Author: The Author

John retired from his role as GB Admin Officer after the Atlanta Games in 1996.   His final match was at   Gateshead but there was much more to do in 1996 than just two matches.   His first GB job was in June 1983 at Bislett and thirteen years later he was busier than ever.   Note the letter below from Dave Cropper.

An Olympics, A European Championships, a Super League match plus matches agains three of the strongest countries in the world.   It says a lot for John that the Governing Body had enough confidence after all these years to make the appointments above.   They were not easy jobs either and his work was seriously appreciated by the athletes as well as his fellow administrators and officials.   The cover story is about the end of Linford Christie’s athletics career but it could have applied to other members of the GB team.

The story inside elaborated on the latter.

He referred to the fact that he had worked with no fewer than 73 GB teams (there had also bee several years as Scottish team manager and admin officer since the Commonwealth Games in 1970 when he was windgauge operator), and comments on the tragic death of Les Jones who was respected and liked many who were not athletes or members of the team – note one of the pall bearers in the photograph below.   Given the significance of Les Jones’ contributions to the sport over many years, to be selected as one of the pall bearers was quite an honour for journalist Doug Gillon.   John of course was at the funeral long with many other Scots such as coach Frank Dick.

John had received many letters of thanks and congratulations from athletes, coaches, physios, administrators, politicians and others over the years but there were also short hand-written note like the one below.   It is not known who wrote it or why but it reads:

The note on the back says: 

The point of that inclusion is that it was not only the great and the good who thought well of John or who profited or gained from his efforts.   There were of course letters of thanks from many after the Atlanta Olympics and there are only  a very few of them reproduced below.

We have a copy of John’s own comments of the end of a remarkable career in athleticsfrom the link at the top of the page.

Denis Bell has provided some photographs of Joe, his club mates, his racing and – because of the association with the club and the athletes – his shop, and there are also some very good black and whites from Graham MacIndoe.

Joe,middle (dark) with Phil Beeson on right behind, headband), 2 left of Joe Adrian Bone, and left of Adrian, Brian Howie…? 

Open race Meadowbank: Joe extreme left, James Austin Clydesdale leading

Joe leading, John Hepburn (Dundee Hawks) second

With Haddington team mates

Edinburgh to Glasgow Mid 80’s:’ Joe  taking over from Johnny Ross at the start of the third stage

Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay, mid 1980’s

The following tribute to his friend is by fellow Haddington runner, hill runner Denis Bell and is printed as Denis wrote it.    Friendship, respect and, aye, love shine through it.   It is a powerful, personal statement.

The following report on a one-off National event was provided for us by Joe Small friend and team mate of Eddie Devlin.

S.A.A.A. Centenary Relay 1983

Following the recent death of Eddie Devlin, Ronnie MacDonald and I were looking through some of the trophies, medals etc. he had accumulated over the years with Eddie’s wife Frances.

Among the items was a tracksuit badge which stated “Round Scotland Relay, 1883 SAAA 1983, participant.”

This triggered a vague memory I had of taking part in some sort of ceremonial relay run. After a bit of digging I’ve come up with the following:

In April 1983, to commemorate the centenary of the Scottish Amateur Athletic Association, it was decided to organise a relay around Scotland. This took place over eight days starting and finishing in Glasgow, passing through Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Fort William, Dumbarton, Dumfries & Hawick.

In total, 550 runners took part, representing 40 clubs.   Every participant received one of the cloth tracksuit badges illustrated below.

The eight stages, in detail, as follows:

Sunday 4^th April:

Starting from George Square in Glasgow, members of Shettleston Harriers, including Bill Scally, completed the first eight mile leg, before handing the baton over to runners from Clyde Valley AAC. After checking an old training diary, my entry for that day says “relay leg from Bargeddie to Forrestfield with Eddie Devlin & Willie McBrinn.” So that’s what the vague memory refers to – 10 miles and all uphill, also where Eddie got the tracksuit badge, although I don’t seem to have one! The route then proceeded through Livingston, Edinburgh, Forth Road Bridge, through Fife to the first overnight stop in Perth.

Monday 5^th April:

Perth Strathtay Harriers carried the baton the 22 miles to Dundee before handing over to Dundee Hawkhill Harriers, Richie Barrie and Colin Dick doing the first leg. Hawkhill handed over to Aberdeen A.A.C. led by Fraser Clyne along with Peter Wilson & James Youngson, who completed the stage to Aberdeen.

Tuesday 6^th April:

Aberdeen A.A.C. continued from where they left off the previous day before handing over to Elgin Harriers, followed by Forres Harriers & Nairn & District Harriers, taking the baton to the next overnight stop in Inverness. Longest stage of the day was done by Don Ritchie, a short 20 mile stint for him!

Wednesday 7^th April:    

Today’s stage travelled from Inverness to Fort William, at 80 miles, the shortest day of the relay. 2 runners from Edinburgh A.C., Stuart Lamb & Colin Dick, who were going all the way round the country with the relay, ran the 16 mile leg from Drumnadrochit to Fort Augustus. Lochaber A.C. members then carried the baton to Fort William.

Thursday 8^th April:

Lochaber started off again today before handing over to runners from Dumbarton A.A.C at Crianlarich, they carried the baton via Loch Lomondside to the overnight stop in Dumbarton.

Friday 9^th April:

Today’s stage was the longest of the whole relay. 100 miles with over a 100 runners from 8 clubs taking part. Dumbarton A.C. handed over to Spango Valley on the Erskine Bridge, Cameron Spence then handing over to brother Laurie who carried on to Greenock. Runners from Ayrshire & Galloway clubs then completed the stage to Dumfries.

Saturday 10^th April:

Today’s relatively short stage to the relay from Dumfries to Hawick, I couldn’t find any other information on this stage.

Sunday 11^th April:

The final stage! Starting from Hawick, the route passed through Peebles and Carnwath on the way to the finish in Glasgow.

The 2 Edinburgh A.C. runners mentioned previously, Colin Dick and Stuart Lamb, ran the last leg with Clyde Valley’s Ronnie MacDonald and Eddie Devlin (again!) , quote from the Glasgow Herald report “the Centenary baton arrive back yesterday carried by Ronnie MacDonald the Scottish sub 4 minute miler and internationalist from Clyde Valley. He was flanked by team mate Eddie Devlin, who treated the run as a relaxing jog after after a good run in Saturday’s prestige Tom Scott 10 mile road race.”   Earlier reports stated that Nat Muir of Shettleston was supposed to finish off the relay, but this didn’t happen for some reason.

The above was put together from reports appearing in the Glasgow Herald. Being the event’s main sponsor they provided excellent coverage, with daily pieces on each stage.

There was also a feature article during the week which stated as follows: “Runners from a public school in Fort Augustus were not available and the baton was kept going by a magnificent marathon veteran and two plucky teenagers from Locahaber A.C. The veteran was Mr Roddy Devon, a 75 year old former president of the S.C.C.U. ……..who took over for a three mile stretch between Fort Augustus and Fort William.” An unlikely saviour & possibly some journalistic license?

Thanks very much for the report, Joe, which we followed up and found that the cities, towns and villages that it passed through all reported on it – some like the Aberdeen Press & Journal noted on the Friday that it would come in on the following Monday, welcomed it on the Monday and then reported on where exactly it went and looked ahead to where it would go.   The picture below is from the Arbroath Herald.

We have looked at how John Brown’s career developed from being the son of a runner to being a runner in his own right, then an official, from there to being an administrator and moving on to the biggest stage of all as admin officer for the Great Britain team at no fewer than three Olympic Games.   All well and good, but what exactly is an admin officer – we can all guess and probably all have a vague and general idea about it but no one know exactly what it is.   

Jim McInnes had been invited to speak to a local club in Ayrshire but at the last minute he had to call off and John was the stand in.   He spoke about the European Championships in Stuttgart in August 1986 and defined his role.   He said:   “At this stage it may be helpful to explain the function of the Administrative Officer.   In general total involvement for the well-being of the team through to their safe arrival back home.   You are the financier, the fixer, the negotiator, the arranger, the wheeler dealer, the mail man, the office boy, the clothing officer,  and in this respect Stuttgart was a classic with hurried arrangements being made to bring out two lots of additional clothing to meet our requirements.   You are often the shoulder to rest a head upon when the tension is building up before competition or the one when defeat has deflated aspirations.   

The hours however are long, over the eleven days of our stay, I was probably working 19 hours a day.

A major asset is being able to anticipate the problems likely to arise for the manager outwith the aspects of the competition and in this respect I have the advantage of having been a team manager on many occasions.   The accommodation provided was ideal with everypne being accommodated in single rooms.   The food was superb and was provided from very early morning till around midnight.

“Bear in mind that some athletes were leaving for the stadium about 7:00 am whilst some were not returning until after 11:00 pm.   The Neckar Stadium was located some nine miles from our accommodation, however transport was no problem in that (and this was another of the Admin Officer’s jobs – to act as sweeper up) from an athlete’s room to the stadium was timed at 23 minutes.   Thjis was achieved by using the ‘S’ Bahn, a form of underground railway and a station was located within the campus but outwith the security zone.   Four trains ran each hour with the front carriage being reserved for our exclusive use and also security being provided by the police.   

One must remember that a high quality team of athletes with our superstars of Coe, Cram and without a doubt the world’s greatest athlete, Daley Thomson, have to be looked after in relation to their world class standing and every effort must be made to enable them to settle in to an atmosphere which will allow them to perform to the best of their ability.

“Hence the value of our exceptionally talented medical team comprising of two doctors – one is a Harley Street consultant and the other a general practitioner in the west midlands.   Whilst the two physiotherapists have a wealth of experience in the sports mediciane field.   Like all of us in the management team the hours are endless but there are no complaints and no lines of demarcation.   The Director of Coaching assisted his team of six specialist coaches provide their technical expertise and see to the day to day preparation of athletes.   

“Earlier I referred to the team being drawn form all areas of the United Kingdom and it is interesting to note that 0f the 17 members of the management team 7 are Scots.    On the evening prior to the competition starting the team meeting was duly convened and our team manager has quite a flair for introduing his support group and is always good for a few witty remarks, but of course coming very quickly to the serious business of the determination to go out and win and little did we realise that we were about to set the heather on fire.”

The extract above gives a fair description of the admin  officer’s role as seen and experienced by John.   The job is wide and varied and in fact goes further afield than dealing with the team and its members.   He also has to deal with the host city or governing body, with local transport bodies and with sponsors.   Nor does he say that with a full team of athletes there is a huge range of personalities with all sorts of preferences, modes of conversation and requirements.   The SAAA championships when held at Meadowbank used to have the heavy throwers sharing a dressing room with the marathon runners – many of the former were extreme extraverts while the marathon men in general were quiet introverts.   Multiply that across all the disciplines and then the personality types within the different categories and then put them in one team.   That alone was quite a task.   For instance, there was the athlete who drove his car to the local airport, parked it there at £10 a day for the duration of the contest and then returned to pick it up, expecting the admin officer to cover the cost.   Then having had the difficulty it caused pointed out to him, did it again for the next foreign competition.   Not only that but he would not accept a cheque, he needed money to pay the airport!   Or the experienced athlete who had not competed for GB for two years and turned up to find out that there was no team clothing allocated for him – not John’s fault but it had to be sourced at short notice for him.   Other examples are noted throughout these pages.

“ 

When we talk about the Seoul Olympics lots of images crowd into our minds with what has been called the Dirtiest Race in History (the men’s 100 metres final) being foremost.   Peter Elliott, Colin Jackson and Mark Rowland were all competing with Scotland’s Eliot Bunney being part of the silver medal winning relay team; for the women Yvonne Murray (3000m) and Liz McColgan both won medals.   But it was John’s first Olympics and he had a lot of work to get through in the three or four years leading up to the Games.   

Having been informed early on about his appointment for the Games in 1988 – see the note below – he had to get to know the athletes, the other officials, refine his own techniques and to some extent define exactly what his job would be.   He, and the other officials, were allocated a series of international fixtures in the years leading up to the actual Games and we can look at three of the pre-Seoul fixtures, all very important for different reasons, in the lead up.   But first the allocation of the principal tasks.

The first was the B International against Northern Ireland, France and Belgium in mid August.

The team was a good one – and some very experienced athletes for a B team were included.

The event went smoothly and the official report, written by John, on the meeting is here.

That was the start of the lead-in meetings – the next two were much bigger affairs.   First there was the European Championships in Stuttgart at the end of August.   John did his usual sterling job and the congratulations were not long in coming.   The Championships ended on 31st August but it only took 6 days for the letters to arrive.

The hand written letter from Mike Turner (who seems to have had a special reason for thanks above the administrator’s duties) was on two sides of paper:

All that remained was the official report written by Mike Turner.   I attach the front page of this report.

Another honourable report on John at a higher level of competition.   The next match would be even higher – the World Championships in Rome in 1987.   Frank Dick’s preview of that championships:-

How did the championships go?   Well, it was a very good GB team the  medalists were Linford Christie (3rd, 100), John Regis (3rd 200)Peter Elliott (2nd, 800), Jack  Buckner (3rd  5000), Jon Ridgeon (2nd 110 hurdles), Colin Jackson (3rd hurdles), men’s 4 x 400 2nd, and Fatima Whitbread (1st Javekin).   John did his usual good job and the team was on its way to the Olympics in Seoul via the holding camp in Japan.   His behaviour throughout the campaign and indeed  in the championships themselves was exemplary as is shown in this letter of thanks from Mike Turner.

Photograph of opening parade at the XIII Commonwealth Games: Ewan Murray to the right of the flag-bearer singing his lungs out; John third from the left waving to the crowd.

(There are also documents and comments about the Seoul Games in the page dealing with his first duties as an Admin Officer.)

 Training and Holding Camp: Correspondence and Recce Recommendations

With preparations for the Seoul Olympic Games having started as early as 1984, the pace and extent were both accelerated by the start of 1987.    Ewan Murray, also a Scot and also a member of Garscube Harriers, was Chairman of the British Amateur Athletic Board and almost immediately after the Commonwealth Games, sent the following letter to Masaki Kawato, President of the Nihon Aerobics Centre in Japan.

Ewan was, as was his wont, direct and clear in what the requirements were.   There was one wee hitch – item 13 in the letter above.   Mike Turner, Treasurer of the BAAB, picked up on a couple of points from the letter and sent the following letter to John prior to his visit to Japan.   The highlighting is John’s.

In addition to addressing some features from Ewan’s letter, we can see Mike giving John (whose first Olympics it was) some pointers as to what to look for while he was there.   John went to Japan and in April, 1987, wrote as follows to Ewan.

John at his diplomatic best was finding a way through what could have been a nasty confrontation between Ewan and the Japanese who had control of a quite superb camp for the British team.   Mr Kawato had however already written the following to Ewan.

The letter laid out the reasons for accommodating the Norwegian team and also pointed out (diplomatically) that other countries would be happy to go along if we were to turn it down.   The fact that John had already obtained the Japanese signature and agreement to the main requests no doubt helped smooth things over.   So how good was the Nihon Centre?   John’s report of 18th April runs to 7 pages and tells its own story.

Frank Dick, National Athletics Coach, said in the GB Olympic Bulletin:

Almost every athlete in every event wants to compete at the Olympics.   There is an assumption that the athletes will have excellent accommodation, facilities and so on but no one who isn’t or hasn’t been involved can really know.  One coach at a Scottish Development squad told the young (Under 17 and Under 20) athletes that it was not all fun and games at the Games.   They had to train, not live the high life, prepare for their event and, in short, painted a picture of an athlete like a monk in his cell.  No one really knows unless they’ve been there although the latter is unduly gloomy. The GB team in Barcelona was well provided for and had a Team Manager’s Administration Dossier.  Barcelona was John Brown’s second Olympics and he was very highly thought of for his thoroughness and for his ability to often see problems before they arose and take evasive action.   At Barcelona there were 43 countries taking part in athletics with top GB athletes being Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell.   

John saw the above mentioned dossier felt that he could add to the information contained therein and started by using the official picture of the team uniforms, he explained:

He organised the photographs with those dealing with the buildings in the village and the layout, went on to look at the accommodation provided for the athletes and ended with the warm-up, training and competition facilities.

We start with the externals.

Now to some of the interiors and furnishings: maybe spartan rather than luxurious?

Then John took a look at the competition, training and warm up areas

We  have commented on John’s necessity to start with for having approval by his line management in 1986 for time off to do the job of Admin Officer for major Games such as the Atlanta Olympics.   He was actually quite fortunate at the time as he explains in the following comment.

… My forte lay as the Team Administrator and in January 1985 I was appointed Admin Officer for the GBR senior track & field team for the following four years taking in to the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988.    However for my sins this appointment was subsequently extended twice to take in the Olympic Games of Barcelona and Atlanta.   May 1983 I moved from the Regional Council Architect’s office in Dumbarton to Headquarters in Glasgow where I would remain for four years.   During this time a major reduction in staffing became necessary with the opportunity to take early retirement on 1st April, 1987.   Talk about being in the right place at the right time!   During this period at HQ and with the heavy commitments to athletics the Director was very supportive of my involvement at this top level at national & international level and I received considerable additional leave to cover my commitment.”

The amount of additional leave must have been colossal as we will see here.   The job of GB Olympic Admin Officer involved time with the team, time at the meeting and lead in international fixtures but involved all the pre-games planning which entailed meeting after meeting, conference after conference and a lot of additional tasks that those not involved were aware of.   We will start this look at a typical Olympic Games preparation.   

The Games were in August 1996, this meeting about the team management programme was a report bu John and Verona Elder (Women’s team admin officer) was in June, 1994:

The next big meeting was in September/October the same year.

There followed a timetable for the three says and a list  of attended representing every one of the sports and their function which covered two sheets of A4.   There were other aspects of team and village life that needed attention and there are two that might be illustrated.   First we have a self explanatory letter from John.

Then the follow up on official headed note paper:

Then there was the hospitality and cultivation of friends and guests.

Did the Famous Grouse come good?   

He did thank them officially in a letter of 26th September. Similar correspondence was carried out prior to both his previous Games with similar positive results. 

There were some more matters dealing with fluid intake directly affecting the team though.  Atlanta is a very warm, hot maybe more like it, city and more important for the athletes it has a very humid climate.   Fluid intake  would be high.   With an eye on the training camp/holding camp in Tallahasse in 1986, he sent this letter with estimated quantities of fluid in December 1985.   

That was all done before the Games year ever started.   Bear in mind that most of the officials were also working with international and representative teams too.   There was a meeting in April and May 1996 in London to discuss the Tallahassee recce. 

It was then all about the holding camp at Tallhassee and there was a meeting on 28th April.

The list of those involved shows, first, the size of the operation which really is a huge task, not something appreciated by all; and second the list of reporters and journalists from Press, radio and television.

We have looked at the reports on the camp already and one of the important but unspoken parts of the job was the making of friends (AKA contacts and allies) while there.   We have seen from his dealings with coaches, employers and others that John was a good diplomat – note this follow up from the camp.

All that remained was the information to be passed to those selected to represent Great Britain in the Games.

 Since Atlanta was John’s third and final Games, we will concentrate on them as an example of the amount of preparation that went into them, the tasks that he had to perform and some of the problems that could arise.   We will put it into the context of the organisation of the management team in a separate page.   There was a difference from the others in that before the sport started there was a a pipe bomb exploded in the Centennial Olympic Park which caused one death.   The perpetrator went on to two more explosions, fortunately for the Olympics they were in 1997 and 1998 before he was arrested.   Note the term Centennial above – they were held on the centenary of the modern Olympic Games in Athens.   On this occasion, although Athens was one of the cities bidding to host them, and in many eyes they were the favourites, the Games of the XXVIth Olympiad were awarded to Atlanta.

But first …  ‘kit’ is always a big issue and will be mentioned again and so we will look at the kit issue for Atlanta.   Each athlete and official received the following.

That is a formidable list of equipment and issued to each athlete in the appropriate size and number – there is scope for complaints to the Admin Officer if one of the Tshirts is the wrong size or if the tops and bottoms don’t fit and there had better be the correct number of Lion pins!

The Admin Officer’s first task is to do a recce of the facilities in Atlanta and at the holding camp and ensure that they are appropriate to the needs of the GB party and to take any remedial action necessary before the team’s arrival.

You will note from the comments in the Tallahassee Holding Camp that there were several items that would need attention before the Games – the quality of accommodation, lack of servicing oif previously used rooms for the arrival of party members, as well as some minor issues dealing with individual athletes and with the airline rpovision in Atlanta.   We move on to the visit of John to Atlanta leaving the Assistant Admin Officer in Tallahassee.

John was described by the General Team Manager after the Games to have carried out his responsibility ‘to his usual high standards’.   This was, as has been noted his last Games but two years later he received the following letter.

His reputation and efficient manner had remained and to quote the letter – he was “nominated by at least one current or potential Olympic team manager as a mentor.”   An honour indeed. 

 The following document in response to another letter which we do not have, gives a vaulable insight into what John saw as the role.   The post Atlanta report referred to is above.

The next page gives some insight into the preparation for the Games.   It is not simply a matter of picking a good and experienced chap and asking him to get on with it.  First of all every venue is different and presents different problems – of temperature, of humidity, of height above sea level, of distance and travelling time and so on.   There is a team dimension to it too.   As in any big organisation, the team needs to know each other, their working relationship which is almost certainly different from their social relationship, re-organisation of tasks to suit the new venue and the way of working in different countries.   That all requires a deal of preparation and the next page will look at that.