Author: The Author

From Johnny McCall:

Johnny ‘Buster’ McCall (70)

I started Medical School at Glasgow University in 1960.   I had been running for about two years with the Clydesdale Harriers prior to that.   I had no talent, but I did manage to win the club Junior Championship in Clydebank, however there may only have been about six competitors.   At that time the running heroes were Emil Zatopek, Gordon Pirie, Chris Chataway and a newcomer, Herb Elliott.   The training “mantra” was “long, slow distance”.  This was the Percy Cerutty/Arthur Lydiard era.   This was the approach to becoming a distance runner.

The first person I met at Glasgow University who was a “runner” was Douglas Gifford.   I met him in the changing room of the old gymnasium across from the Botany Department at Glasgow University.   I think this may have been within the first few days of me enrolling at the University,   Douglas, or “Dougie”, was getting ready to go out for a run.   I introduced myself and we went out for a training “spin”.   He, of course, at that time was already well known in cross country running in Scotland, was in the top echelons of University cross-country running and he had also made his mark at National level.   Douglas was studying English and he was the first person I had ever met who had read “The Lord of the Rings”.

I joined the University Hares & Hounds at Douglas’s encouragement and quickly became friends with another mentor, Jim Bogan.   Jim was also a notable cross-country runner at both University and National levels.   Both he and Douglas were seen to be two athletes who would go on to achieve “great things.”   A really “class runner” at that time in Glasgow was Calum Laing.   Calum was a “Son of the Manse’, his father being a minister in Alness, which is in the “Black Isle” in Sutherland.   Calum had a barrel chest and quite long legs for a short torso, but he was able to beat all of the best University cross-country runners in Scotland on a weekly basis.   He was a very powerful runner and I certainly was in great awe of him.   Calum was studying agriculture, but I think at that time he was much more interested in running.   He was a humorous guy and a real “teuchter” with a wild sense of humour and much interested in the opposite sex as we all were.

The team was managed by Bill Diverty, a bald headed guy who always wore a long trench coat.   I never really figured out where he came from and what his qualifications were, but he seemed to be a force at least at the University level in terms of his administration and organising meets and getting us from place to place without losing people.   We never had a coach and all tended to train on our own or in the company of one or two others.   I mostly trained on my own and it was my habit to go to the gym every day about lunch time and run for about one hour and then spend another hour in the gym.   I was quite often out for a run again at night.   At one point I was running about 100 miles per week.   I did not participate a great deal in track, although I would go out in the 3000 metre steeplechase along with Jim Bogan who was coaching at the national level in that event.

Cross Country running with the Hares & Hounds was mostly a social event.   We had a helluva lot of fun and we did a lot of drinking.   We were frequently found in the Arlington Bar in Byres Road on a Friday night along with the football guys, and then we would all disperse to the various dances at the Men’s Union, the Women’s Union, the Art School, the Maryland Jazz Club and other great places.   On Sundays I would usually surface around noon and quite often go out for a long run.  On occasion we would head up to Fort William and stay in caravans there, climb Ben Nevis and go for long runs across the moors.   In addition to cross-country running, I participated in road races such as the Nigel Barge, and of course the wonderful Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay.   I ran in that I think twice for the University Hares & Hounds, and at least once, or perhaps twice with the Clydesdale Harriers.   This was a highly competitive event and certainly was of a very high standard.

The people that I particularly remember at University would include Gifford, Bogan and Calum Laing, as well as Dick Hartley, Cameron Shepherd, Allan Faulds, Barclay Kennedy, Ray Baillie, Brian Scobie, Mick Rogers, Tor Denstad, Roger Clarke and many others I would have to dig deep into my brain to remember.   There were also some very good track athletes at Glasgow University during that period, these included Ming Campbell, Douglas Edmunds  and Dick Hodelet, who was also a classy road runner.   I quite often trained at Westerlands which was the University track at Anniesland at that time.   I would usually go there at lunchtime and would train with the likes of Lachie Stewart, whom I had run against with Clydesdale Harriers when I was a Junior, as well as Graham Everett, Gordon Pirie and Derek Ibbotson.

The highlight of the cross-country season were the trips we made to the other university campuses.   The one we used to enjoy the most was when we went to Ireland.   We would fly to Belfast to run against Queen’s University on a Saturday and then make our way down to Dublin on Sunday, usually very hungover, to run against Trinity College on the Monday, through Phoenix Park and along the “Banks of the Ould Canal”.   The Monday race was usually run in a very hungover state and even in the Sixties it was possible to find a howf in Dublin or in the countryside outside of Dublin and we were eager explorers in that regard.   There was usually a visit to the Guinness Brewery after the race and then a giant “piss-up” at Trinity College.   We would be loaded at Trinity College into rooms that had no running water and no heat.   The students at Trinity were usually “Anglo-Irish”.   These were Irish Aristocracy. with close affinity to England and they were there only   because they were not usually able to get in to Oxford or Cambridge.   However they were an eccentric and entertaining crew and always had large slabs of their mother’s fruit cake for us to eat as well as barrels of excellent “claret”.   I remember spending time with the Shillingtons and one of them, I think Colin, was a very good miler and I think ran closeto four minutes for the mile during that period.

The other trip we used to enjoy was the one we made to Aberdeen in January.   We usually stayed at the Men’s Hostel down by the Docks which we shared with the local vagrants.   We would sleep in  these large rooms with multiple small beds, however the “fry up” in the morning was worth the price of admission.   Some of us would “take the plunge” into the icy harbour waters on the Sunday morning.   We would not normally get in to the Hostel until quite late at night and often about one or tow o’clock in the morning after we had finished seeking out the Aberdeen girls at the “Union Dance”.   Our arch rival, of course, at that time was Edinburgh University and Fergus Murray and Calum Laing frequently “battled to the wire” and certainly in the early Sixties, Calum was usually the victor.   Edinburgh University eventually had a much stronger team and towards the end of my period with the Hares & Hounds, Glasgow was no longer a “strong force”.

I gave up cross-country running at Glasgow University when I started working in the hospital in Glasgow as a Resident.   Residency training at that time took up twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.   I did continue to run, but did not compete.   I moved to Canada in 1969.   I continued to run and competed in several marathons, including the Boston Marathon, which I ran in 2:32.   Eventually I gave up running for “climbing” and for the next twenty years of my life I climbed all over the world, usually with a guide.   When I was 50 I climbed the Old Man of Hoy and I was also able to tackle the North Face of the Eiger in winter with an American guide, Charlie Fowler.   I climbed in China, Tibet, Nepal, all over the USA, Baffin Island and Antarctica.   Most recently I have taken up sailing and I have taken three trips to Antactica in a sixty foot sail boat; I have also sailed frequently around the West Coast  of Scotland as well as in Hawaii and in Georgian Bay, Ontario, where I now live.

Although I never attained the heights of Olympic competition, as did Fergus Murray and Donald Macgregor, nor have I had the athletic triumph that Lachie Stewart had when he won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1970, beating the world’s best distance runners at that time and running the third fastest 10000m of all time, I was lucky enough to be selected on four occasions to be a Team Physician at Olympic Games.   The first time being in Montreal Canada in 1976, and I was Team Physician for Speed Skating Canada for ten years, attending Olympic Games in Albertville, Lillehammer and Nagano.   I did have the good thrill of being present when my athletes won Olympic medals including several gold medals as well as many World Championships.

I have been an Orthopaedic Surgeon for over forty years in Canada but I have never forgotten the great pleasure I had when I ran across the hills and fields of Scotland in my black vest with the yellow piping as a proud member of the Glasgow University Hares & Hounds as well as an equally proud member of the Clydesdale Harriers.

I noticed that Colin Youngson’s recollection failed him with regard to races at the new Heriot-Watt University in the late 1960s. Hardly surprising – the “Watt” was an upgraded college, both smaller and less prestigious than Glasgow’s RCST / Strathclyde, but belonging to the same cohort of 1960s promotions of technical colleges to increase the number of UK universities. The “head office” was in Chambers Street; otherwise the new Uni was housed in a number of redundant former school and other buildings in central Edinburgh. In the early 70s came the Riccarton campus, at first nicknamed “Colditz” for its lack of totty…but I digress.

To the best of my knowledge, the new Heriot-Watt Uni XC club was a one-man band, in the shape of no less than Adrian Weatherhead – who will reappear in this tale. Their pre-Riccarton sports ground was at Patie’s Road, almost opposite the Redford Barracks, and Adrian had devised a race route in the nearby Pentlands which was a precursor of some of the hill race routes of today. I can only recall one inter-Varsity race on the course, which Adrian (I suppose) had devised – and led.

Fast forward a decade into the mid-Seventies, and my years of running (with dubious elegibility) for the H-WU XC club. I had been appointed a lecturer in Structural engineering at the School of Architecture at the Edinburgh College of Art, which School awarded “external” H-W. U. B.Arch. Degrees. Although I had been competing with Edinburgh AC, I fancied a return to the student lifestyle, at least in the matter of cross-country running, so joined up without any questions asked.

(I reckon they must have been desperate to make up numbers in a young club?). Anyway, there was a jolly core of about half-a dozen regulars: Gordon Bell, me, Doogie MacDonald, Graham McIndoe, and our star Ian Orton, ex-EUH&H, who was on a postgraduate course at the Heriot-Watt. By now Riccarton was an established campus, but several of us still toiled in central Edinburgh. We decided to set up lunch-time runs from a modest changing facility in a building owned by Heriot-Watt Uni in a courtyard off the Grassmarket. It was there that we encountered an irate Adrian Weatherhead, ten years older, but still churning out a daily schedule of laps round the Meadows.

(I might comment on the extreme disparity of styles of two of the top runners of the period, both of whom favoured the Meadows: Ally Blamire with his flat-footed pit-a-pat, and Weatherhead, who always seemed to run on tiptoe, as if dodging broken glass). Anyway, the latter was far from chuffed to have our jolly company, and was somewhat proprietorial about “his” changing facilities.

Three events stand out in my memory of the H-W years – and they were good years. Above everything else was one of the first Easter running festivals on the Isle of Man, dreamt up to increase tourism. I think our visit there was in 1980, and I took our team of four in my wee A40 car down to Liverpool  for the ferry to Douglas. There followed three days of running and boozing; the festival had attracted a number of Scottish club and Uni teams, notably the new Edinburgh old boys club, now the legendary “Boggies”, aka HBT – Hunter’s Bog Trotters. We found ourselves in a substantial guest-house on the prom in Douglas with about a dozen or so Edinburgh Uni runners, present and past, with one brave token lady – Violet Blair – in their midst. At some point on the first evening, the lustful posse decided on a game of strip poker, but since Violet was the only wumman this was going nowhere fast. Around midnight, some ten frustrated runners decided on a beach streak. Our Maltese host begged us to cool it, or he’d lose his license!

Next day came the first of three consecutive road races. I can’t recall exact details, except that one was a relay race, and that by the end of proceedings I was seriously knackered. Three tales merit  re-telling from the weekend – one was Willie Day of Falkirk setting out to eat a vindaloo curry, while claiming he’d never tried curry in his life. If you remember Willie, he had a baldy head, which turned purple as he ate…but he managed to finish his plateful. The second tale is of the Boat Race, a boozy challenge where a team of four sit with pints of beer round a table pitted against a rival team.

The challenge is: first man swallows his pint, and to prove it, inverts his empty pint glass over his head, whereat second man follows suit. This goes through rounds like any such tournament. The amazing winners were a team from Manchester, I think (Alehouse Academics) whose team completed their four pints in 13 seconds. The third recollection I’ll leave to your imagination: it involves two local lasses cowering in a phone-box and a “flash of inspiration” by a kilted Boggie.

On our return to Liverpool, the extent of my knackered-ness became evident. While I managed the 200+ miles’ drive back to Edinburgh, I could scarcely manage the four flights up to my flat! I had a swollen knee-cap which kept me out of racing for the best part of a year.

Second recollection is of the Scottish Universities’ XC championships in the early 80s(?) which Heriot-Watt Uni offered to host. We had fun working out – and marshaling – the race round the Riccarton estate. In those days, Riccarton had an ambitious director of sport, one Mike Fitchett (Fitchett by name, Fit Sh*t by nature) whose enthusiasm put the growing Uni on the sporting map.

Finally – and this led to the only pictures I have of my years’ running with Heriot-Watt – there were the Scottish Cross-Country Championships, held at the Jack Kane sports centre in Niddrie, on the tough ex-mining fringes of south-east Edinburgh. A fellow H-W Uni XC runner from the Art College, Graham McIndoe – who (as we know) has progressed to a successful career in photography – took a couple of shots of me in the course of the Senior race.

 Here’s a fine song I composed for the H-W U XC club, I think following our trip to the Isle of Man?  The tune is “Song of the Isles”, as sung by Kenneth McKellar  – and parodied by Billy Connolly:

 1. I was running round the Meadows in my grotty running kit

When somebody whistled by me like a shot

When I looked again, the fellow (who was wearing blue and yellow)

Must have been a runner from the Hairy Watt.

 Chorus

For we’ll rout them out at Riccarton, and we’ll smash them at Strathclyde

And at BUSF we will beat the bloody lot

So here’s a hearty bellow for the boys in blue and yellow

For we’re the runners from the Hairy Watt!

 There follows a sequence of ill-remembered and unrepeatable satirical verses about the exploits and weaknesses of various club characters (Gordon Bell, Doogie MacDonald, Ian Orton, me…)

Graeme Orr; Perth Relays, 1967

How I first joined the Hares and Hounds at Glasgow University as a fresher in 1965 is somewhat sketchy.   I think that even in pre-UCAS days the sports clubs would be on the look-out for young recruits and I think that either Ray Baillie (captain 1965-’66) or Marshall Prentice (Secretary) contacted me as 12th finisher in the Glasgow Schools’ Cross Country Championships.   I didn’t take much persuading and was soon pounding Great Western Road from the New Stevenson gym to Westerlands at lunchtime or doing shorter interval runs in Kelvingrove Park.

The Hares & Hounds, like the Men’s Union, was an all-male club.   There were about 20 of us in the club in those days: Ray and Marshall were the sensible face that the club  presented to recruits, but the club was more notable for its ‘good old boys’: Jim Bogan, Douglas Gifford, Barclay Kennedy and Calum Laing in particular.   The fellow-recruits from my year included Willie MacDonald (later to become captain), Ian Mcfarlane, Stuart Polwart, Alan Irvine, Alistair Reid, Alistair MacPhee, Alex Turnbull and Jim McHardy the following year.   We had a few recruits from other clubs (Dick Hodelet from Glenpark; Bill Bailey, a cyclist; Sandy MacNeil, a boxer; Andy Gillespie, a half miler)  a few remarkable Ulstermen (John Hickey and later Dave LOgue, ex-Edinburgh University), and of course the ever present club manager, Willie Diverty.

I recall the races, courses and personalities from my first year as vividly as if they were 30 days ago and not 30 years ago.   One early event, with a necessary conclusion in the Union Beer Bar, was a visit from Queen’s (Belfast) University team.   IO still remember the scorn shown by the Belfast boys for my Coke drink.   “Sure, that’ll do you more harm than the Guinness!”   They were right ….      I’ve switched now.   Those were the days before the Troubles, and I recall the Catholic in their team singing “And it’s on the twelfth I DO NOT wear … ”   We had a return trip to Belfast with some folk travelling on to Dublin.   The outward trip was by ferry from the Broomielaw, as I recall.   Three recollections stand out from the Irish trip:   the hospitality; Queen’s campus, which looked like a redbrick Gilmorehill; and the course which was a veritable peat bog.

You soon got to know the other Universities by the quality of their Union Beer Bar, their hospitality and, not least, the fiendishness of their cross-country course.   In each of these regards, Newcastle must stand out as near supreme.    First there was the drive down there and back by car – down via Peebles, and back by the old military road which follows Hadrian’s Wall in a switchback.   Then there was a Bacchanalian evening in the Union where a Geordie with a powerful voice regaled one and all with his rendition of the Lambton “Woam.”   We all picked up on the chorus:

“Hoosh lads, sheet your gob,

I’ll tell thee aal an awful story.

Hoosh lads, sheet your gob

I’ll tell theee ‘boot the woam.”

Oh, and the course, near Heddon-on-the-Wall, was a tough one, including a gluey ploughed field.

National, 1967

The other Scottish universities were a varied bunch.   Our old rivals, Edinburgh, had a wonderful hilly cross-country course which would be difficult to organise nowadays: up to the Braid Hills from KB along farm tracks, completed by a downhill dash which could be hazardous in snow!   In those days Edinburgh University H&H were an even more elite team than today: they had two Olympic athletes in Fergus Murray, the barefoot prodigy, and Gareth Bryan-Jones.   The rest of the team were no less industrious, including Alistair Blamire, the Wight twins, and later “Andy Machine” aka McKean.   Together they made up a formidable team in the Edinburgh to Glasgow relay – most memorably when Fergus MUrray ran 31 minutes and a few seconds for the 7 mile 6th leg.   This supremacy had its down side however; on one occasion, an inter Varsity race, the Edinburgh Hares & Hounds omitted to mark the course, reasoning that they would be leading the charge (correct), but expecting the rest to keep within sight (wrong).   Again they were perhaps less welcoming than other teams: or were we overawed?

The fixtures calendar had a different appearance in those days.   Many of the races were inter-varsity and there was no hill-running or marathon running for the ordinary club runner.   Orienteering began to appear through the Norwegian students studying in Scotland, and for a while that became a sort of “Upper House” for runners whop had abandoned competitive running.   Perhaps the high point of the calendar was the E to G relay.   In November 1967, in my year  as Club Secretary, I picked myself to run the long fourth leg.   I had the humiliating experience of losing two places, and recording the slowest time for that leg for the day.

Aberdeen was a good away fixture, with a lively night scene around Marischall College and the Union, and choruses of “The Northern Lights” vying with “I Belong To Glasgow” or “The Sweetest Of Songs Is The Song Of Strathclyde”.   Strathclyde was a very new (and slightly suspect: they were rumoured to accept you without Higher English!) University in the 60’s.   Their Union was like its denizens: no frills and not even a suggestion of a gentlemanly atmosphere.   The Glasgow ladrs referred disparagingly to “The Tech” while they called us “Strathkelvin” as a riposte.   Somehow I managed to keep in contact with Strathclyde runners rather longer than my old Glasgow team-mates.

The exceptions are worth mentioning.   Alistair MacPhee had been the butt of many a rude remark during his Hares & Hounds days on account of his ungainly running style, best described as a straddle-legged waddle.   Alistair had a girlfriend (later to become his wife) who used to come to our races long before the Hares & Hounds became mixed!   She was a homely sort, but she must have made a man of him.   Next time I came across Alistair he was running for Paisley Harriers and he could whip his waddling gait up to some speed.   I think he has some creditable marathon times to his credit.   The other reunion with a Glasgow team-mate happened 10 years ago in the 1985 Glasgow Marathon – the year it rained non-stop.   Around the mile mark, someone asked, “Is it Graeme Orr?”   I turned and there was Alex Turnbull, my old rival.   For the next 20 miles, we slugged it out, shoulder to shoulder, until I managed to pull away and in fact broke the three hour barrier.

No account of the Hares & Hounds would be complete without a mention of Willie Diverty, our constant companion and “manager”.   I insert the inverted commas because I never recall Willie discussing tactics or giving hints on training or style.   He was a cheerleader and administrator par excellence, however my mother still remembers the Saturday morning phone calls from Willie  “Is Graeme running?”

Some things have changed from those innocent days.   Gone are the communal baths, and the “party songs” in the Unions took on such an edge that they’ve been banned.   Songs, then and now, don’t have to be ribald or obscene to catch on.   The main criteria is that the air should be repetitive, have a chorus, possibly with accompanying gestures; be suited to be being sung at the top of one’s lungs, and perhaps refer wittily to the defects of one’s opponents or their womenfolk.   Happily the camaraderie and reek of liniment remain.   It’s still sport for amateurs, in spite of the ludicrous cost of running shoes.   Back in the 60’s, you bought a pair of Onitsuka “Tiger” canvas shoes for 10 bob, and they’d last you for a season.   If you wanted some style, you splashed out three quid for a pair of Ripples which skited all over the place in the mud.   Nike Air Shoes hadn’t been invented, vests were of cotton, as were track suits.   One item of sporting wear that I still cherish from that period is my Colours blazer, gained not for any particulart prowess over the country, but for regular appearances for the first team.   It has garish green and white braid and would not look out of place in the Parkhead boardroom.

Attitudes to women have changed, with the cross-country clubs having been mixed for so long that it’s hard to remember that it was not always so.   The transition, which began in the 70’s, was marked in the runners’ songs of the period, at first ribald, then overtly sexual, as the first pioneer women runners made their appearance.   The songs these days appear twee and politically correct; the ladies have tamed our tongues.   Our Hares & Hounds team pf ’65 – ’69 were a shybunch for themost part.   Ian Macfarlane was one notable exception:   “Hi darling! … Ah, ya puddin’!” as he’d shout from the car or bus on the way to races.   Dick Hodelet, a married, older student, brought a confident manner towards the opposite sex that we could only admire.   As for Jim Bogan, I think the man was born suave and sophisticated, with a laid back, worldly wise manner which impressed us younger runners.    I recall the shock which I felt in reading of his death in “Avenue”.

Before studying at Edinburgh, I had met two classy runners from St Andrews while with Dundee HH….Alistair Barrie and Allan Beattie but it was at Edinburgh, sharing digs with Chris Elson where my ideas were developed. Chris was a club-mate of Alan Simpson,  a noted sub-4  miler from Rotherham AC . So, training started in earnest.

The H&H stalwarts of the 60’s were the medics like Doug Dingwall, Mike Hartley, Alistair Mowat and Tony Yates with our most obvious rival being Glasgow with the likes of Calum Laing, Jim Bogan  and Allan Faulds. Club teams like Shettleston and Bellahouston were well over the horizon and I remember in early races finding the leaders already a field ahead after about a mile….the likes of John Lineker (Pitreavie) and Steve Taylor (Aberdeen).

Individual results  have nothing like the memories of the Team successes where a group of us trained better and better and after a year or so, started to get results. Highlights must be winning the Edinburgh – Glasgow road relay in record time, the Imperial Colleges Hyde Park Relay, National XC  Championships at Cross Country for both Senior and Junior  and having 15 in the first 16 home in the Scottish Universities Cross Country first and second team races at Aberdeen.

Many of us stayed in the south side of Edinburgh and met in the evenings for a fartlek road session and the whole Club met at Kings Buildings on Wednesday afternoons for a 10-12 miles fartlek session. Over a coffee, the Committee then discussed the forthcoming teams  and wrote up the previous weekend’s races.  We never raced each other in these sessions, but rather stretched each other. On Sunday, up to a dozen of us met up outside the Geology Dept, leaving our tracksuit on the steps and then going on the long run through the Pentlands……….21 miles (no kit was ever stolen…………probably too smelly).

In the summer for 3 years, I joined Ilford AC staying with the parents of Dennis Plater (a GB marathon International) and  Frank Gamwell and Alistair Blamire came to stay too. We benefited from plenty quality track races and much warmer weather than in Scotland.

In the mid 60’s, Alistair Matson got the lease for a large house in Morningside for 3 years and six of the Club stayed there. On the kitchen wall a chart listed the personal mileage for the week and the aim in the winter months was for 600 miles…………on an occasion, one member was sent out on a Saturday evening to get a further 3 miles completed. It wasn’t all serious and several notable parties were held there……….largely well-behaved………….as was our celebrations at the Hyde Park disco after  our memorable win where after a few beers, we ended on the stage before finally making our way to stay with Frank Gamwell’s uncle, a senior policeman, in Essex. Another leading Team member, Ian Young, used to go back home to Kirkintilloch after the Saturday race to run a disco enterprise he managed.

In my early years , Chris Elson organised a week training at a cottage near Skateraw where we tried to replicate the training regime of the World icons of the era, Percy Cerutty (Herb Elliott) and Arthur Lydiard and his New Zealanders,  Peter Snell, Barry Magee, Murray Halberg. I am not too sure how beneficial they were but it was certainly Spartan and a good for camaraderie.

Another great supporter of the University running was the chemistry Professor,  Neil Campbell,  who along with many others, with hindsight I now reflect  how generous they were with their time, came out snow or sunshine to officiate the race

 Distractions in the 60’s combined with a much simpler lifestyle,  allowed  hard training to be combined with significant academic effort. Faculties represented went from medicine, law, architecture, science, forestry, agriculture, business, engineering, dentistry to languages. All achieved a degree with several  becoming  Professors in their speciality and others building successful businesses.

Fifty years on, many of us from that era are still in regular contact, some still managing the occasional run together. We rarely recall the races against each other but do remember the fun we had. I know this to be the case with many of our friends south of the border in Clubs like Coventry Godiva,  Birchfield and Ilford  to name a few.

*

That’s where Fergus left his comments but they were seen by former team-mate Alistair Matson who added some of his own.  He repled to Fergus:

“Shettleston Marathon.     Did you remember that 15th May was the 50th anniversary of our first marathon?!   You had a great battle with Alastair Wood while I was delighted just to finish.

 Pre season training camp.     You mention Skateraw.  I wasn’t there but I do recall a very enjoyable week near Cockburnspath, staying in old coastguard cottages virtually on the beach.  This was from 6th to 11th Oct. 1964.  There were daily early morning runs, beach relays, sand-dunes and woodland running.  

Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay record.  If you haven’t already got it, the attached cutting from the Glasgow Herald with Dunky Wright’s report in his own inimitable style gives a dramatic account of the race.  

Pentlands 21 mile run.   During our time at the ‘Zoo’, I think all our Sunday 21 milers were from there.  With GPS and other latest technology,  I think we would find the distance to be short of 21 miles!  My times were regularly under 2 hours 10 mins.  I find it hard to believe in view of quite a bit of the route being off road that we could maintain near 6 min mile pace!

 There was one occasion when we nearly were over ambitious.    On 9th April 1967, we decided on a variation to the route.  Instead of following the reservoirs down to the main road, we took a more westerly track through the hills bringing us out at Carlops (according to my training diary) (I’ve just traced it on the OS map).  There is a pub there which I think we hoped would be open but wasn’t. We then went back through the Pentlands to return via Balerno. You, Gareth B-J, Don, and Alex were with me.  I remember well that both Don and I approaching Edinburgh were nearly at the point of collapse – dehydration and exposure.  You all went ahead while Don and I very luckily found a tap at some toilets in a park we passed and that drink was just enough to see us home.  I’ve recorded that we – or at least I  – were out for 3 hrs 55 mins.! “

After turning 65, I wrote an article entitled ‘Running Every Stage’. Stage Two covered my time at university (between the ages of 18 and 23) and this extract follows. However it sounds a little vague, so a kaleidoscope of assorted memories will be added afterwards.

Stage Two: Gaining Speed.

You glean so much information about running during five years at university. For a start, the cross-country men form a proper club, with first and second teams, hopefuls and older chaps. There is a real tradition, a history. Previous members ran for Scotland or even Britain. Ahead stretches an excellent programme of races against different pairs of universities, culminating in championship events: Scottish Unis, BUSF, East District and the National itself. Plus the amazing Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay. Train or bus travel is fully subsidised.

By the mid-1960s, there are complex recipes for training (but which ingredients will prove healthy for you?) For example, aerobic and anaerobic running; sand-hill sessions (soon discarded as a form of torture which fails to improve fitness for anything else); and weight-training (similarly dumped since skeletal older guys remain much faster). The training week takes shape around academic studies. You gradually start to get out every day of the week, if only for a wee jog.

Wednesday afternoon is the club run (six or ten miles), and as fitness increases, you manage to hang on a bit longer to faster men and to outpace other ‘freshers’. Tuesdays or Thursdays might be the day for reps: either twenty times 220 yards (brisk but controlled) or four times 660 (lactic acid up to your brain). There are races nearly every Saturday, over many types of terrain. You discover that easier courses suit you, while mudlarks enjoy sticky, tricky land. Yet to gain a ‘blue’ is an achievable aim, so you try hard anyway. Giving up is a crime. After races, whatever the result, it is time for beer-drinking and badinage. Nonchalance is mandatory; swollen egos will be satirised mercilessly. By the end of First Year, you feel strong enough to take your Sunday morning hangover along to the long run, which is organised by the city’s best distance athletes. This pack session is fast from the start, and the normal loop is fifteen miles. Devil take the hindmost: when you are dropped, don’t expect anyone to wait for you. More sarcasm than sympathy is offered, which hardens resolve for future improvement, until you can be the revengeful, merciless, sadistic one!

Only about forty miles per week is averaged, but as the months pass, you do get better, as is proven during the short summer track season, when you concentrate on doubling up (one mile and three mile races) and post new best times. Then you enjoy the track events at Highland Games before going camping, youth hostelling and earning cash by working at a summer job. Due to the resilience of youth, injuries are seldom encountered. When they do occur, you simply rest a couple of days and then try to jog back to fitness. Physiotherapy is unavailable (and will continue to be absent or ineffective until the 1980s or later).

Your university first team is friendly, determined (in a cavalier fashion) and quite successful, but certainly not the best. You decide to increase training, hoping to compete properly with stars from bigger cities. Progress is not ceaseless. Sometimes you overdo the training and pick up some infection; or fall over in the mud; or hurt some muscle or pull a hamstring. You produce good, bad and average performances, goodness knows why. It is all experience and your training diary is frequently reviewed, to locate the magic formula for guaranteed success …..

By Third Year, you are a senior university runner – full blue, SU representative, club captain. Apart from the usual competitions, you take part in longer track races (including the Track Ten) plus occasional Highland Games road or hill races. Then, at the age of 21, it is legal to attempt your first marathon, which you complete cautiously but quite well. It is clear that road is your preferred surface; and it may be that in future the marathon may be your best event. But you are well aware that fitness over 5000m (yes, race distances have gone metric) is key to speed at everything from 1500m to 26 miles 385 yards (sorry, 42 kilometres 195 metres).

Swotting for that degree stalls athletic improvement but during your final, post-grad year the trend becomes favourable once again. When you leave university and start work, can you really produces what some call ‘lifetime bests’ (as if these can happen some other time) or have you run these already?

Motivation: ambition, improvement, achievement, targeted rivals, trying very hard not to let the team down (especially in the E to G), exploring different events.

ASSORTED MEMORIES

Joining Aberdeen University Hare & Hounds Club during Freshers’ Week and then receiving a letter of welcome from the Captain, John Aberdein, who remains a good friend almost fifty years later.

A few of the speedier, older Harriers did not condescend to speak to mere first years. I vowed to improve and beat them. Otherwise it was a friendly club, a mix of folk who just enjoyed running and a few who became addicted to training and becoming faster.

Entering our dressing room: bare wooden floor, benches, pegs and hot pipes, around which a few less hygienic runners wrapped their sweaty, grubby vests. The stench! Hot blackcurrant drink in the Art Deco pavilion café. Note that our racing attire involved blue shorts, and vests that were officially described as gold or amber, not proletarian yellow!

King’s College field 1966-1971. A hallowed stretch of turf, with pitches (according to the season) for football, hockey, rugby or cricket) and in summer a good grass track. We warmed up round the perimeter; ran 660 yard repetitions; or 220s either on the track or up and down the bottom straight. Scottish National Coaches John Anderson and then Frank Dick introduced us to the hell of 20-second runs! Lactic acid over your head.

Our home cross-country course. Starting by St Machar’s Cathedral, over cobbles, up an alley-way, right onto a road, left up a hill, right down some dangerous metal steps, over a swaying wooden bridge, right along the Don footpath, left up a steep bank onto Balgownie fields, right onto the road, a long swinging downhill to the Bridge of Don, shooting across and up a narrow dead-end roadway past Balgownie golf course, left over an undulating dune path, right onto the sand itself, trying to keep on the damp, harder surface near the North Sea, up and back along the roadway, shooting across the main road again, utterly ignoring traffic, right along a Don footpath, down a muddy hill, up over cobbles, through a green gate, onto another Don path, high over smelly emerald waters, down into Seaton Park, a long straight and then left again to sprint up a steep slope to the finish, back near St Machar’s again. In theory, six-and-a-half miles; probably a little less. Bill Ewing had the record (33.27); John Myatt of Strathclyde took a second off it; and in my final year, I got frustratingly close with 33.29 in the Christmas handicap!

Training. Those dreadful sandhill repetitions at Balmedie, soon abandoned, thank goodness. Mel Edwards pioneered a five-mile circuit from the pavilion right round the Beach golf course. (On one occasion I just managed to keep up with Mel on this route, due to typically non-stop vocal encouragement. However it transpired later that he was completing the course for the fourth time that day, with one more to do that evening!) Another popular five mile run was out King Street to the Bridge of Don, along the dunes to ‘The Boats’, and back via sand and pavements. Alternatively, golf course fartlek round the edge of Balgownie and Murcar, ten miles in all. An early move towards long distance efforts was the Scotstoun run, out the undulating road of the same name, and then taking an arc down towards the sea, finishing once again on golf course and pavement – thirteen miles, allegedly. Our own half marathon, for the unusual Sawfish Snout Trophy, involved two times round the cross-country course.

Before AU minibuses were invented, we took (subidised) trains and buses to cross-country races against either two or six other university teams (there were only seven, before Stirling was created). St Andrews (hilly, I needed a tetanus injection after vaulting a gate and spiking myself on rusty barbed wire). Dundee, either Camperdown or Caird Park. Glasgow, Westerlands might include canal towpaths or serious mud. Strathclyde, an even muddier course. Heriot-Watt, can’t remember. Edinburgh, from King’s Buildings, down a steep road hill, right up a farm track and then up, up and away to the top of the Braid Hills golf course before a nasty descent and a short uphill finish.

The green vests of Edinburgh University Harriers dominated lead packs during that period. Scottish and British Universities Champions, Scottish Senior National Champions, Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay winners. In 1967, Scottish Unis CC Champs took place over their KB/Braids course. It was misty near the top. Eight EU guys and John Myatt entered the fog; only EU returned (although John did survive the mugging to finish 9^th). In the Second Team race, Chris Elson (EU) won, in a time faster than Myatt’s in the First Team race. How’s that for supremacy? We seldom beat any of those men, but what an inspiration to train harder! Fergus Murray had left; leaving Gareth Bryan-Jones, Alistair Blamire, Ian Young, Dave Logue, Alex and Jim Wight and other top-notch athletes.

Strathclyde and Aberdeen vied for second-best team. At least Strath could drink as much beer as Edinburgh, or even more. We tried to down more but failed.

Friendly rivalry with Irish Universities: Queen’s Belfast; Trinity and UCD in Dublin. They visited us one year and we toured there next year. Irish Tours were always great adventures, but rather tiring, not only because of two successive races, but mainly because of the booze and lack of sleep. The Mursell Trophy was contested between AU and QUB. By the time I left in 1971, somehow I had succeeded in finishing first in that match, once in Belfast and once (by only 10 seconds) in Aberdeen. We usually won the team cup. Guinness tasted okay in Aberdeen, better in Belfast and wonderful in Dublin, especially once when we stayed in Trinity quadrangle after the race and our hosts supplied free barrels of the stout. Robin Orr (son of the manse in Ratho) and I, two comparatively limited imbibers, staged an inexpensive contest and accepted a tie after ten pints each. Not drunk, we assured each other solemnly, just full up! Once, AU runners were in a Belfast pub. Someone suggested a fast pint competition. Charlie Macaulay (good runner from a rural background) won in about three seconds, although he seldom drank alcohol. “How on earth did you do that, Charlie?” “Pretended I was back home, drinking fresh milk!” I seem to remember Merv McIntyre organised a minibus Irish tour along especially strict guidelines: one bag per person only, which had to be put on the roof-rack; and inside only runners, sleeping bags for sitting on, plus food, booze, newspapers and commando comics!

Another bright memory was when Donald Ritchie, Charlie Macaulay, Bob Masson, Kerr Walker, Brian Templeton and I competed in Nos Galan, a wonderful Welsh four-mile road race that started ten minutes before midnight and finished in the New Year of 1971. Kerr was already in Wales, but the rest of us drove down in a crammed car, with the boot full of running kit, beer cans and three bottles of whisky. Snow was encountered from Aberdeen to Stonehaven and then later in Snowdonia but fortunately not between those points! Amazingly we ran well and won trophies for third team. Dave Bedford broke the record. 231 finished and the top 100 had their names read out, raised an arm and had a blood-red Nos Galan vest thrown at them from the stage! Then we annoyed various Cornish and Englishmen in the hostel by staying up drinking until 6 a.m.

A major event every November was the Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay. AUH&H usually ran fairly well but the highlight was in 1970, when we squeezed into the top ten to finish ninth from the 20 invited teams. Not bad, considering that all the best Scottish runners took part. Our lads that day, in running order, were: Don MacIntosh, me, Charlies Aithie and Macaulay, Jim Rough, Don Ritchie, Robin Orr and Merv McIntyre.  There was a good competitive spirit amongst the first team; but the wilder lads in the second team (i.e. ‘The Rearguard’) usually took the lead socially.

 

(Some of the 1970 First Team and Rearguard posing for an action photo)

The best AU cross-country runners during my time were: Dave MacFarquhar in 1966; Bob Hay in 67; Jim Maycock in 68; and then, when I became Captain, bloody Donald Ritchie arrived! He was running more than 100 miles per week even then, while I could only manage 40, so he beat me over the country, while I occasionally got past him on road or track. So I never won the Championship Cup, boo-hoo. Donald went on to become one of the world’s finest ultra-distance runners. Despite all those defeats in the mud, I still consider him a very good friend, along with Innis Mitchell, of Aberdeen AAC, and Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities.

Scottish Universities fielded an eight-man team against other regional ones in the British Universities CC, which seemed to be always run through mudbaths like Graves Park, Sheffield or Parliament Hill Fields in London. Every December, SU also ran against the Scottish Cross-Country Union Select, usually near Glasgow or, latterly, at Stirling University. At least it was a chance to see just how good Lachie Stewart and Dick Wedlock actually were.

In summer, we ran for AUAC, wearing a blue vest rather than a yellow one. Once again, it was a case of matches against two other universities or all seven. I once led a 1500 metres (yes, in 1969 we had gone metric!) until thirty yards from the tape, when a very young Frank Clement (future Olympic finalist) whizzed past. SU once cobbled together a team against Irish Universities and Belgian ones in Dublin. The annual highlight was the Rowland Trophy meeting in Durham, where we competed against lots of English universities as well as Scottish ones. Then there was our own AU sports day. I organised it in 1971 and included a paarlauf mile. Bob Anderson and I took considerable pleasure from recording 3.57!

Club reports, in ‘Gaudie’, the AU student newspaper, were usually witty and always disrespectful, as were the yearly sections in ‘Athletic Alma’. Unless you could take ridicule, or dish it right back, it was best to remain studying in the Library.

Filling out Blues Forms was an art in itself, involving working out your average position in races against each individual rival university, plus placings in SU or BUSF or East District or Scottish championships. For Athletics, you had to pay attention to Scottish Standard times in various events. To obtain a Blue for cross-country was comparatively straightforward, if you managed to defeat nearly all your own men plus most from weaker universities. Athletics was more difficult. During my post-grad year, in a final effort to attain Full Blue status, not only did I run 1500/5000 doubles, but also the steeplechase, 10,000 metres, Ten Mile Track and marathon! Only Bill Ewing, sartorially elegant, had the nerve to sport the exotic powder-blue blazer. Yet several of us liked to wear SU or Blues ties or even scarves, embroidered in white by Esslemont and Mackintosh. Entirely unfashionable nowadays!

In April 1970, eight of us tried to make the Guinness Book of Records by running a sponsored relay round King’s field for three whole days and nights, completing no fewer than 636 miles, 1320 yards. Sadly, Norris McWhirter turned us down but at least he sent an autographed letter. At that time, the reward for raising £100 for the Student Charities Campaign was a barrel of beer. Since we contributed more than £300, our problem was trying to consume three barrels (i.e. 244 pints) at one party. Donald MacIntosh’s speciality was standing on his head, feet against the wall, while drinking a pint upside down!

A final memory is of AUH&HC AGMs at The Mill Inn, eight miles out the South Deeside Road. Traditionally, the pre-meeting run involved a mazy wander over uncharted fields and hills. Frequently we became lost and struggled back after 13 miles or more, so the review of the year and voting for club officials took place in a tired, beery haze.

Aberdeen University gave me not only a good education, but also a successful apprenticeship, which developed more confidence in social circumstances as well as in my chosen sport. Most of the time, what fun we had!

Willie Diverty, second right, middle row

Willie Diverty was a well known figure in Scottish athletics circles for many, many years as a first class organiser with a very friendly manner and – of course, first and foremost perhaps – for his connections to Glasgow University.    He died on 1st December 1969 in Killearn Hospital, having been admitted in October.   He was involved in track & field, cross-country and road running almost exclusively for Glasgow University and was particularly associated with the well-established University Road Race.  He was a member of the Scottish Cross-Country Union and was President in season 1968-’69 when the World Cross Country Championship was held in Clydebank in Scotland.   Like everything else that he was involved with, it was a tremendous success.  Some say that he was originally a member of Victoria Park AAC and certainly his son Graeme was a member, but there seems to be no real evidence to support this and for most of us he first appears at GU H&H AGM in season 1956-’57.  Like many of his generation, such as Jack Crawford of Springburn,  he was always very well turned out with collar and tie, well pressed trousers and shoes properly shined.   He was President of the Hares & Hounds from 1957-’58 to 1960-’61 and again from 1966-67 to 1969-70.

Willie became Glasgow University Hares & Hounds President in season 1956-’57.   The minute of the meeting says: “Professor Campbell then intimated that as sport kept him extremely busy, he felt that the Hares & Hounds would be better served by a new President.   Stuart McFarlane then proposed Mr William Diverty, who had been present at the meeting.    He was introduced to the Hares & Hounds by Andy Galbraith and subsequently elected both as President, and as Midland District representative.”   He was re-elected the following year and his involvement with both Glasgow University and the SCCU was to continue to benefit both for some time to come.   His progress was easily seen in his being given more and more responsible tasks to fulfil – eg in the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay, he was a coach stewart until 1960, then a place judge working mostly with Jim Morton and Walter Lawn, and then from 1966 – 1969 as Vice-President and then President of the Union.   His affiliation, where it was not ‘SNCCU’ was always Glasgow University.

During season 1958-’59 there had been difficulties with the University allowing a Youth (Under 17 runner) to race for them, when it was not allowed for under SCCU rules.   At the AGM at the end of that year, “The President, Mr Willie Diverty, mentioned “various points of difference of opinion between the Hares and Hounds  and the Scottish Cross-Country Union which had occurred during the season, mostly concerning the running of Jim Bogan (a Youth) in distances greater than three miles.   There then followed a discussion about whether the Hares and Hounds should run Youths or not.   A discussion which became extremely spirited and long drawn out.”   The verdict?   Stan Horn proposed that Youths be allowed to run subject to jurisdiction by the Committee and that proposal was carried.   Willie was subsequently re-elected.

The question of the relationship between SCCU and the Scottish Universities did not go away and at the AGM in 1960, “Mr Diverty then spoke of the seemingly habitual friction between the SCCU and the Scottish Universities.   He mentioned a letter from Jim Bogan to the aforesaid body, and requested that “those with complaints should consult himself beforehand so that he could act in his capacity as the Hares and Hounds representative to the SCCU.”   At the end of the meeting, ‘Mr Bill Diverty’ was re-elected President, with Douglas Gifford Secretary/Treasurer.

Early in the meeting at the 1961-’62 AGM, Willie spoke about a notable success from the previous season: “Mr Willie Diverty, who was present at the meeting, congratulated the Hares & Hounds for winning the William Ross Cunningham Memorial Trophy for being the most outstanding club of the 27 in GUAC during the 1960-’61 season.   The immediate past year had also been most successful with the Hares & Hounds winning the Scottish Universities Championship and coming fifth in the British Universities championship.”     There were other matters of importance to be discussed that evening and Willie was involved in several of these.   The  club had often turned out two teams and on one occasion three, Mr Diverty wondered about a cup for the second team in the Scottish Universities Cross-Country Championship.   Then “Under AOCB it was proposed that Mr Diverty should deliver a formal protest to the SCCU about the types of courses used for Championship races.   Of particular concern ere the Midland District course at Renton, which involved a number of dangerous barbed wire fences, and the National course at Hamilton which was considered by many to be tool easy to be deemed as bona fide cross country.   Jim Bogan undertook to prepare details of possible additions to the course at Hamilton, which would be submitted by Mr Diverty to the SCCU.   (When the issue was subsequently raised at the AGM of the SCCU, however, the Hares’ and Hounds views were not sympathetically received.   The National Committee considered that the types of National Championship courses were now geared to those used in international events where the emphasis was on speed.)”   At this AGM, Mr David Johnstone was elected club president but the change didn’t affect in any way Willie’s activities on behalf of the club and he continued on the SCCU Committee as club representative.

At the 1963 General Meeting, the continued progress of the Hares and Hounds was detailed and it was noted that a championship tankard had been presented by Mr George Esslemont, the City Chamberlain of Glasgow, and one of the Hares and Hounds vice-presidents.    Bill Diverty was re-elected as vice-president and in 1964 it was agreed that the Esslemont Tankard be awarded to the first University man home in the Universities Championship and Calum Laing was the winner in its first two years.   Another trophy was presented to the club: Craig Sharp donated a trophy to be known as the J McCulloch Award in memory of his friend and it was to be awarded as a result of a points contest for races in which the Hares & Hounds took part – the first winner was Allan Faulds.   At the 1964-’65 AGM “Mr Diverty  (Vice President and the club’s Midland District representative) then spoke.   He mentioned how he served on the SCCU General Committee and presented all the Universities views there The SCCU were now demanding 16 athletes to compete in a Scottish Universities’ Select against a SCCU team.   Not all the Universities agreed to this, and the matter would need to be finalised at the next SCCU meeting.   The Hares and Hounds believed that 12 was the maximum number that could be raised.”  

The club had three vice-presidents – George Dallas, George Esslemont and Willie Diverty – and all were present at the 1966 meeting and Willie was again elected President.   The Glasgow University Road Race had been going for several years by then and Diverty suggested the incorporation of a team event.   The meeting however felt that this was an event for individuals, it was almost unique in Scotland and that it should not be changed.    President Diverty went on attending meetings and presiding at General Meetings in his usual manner but at the meeting at the end of the 1967-’68 season

“In his Presidential report Mr Diverty launched straight into an attack on the year’s worst performance, ie the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay Race.   He hoped that the Hares and Hounds would qualify for next year’s event, as he said it would be most embarrassing for him  (as President of the SCCU) if his club’s team was not represented.   However, he expected Paisley Harriers to drop out, thus improving the Hares and Hounds chances of competing.   Willie Diverty emphasised the importance of the Edinburgh to Glasgow race, saying it was the major event of the season – being even more prestigious than the National Championships.    Mr Diverty said that he had point out to his fellow SCCU officials how the Universities were at a disadvantage when it came to picking teams for races early in the season, as they did not know the form of their new members.   As a consequence of his intervention, the Midland District relay had been put back to the first weekend in November, however this would require an alteration to the date of one of the Hares and Hounds own races.”   

He was however re-elected as President and then when Graeme Orr proposed a joint tour of Ireland with Strathclyde University, “Mr Diverty however was of the opinion ‘that Strathclyde has a disreputable element and that the tour might disintegrate into a brawl.’   Members strongly disagreed with this although it was pointed out that numbers would be so great as to pose a great burden on the hosts.   Finally at the end of the meeting it was agreed to prepare a letter for the start of the new season in 1968-’69 describing the club’s activities and Mr Diverty would write a welcome to the club.

Willie Diverty as team manager at the Cross des Capitals  with John Myatt and Gareth Bryan Jones

The meeting in 1969 was held while Willie Diverty was President of the SCCU and he remarked on it in his review of the season.   “In his Presidential report Mr Diverty said that he was extremely honoured to become President of the SCCU  and it reflected greatly on the Hares and Hounds.   In fact, only once before (in the 1890’s) had a University supplied a SCCU President – he had been from Edinburgh.   Mr Diverty reported that the International Cross-Country Championships held at Clydebank had gone very well .   Mr Diverty had also approached Dr Charles Hepburn (Honorary President of the ICCU for 1968-’69 and a Hares & Hounds vice-president) regarding a trophy for the University Road Race and he had been delighted to provide the club with one. “   Of course, as President of the national governing body, Willie Diverty was re-elected president of the club.

All seemed well but Willie was admitted to Killearn Hospital in October 1969 and died on 1st December that year.   It was a shock to everybody who knew him – and that meant just about all involved in the organisation and administration of the sport in Scotland at the time.   The history of the Glasgow University Hares & Hounds includes the following in the minutes of the AGM on 9^th March 1970.

“The Secretary’s report began on a sad note with Alasdair Reid expressing his deepest regret on the death of the President Mr Willie Diverty. Alasdair said that one of Willie’s major achievements on behalf of the Club was the University Road Race which had gone from strength to strength. The former Captain and Secretary Ray Baillie had written to Dr Charles Hepburn in Canada, and suggested that the trophy which he had donated for the Road Race be a memorial to Mr Diverty and named after him.”

What has been reproduced above from the Hares & Hounds history covers his time with them but for what Willie was like, we can look at what has been said after his death.

He was the regular correspondent for Scottish news and results in ‘Athletics Weekly’ and after they had published a short obituary on 13th January, the following letter was published in the December 20^th   issue:

                                 

“Dear Sir,

May I be allowed to join you in your expression of deep regret at the untimely death of your Scottish Correspondent, Willie Diverty?   I met him many times in the last few years, both here in the south and in Scotland. Indeed, I had the pleasure of accommodating him during the week-end of this year’s AAA Championships, when he seemed in excellent health. It is hard to realise that we shall see him no more.   His was a cheerful, friendly, extrovert personality and his obvious pleasure in ‘having a word’ with all and sundry in the world of athletics and his gregarious good-humour invited one to reciprocate, which was easy in the face of such disarming enthusiasm for the company of his fellow man.

His notes in your columns for so many years were concerned with facts, figures and people rather than with the projection of his own personality and we in the south interested in Scottish Athletics will sadly miss the name of Willie Diverty each Friday. He would have been the first to wish his successor well and hope that he enjoy the job as surely as he, Willie, did for so long.

                                                            A.Glen Haig,

                                                            New Malden, Surrey.

Glen Haig was one of the best known officials in British athletics at the time.

Graeme Orr who was a working member of the Hares & Hounds and had been their secretary in 1967-’68, tells us that “No account of the Hares & Hounds would be complete without a mention of Willie Diverty, our constant companion and “manager”.   I insert the inverted commas because I never recall Willie discussing tactics or giving hints on training or style.   He was a cheerleader and administrator par excellence, however my mother still remembers the Saturday morning phone calls from Willie  “Is Graeme running?”

Colin Youngson from Aberdeen adds the following comments:

“I first ran (rather poorly) for Scottish Universities against SCCU Select in December 1967, in my second year at Aberdeen University.   I still have the friendly selection letter that Willie Diverty signed then; and once again in 1968. More importantly, he is mentioned in the Edinburgh to Glasgow Race booklet as SCCU vice-president; then in 1968 as President. He features as a timekeeper at the 1968 SU Athletics Championships at St Andrews.

On Saturday 22^nd March the International Cross Country Championships (Cross Des Nations) was held in a hilly public park in Clydebank, Scotland.    AU runners went down in a minibus and thoroughly enjoyed spectating.    There was a smiling photo of Willie Diverty in the programme, since he was ‘Le President’ of the ‘Federation Ecossaise de Cross’.    After a great battle, Gaston Roelants (Belgium) defeated Dick Taylor (England), with Scotland’s Ian McCafferty outkicking England’s Mike Tagg for the bronze medal.    Dave Bedford (England) strolled away with the Junior International title.    It was a memorable, thoroughly successful day, and Willie Diverty must have received many congratulations, due to his committee’s excellent organisation.

I remember Willie as a cheerful, chatty Glaswegian who exuded enthusiasm and encouraged all young runners. He certainly contributed a great deal to University athletics, on track, road and country. Alex Johnston took over from Willie as Secretary/Organiser of the Scottish Universities Athletics Board.”

. . .Fergus Murray to G  Evans, 1964

The Blue Riband of the Scottish winter season was undoubtedly the eight stage Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay.   Started in the early 1930’s and suspended during the war years, it started up again n April 1949 and the first University teams to take part were Edinburgh and Glasgow.   Other teams to compete were from Strathclyde University, Aberdeen University and St Andrews University.   Both Edinburgh University and Glasgow University took part in 1954 and they were the only two to run in the event until 1959 when St Andrews entered a team.   All three took part until 1964 when both Strathclyde and Aberdeen brought the number of university teams in the race up to five – or a quarter of the total.   When St Andrews finished 20th and last in1965, they dropped out until 1972.    The remaining four teams continued to turn out  until that year when Aberdeen dropped out for a year.

Other than Edinburgh University (17th in 1988, and 17th again in 1991, there were no teams from any of the Universities after 1986 – and the newer establishments such as Dundee University and Heriot-Watt University did not take part at any time.   The respective totals for appearances in the race were: Glasgow University Hares & Hounds  30,   Edinburgh University Hare & Hounds 34,   Strathclyde University 13,   Aberdeen University  9, St Andrews 9.

Medals were won by Glasgow University for third place in 1960 and 1962 and by Edinburgh University for second in 1964, first in 1965, 1966 and 1967 and third in 1969.

The best university team ever to have taken part is universally accepted to be the Edinburgh squad from . . . . . the mid 60s.   The team is profiled by Colin Youngson here   and the Glasgow squad is here

Glasgow University was the first university to win medals in the race.   The 1960 race was won by Shettleston Harriers from Bellahouston Harriers with the students third – Colin Shields in his centenary history of the SCCU commented on the good runs from Douglas Gifford and Calum Laing but the truth is that the whole team ran well.   Jim Bogan was twelfth on the first stage and Calum pulled them up to fourth with the second fastest run on the second stage, only Joe Connolly of Bellahouston was faster and then Ken Rogers (second on the stage) moved up to third.   WS Hunter (third fastest) dropped back to fourth and the place was held by J Gray (seventh fastest) and Douglas Gifford (fourth fastest on the long sixth stage) before Dick Hartley on the seventh stage moved up to third with second fastest and then Tor Denstad ( second fastest on the stage) held that to the finish.   It was a very good team performance to get in among the medals.   In 1962, the performance was again a superb team effort :   Dick Hartley was fourth on the first leg, Calum Laing ran the fastest time on the second stage and moved up to first place with Jim Bogan on the short third stage losing a place only to the day’s fastest time to hand over in second.   Gifford held the place with fourth quickest on the stage, followed by Ray Baillie who dropped to third, although he did run the fourth fastest time on his stage.   Allan Faulds (fourth fastest), Cameron Shepherd (third) and B Scott ( eighth) held third to see the bronze medals safely going back to Westerlands.

.*

Start of the race in 1960: Jim Bogan of Glasgow fourth from the right with Robert Clark of Edinburgh fifth from the right

If the GU H&H efforts were good, Edinburgh University was quite outstanding and they were in fact the best cross-country and road team in the country in the mid to late 60’s.   Their progress had been steady – 10th in 1960, 9th in 1961, 8th in 1962, 5th in 1963 – and then an excellent second in 1964.   The heroes were Alistair Blamire (4th), Fergus Murray (1st), G Evans (1st), Jim Wight (4th), Chris Elson (3rd), Roger Young (4th), Frank Gamwell (3rd) and Ian Young (2nd).   Murray and Ian Young had fastest times on their stages.   Going in to the 1965 race, they were slight favourites but Motherwell YMCA with the Brown brothers, Ian McCafferty. Bert McKay and Dick Wedlock and many very good support runners had won the race three times in succession and were well capable of winning it again.  However, it was not to be for the Lanarkshire team – it was to be the first time that a University team had won the big race.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ said:

Edinburgh University have done it at last.   With a team of eight green-vested, grim faced stoics they hurled Motherwell YMCA’s efforts to the ground on Saturday in the Edinburgh to Glasgow relay race, and in so doing set a wonderful race record of 3 hr 36 min 32 sec, more than seven minutes faster than the previous best time, set by Shettleston Harriers in 1961.   In second place were Motherwell, 80 sec behind, and third were Victoria Park, their best performance since 1959.  

How easy it would be to say that Motherwell, the holders since 1962, were beaten because they were weak in two of the stages.   Certainly on the third and fifth legs they allowed the reins to slide disastrously through their fingers such was the lethargic response from their two men.   But the truth is that the students were solid in every department along the course, with perhaps the exception of W Allan on the third leg.  So superior were they that on six of the eight legs they had better times than Motherwell’s runners, a fact that gives a more realistic reason for the Lanarkshire team’s demise.  

Two athletes were outstanding.   AF Murray (Edinburray (Edinburgh University) and Andrew Brown (Motherwell).  The former, given a lead of 80 yards over WH Barrow (Victoria Park) and one of about 180 yards over I McCafferty (Motherwell)   on the sixth stage from Forestfield to the Airdrie War Memorial (seven miles) wound himself up and pounded over the distance at an average speed of 13.4 miles per hour.   That killed off any vestige of a challenge from the two others and Murray gained another 38 seconds for his club over Motherwell.   At a mile an hour slower, Andrew Brown had given chase earlier – on the fourth leg – to an out-of-sight A Smith (Victoria Park) who had been given a good lead on the field by P Maclagan.   Inexorably Brown gave himself a clearer view of of his quarry and at 1:05 pm, going through Bathgate – halfway to Glasgow – he put Motherwell in the lead.   That had been indeed an excellent recovery by Brown.

Edinburgh University went into the lead on the next stage when F Gamwell caught up with and overtook W Marshall.    Gamwell appeared to be suffering from a stitch about half a mile from the end of his stint but he still managed to give Murray a handsome send off.   “

A good account but maybe a bit harsh on Allan (after all he was third fastest on the stage), Poulton (fourth fastest on the third stage for Motherwell) and Willie Marshall (fifth fastest on the fifth stage for Motherwell.   Given that the Hare & Hounds broke the old record by over 7 minutes and Motherwell were more than five minutes inside that record, no one in either club could have been pulling less than their weight.   However, it was a top class run however you look at it and a first for any University team.

But Edinburgh University was not yet done with the E-G.   They won again in 1966.   This time the reporter is Colin Shields in his fine book, “Whatever the Weather”:

“They achieved their second win with another fine display of consistent team running in a time of 3hrs 36min 53sec – just 21 seconds outside their own record.   They produced four of the eight fastest stage times with three of the runs being in record time.   Alistair Blamire equalled his own first stage record; Ian Hathorn set a new record  of 21 min 05 sec on the hilly third stage; Jim Wight was fastest on the seventh stage with his run of 28 min 10 sec and Chris Elson took nine seconds from the final stage record with his run of 28 min 21 sec to bring Edinburgh home to a clear victory.   They finished almost three quarters of a mile ahead of Victoria Park with Motherwell YMCA finishing third, just four seconds ahead of Aberdeen AAC.”.  

*

There’s an old saying that everything goes in threes.   There is usually nothing to it of course, but in the case of Edinburgh University H&H and the Edinburgh to Glasgow it rang true.   They won it again in 1967.   Ian Hathorn was eighth on the first stage and the team worked its way through the field so that at the start of the fifth stage they were in first position and they never went back at any point.   8th to 5th to 4th to first!   Remarkable.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ made it sound a bit harder than that though.

“Edinburgh University, hustled out of their stride by more than one club during the early part of the Edinburgh to Glasgow, finally came through with less assurance – and a smaller margin of victory – than when they won last year and in 1965.   I suppose if it all works out right in the end, then a club’s decision on where to run  their men is justified.   But I would have thought that the students might have put  Blamire, last year’s record breaker on the five and a half miles of the first leg, on it again.   Instead Hathorn, who set a record on the four mile stage last year, did little towards lifting his team’s morale by coming in eighth in the initial leg more than a minute and a half behind the leader.   

Blamire on the second leg wasted no time in overtaking Greenock Glenpark’s man and the representative of the race’s only non-Scottish club, the 9th Old Boys from Belfast.   Passing the showground at Ingliston the Edinburgh runner padded along for a mile with Johnston (Victoria Park) and then shot clear of him.   Blamire caught no one else after that , an indication of the gap that had developed before he received the baton.

The University moved into third place in the third leg and over the next stage Logue finally put the holders in their accustomed position by covering the five and three quarter miles in exactly half an hour.   Young, Bryan-Jones, Jim Wight  and Elson finished the job for an aggregate time of 3 hrs 44 min 30 sec, about eight minutes outside the record set by them two years ago.”

Everybody wants to pick the team, whatever the sport, and it’s especially simple after the event.   There is no weak link in a team that wins the race.   If one of your top men – and a guy who set a stage record has to be in that category – is a bit off form, then there is a very good case for setting him off first and then the others at least know the task ahead of them and can work accordingly.   It is also possible of course that a runner who is in very good nick has a bad day for reasons that later become apparent – for instance one year the first runner for a team expected to be among the challengers ran really badly – he had contracted an allergy to some food that he had consumed the previous night and the result was unforeseeable.   The team won, so the selectors and runners had done their job.

The team that finished third in 1969 was a very good one indeed – in running order with their place in brackets it was Jim Dingwall (3), Andy McKean (4), Dave Taylor (5), Dave Logue (3), D Glover (3), Alistair Blamire (3), J McFie (3) and R Hendry (3).   They were beaten by Edinburgh Southern (with at least two former EU runners in their ranks) and Shettleston with Lachie Stewart, Norman Morrion and Dick Wedlock among those carrying the baton.

*

The standard of competition in the E-G was such that it took a very strong team of eight men running at or near their best to get in among the gold, silver and bronze rewards.   The incentive to get a place in the race was great and clubs strove mightily just to be invited to compete.   However, there was another ‘prize’ there for clubs who would not win any of the precious metals: the award for the most meritorious performance by an unplaced team.   That’s what it was for: I quote: “An extra set of bronze medals will be awarded to the unplaced team who gave the most meritorious performance.”   At various times these medals have been described as for the most improved team – not so.   The judges responsible for deciding on the ‘most meritorious performance’ were listed in the programme for the race.   Sometimes it did indeed go to the most improved team (however that was decided (was 19th to 10th better than 11th to 5th for instance?) but at other times it went to a team which in its very first appearance in the race  finished fairly high up, at other times it seemed to go for consistency (eg a team that had finished say 5th, 6th and 5th in successive years).   Whatever, it was much sought after.   Three University teams won this medal:

in 1962 St Andrews won it after finishing eleventh – they had been nineteenth the previous year; in 1964 Aberdeen University won it in their very first year in the race; and in 1967 Strathclyde University won it after finishing twelfth, having been twentieth the last time around.   These teams all had very good runners in them – the St Andrews squad included Donald Macgregor on the second stage, the Aberdeen crew had Bill Ewing on the second stage and the Strathclyde team had John Myatt occupying that position.   And that’s the sum total of medals won by university teams in the race.   None after 1969 but that’s not the only measure of success: great athletes like Frank Clement, Lawrie Spence and John Myatt turned out for their team regardless of the fact that the team did not have any chance of medals and so gave other students the opportunity of taking part – and incidentally gave club runners an opportunity to race against the stars over a different distance.   The same is true, of course for the others – Bill Ewing for Aberdeen and Don Macgregor for St Andrews and so on.

It was a wonderful, high quality event and the whole standard of Scottish cross-country and road running dropped when it was abandoned.   The University teams all added to the atmosphere and standard of the race and it is interesting that Glasgow and Edinburgh ‘old boys’ in the form of Westerlands and Hunters Bog Trotters also competed in the race – sometimes alongside the university teams.

Hugh C Maingay, one of the founders of the Atalanta Club

The Achilles Club was founded in 1920 for past and present members of Cambridge University Athletic Club and Oxford University Athletics Club and is a registered track & field club in its own right.  The club’s website tells us that the club supports OUAC and CUAC financially and organises a programme of fixtures, overseas trips and domestic and international social gatherings.    It is exclusive to the two universities although other universities have formed similar groupings – not as successful and very few, if any, as long lasting.    In Scotland the equivalent was the Atalanta club.   Atalanta was a character in Greek mythology who, having taken an oath of virginity to the goddess Artemis and only agreed to her father’s desire that she marry, on condition that the suitor must beat her in a foot race with the forfeit being death.   Many a suitor perished in the attempt.   Colin Youngson comments on the Achilles/Atalanta links:

“Since 1949, the Achilles Club has awarded annually two gold medals, for the best performance by a club member on either Track or Field. Recipients of the Track award include Roger Bannister, Chris Chataway, Chris Brasher, David Hemery and Richard Nerurkar. The only Scottish athlete to obtain this prestigious medal was Alastair Wood (Oxford University and later Aberdeen AAC), who won twice: in 1962 [when he was a close second( to that year’s European and Empire champion Brian Kilby) in the AAA Marathon; and a splendid fourth in the European Marathon]; and in 1966 [when he is reported to have run 2.16.06, and also set a new European record of 2.13.45 in the Forres marathon. For some obscure reason, the latter time has never been accepted by the SAAA, but was ratified by the AAA in 1967, and is now recognised by the Association of Road Running Statisticians (www.arrs.net) as the fastest time of the year in 1966]. Alastair was also narrowly pushed into second by Jim Alder in the AAA championships in 1967, with 2.16.21”.

Several people have contributed information about the club – which has been sadly undocumented – notably Hugh Barrow, Hugh Stevenson, Sandy Sutherland, Colin Young and Colin Youngson.   Very few of the present generation have heard of it but it was an important club in its day.   Colin Young has this to say.   “My father who was at Glasgow between 1923 and 1926 was a member of Atlanta which in those days covered the 4 older Scottish universities  ( in age order :- St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh). It seems to have been formed  to act as a countervailing force to Achilles  ( Oxford & Cambridge) . It was describe as “the club beyond a blue” but all you had to be was be an active athlete to join – I only had a half blue (called a green at Edinburgh!)   My dad was very proud of the fact that his name and mine appeared one after the other in the life members list. I think Robin Murdoch and his son appeared in the same way too.”

 

Hugh Maingay leads 880y group in World Student Games, 1928

One of the founders of the Atalanta Club was Hugh C Maingay, above, a student at Edinburgh University in the 1920’s.    It was a deliberate follow-on to the Achilles club and covered the four ancient Scottish Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews.   The first fixture was on 31st July, 1926 at Hampden against Achilles.   It was a day of fine weather and the crowd was estimated at 5000.   It was a bit ambitious – Achilles turned out several Olympians such as Lord Burghley and Douglas Lowe and the Scottish Universities were defeated 25 points to 8.   The report in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ read:

LAUNCH OF THE ATALANTA

The Atalanta, the new athletic club of the combined Scottish universities, received its public baptism at Hampden Park on Saturday afternoon under auspicious circumstances, as not only did the late Lord Rector of of Glasgow travel specially from London  to be present, but the Achilles Club paid the newcomers the high compliment of turning out practically the strongest side at their command in the match which had been arranged to celebrate the occasion.   That the home representatives did not win one of the twelve events staged was disappointing, as they were expected to take at least two, the weight and the high jump, but Dr Spark, who would have won the first, did not arrive owing to train delays until after the event was decided, while J Crawford Kerr, the Scottish high jump champion, had to leave to join his ship on the morning of the meeting.    Although being so signally defeated, the Scottish students can take heart from the performances given by RB Hoole, RA Robb, DF Murnell, AD Macdonald and Hugh C Maingay.   In opposing DAG Lowe in the half-mile, the last-named had a thankless task, but he ran better than he has ever done and covered the distance in a yard worse than two minutes.    Macdonald’s running in the hurdles was excellent.   He chased Lord Burghley all the way and was only a yard away at the tape.   The South African is improving with every public appearance  and his performance on Saturday was better even than it looked, as the turf seemed to be much slower than when he ran against Gaby in the international.   

Hugh Stevenson’s Atalanta Vest

Good competition, good performances, but never a win.   Atalanta had, however, shown that they were a good team and further fixtures were organised.   The following year on 27th June 1927, the first of a series of meetings against the Irish Universities was held in Dublin.   There had been many links between Scottish and Irish Universities and between the SAAA and the Irish Association too. There had been cross-country races between Dublin University Harriers and Edinburgh University Hares & Hounds in alternate years between 1897 and 1906 with the home team always being victorious and there had also been competitions with Glasgow University and Aberdeen University. 

Colin Young’s Dad was one of the founder members of the Atalanta Club and Colin still has some of his father’s Atalanta apparel: for instance the scarf below was an official production that members were proud to wear away from the track.    

  Then of course there were the annual Scotland v Ireland internationals between 1895 and 1913.   So there was a kind of inevitability about the Atalanta v Irish University fixtures.   The report read

“The inaugural athletics match between Irish Universities and the Atalanta club, the combined Scottish Universities Select team from Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews and Aberdeen, took place on the sports grounds of University College Dublin in Terenure.   The Irish Universities team was selected by the Irish Inter-University Committee which organised and ran the Intervarsity Championships.   This new  international event in the athletic life of both countries was mooted as a fixture that would strengthen the ties between Ireland and Scotland.   The Scottish team included RD Allison, the Scottish Universities 100 and 220y champion, and ex-440y champion AF Clark, Scottish 120y hurdles champion RB Hoole, the Scottish 440y champion and Dr AP Spark in shot putt and discus who was a member of the British Olympic team in Paris in 1924.   Based on Irish, British and world records, the Irish Times had commented a day before this contest on the backward condition of athletics in Ireland in that there were few men capable of holding their own with the front rankers of other countries.   The newspaper welcomed the inauguration of the international inter-universities contest as “an important and marked advance in the development of athletics in Ireland.”   In its report on the contest the Irish Times further commented “Athletics and various other branches of sport have always received a considerable amount of attention in our universities and colleges, which have given to sport athletes whose feats of skill, courage and endurance have reflected credit on their institutions … The successful launching of the international inter-universities contest should act as a great stimulus to all who have the welfare of athletics in Ireland at heart … Thus we have in this inter-universities contest a strong incentive for our ‘Varsity athletes to redouble their efforts on the training ground.    And who can at the moment doubt that out of this modest beginning may emerge a regular international University contest.”   The outstanding performance of the Irish Universities team was that of Sean Lavan in winning the 220y and 440y, placing 2nd in the discus, and anchoring the one-mile relay team to victory.   The Irish and Scottish teams were entertained to supper.   While the contest was scored on number of wins across 11 disciplines, had the contest been scored 2 for a win and 1 for runner-up as in the contest in 1929, Ireland would still have won by 29 pts to 15 pts”

The official Irish account of the meetings is contained in a lengthy and detailed pdf document by Cyril J Smith.

Two weeks later there was another match for Atalanta – this time against the English Universities other than Oxford and Cambridge.   The comments in ‘The Glasgow Herald’ read as follows: “During their short life the Atalanta club have shown considerable enterprise.   A year ago they introduced the famous Achilles club to the Glasgow public, their first ambitious effort as a club, and this season, having found their wings, they fixed up a programme which comprised three fixtures.   The first against the Irish Universities, took place at Dublin; the second at Ibrox Park on Saturday afternoon, when a team from the IUAB, as the combined strength of the Universities of England and Wales, outside Oxford and Cambridge is termed; while the third, with the Achilles club, will take place in August.   All this pioneer work is bound to have its effect on University athletics in Scotland, as there is nothing which tends to improve     the standard more than matches in which the contestants compete on a level footing.”

In the match itself, the visitors won by 25 points to 20 and the stand-out performer was unfortunately not a Scot but a London University sprinter – Jack London from British Guiana who won both sprints.   There were several good performances by members of the Atalanta Club but one of the best was by WR Seagrove in the half mile – he won in 2:01.6 by six yards.   He also ran in the one mile medley relay which Atalanta also won in 3:37.8.   Seagrove had been a competitor in the 1920 and 1924 Olympics in the 3000m team race and won a silver medal in each.

On 29th June 1929, Atalanta met the Combined English and Welsh Universities at Manchester  –   for the first time since its formation, Atalanta won!   The  meeting was reported in the ‘Glasgow Herald’:

” ATHLETICS.

  First Win for the Atalanta Club.  

…  Ian Borland, third to Crawford in the Scottish Championships, was also returned as doing even time at the Atalanta match.   ….

For the first time since the inception of the club, an Atalanta team proved successful in a match against a sister combination and their victory at Manchester over the Combined English Universities was the result both of meritorious performances and excellent team work.   It should hearten them for their contest with Irish Universities at Hampden Park on Wednesday evening.   In addition to his win in the 100 yards, in which he had the assistance of a slight following wind, Ian Borland ran a good quarter to win in 51 1-5th sec, one second better than his championship time at Hampden and Alister Clark must also have hurdled better for he recorded 15 3-10th sec against 15 3-5th sec a week ago.   RL Howland appears to find the southern air more congenial than ours is, for he cleared 44′ 7″ in the shot putt, over three feet better than in the championships, and only three inches short of his best public performance.   HC Maingay did not run as freely as usual but was consistent in that he again was under 2 min for the half-mile.   …..  “

The club was doing well but it was not yet finished its programme for 1929.

The second Irish match was held in  Scotland on 3rd July 1929 at Hampden, at that time the biggest terraced stadium in the world with a capacity of 130,000, which was extended to 150,000 by 1937 and only exceeded in 1950 by the Maracana in Brazil.   I quote: For several of the Irish athletes this was their first experience of running on a cinder track.   For Irish Universities, Dr Pat O’Callaghan (UCC), Irish Olympic gold medallist in the hammer at Amsterdam in 1928 and Los Angeles in 1932, won the hammer, shot and discus, and Michael Moroney (UCD) took the long jump and high jump for an Irish clean sweep of the field events.   The ‘Flying Scotsman’, HC Maingay (Edinburgh) ran away with the half mile in 1:58.6and his compatriot Ian H Boland (Glasgow) the 220 yards.   Joe Eustace (Dublin University), who had won the 100y in 1927, made it an event double in 1929.   Atalanta took first and second in the 880y and the Irish Universities took first and second in the high jump and long jump.   While the result of the contest was never in doubt by the time of the last discipline on the 12 event programme, the meeting closed with an epic battle in the mile relay with Patrick C Moore (Irish Universities) and Ian H Borland (Atalanta) on the final leg fighting stride for stride down the home straight all the way to the tape, Moore winning by inches.   For the record, the Irish Universities won by 23 points to 13.”

Of course there were competitions against other Scottish schools and colleges and one such was that against Hillhead HS at Hughenden on Thursday 19th May in ‘a match on team and relay lines.’   The club team was described as a formidable one and included R Murdoch, M Morison, NM Glen, NA Selkirk, GP Richardson, RJW Barlow, JB Barr, GB Esslemont, AM Lapsley, JC Taylor, FR Ogilvie, AW McCosh, W Wright, AS Kitchin and DM Brander.   Thre were eight events on the programme including an 880 yards team race (3 to run and 3 to count) and a one mile team race (3 to run and 3 to count).  On the day, Hillhead defeated Atalanta by six events to two.   Atalanta won only the mile team race and the shot putt.    Complete results are in the Glasgow Herald of 20th May, 1932.   The club was doing very well with members being prominent in invitation events at various open meetings around the country and entering championships under the club’s name – eg in the SAAA Championships of 1932 FP Reid won the 100 yards and 220 yards and JGD Parsons won the sprint hurdles wearing the club colours.   Reid actually won the AAA’s championships wearing the Atalanta vest.   The one who won most Scottish championships was Alister Clark who won the 120 yards hurdles in 1933, one year after JGD Parsons had won the same event.   Clark had previously won the event in 1923 (Glasgow University), 1924, 1925, 1927 and 1929 (Edinburgh University).   The event was possibly their strongest at the time and RG Muir was third in 1932.

In April 1933 they were back at Dollar again where the schoolboys won by 6 events to tw0 after the appropriate allowances were made – eg 100 yards in the mile, one foot in the high jump, five feet in the long jump.   Two weeks later, 29th April, they defeated St Andrews University soundly by 38 points to 16.

On May 3rd, at Westerlands in Glasgow, they took on a combined Edinburgh University and Former Pupils Union team and the result was a tie with each team scoring four and a half points.   Their best result of summer 1933 was probably the victory over the Catterick Garrison AA on 29th July by 18 to 16 1/2 points.

*

Other than for the Irish matches, the team did not travel outside Scotland too often – maybe for good reason!   On 24th May in 1930, an Atalanta team travelled to Perry Barr in Birmingham and took on the Achilles club and the Universities Athletic Union with the result that they were third – Achilles had 47 points, the UAU 24 pts and Atalanta 6 pts.   The biggest defeat ever but looking at what there was of the team, all of the big names were missing.

“The 1933 visit of Atalanta fell foul of the brewing political situation between the N.A.C.A.I., the N.I.A.A.A. and the B.A.A.B. that was to bedevil Irish and Irish Intervarsity Athletics in the 1930’s and led eventually to the removal of the N.A.C.A.I. from the I.A.A.F. as the recognised national body for athletics, the formation of a new governing body in Irish athletics (The Amateur Athletic Union of Eire), and a split in Irish athletics that would last until the formation of Bord Lúthchleas na hÉireann in 1967. The Atalanta v Irish Universities match was to have taken place in College Park, Dublin on 10 July.15,16 At the twelfth hour a telegram was received from the Atalanta Club stating that their visit to Dublin had been cancelled.17,18 No specific reason was given. However, it 3 was surmised that the Scottish team had been ordered to cancel their visit on instructions issued by or on behalf of the International Board, composed of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as a consequence of the dispute between the N.A.C.A.I. and the Northern Ireland Association, and possibly also in retaliation for the ban on intervarsity competition imposed on Queen’s University of Belfast by the N.A.C.A.I.19 The Central Council of the N.A.C.A.I. at its meeting on Saturday 17th June, 1933 passed the following resolution to clarify its position vis à vis intervarsity athletics: “That Queen’s University, or any Athletic Club attached thereto, be not allowed to take part in any competition, tournament or match under the auspices of the N.A. and C.A. so long as they remain affiliated to an illegal body [N.I.A.A.A.], and that all Universities and University Colleges be notified of this intention. Further that no University or Athletic Club attached to a University in Ireland be allowed to compete against Queen’s University so long as they remain affiliated to an illegal body.”

University of St Andrews

Atalanta started the 1934 season with a match against Aberdeen University which they won by eight events to two – the two lost being the pole vault and long jump.   JA Clarke won the 100 and 220 yards but he was the only double winner other than Ogilvie of Aberdeen.

They also had lower level competitions against schools such as Glenalmond and allowances were made for the age and experience of the athletes.   For instance there was a meeting with Heriots School athletic club on 14th June 1934 when Atalanta fielded Hamish .   WH Whalley, East, 2:01.0;   Two Miles:   A Carfrae, East, 9:55.6;   120y H: EFO Martin, Atalanta, 16.6;   HJ:   RKI Kennedy, Atalanta, 5′ 7″;   LJ:  RNM Robertson, Atalanta, 21′ 1″;  Shot:  T Montgomery, East, 34’7″;  Javelin:  T Montgomery, East,  143’7 1/2″; Relay: (4 x 220 yards) Atalanta 1:34.2 (won by half a yard).

In 1935 there was a match against Aberdeen University held, of course, at Aberdeen on 4th May which Atalanta won by 61 to 43, winning every track race including the relay.

There was another against Dollar on 25th April, 1936, and reported under the headline “Dollar schoolboys do well against Atalanta”.  This one indicates the exact allowances made for the difference in ages and experience.  It read:

“Fine handicapping by Mr Wm Wright contributed greatly to the success of Atalanta’s visit to Dollar on Saturday.   Atalanta won three events, the Academy schoolboys two and one was a tie.   JA Brown exceeded the present school record with a putt of 36 feet, and it is hoped that he will repeat his feat at the school sports next Saturday.   The Atalanta ‘heavies’ demonstrated the javelin, discus and hammer during the afternoon.   Results:

4 x 110 yards relay (Atalanta running four yards wide): Won by Atalanta.   4 yards.   Time 49 4-5th sec

Three-quarter mile relay (Atalanta running 4 yards wide):   Won by Atalanta.   8 yards.   Time 2 min 48 3-5th sec

High Jump (Dollar allowed 6 inches): 1.   Dollar (DV Beattie   5′ 2 1/2″, J Harvey 4′ 9 1/2″) 10′ 6 1/2″;    2.   Atalanta  (HM Murray 5′ 6 1/4″, AF McDonald 5′)  10′  6 1/4″

Long Jump (Dollar allowed 3′ 6″):   1.  Atalanta (HNM Robertson 19′ 8 1/4″, JM McKechnie  19′ 2″) 38′ 10 1/2″;   2.   Dollar (HA Duff (19’3 1/2″, JA Brown 15′ 9 3/4″) 38′ 7 1/4″)

One Mile (Atalanta conceded 120 yards):   A tie – 1.  GA Smith (Atalanta);  2.  R Hall (Dollar); 3. J Kerr (Dollar).   Smith led by 20 yards.   Time:  4 min 48 3-5th sec.

Putting the Shot  (Dollar allowed 6′):   1.   Dollar (JA Brown  36′  (breaking school record), K Montgomery 30′ 10 1/4″) 72′ 10 1/4″;   2.   Atalanta (W Forrester 37′ 3 1/2″, J McKechnie  35′ 4 1/2″) 72′ 8 1/4″

Sure enough, Dollar had their school sports the following week and Brown putt the shot 35′ 10 1/2″ for a ne school record, but Atalanta was taking on, and beating, St Andrews University.   The report explained the points awarded as three, two and one for first, second and third, that there were thirteen events, and the winning score was 48 points to 26.   It also said that JC Stothard who had been named for the Olympic Games was unable to travel and compete for Atalanta.    Several competitors from the Dollar match were able to turn out with the bonus of the presence of Ian Lapraik who won the half-mile.

Another week (May 9th) and they were getting the better of Aberdeen University – 61 1/2 points to 38 1/2 – with Morris Carstairs in the team this time.   The only event which Aberdeen won was the 100 yards.

Hamish Stothard, yellow cross, competing for Atalanta against Glenalmond on 9th June 1933

They met Dollar again on 24th April 1937 where, despite winning four events against two for the schoolboys, they tied on points with the Academy.   The handicapping was interesting and possibly crucial to the final result – eg in the hurdles the pupils had 9 hurdles to cross compared with 10 for the students; in the Mile the school’s representatives had a 200m start; in the shot putt they had an allowance of 3 feet and in the high jump theey had 6 inches; and in the relay they ran 4 yards wide.   The final score was 16 points each.   The regular meeting on the first Saturday in May against St Andrews – in 1936 it was on 2nd May   and in 1937 it was on 1st May, and there were weekday meetings against the SAAA (West District) – in ’36 on 1st June (West District won by 54 to 32 and the race of the night was when Jim Flockhart beat Emmet Farrell in the two miles)  and in ’37 it was again on 1st June which was a Monday.   There were also contests against other Universities – Glasgow was involved as  was Aberdeen (8th May in 1937).   The big meetings however were the internationals against Ireland.

“A further match between Scottish Universities and Irish Universities did not become possible until the rustication of the N.A.C.A.I. from the I.A.A.F. and the formation of the A.A.U.E. The Irish Universities team for the 3rd meeting with the Atalanta Club was confined to athletes from Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University.  The three colleges of the N.U.I. were excluded because they remained members of the N.A.C.A.I. Almost all of the Atalanta athletes were drawn from Glasgow University and Edinburgh University. The match took place on 6th July, 1938 at Westerlands, Glasgow University’s sports grounds, on a cinder track. Irish Universities won the five field events, three of them with 1st/2nd combinations. The individual track events were split with three wins each, although Atalanta won the 440y by default when Norman De Vere (TCD) was disqualified, after winning the race by a yard, for fouling his lane while coming up the back straight. De Vere made good his mistake by winning the 880y and by setting up an early lead in the medley relay [440y, 220y, 220y 440y] for an Irish win. Irish Universities took the 100y and 880y with 1st/2nd places. No records were set and no athlete achieved a win double. The scoring on this occasion was 1 = 3 pts, 2nd = 2 pts and 3rd = 1 pt, with 3 pts and 1 pt for 1st and 2nd in the medley relay, respectively. Irish Universities, with nine wins in the twelve events, won the match comfortably by 47 pts to 23 pts.”

1939 was a year remembered for the outbreak of war but up to that point, athletics continued as usual.   On Tuesday, 30th May, Atalanta took on the SAAA (West District) at Westerlands and suffered a big defeat – 44 points to 28 – and the star of the show was Bobby Graham of the SAAA who beat J Muir (Atalanta) by 40 yards in the record time of 4:20.6 in the Mile.   The club won the 120 yards hurdles (R Murdoch), the half-mile (JAM Robertson), Broad Jump (R Dickie) High Jump (W Murray), Pole Vault (A Gibson) and Discus (J Schneiderman).

The fourth meeting between Irish Universities, represented by Trinity and Queen’s, and  Atalanta took place in the College Park, Trinity College, Dublin in 1st July 1939.   There were seven track events including a two miles, but no relay, and five field events.   This was the same day as the AAA’s championships at the White City but that did not affect the Scots who were again defeated, this time by 38 points to 33.    There were nevertheless some good quality athletes out for the Scots – GM Carstairs won the two miles and was second in the half-mile, which was won by JAM Robertson who also won the quarter mile.   Ian Lapraik was second in the two miles.   Complete results:

100 yards:   1.  GW Craigie (Irish Universities); 2.   DH Sutherland (Atalanta).   won by one foot.   10.2.    220 yards:  1. GW Craigie (IU);   2.  JM Barber (IU).  Won by four yards.  22.6

440 yards:  1    JAM Sandilands (A);  2.  HM Kirk (IU).   won by three yards.  51.2.   880 yards:   1.  JAM Sandilands (A);  2.  GM Carstairs (A)  won by two yards 2:03.2.

Mile:   1.  DH McNeill (IU);  2.  J Muir (A).   won by inches.   4:29.2.   Two Miles:   1.  GM Carstairs (A);  2.  I Lapraik (A)  won easily.  9:54

120y hurdles:   1.  EM Coote (IU);  2.   P Anderson (IU).   won by three yards.   15.4    (RG Eccles (Atalanta) disqualified for knocking down more than three hurdles.)

High Jump:  1.  RG Eccles (A) 5’10.5″;   2.  W Murray (A)  5’9.75″      Broad Jump:   1.  WT McClintock (IU) 22′ 3″;   2.  R Dickie (A) 21′ 7.5″

Javelin:  1.  W Baillie (IU) 154’10”;  2.  G Gregg (IU)  154′.     Shot:  1.  LH Horan (IU)  46′ 10″;   2.  JGH Cameron (A) 42′ 0.5″

Discus:  1.  LH Horan (IU)   123′ 0″;   2.   IAM McLennan (A) 117′ 10″

It was a close run thing with the Scots having first and second in half mile, two miles and high jump, plus a victory in the 440 yards with the mile only being won by inches.   There is a short video clip of this meeting at

www.britishpathe.com/video/universities-sports-in-dublin

This was the last in the series before the War, the next would be on 12th July 1969.

The progress of the Atalanta Club had been remarkable.   Founded in 1925, it had quickly gained an honourable position in Scottish athletics and had included in its ranks many top class athletes including Scottish and British international athletes, World Student Games competitors, AAA and SAAA champions, and at least two Olympians in JC Stothard and WR Seagrove.

University of Glasgow

The club was clearly active after the ’39-’45 War with John Hart, who had won the 120 yards hurdles in the green of Edinburgh University in 1946, ’47, ’48, ’49 and ’50 going on to win the titles in 1951 and ’52 as ‘RAF and Atalanta’.   The club had started up again and there was a Scottish record for the half-mile set at Pitreavie on 30th June 1955 in the  SAAA v Atalanta at Pitreavie.   The half mile record was set by Donald Gorrie running for the SAAA.  As for the actual contest, Atalanta won by 54 to 46.   Their victories came from JRG Robertson (100y  10.4, 220y 22.9), JB Paterson (440y 49.6), W Hunter Watson (Two Miles 9:22.8), CAR Dennis (120y hurdles  15.6, 440y hurdles 56.3), RM Stephen (Long Jump 20′ 10″, Hop, step and jump  44′ 08″) DWR MacKenzie (Javelin  195′) and the relay.   The club had its own vest – white with blue and gold bands.

There doesn’t seem to be a regular programme of meetings as there was pre-war but what there were seem to have been  high profile matches.

For instance, on 15th April 1961 at Westerlands it was like old times with Achilles v Atalanta.   This match was arranged for the opening of the new 440 yards track at Westerlands.    It was a big occasion – the track had cost £8000 and all the dignitaries were there – the Principal, Sir Hector Hetherington, who welcomed the track and the opportunities that it created and added said that more ground was needed at Gilmorehill – 30 or 40 acres of it!   Douglas Weatherhead, President of the Sports Club replied to the speech and the Principal was presented with a putter by by Miss Ann Miller, the Club’s vice-president.   Norris McWhirter said that were more seating to be provided there was no reason why international fixtures could not be held at Westerlands.   …. all this and the spectators had portable radios to keep in touch with the score at Wembley!    The meeting was sponsored by the ‘Glasgow Herald’ which reported as follows:

“GROUND RECORDS AT WESTERLANDS: Achilles defeat Atalanta.   Seven track and field ground records were broken at Westerlands on Saturday in a meeting sponsored by The Glasgow Herald, which followed the official opening of Glasgow University’s new blaes running track by the principal, Sir Hector Hetherington.   The meeting consisted of a 16 event match between Atalanta and Achilles, which the latter won by 55 points to 47, a five event women’s contest which the Scottish Women’s Athletic Association beat a Scottish Universities team by 29 – 6, and two invitation events.”  

The invitation events were a 100 yards race in which MG Hildrey won in 10.2 seconds from G Cmela (London AC) and A Meakin (Thames Valley), and a mile which Graham Everett won from T Ceiger (Achilles)  and S Taylor (Manchester AC) in 4:12.8.   The records were set in the shot by D Harrison (Achilles) with 52’9″, JM Parker (Achilles) in the 120 yards hurdles with 14.9 seconds, MC Robinson (Achilles) in the 440 yards hurdles with 55.4 seconds, D Stevenson (Achilles) and JR McManus (Atalanta) both cleared 12′ 5.75″ in the pole vault, CJ Bacon of Achilles threw the javelin 203′ 11″, Graham Everett in the Invitation Mile and the SWAAA Women’s 4 x 110 yards relay team.   The best race of the afternoon was however one not yet mentioned – the Three Miles match race between Alastair Wood and DM Turner in which they ran together until the back straight of the last lap when Wood  moved clear to win by 50 yards in 14 min 16.6 sec.  Another familiar name on the programme was Adrian Metcalfe (Achilles) who  won the 100 yards in 10.6 seconds from A Millar of Atalanta.

What was to become an annual match between Atalanta and the SAAA was held on 8th July, 1961, at Pitreavie where the SAAA won by 76 to 43 points.    It was a good afternoon’s competition with the star of the show being Mike Hildrey who won thee events – the report in the ‘Glasgow Herald read: “Against a strong wind, Hildrey won the match 100 yards in 10.5 sec, narrowly beating his clubmate RW Whitelock.   In the invitation event, run when there was less wind, he was a more comfortable winner, beating Whitelock by two yards in 10 sec, and his victory in the invitation 220 was even more pronounced with J Bender (Germany) three and a half yards behind.   The SAAA relay team of three VPAAC members and GA MacLachlan (St Modan’s) beat the record held by Victoria Park by 0.1 sec in 42.5 sec.   Another fine performance was achieved by Lt D Earle (United States) who cleared 14′ in the Pole Vault.   His chances of a British title are bright for no other athlete has vaulted as high this season.   R McKay (Motherwell) and KD Ballantyne (ESH) covered the last 20 yards of the mile almost together and finished in the same time, 4 min 17.3 sec, though McKay was judged to have won.   AF Perkins (Ilford) set the pace in the Three Miles with AJ Wood (Aberdeen) waiting for his chance – unusual tactics for the Scot.   Wood moved up at the start of the final straight, but Perkins also finished strongly and Wood was awarded the verdict only on the vote of a majority of the judges.   GE Everett (Shettleston) had no problems in the mile, despite the presence of the four Englishmen, for he easily left them mover the final 200 yards and won in 4 min 11.8 sec.”

The complete results were : –

100y:  1.  M Hildrey (SAAA);   2.  R Whitelock (SAAA);  3.   A Miller (A)   10.5

220y:  1.  A Ballantyne (SAAA);   2.  WM Campbell (A);   3.  A Miller.   23.3

440y:   1.  WM Campbell;   2.  A Robb (SAAA);   3.  FW Dick (A)   50.8

880y:   1.  RG Clarke (A);   2.  GB Brownlie (SAAA);   3.  J Turnbull (SAAA)  1:57.3

Mile:   1.  R McKay (SAAA);   2.   K Ballantyne (SAAA);   3.  WH Watson (A)   4:17.3

Three Miles:   1.  AJ Wood (A);   2.  A Perkins (Ilford AC);   3.  B Harbach (Tipton AC)  14:21

120y hurdles:   1.  A Belleh (SAAA);   2.  AG McLachlan (SAAA);   3.  KR Gilham (A)   15 sec

440y hurdles:   1.  RR Mills (A);   2.  B Birrell (SAAA);   3.  KR Gilham (A)   57.5 sec

High Jump:   1.   DS Cairns (SAAA);   2.   D Chadderton (SAAA);   3.  A Lawson (A)   6′ 2″

Long Jump:  1.  JC Lundie (SAAA);   2.   C Smith (A);   3.  DR McKechnie (SAAA)   21′ 10″

Hop,Step and Jump:   1.  DR McKechnie;   2.  HM Murray (A);   3.  IG Grant (SAAA)  44′ 3.5″

Pole Vault:   1.  DL Earle (SAAA);   2.  NJ Brown (SAAA);   3.  HM Mabon (A)   14′

Shot Putt:   1.  LM Bryce (SAAA);   2.   HM Mabon;   3.  JL: Crosbie (SAAA)   44′ 2.75″

Hammer:  1.  AR Valentine (SAAA);   2.  N McDonald (A);   3.  FJL Kelly (SAAA)   170′ 6.5″

Discus:   1.  HM Mabon;   2.  WA Simpson (A);  3.  CF Riach (SAAA)   130′ 9.5″

Javelin:   1.  CF Riach;   2.  CR Keith (A);   3.  GA McLachlan (SAAA)   186′ 9.5″

Relay:  SAAA (Ballantyne, Maclachlan, Hildrey, Whitelock)  42.5 sec.

There were invitation races at 100y, 220y and the Mile.

That this meeting between the two sides was gaining in importance was indicated not only by the calibre of athlete selected, but also by the quality of the runners from outwith Scotland in the invitation events and running as guests.   Alf Perkins has been mentioned, as has Bender of Germany, but among Everett’s opponents were Mike Blagrove of Ealing, a four minute miler and A Rogers of Surrey AC.   The quality of the domestic races was indicated by Ming Campbell’s second place in the 220 (he also won the 440 [where Frank Dick was third] and ran in the relay), Hunter Watson’s third place in the Mile as well as all the top Scottish field eventers on display.

*

One year later, on 4th Jul 1962, at Pitreavie, the SAAA (62 points) defeated  Atalanta (57) by only five points in a meeting where on Scottish record was broken and another equalled.   “In the 120 yards hurdles GA Maclachlan (St Modan’s) broke the Scottish record of 15.3 sec by 0.1 sec.   The winner, A Belleh, whose time was 14.9 did not qualify for the record as he is a Nigerian.   WM Campbell (Glasgow University) equalled the Scottish 220 yards record of 21.5 sec.   Other outstanding performances were a mile in 4:04.3 by M Berisford (Anglo-Scottish), and a high jump of 6′ 9″ by CW Fairbrother (Victoria Park), who just failed at 6’10”.   Results:

100 yards:   1.   WM Campbell (A);   2.   A Ballantyne (S)   9.9 sec.      220 yards:   1.   WM Campbell (A);   2.    Ballantyne (S)   21.5 sec

440 yards:   1.   JS Stewart (S);   2.   RL Hay (A).   49.6 sec.                  880 yards:   1.   WB Morrison (S);   2.   N Donnachie (S).   1:54.6

Mile:   1.   M Berisford (S);   2.   J McLatchie (S)    4:04.3.                    Three Miles:   1.   JH Linaker (S);  2.   A Brown.   14:48.3

120y Hurdles:   A Belleh (S);  2.   GA Maclachlan (S)   14.9 sec.           440y hurdles:  1.   Hay (A);   2.   R Rae (S).   54.7 sec.

High Jump:   1.   CW Fairbrother (S);   2.   DS Cairns (S).   6’9″          Long Jump:   1.   DJ Whyte (A);   2.   W Talbot (S).   21′ 1″

Triple Jump:   1.   DJ Whyte (A);   2.   DR McKechnie (S)   45′ 11″       Pole Vault:  1.   DD Stevenson (A);   2.   DL Earle (S).   13′ 6″

Shot Putt:   1.   AL Sutherland (A);   2.   J Scott (S).   45′ 8″                  Discus:   1.   G Thomson (S);   2.   WA Simpson (A)   141′ 0.5″

Javelin:   1.   CF Riach (S);   2.   CR Keith (A)   178′ 2.5″

4 x 110 yards relay:   1.   Atalanta  (AJ Patrick, W Russell, DJ Whyte, WM Campbell)   43.6 seconds.

The results have been set out in such detail to indicate the progress that had been made in the Atalanta team and its standing in Scottish athletics at the time.   There were now 17 events on the programme, the complete programme except for the Hammer, and both teams turned out quality athletes looking down the list there are several British internationalists, many Scottish internationalists and two GB team captains in Campbell and Fairbrother.   If we even look at the third placed competitors we see names like JC Togher (100y), J Bogan (half-mile), WH Watson (mile), RR Mills (440H), P Milligan (pole vault), L Bryce (shot).

Atalanta returning from Oxford, 1963

Willie Russell in the hat and shades, John Asher on the extreme right,  in front with the duffle coat is John Glennie who became secretary of Atalanta, Alick Miller is the one with his face half hidden,

Atalanta as a club did not travel very much but on 27th April, 1963, they went to Iffley Road in Oxford where the match was between Loughborough Colleges (69),  Oxford University (60) and Atalanta (58).    Among the interesting results Frank Dick was third in the 880 yards (1:56.6), John Boulter second in the Mile (4:00.66), Stuart Storey won the 120y Hurdles in 14.8 and John H Cooper the 220y H and the 440y Hurdles in 24.7 and 53.1.   The Atalanta placings were 100y  2nd J Gibbons  10.2; 220y  3rd A Miller  22.7;   440y  2nd  J Steele  50.1;   880y  2nd J Wilson  1:54.5;   Three Miles:  1st  M Craven  14:06.8;  3rd C Laing  14:26.4;   440y H:  3rd RR Mills 55.9;   HJ:  1st G Balfour and 3rd G Shannon, both 5’9″;   PV:  3rd DD Stevenson  12′ 6″;  LJ:  1st RR Milles 22′ 7″, 3rd G Shannon 22′ 6 1/2″; SP  1.   S Sutherland 47’0″, 2nd D Edmunds 45′ 0 1/2″;   4 x 110 yards relay:  1st   Atalanta (Arthur Gibbons, Alick Miller, Sandy Ewen and Ming Campbell)  42.7 seconds.

Willie Russell remembers that after the match, Oxford told the Atalanta team that they had laid on a barrel of beer at one of the students unions.   A group from Atalanta turned up just in time for the barman to open the bar.   By the time anyone from Oxford or Loughborough turned up the entire barrel of free beer had been consumed and a further barrel ordered!   There is a similarity here to Hugh Stevenson’s tale after the Pen/Cornell match in June 1966.

The fixture with the SAAA was repeated on 3rd July, 1963, SAAA won again, this time by 9 points – 71 to 62.   This time there was a full programme of all the standard track events up to Three Miles including both hurdles distances and two relays, four jumps and four throws.   The quality was again of the highest but the windy weather did not help performances.   Nevertheless, DD Stevenson (A) equalled his Scottish record of 14′ 0.5″ in the pole vault and the best race of the night was said to be the half-mile where Roderick MacFarquhar (Aberdeen University, representing Atalanta) beat Anglo JE Wenk who was running as a guest – they were both timed at 1:54.2 but MacFarquhar got the verdict. At the end of the year he was seventh on the Scottish ranking list for the distance.   Note too that despite the wind Fergus Murray ran a whole minute quicker than John Linaker did the previous year.  Results:

100 yards:   J Togher (S)  9.9 sec;   220 yards:   J Togher  (S)  22.1 sec;   440 yards:   1.   WM Campbell (A)  49.4 sec;   880 yards:   R McFarquhar (A)  1:54.2;   Mile:   1.   G Brown (A)  4:14.1   Three Miles:   F Murray (A)  13:49.

4 x 110 yards relay:   1.    SAAA  43.1;   4 x 440 yards relay:   1.   SAAA   3:20.8.          120 yards hurdles:   1.   A Belleh (S)  14.9 sec;   440 yards hurdles:   1.   RR Mills (A)   56.4 sec

High Jump:   CW Fairbrother (S)  6′ 6″;   Long Jump:  1.  IC Grant (A)   22’4″;     Triple Jump:   1.   HM Murray (A)   47′ 7″;   Pole Vault:   1.   DD Stevenson (A)  14′  0.5″

Shot Putt:   1.   I Macpherson (A)  47′ 7″;   Discus:   1.   I Macpherson (A) 134′ 1.5″;   Hammer:   1.   A Valentine (S)  168′ 2″;   Javelin:   1.   S Hill (S)   163′ 8″.

Only two years later Campbell and Murray would be competing in the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Atalanta continued to flourish through the 1960’s and Colin Youngson summarises the 1964 and 1965 fixtures.

17^th June 1964 at Craiglockhart, Edinburgh.   SAAA East Districts 64; Atalanta Club 54.

East District winners included: Justin Togher, who won the 100 yards in 9.9 and the 220 in 22.5; J Convery (440 – 51.0); J Turnbull (880 in 1.58.7); Ken Ballantyne (one mile in 4.21.1); and W Hogarth (120 Hurdles in a personal best of 15.0). For Atalanta, Alastair Wood finished first in the 3 miles (14.07.4), not far in front of East’s Donald Macgregor, who set a new PB (14.09.6). Lawrie Bryce (AC) won the hammer with a distance of 174 feet 8 inches.

Hugh Stevenson tells us that he competed in this fixture in which he represented the East and was second in the high jump to D Johnston of Atalanta.

4^th July 1964 at Pitreavie, Fife.   SAAA 63 points; Atalanta Club 54.

W M Campbell (Glasgow University) the SAAA triple sprint champion, and pole-vaulter Norman Foster (GU), were notable absentees from the Atalanta team. The match produced some fine races, particularly in the middle distances. In the 880, Craig Douglas (S) led from the start until 30 yards from the tape, when Scottish champion Dick Hodelet (AC) came through with a storming finish to win in 1.53.7. The mile saw a surprise defeat of SAAA champion Ken Ballantyne (S – 4.11.6) by Bill Ewing (AC) in a personal best of 4.10.6 and also Roderick Wilson (S) in another PB of 4.10.8. The Three miles featured a keen tussle between Lachie Stewart (S – 13.49.8) and Donald Macgregor (AC – 13.50.0) both times being PBs, with Mel Edwards (AC) not far behind in 13.52.8.   Les Piggott (S – 10.00) won the 100 from Ron Marshall (S – 10.1) and Bernie Nottage (AC – 10.2). Crawford Fairbrother (S) won the high jump with a height of 6 feet 6 inches.

Colin Young says that he can recall “an Atalanta dinner in Edinburgh  in 1964.  Menzies Campbell was there – possibly in the chair and M.E.L Weir ( now deceased and possibly the last secretary) would have been there. Menzies made a mild joke that we had held the dinner 3 years after the last one to avoid debate  about whether a 4 yearly one would have been quadrennial or quadriennial !

Another guest was Lord Milligan a keen supporter ( see potted biography ex google below!) and former athlete. As you can see he was a senior and respected figure in the law establishment . He was also an elder in St Giles Kirk Edinburgh which I attended during my student days in Edinburgh. The  Sunday after our Saturday  night dinner was  communion at St Giles and the noble lord was  seen sporting black eye as he processed through the kirk bearing the communion cup! I have no idea how he acquired it as I recall the dinner being quite sedate when I left!”

Wednesday 16th June 1965,  SAAA East Districts 66 points;  Atalanta 52.

At Craiglockhart. On a night with a troublesome wind,  the performance of the night was that of A Santini,  representing Atalanta who won the high jump with a clearance of 6′.

30^th June 1965 at Pitreavie.   SAAA Select 80; Atalanta Club 39.

A weakened Atalanta were well beaten on this occasion. Upsets  occurred in the 880 and Javelin, when SAAA champions were beaten. The former was a great race, with Craig Douglas (S – 1.51.7, only 0.1 seconds outside the Native Record) turning the tables on Graeme Grant (S – 1.52.0). The javelin surprise was brought about by A Heath (S – 201 feet) who defeated F Riach (S – 191 feet 7 and a half inches).

In the 100, Justin Togher (S – 9.9) beat Bernie Nottage (AC – 10.0). Togher also won the 220 in 22.2. In the mile, Ken Ballantyne (S – 4.07.4) avenged 1964 defeat by overcoming Ian Macpherson (S – 4.07.8) and Bill Ewing (AC – 4.08.5), who both set new personal bests. In the 3 miles, the outstanding young runner Ian McCafferty (S – 13.42.8) ran right away from his team-mate Lachie Stewart (14.06.6). W Hogarth (S) took the 120 H in 14.9. Doug Edmunds (AC) won the shot putt with 49 feet 8 inches; and also the discus (144 feet 6 inches); while his Strathclyde University friend Lawrie Bryce (AC) was first in the hammer (176 feet 4 and a half inches).

Hugh tells us that “I attended a somewhat impromptu AGM of Atalanta at King’s, Aberdeen, at the conclusion of the Scottish Universities champs on 5 June 1965, when I was welcomed to the club, having won the 120 yds Hurdles that day. Secretary Glennie was there, as were Donald Gorrie,  MEL (Mike) Weir and a special guest, an elderly gent who had won Scot Unis 3 miles some time in the 1920s. “

University of Aberdeen

Hugh Barrow, Scottish and British international miler recalls a meeting on 15 June 1966 between Atalanta v Pennsylvania & Cornell Universities at Westerlands where he ran in an invitation Mile.   The Americans won the match by 97 points to 83 ‘after an entertaining match in which the lead changed hands about every 10 minutes.’   The Scottish winners were Dick Hodelet (880y 1:55.3), T Patrick (Mile  4:11.9), HC Robertson (Triple Jump 46′ 10.75″)  and Graeme Grant won the invitation mile in 4:07.8.   There were Atalanta firsts and seconds in the half-mile and mile where the runners were M Sinclair and W Ewing.   Hugh Stevenson, a regular member of Atalanta teams remembers   “After the match we repaired to the tearoom upstairs in the pavilion for a feed and speeches, Mike Weir presiding. As this was before the legendary bar at Westerlands had been created, he had kindly provided a keg of beer for the athletes to help themselves to, and ‘enjoy yourselves’. I had to hold back, as I had an Inter-Honours exam the next day; it was after midnight before our bus got back to Edinburgh.”

There was also a match on 28th June 1967 at Pitreavie between Atalanta and the SAAA.    SAAA won by 73 points to 45.   Mike McLean won the half-mile from Dunky Middleton for a SAAA one-two, and Hugh Barrow for the Association held off Adrian Weatherhead of Atalanta in the mile.   Winning times were 1:58.6 and 4:16.   Atalanta victories were by Bernie Nottage (100y and 220y in 10.3 sec and 22.0), Hamish Robertson (long and triple jumps with 22′ 07″ and 43′ 07″), Douglas Edmunds (Shot 50′ 05″) and Lawrie Bryce (Hammer 181′  11.5″).

*

The 1968 match against the SAAA was on June 26th at Pitreavie and was another narrow victory for Atalanta, 62 points to 55..   Colin Youngson reports that the three miles, where Blamire and Wight dead-heated in 16:05, was a farcical affair with no runners there to represent the SAAA.   Lachie Stewart, the original choice with Ian McCafferty, had given notice of his inability to compete while the latter failed to appear at all.   Alistair Blamire comments on the race: “Alex Wight and I were upset that the SAAA failed to provide any opposition, especially as we had taken the event seriously, tailing off our training, and were hoping that Lachie Stewart and/or Ian McCafferty would help us to achieve good times in their wake.   Consequently we decided to use the event as a training run and jogged round in 16:05.   It was even more annoying to be criticised by the officials who had failed to produce any opposition for us.   However it probably wasn’t their fault, and I can understand that they would be a bit cheesed off, especially when I waited for Alex as he stopped to tie his shoelace.”   

Craig Douglas (S) won the 880 again, as he did several times in the annual fixture.   Results:  100 yards:   I Turnbull (A)   10.3;  220:   M Campbell (A)  21.8;  440:  Iggy Moriarty (A) 49.6;   880: Craig Douglas  1:54.8;   Mile: Norman Morrison (S) 4:08.8;  2nd  R Wedlock (S) 4:11.6;  Three Miles: A Blamire and A Wight (A)  16:05; 120yH: W Hogarth (S) 14.8;    440yH;   AT Murray(S) 54.2 sec;  2nd  AC Robertson (S)  54.8;  4 x 110 relay: Atalanta  42.5.

High Jump: D Beck (S) 5′ 10″;   PV: DD Stevenson (A) 15’0″;   Long Jump: D Walker (S) 22′ 02″;  Triple Jump:  D McKechnie (S) 44′ 10.5″; Shot Putt: D Edmunds (A) 47’09”;   Discus:  D Fowlie (A)  134′ 9″;  2nd D Edmunds 132′ 2″;   Hammer Throw:  L Bryce (A) 193’11”; 2nd Chris Black (S – Junior) 163’06”; Javelin Throw:  D Birkmyre (A) 207′ 3″; 2nd Fowlie 198′ 04″.

Atalanta was not noted for travelling to fixtures but there had been a move that year to head south – Hugh Stevenson again:  “In summer 1968 Atalanta lined up a contest v Achilles, perhaps at Oxford.   I was Captain of EUAC that year but I did not merit selection. The match fell through, as it was unviable through the inability to raise teams.   On the day chosen for the contest, there was a friendly match with a touring Dublin Universities team at Saughton hosted by Heriot Watt along with athletes from EUAC, including some who had been in the original Atalanta selection, who had become available through its cancellation.”   

*

There was also a match with the SAAA a year later on June 22nd, 1969  at Grangemouth which was won by the Atalanta Club with 104 points to the SAAA’s  92.   Not only was there a full programme, but there were also events for women on the programme which were not part of the match.   The winners in the match events were:

100 m:   B Nottage (A)  10.1;   200m:   I Turnbull (A)  22.2;   400m: M McLean (A)  49.1;   800m: C Douglas (A) 1:54.1; 1500m:  M Bradley (S)  3:50.1;  5000m:  R McKay (S)  14:24.4;   3000m S/ch:  W Ewing (A) 9:08.2;

100mH:  R Davidson (A)  15.0;   400mH:  A Robertson (S)  54.5;   4 x 100m relay:  Atalanta 43.1;    4 x 400m:  SAAA  3:18.5

High Jump:   C Fairbrother (S) 6’6″;   Pole Vault:   W McCallum (A) 11’0″;   Long Jump: H Robertson (A)  23′ 1.5″;  Triple Jump:  H Robertson (A) 48′ 1.5″

Shot Putt:  D Edmunds (A)  45′ 11.5″;   Discus:  A Black (S)  133′ 10″;   Hammer:  C Black  (S) 166’5″

There was some very good competition indeed – eg in the 400m, Ian Walker was only one tenth behind Mike McLean with Ross Bilson on 50.0, in the 1500m Alistair Blamire was only one second down on Mike Bradley with Albert Smith two seconds further back (both were Atalanta athletes); in the 5000m unplaced runners were Donald Macgregor and Alex Wight (again, both Atalanta), Ricky Taylor was only one tenth behind Robertson in the 400m hurdles.   There was genuine competition all through the programme.

The final match against the old rivals, Irish Universities, took place on 12 July, 1969, at Bellfield, University College, Dublin, but in the event it was only an Edinburgh team that took part rather than an Atalanta team and the Irish report on the meeting read:   “Scoring on this occasion involved all competitors – 1 st = 5pts, 2nd = 3 pts, 3rd = 2 pts and 4th = 1 pt, with 5 pts and 2 pts for 1st and 2nd in the 4  110 y relay, respectively.   The star performer at this intervarsity match was Andrew Webb, the Scottish national 400 m hurdles champion. He won the 440y hurdles in 54.4 sec, the 120y hurdles in 16.0 sec and the 220y in 22.6 sec.    Another Scottish visitor to impress was Alastair Blamire, the international steeplechaser, who won the one mile, covering the final 880y in 2:01.8. The match turned into a closely contested event – Edinburgh University won 8 events, Irish Universities 7 events plus the sprint relay. Edinburgh took maximum points in four events – the mile, 3 miles, discus and shot putt – while Irish Universities scored 1st/2nd combinations in the 440y, hammer, and triple jump. Irish Universities failed to field two athletes in the 3 miles.    The match went right down to the wire, giving the tallymen an arithmetic Olympiad.    Edinburgh University took the honours by 86 pts to Irish Universities 85 pts.”

That’s the official Irish version but Hugh Stevenson was the winner of the 120 yard hurdles (and not Webb who did indeed won the 440yH) in 16 seconds.   Webb also won the 100 yards in 10 seconds – not bad on wet grass.   Edinburgh University had, on the same trip a match with Queen’s in Belfast but that was a simple inter-university event.

Information about other competitions, especially post war would be of interest – for instance there are reports of some fixtures at Glenalmond in Perthshire – and will be added as and when they become available.   However it seems that this competition with the Irish team in 1969 was the last ever Atalanta match.    We have a comment from Hugh Stevenson:    “I also attended an AGM in the Spartans Club, Edinburgh, in 1968 or 69, when Weir, Neil Campbell and Lord Milligan were among those present. One of the topics of discussion was the future activities of the club, given the age profile of some members. On a suggestion that we meet for occasional golf matches, Lord Milligan made the witty punning response, ‘Bowls to you!’  

It was a club that seemed to be doing well in the 60’s but it was a time when Leagues were sprouting and clubs were wanting their athletes to compete for league points.   Society was a bit more egalitarian than it had been and the elite atmosphere which at times clung to the Atalanta team was maybe a bit of a deterrent to new chaps joining.  For whatever reasons, it disappeared from view in the mid 1970’s.   But it might well be that the real death blow was the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh:  for over a year beforehand Scottish athletics concentrated all its efforts on this fixture – and to good effect too – but it meant that fixtures of all sorts were switched around the fixture list, or in some cases dropped altogether.   Top athletes were getting invitations from many sources and racing programmes were being carefully structured and monitored.

Statistician Arnold Black notes that it was an affiliated club to the SAAA in 1972, was in the handbook and the secretary was John Glennie.  MEL (Mike) Weir was also a secretary about this time.   In 1974 it was still affiliated but no secretary or address given – by 1976 it was no longer affiliated.   The assumption has to be that it was disbanded in 1975 or 1976.   There was a match between Irish Universities, Scottish Universities, Birmingham University and the BLE President’s Select in Dublin on 14th June 1977 – but it was clearly described as a ‘Scottish Universities’ team.   What was the difference?   Atalanta was restricted to the four ancient universities and selection was not available to the newer establishments like Strathclyde or Heriot Watt.   There were also events for women in this match.   In June 1993 a series of Celtic matches were organised between Scottish Universities, Irish Universities and a Northern Ireland Athletic Federation.   Over the years the Scottish Universities team dwindled to such an extent that they pulled out in 2003.   It really was the end.

How good was it?   Well it lost more matches than it won but that’s not the only yardstick.   Was it an attractive team to compete against?   A look at the opposition tells us that many of the best teams were happy to face Atalanta: Achilles provided the opposition on several occasions, the matches against what were the best Irish students (= the best Irish athletes in most cases), the top Scottish teams in the 60’s and 70’s, Pennsylvania and Cornell from the USA.   Did it help develop Scots athletes – there is some evidence that it did so in the 30’s and some of the athletes from the 60’s reckon it helped them by giving them another level of competition.   Did it attract the top athletes?   Undoubtedly.   Look at the table below for the names of post-war athletes who competed for the Atalanta team – it is not a comprehensive list but an indicator of the range of talent which represented the club.

Name	SAAA champion	Scottish International	GB International	Commonwealth Games	Olympic Games	Event
WM Campbell	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Sprints
DF Macgregor	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Distance
AF Murray	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Distance
DD Stevenson	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	PV

The roll call of national champions, Scottish and British internationalists and Commonwealth Games athletes includes such as Alistair Blamire, Craig Douglas, Douglas Edmunds, Bill Ewing, WS McCallum, Mike McLean, JV Paterson, Hamish Robertson, Sandy Sutherland and many more.  Among the pre-war athletes who competed for the club was Hamish Stothard – who also competed for Achilles – who was also an Olympian and GB International.  It was a genuine club – it had its own vest, and many members still have and treasure their Atalanta Club vest, it had its Annual General Meeting and as several former representatives have pointed out, there were the occasional Dinners.   One member reported that these were not held annually, maybe every three years or so.  Lord Milligan, Scottish Solicitor General and Lord Advocate who had attended both Oxford and Glasgow Universities, was a regular guest at these.   John Glennie recalls,  “I remember an athletics dinner with Lord Milligan where I did the toast albeit not quite sober or confident as a very young person in front of a Lord” .   There should maybe still be a place for the Atalanta Club.

Meanwhile, Colin Young has sent along a copy of the club constitution and member’s booklet for 1963 which is a wonderful document with lots of interesting facts contained therein.   If you are interested in the Atalanta Club, you must have a look at this Membership Card, 1963

Atalanta Vest and Tie

Picture from Colin Young