SCOTTISH DISTANCE RUNNING HISTORY

The East District League was first run in 1924 and has gone from strength to strength: to celebrate its centenary season, Alex Jackson has written a history of the event which uncovers many interesting facts about the League – including the fact that there have been requests over the years from athletes outside the East District for permission (not granted) to run as guests. He also lists the over 100 clubs that have joined the league after season 1947-48. A fascinating book – I spent some time checking out the names of athletes and officials I had run with or served on committees with at various points in my career – even if a short one. You can download and print your own copy from

http://www.salroadrunningandcrosscountrymedalists.co.uk/Archive/East%20District%20League/Watch%20Out%20for%20the%20Trams.pdf

The beautiful medal above is the one that Ryde Harriers produced for the 60th anniversary of Dale Greig’s Isle of Wight marathon in 1964. Colin Youngson has added a short piece to his page on Dale’s archive collection which you can read at this link .

The page on the Helenvale Track in Glasgow’s East End is always somewhere in the top 30 or 40 hits in any month and has lots of memories for many of our regular readers. Alistair Lawson gave us a copy of a photograph of the Duke of York driving a tram to the opening of the ground and we added a couple of newspaper clippings to enlarge the story. Have a look at this link .

We are currently having a look at the Bell’s Junior International which was a real showcase of young British talent. Held in July and August from 1978 the spectators could see Scottish talent like Graham Williamson, Fiona McQueen and Lynne McDougall (running cross country at Pitreavie, above) as well as others like Steve Cram, Peter Elliott and Paul Davies Hale. There were also some names that one might not have expected to be of Scottish interest at the time but would become so – eg a young English shot putter called A. Vince. The first five meetings are reported on at this link , the remainder here . Scots Positions at the meetings are here .

Hill running internationalist Brian Potts is pictured second from left running in to the finish at the National in Irvine in 1986. Well liked as a person, and a respected athlete, we have a profile of Brian at this link. Fellow Clydesdale Harrier and multi event record holder Ian Murphy is pictured below after setting a record for the Loch Ossian challenge.

We now have a profile of the talented and mercurial Ian Murphy – a superb talent on all surfaces.

Coach Steve Doig’s training group has done it again. Steve who was a Scottish International athlete in the 1980’s and 1990’s made the transition to coaching with tremendous success. His latest has been the victory of T20 athlete Ben Sandilands (above) in the Paralympics in Paris over the 1500m in a new world record for the event and category. The win replicates that of his training partner Owen Miller in the previous Paralympics. Three of Steven’s athletes ran for GB in the world Para Championships in July last year. Read about him and his athletes here .

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