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In 1936 Glasgow University Athletics Club had a preliminary meeting, which was common practice to shorten the afternoon of the main competitions because of the large entries in some events, on 6th May. The Glasgow meeting was bigger than those of the other Universities simply because of the large number of events requiring shortening before the principal sports day. At this meeting several finals were held – the One Mile which was won by JN Lapraik in 3:52.4 , the Putting the Weight won by DH Cameron (holder) from AB McDonald and WF Forrester with 37’4″, and the Hammer by WF Forrester from DA McLean with 122′ 6″. There were also two women’s events – the 440 yards which was won by the holder, RH Livingston from SJ Sutherland in 69.2 seconds, and the Long Jump, won by SM Dobbie from AM Devine with a leap of 15′ 1″. Preliminary rounds were held for several other events and these are below:
The sports proper were held on 10th May and the “Glasgow Herald” report read as follows:
… and the women’s results were as follows:-
HM Murray, Glasgow University 440 yards champion
The Aberdeen University Sports were held on 16th May with a preliminary session on the 12th. In the preliminary round, the events were the Three Miles and the Discus. The former was won by DM Annan from AC Lobban in 16:03.4, and in the latter G Milne won with a best throw of 89′ 7″. There were also a qualifying round of the pole vault with AF Murray, RSM Keir and JS Shand being the trio to make it through. The “Scotsman” reported as follows:
The first day of the University Athletics Union Championships was on Friday 15th May at the White City in London where Edinburgh was represented by three athletes. HG Taylor was third in the javelin with 168′ 4 3/4″, PM Ewen second in the Hammer with a best of 122′ 1 3/4″ and SEO Martin wonthe Long Jump with a leap of exactly 22′ 0″.
In between all the championships, there were other matches such as the Edinburgh University v Watsonians on 23rd May at New Myreside where the University not only won but provided three double winners in SEO Martin (hurdles, long jump + 3rd in high jump), PM Ewen (Shot and Discus) and RB Wylde (220-yards and 440-yards). On 23rd May Aberdeen U narrowly defeated St Andrews by 39 points to 36. Other such meetings were Aberdeen U v Atalanta and St Andrews v an RAF team from Leuchars as well as traditional matches between the universities.
But the individual university championships were still very prestigious events with quality reporters (eg George Dallas writing as Ggroe in the Daily Record) previewing and reviewing the meetings. The Scotsman reported that in the first two events of the Edinburgh University Sports, held on Wednesday 27th May, DW” Boyd in the Hammer throw set a new record of 132′ 1″, adding 2′ 1″ to Dr RM MacKay’s 1932 record. H McDonald won the Three Miles by 300 yards from TBM Sloan in 15:26.2. Heats of the 100 and 440 yards were also held: Seymour, Gaffney and Taylor were the first three in the first heat and Wylde & Martin (=) and Brooks filled first three places in the second for the 100; in the 440, Duncan and McFadyen filled the first two places in the first heat and Wylde and Malcolm in the second. Most of the events were held on the Saturday (30th May) and the report in the ‘Scotsman’ read:
The results were printed in detail as follows.
The Inter-Universities championship was held in Glasgow on 13th June and Aberdeen in particular fancied their chances. Note the preview on the day in the ‘Press & Journal’
The caption on the photograph below gives the game away as far as the result of the championship is concerned.
The Report in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ on the following Monday read as follows. The reporter was of the opinion that the track events outshone those in the field: certainly the names of several of the runners are familiar with Lapraik being the best known of them all.
The results from the same source are below.
