAR*	*POSITION*
1959	President	1973	Treasurer
1960	President	1974	Treasurer
1961	President	1975	Treasurer
1962	President	1976	Treasurer
1963	President	1977	Treasurer
1964	President	1978	Treasurer
1965	Treasurer	1979	Treasurer
1966	Treasurer	1980	Treasurer
1967	Treasurer	1981	Treasurer
1968	Treasurer	1982	Treasurer
1969	Treasurer	1983	Treasurer
1970	Treasurer	1984	Treasurer
1971	Treasurer	1985	Treasurer
1972	Treasurer	1986	Treasurer
1988 President	1989 President	1990 President	1991 President

Thirty two years in two of the big two positions in any club! Quite exceptional and it is doubtful whether anyone will ever again hold the Treasurer’s post for quite as long. He also held other offices in the club such as Vice President, Assistant Secretary, Captain and Vice Captain. While president in 1960 he had the honour of replying to the Toast of ‘The Clydesdale Harriers’, proposed by Admiral Sir Alexander Cunninghame Graham, KBE, CB, Lord Lieutenant of the County at the club’s 75^th Anniversary Dinner at the Grand Hotel. In the course of his time in the club he attended the 60^th, 70^th, 75^th, 90^th and of course the Centenary Dinner where he proposed the Toast to ‘Kindred Clubs’

At National level he was recognised as a top class administrator and organiser. He was on the Committee of the Scottish Marathon Club for fifteen years, a member of the DAAA Committee where he held the offices of President and Vice President and he also chaired the Inter-Counties Athletic Association. At one point he was President of Clydesdale Harriers, the DAAA, the Scottish Marathon Club and the Inter Counties Association at the same time. As President of the Marathon Club he was responsible for helping organise the SAAA Marathon Championship for a number of years producing superb maps of the courses with a chart of climbs and descents along the way directly below the relevant part of the map. This championship was held separately from the Scottish Championships for many years and it was while David was President that it was re-incorporated into them. It should be said that the Secretary, Jimmy Scott of the Glasgow YMCA, was the real driving force of the SMC but he and David made a very good team backed up by an excellent Committee.

The 1970 Commonwealth Games

The high spot of his administrative career however was probably during the Commonwealth Games at Edinburgh in 1970. He was Assistant Manager of the Scottish team with special responsibility for the marathon. His vast experience as competitor and official were responsible in no small way for the smooth running of the event which turned out to be one of the most exciting events of the Games, won by Ron Hill with many very fast times being recorded. He is pictured with Scotland’s Jim Alder in July 1970 after Jim had finished second to Ron Hill in the marathon.

David was of the calibre to hold the highest offices in the sport nationally but chose instead to serve the club: a forward looking official and key man throughout his time on the Committee. Efficiency and David were synonymous: when the Clydebank Half Marathon had problems immediately before the first running of the event, the organisers turned immediately to David who had a panicky phone call less than twenty fours before the race asking for assistance. Despite being the best man for the job and having been ignored by the organising committee up to that point, he was courtesy itself and quickly sorted out the problems.

When the club held a tribute dinner to David and George White in 1994 for all that they had done for the club and the sport over the years, there were over one hundred in attendance including members of all the local clubs and the written tributes from those who could not be there were sound testimonial to all that they had done. Some examples:

From Doug Spencer of Garscube Harriers: “Looking forward to an excellent evening, tell George to keep his elbows to himself, David was too much of a gentleman to involve himself in the fine arts of aggression in cross country races”.
From Graham Everett of Shettleston Harriers (eight times Scottish Mile Champion, AAA’s One Mile Champion): “A little dedication and determination is all that it takes to have fun and enjoy athletics. However to give a ‘century’ to the sport is a milestone that you have both easily passed. It is a great honour that Clydesdale Harriers are giving you for the service to the club and Scottish athletics.”
John Emmett Farrell of Maryhill Harriers: “David is a great servant to your club and to the sport at large. He epitomises the real spirit of amateur sport and a really nice guy.”
Alex Kidd of Garscube Harriers: “I can testify to David being an excellent organiser as I was a humble steward at the ’70 Commonwealth Games Marathon and also to the ferocity of gentle George as a competitor having been beaten by George and David over track, road and country.”
Ewan Murray Secretary of the SAAA’s and former President of the AAA’s: “David and George represent all that is best in amateur athletics. Their enthusiasm as competitors and their work as administrators for the sport in general and Clydesdale Harriers in particular have contributed greatly to the success of both. All done in humility and without thought for the honour they brought to themselves and to our sport.”

And there were many more in similar vein.

Another feature of David’s personality that stood out was his courtesy and sense of ‘the right thing to do.’ That sounds very po-faced but David wasn’t like that, he did like things done properly though. If as a Committee Member, whether as President or as an ordinary member, he felt something was not right, then he did his best to have it decided democratically. If he lost the verdict – and it didn’t happen often – then he accepted it and there was no ill feeling. He never ever imposed a decision unilaterally. One of the aspects of his personality that made him such a superb ambassador for the club and the sport was the fact that everybody got their place and no one was ever treated with less than respect no matter how badly they had behaved. His demeanour exuded dignity, efficiency, respectability and honour.