Author: The Author

Jack racing on the track in Bellahouston Park

Jack MacLean is a well-liked, much respected athlete who has been seriously involved in middle and long distance running since the 1950’s.   A life member of Bellahouston Harriers, he joined the club in 1950 after his National Service was over.  Jack has run all distances from 880 yards up to marathon in his career and has even won a medal, as part of an English team, for walking.   Known throughout Scotland, he was a member of the Scottish Marathon Club, the British Marathon Runners’ Club and a founder member of the Scottish Veteran Harriers Club.   He is currently in his 68th year as a member of Bellahouston Harriers and to find out what has kept him in the sport so long we asked him to complete a short questionnaire and we can look at his responses before going on to some detail about his involvement in the sport.

Name:  Jack MacLean

Date of Birth:  20th June 1929

Occupation:   Newspaper printer

When did you get into the sport:  In 1950 after an introduction to Davie Corbett

Personal best times:   Two Miles:  10:03    Three Miles:   16:29      Six Miles:  33:20     Ten Miles  54:00

                                        Half Marathon:   1 hour 16 minutes     Marathon:  2:40:00    

Has any individual or group had a marked influence on your times or attitudes:  Davie Corbett, Bob Climie and Harry Fenion

What has athletics brought you that you would not have wanted to miss:  Good health, good friends, camaraderie and a feeling of well being.

Have you ever been a member of a club other than Bellahouston Harriers:  Scottish Marathon Club (Jack was captain and president of the club), British Marathon Club, founder member of the Scottish Veteran Harriers Club.

Have you any thoughts on the sport in Scotland at present?   Generally the times are slower now with several outstanding exceptions like the Hawkins brothers and Andrew Butchart.   In general terms, when I was running we had a golden period for a number of years but we did not realise it at the time.   There were many runners running 2 hrs 13/2hrs 15 for the marathon or 28 min for the 10000m,   These were great times and many were run in Scotland.  

Jack mentioned three people as being influences on him when he joined Bellahouston Harriers.  David Corbett and Harry Fenion are well known, but Bob Climie is not a name that means much to modern athletics people.   Bob was a top class runner who came through the War and was a very good athlete for several years thereafter.  I quote only his record in the Edinburgh to Glasgow [remember that stages two and six were the toughest of the tough].   In April ’49 he ran second and moved from eleventh to sixth, in November ’49 he again ran second and held on to second place and  in ’50 he held 7th on the sixth stage.   Jim Irvine says: 

Bellahouston Harriers Club Group in 1958: the year they won the Edinburgh to Glasgow:

Jack is third from the right in the back row, half hidden.

Jack continues and says “I always loved running.   Born in the Gorbals in 1929, there was little traffic on the street so all the children played outside.   Being Glasgow, there was a lot of football but numerous other games whose base was running.   The Co-op had a Youth Club and there were many branches in Glasgow.  I joined up and played football for them.   One night the committee annnounced a sports night for all the co-op clubs in Glasgow and asked for volunteers to take part in the meeting at Helenvale Park.   Three hands went up – me and my two pals.   But they needed four runners because there was a medley relay, so one member said he would run 220 yards but no further.   The night arrived and my big pal, who was 6’2” tall, won the hop, step and jump as it was called then, and my other pal won the high jump which was stopped to allow him to run in the 440 yards where he finished second.   I ran the half-mile and finished second.   Then came the medley relay: I ran another half-mile and the team finished second.   I then ran in the mile where I was beaten by the boy from Shettleston Youth Club: he was in fact a ‘ringer’.  He was the Scottish Junior champion, not a member of the youth club, and his name was Eddie Bannon.   He later ran many times for Scotland.   Overall our team of four boys were runners-up in the competition, all on football training.   That was my introduction to track running.   

The football continued and I played for a team from Kilbarchan called Glentyan Thistle.   Like everyone else I went into the Army for two years National Service in 1948 and ran in cross-country races.   I won a couple of these plus some three mile track races.   After leaving the Army and playing a couple  of games for my old club, I decided to run seriously.   Having been introduced to Davie Corbett, I joined Bellahouston Harriers in 1950.   Such was the standard at Bellahouston with runners like Harry Fenion and Joe Connolly that it was difficult to make the team.”

Start of the SAAA Marathon Championship in 1969: Jack is seventh from the left in the headband

When Jack mentions the standard of running at Bellahouston Harriers in the 1950’s, and mentions particular runners, he was telling 100% of the truth.   Scottish distance running at that time was of a high standard – a fact not realised now.   The Victoria Park road running team with Scottish title holders and record breakers such as Andy Forbes, Ian Binnie and Bob Calderwood  was quite superb, the Shettleston team with Eddie Bannon, Hugo Fox, Harry Howard and Clark Wallace was also at a peak and Bellahouston Harriers was always right in the mix.   They had gold, silver and bronze in County, District and National events and when they won the Edinburgh to Glasgow eight man relay in 1958 it completed the set of gold, silver and bronze for that race too.   Harry Fenion won the National cross-country title as well as winning the SAAA Marathon championship, Joe Connolly ran internationally on the country and  in the Empire Games on the track.        Nevertheless Jack ran regularly for the club in all the major championships – county, district and National relays, county, district and national championships.  Given the high competitive standards at the club he only ran in one Edinburgh to Glasgow relay, but given his fitness and reliability he was always one of the runners and reserves entered on the programme.   He appeared in the programme in 1958 (number B17) with such runners as Joe Connolly, Harry Fenion, Des Dickson, Gordon Nelson, Fred Cowan, Tommy Mercer and Gavin Bell; sixteen years later, in 1974, he was again in the list (C13) with runners like Jack Adair, Brian Goodwin, Campbell Joss, Iain Kerr, Alistair McAngus, Murray McNaught, Rab Marshall and Jim Russell.  He was in every programme in between. The only other man in both squads was Jim Irvine.   I would hazard a guess that he appeared prior to ’58 and subsequent to ’74 too.   

Jack in the centre of the picture (0570) in the Glasgow Marathon with club mate Jim Russell on the right.

Jack started to run in longer races and discovered that he was better on the road than on the country.   His best position in the National was a commendable 44th.   “I joined the Scottish Marathon Club and ran the first of many Clydebank to Helensburgh 16+ miles races.   My personal best for the course was one hour and 30 minutes.   I also ran in the Ben Nevis race twice – in 1956 and 1958.   In the first of these, I had a bad fall descending, cutting my hand.   I was in 9th position at the time and after getting a handkerchief from a walker to wrap around the wound, I continued  and finished 19th out of 95 runners in 2 hours 15 minutes.   I then had to go to Belford Hospital to get the wound stitched. 

I ran a total of 64 marathons and two ultra marathons – the Two Bridges 36 miles race in 4 hours 11 minutes, and the Edinburgh to Glasgow 45 miles in 5 hours 20 minutes.”

The Scottish Marathon Club of which Jack was a member had been set up in 1944 ‘to foster marathon running in Scotland’.   To this end they helped organise many road races the length and breadth of Scotland.   They had a club championship with points awarded for positions in three out of four races, one of which had to be the Scottish marathon championship.   The races were the Springburn Harriers 12, the Clydebank to Helensburgh 16+, the Strathallan Gathering 20+ and the SAAA marathon.   Jack ran in them all from time to time.  He has mentioned the Clydebank to Helensburgh as one that he ran in a lot.   It was a very high standard of competition.  In 1960 Gordon Eadie won in 1:32:22, in 1962 Andy Brown won in 1:27:31, 1but other than that the winning time was usually in the low/mid 1:20’s.  The course record was under 1 hour 20 minutes set when the prevailing wind, which was usually in the runners faces almost all the way, was in the other direction and almost threw the runners to Helensburgh.   Gordon Eadie’s win in 1960 in a time that Jack and I could and did beat didn’t mean that we could have beaten him.   It was down to conditions.   Jack’s personal best of 90 minutes for the 16.25 miles works out at 5:57 a mile pace on that trail is not bad running at all.   Jack was a good solid club runner and an almost ever present in races like that.

Jack’s marathon running took him to  many parts of the globe in addition to the Scottish venues, he ran in London six times, as well as in Toronto, Hanover, Cologne, Paris and Viareggio where as a vet he ran a time of 3 hours 07 minutes in a temperature of 90 degrees.   Jack’s wife comes from New York and they travelled there for the marathon in 1980 when he was timed at 2:55.

Jack, second left, front row, at the club’s Centenary Dinner

Jack has been a member of three other clubs in addition to Bellahouston: we have mentioned the Scottish Marathon Club in which he filled the roles of President and Captain at various times, he was a member of the British Marathon Runners Club.   On 19th October 1968, the year before he became a veteran runner, Jack ran his longest race ever – the 44 mile Edinburgh to Glasgow.   Seventeen men faced the starter in Edinburgh for the eighth running of the race which featured many well known ultra-distance runners such as Bob Meadowcroft from Bolton United Harriers, Geoff Stott of Warley in the English Midlands, Hugh Mitchell (Shettleston), Bill Stoddart (Greenock Wellpark Harriers), Gordon Eadie (Cambuslang Harriers) and Don Turner (Pitreavie AAC) who were all real competitors over the longer distances.   Foley and Meadowcroft from Bolton both started six minutes behind the field.   The first man dropped out at 15 miles, another at 20 miles, one more at 25 and yet another at 30 miles.   Among the well known runners to drop out were cross-country internationalist John Stevenson of Wellpark, Willie Russell of Shettleston and Jimmy McNeil of Shettleston.   Jack worked away and finished eleventh in 6 hours 6 minutes 14 seconds: he was less than three minutes behind former winner Stott (6:13:17) and just over ten minutes behind David Anderson of Wellpark.   It was a very good run over a longer distance than he had ever done. 

The club in which he been most active has been the Scottish Veteran Harriers Club, of which he is the only surviving founder member.   The other members of the group were Walter Ross  of Garscube Harriers, Jimmy Geddes of Monkland Harriers, George Pickering, Roddy Devon of Motherwell and Johnny Girvan of Garscube.  How did that come about?

After the Midland District Cross-Country Championship at Stirling University in 1970, Walter Ross spoke to me.   He wanted to form a veterans club with a minimum age of 40 years, and paid me the compliment of being one of the enthusiasts of the game.   The committee was formed of Walter and six others, and we held our meetings in Reid’s Tea Room in Gordon Street with a regular starting time of 7:00pm.   We all put forward our ideas and Walter drew up a constitution.   In the beginning the age groups went up in ten year intervals. 

I organised the very first Veterans race.   It was in Pollock Estate on Saturday 20th March, 1971.   We had very few officials at that point: Davie Corbet of Bellahouston started the race and shouted the times to George Pickering of Renfrew YMCA.   I had laid the trail in the morning with markers of wee pegs with paper attached.   33 runners started and 32 finished.   As I worked in the “Daily Record”, I arranged for a reporter and a photographer to attend.   There was a wee piece in the Daily Record about it.      The race was run over about 5 miles and the winner was Willie Russell of Shettleston.   He was followed by Hugh Mitchell, Willie Marshall, Tommy Stevenson, Williue Armour, Chic Forbes, Jack McLean and Andy Forbes in that order.   

Within a year we had 1000 members from the whole of Scotland.   Internationally we had great success as a small country.   The first World Championship for the marathon was held in Toronto in 1976.   I took part.   There were about 750 runners.   The race started at 7:30 am to avoid the heat.   I started well and was twenty second at two miles.   Then I started to be sick, I kept running and vomiting but I recovered at about 8 miles and finished 27th in 2 hours 43 minutes.   Gordon Porteous finished not long after me, smashing the world record for the sixties age group. 

After that I put it to Walter that ten year age groups were too much, so Walter put it forward at the World Committee meeting.   Vets were well established by then and five year age groups were adopted.   I also put forward the idea of colour coding for groups which was also adopted.   In the beginning the Scottish Vets took part in all the World Championships.   

•   In Cologne I ran the marathon, Bill Stoddart ran in the 10000m.   The Australians were boasting that they had the winner in Dave Power, double gold medallist (six miles and marathon) in the Empire Games in Cardiff.   Stoddart beat Power in just over 30 minutes.  
• Walter organised a large group to go to Paris for the World Masters Marathon in 1970.  There were between 600 and 700 runners.  On a day that was great for the spectators with a temperature of 88 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, Alastair Wood won the men’s marathon in 2:28:40 and Dale Greig won the Ladies marathon.   Charlie Greenlees of Aberdeen was 23rd and I was 33rd,  We won the team race and I was 7th British runner to finish.   
• In 1980 the Scottish Vets staged the World Championships for 10,000m and the marathon.   I, along with Willie Armour set out the course: Willie in his car with the clipboard, me walking with a surveyor’s wheel measuring the course.    On the day, the whole thing went off very well with the Glasgow Corporation giving a great meal to the competitors in the City Chambers.   

Having been one of the founding members of the Scottish Veteran Harriers Club, I served on the Committee for 10 years before giving it up.   One of the unsung pillars of the organisation was Dale Greig,   She worked for Walter in his printing business and, as well as typing the newsletters, she did a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes.   

I ran my last marathon in London when I was 65, and it took me three hours and twenty two minutes but I continued running until I was 80 in 2009.   After that I kept on jogging.   I didn’t get many prizes or tangible returns for my  100 miles per week, but I got good health, great camaraderie, a feeling of well-being for years and many friends.”   

Jack with 200 yards to go in the New York Marathon where at the age of 51 he ran a time of 2:55

Jack has spoken of Cologne and Paris but there were other vets international races in which he took part.   For instance in Toronto in 1975 he ran in the Marathon, in the 45-49 age grouping and was 10th in 2:47:09.

Hanover 1979 was a bigger tale altogether.  At the start of the meeting he raced in the 10,000m in the 50-54 age group where he was 26th in 37:33.3.   Donald Macgregor was watching and he was approached by some English race walkers who lost the 10K road walk because they only had four runners while the race rules required ‘five to count’.   They asked Donald if there were any Scots who could fill in as a walker at the 20 km distance!   He suggested Jack.   They then approached Jack and, despite his protests, entered him for the race.   He was given a lesson in the car park in how to walk by English international Judy Farr and Athletics Weekly correspondent Colin Young.   Warned before the race not to get disqualified, he took part and finished in the first third of the field.   The team of Eade, Withers, Jacques, Goodwin and McLean finished second behind France and Jack had a silver medal.   The trail was around a lake for leisure boating and a large plaque on the wall said that Hitler had opened the venue in 1936. 

Of course, Jack continued to run in vets races at home and in the course of these he has beaten some notable athletes, eg he once defeated Ben Bickerton of Shettleston Harriers in the 10000m championships at Bellahouston Park.   Ben  was always a quality athlete and you can read about him here .    Always a good advert for the sport, Jack recruited other runners to the sport.   These include Hugh Currie who worked on the ‘Daily Record’ when Jack was there.   Hugh had been a member of the Creag Dhu Mountaineering club and was very fit so that when he came into the sport as a veteran he was immediately very successful and set the M65 record for the London Marathon.   

It is clear from the above that Jack has had a wonderful career in the sport.   A career in which he ran hard and well for many years before putting a lot back in the form of his work with the veterans movement worldwide.   Always the same to speak to, Jack was always even tempered and good natured and never had a bad word to say about anybody.   Jack died in January 2020 at the age of 90.

The ‘Reader’s Digest’ used to have a regular slot for ‘The Most Unforgettable Character I’ve Met’ and all sorts of people were included in the series.   My own subject would have been, without much if any doubt, Doctor IMM Macphail.   He was our history teacher at Clydebank High School but much more than that.   He was also the mainstay of Dumbarton AAC for many, many years to the extent that at one point they were referred to in jest as Macphail’s Navy (a variation of the TV programme McHale’s Navy).    A conscientious objector during the War he volunteered for the bomb disposal squad and that’s how he spent his War.   Before going on to talk about his time with Dumbarton AAC, I’ll quote from the flyleaf of his book ‘The Crofters’ War’.

“With the publication of ‘The Crofters’ War’, Dr IMM MacPhail crowns a long and distinguished career.   An eminent historian, teacher, genealogist, mountaineer and athlete, he has made his mark in many areas of Scottish life.   It is however as a Scottish historian that he is best known: his two-volume History of Scotland for Schools, published in 1954 and 1956, and welcomed as ‘the book that Scottish schools have been waiting for’ is generally regarded as the  history which first brought to the attention of a wider public an adequate treatment of the clearances and to the history of the Highlands and Islands.  Other publications by Dr MacPhail include ‘Modern Times 1880 – 1955’, published in 1961, ‘Modern Scots’ (1965), ‘An Introduction to the British Constitution’ (1967)  and  ‘The Clydebank Blitz’ (1974).   Books and articles on the history of Dumbarton where he lives, and its surrounding countryside, have greatly enhanced the knowledge of that part of Scotland.   He has also been an assiduous contributor to the ‘Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness’ of which he is a past Chief.  

An expert linguist, his knowledge of and love for the Gaelic language came from his Lewis parents, and was strengthened by the links with the island he has cherished all his life.  

Graduating from Glasgow University with Honours in History, he continued his studies in Czechoslovakia where he gained his Doctorate of Philosophy at Prague University.   He ended his teaching career as Principal Teacher of History in Clydebank High School.   His teaching career was interrupted by service in the Second World War, where he volunteered for bomb disposal, spending much of his service in the badly bombed ports of Southern England.”

Add in his sporting interests of running, rowing, hill walking and mountaineering and you have a very full life indeed.

His full name was Iain Murdoch Macleod MacPhail and his father was in the Army and moved around a lot with Dr MacPhail being born in Hamilton but was and is known as a real enthusiast for the Town of Dumbarton about which he wrote many, many books and articles.   As a genealogist he was very interested in his own roots which were in the Outer Hebrides: The MacPhails from either Harris or North Uist and the Macleods from Shawbost in Lewis but the strange thing is that he did not have any historical connection with Dumbarton at all.    Be that as it may, after his death the Lennox Heritage Society had a stained glass window to his memory installed in the Dumbarton Library.

Iain MacPhail joined Dumbarton AAC in season 1930/31 and paid his first subscription of 2/- on 8th May 1931.   Actually it was a half-subscription, full sub being 4/- because there was less than half the season left.   His address was given as Carman Hill in the Renton and his brother William was also a member.   On 5th December 1931 he competed in the club 5 miles Handicap where, with a handicap time of 2:30 he finished thirteenth of eighteen runners – the handicap was probably a ‘novice mark’ of 30 seconds a mile and it is the first record of him taking part in a race at the club.   A year later, off 3 minutes, he was fourteenth of seventeen but it was a better run – the year before he was tenth fastest scratch time, this time he was fifth quickest over the course.   By 1933 his handicap allowance was 3:30 and he was fifteenth out of twenty with the eleventh time overall.   It is clear that even early on he was not going to be a star athlete but he was persistent and took part in races over the country and on the road   He disappeared from the racing scene for a while but he was back again after the war and competing in club races but he soon became the regular handicapper and time-keeper.    His post-race remarks must have been interesting for instance at the club presentation in March, 1959, the note in the race book said, “The Prize Presentation was held in the gym at the Brock Baths.   Club President was in the chair.   After speaking on current affairs, he asked Baths Superintendent J Donaldson to present the prizes.”    But he will be best remembered as President and Chairman of the club for almost quarter of a century.   He held no official post on the Committee before the War but was part of a small committee of four who were tasked with organising the first post-war races.   His first official position was that of President.

Doctor MacPhail became President of Dumbarton AAC at the AGM of 3rd September 1946 when the minute read, “Mr IMM MacPhail was nominated to the position of President on the motion of Mr Geo Stewart, seconded by H Smyth.”   Further down the list of elected members was a note that he, along with Jack Brown, was nominated as one of the club’s representatives o the NCCU (the National Cross Country Union)   The nominees to the latter post were not always nominated n the minute of the AGM but he was still a rep in the 1960s.   A note:   He might have been Doctor MacPhail to the world at large but he was Mr McPhail to the club and appeared as such all the time he  was on the Committee.    He stayed in the role for 23 years and resigned at the AGM of 28th August 1969.    The minute of the meeting read “Next came the news which we were all sorry to hear.   After 23 years a President of the club he had decided to call it a day, so that he could  devote more time to one of his other interests in life, namely the writing of books and, as he would be away for long periods at times, he had very reluctantly decided to give up the chairmanship of the club which he had held since 1946.   In doing so, he wished DAAC every success in the future.”   He was however prevailed upon to remain as a member of General Committee but his attendances were not as regular as heretofore.   What kind of President was he?

He was one of the most active of Presidents imaginable.    If look at some of the references in the club minutes during the middle years of his presidency we get the following.

16th September 1956:   Mr MacPhail suggested that a special effort should be made when negotiating fences, etc so that no damage would be caused to the wire or to the gates.

1st December 1956: The general feeling of the club was that we didn’t receive the full value of the extra fee imposed by the SAAA last year.   Mr MacPhail then intimated that Mr J Gardiner of the Vale of Leven AAC would bring the matter up at the next meeting.     [The SAAA had imposed a special ‘coaching fee’ on all clubs in membership and then the national coach, Tony Chapman, resigned and moved on but the fee continued to be levied and most clubs were more than a bit disgruntled.]

Messrs MacPhail and McMenamin were asked to revise the constitution.

12/1/57:   Messrs Timmins, MacPhail and Walker were asked to recce a trail for the club 8 miles championships.

23/3/57: Prizes for the club championships: It was agreed by the committee that an additional £3 be spent on prizes, thus bringing the total up to £12.    Once again our very generous donors, Messrs MacPhail and McMenamin, intimated that they would provide the prizes for the hill race.

Doc MacPhail was also asked to write to Dumbarton FC to ask for the same training facilities to be granted as last year.

28/8/57: Mr MacPhail said that he would draw up a list of fixtures for the committee’s approval.

“The chairman then read out the basis for the new constitution which had been drawn up by a club committee.  He said  copy would be pinned on the club notice board for members to see and any alteration they thought fit would be brought in at the next AGM”

30/11/57: Lapel badges to be ordered and he was asked to write to a firm which did “that type of work.”

15/1/58:   There were not enough members to fill a bus to Hamilton and he was asked to contact the Vale of Leven about sharing a bus.

19/2/58: No one had asked the Baths Superintendant or a representative from Vale of Leven to the club presentation and Mr MacPhail said he would attend to this.

28/8/58:   AGM.   There was a complaint about the cost of race entries when some of the runners did not turn up or even know they had been entered.  The chairman’explained’ that this was probably true but in most cases it was unavoidable as there were runners in the forces who always hoped to get home for these events, then there were the members who did not come along on club nights and they were not always available to ask.

Then “the money spent on the track did not justify itself.”    The chairman said that that was maybe right but lots of the club did not take advantage of it and anyhow it was a good medium for recruiting.

4/9/58:   Advertising for open races – Mr MacPhail said that this part of the business could be left to him.

30/11/58: Fund raising cards – Mr MacPhail to get them.

29/8/59: Re-nominated as club rep to the NCCU (with Jack Brown) and to the DAAA.

30/1/60: The chairman had now taken charge of the football cards from Mr J McMenamin who had a change of employment.   Boghead was not available for training, Mr MacPhail agreed to write to the Education Department and to the Vale of Leven FC.

10/9/60: On the subject of equipment the club agreed to buy a discus and ‘Mr MacPhail said he had purchased a 12 lb ball as his own property but he was quite willing for the club to use same.   This was appreciated by these present.’

‘Mr Brown moved a vote of thanks to Mr IMM MacPhail who had more or less run off the track season on his own.   This had proved a big job, especially with the added inter-club fixtures but Mr MacPhail had proved equal to the task.     Members duly responded.’

24/9/60:   Open races: Mr MacPhail let it be known that he had notified local schools and also sent them a poster.

2/3/61: In a discussion about the handicap system used within the club, he offered to investigate how other clubs organised their handicaps.

15/9/62: Officials: Our chairman said that he had had a talk with Mr D McL Wright who was upset at the shortage of officials for various events and he asked Mr McPhail to try to get some of the club interested.   After some discussion it was felt that we could not do too much as most of our lads were still active members.   Mr MacPhail agreed that his name should be nominated.

I have noted these particular items to indicate the range of things which he was asked to take on, and which he volunteered to take on, for the benefit of the club.    Laying trails for races, attending meetings of governing bodies, providing prizes for races, organising the track season and applying for lets, writing to politicians and officials, investigating the handicap system, posters to schools, drawing up fixture lists and letting his name go forward for training as an official are all noted in the extracts quoted.     Remember that these were in addition to his other interests of hill walking, mountaineering. writing, teaching, etc.   Furthermore they were usually carried out by various other committee members – letters by the secretary, handicaps and trail laying by the captain, etc.  Some of the club work took up considerable amounts of time and in addition to the committee attendances, he represented the club for a time at the SAAA and well as for many years being their man at the DAAA and the NCCU meetings.    His commitment over the period was astonishing: it is normal for a new president/chairman to dive in and work really hard for a few years – but Doc was the same right through to the end of his 23 year stint as President.

Standing left watching the Dumbarton runners in the Springburn Cup race, early 1960’s

He also tackled some big issues for the club – access to track facilities being one.   I note the minute of 28/3/61:

Mc MacPhail then read out a letter he had submitted to the Parks Committee via the Town Clerk asking them what they intended doing about a running track.   He pointed out that he had a letter from a previous Town Clerk pledging his support, and although this had been a number of years ago, we still awaited action on this matter.   He then went on to explain that neighbouring towns were better equipped and how some of the local athletes travelled there regularly to take advantage of the better facilities provided, and in some cases were lost to the club.   He also reminded them that this state of affairs was prevailing all over the country, and was no doubt responsible for Scotland’s poor representation at the recent Olympic Games.

And he followed this up with face-face-meetings with local officials and politicians.   eg “5th March 1964: The Chairman has done a lot of research on this matter – the suggested locations had come down to 1.   The Common; 2.   St James’s Park; 3.   Postie’s Park.”    1st September 1964 “we kept breathing down the neck of the council”    August 1966:  “track unlikely for the next two years.”   21/9/68: “The chairman explained the obstacles which had met the club’s proposals that the track should be sited on the Common.”   Various other sites were suggested.

It would be totally wrong to give him sole credit for the negotiations – such a big item for any athletics club has to be the work of the entire committee but what seems to come through from the Minutes is his efforts in investigating venues, writing and badgering those in positions of power and keeping it high on the agenda.

Although he resigned at President in 1969 (the same year as he retired from teaching at Clydebank High School after 20 years there) he was working for the club for many years after that.   For instace, the minute of 18th April 1974 said “Point to Point: The run went off very successfully, largely due to Dr IMM Mac Phail who had laid a very well marked trail.”    The trail was from the Whangie on the Stockiemuir Road, over the top of the Kilpatricks down into Dumbarton.    Not bad for a man in his seventies.

Doctor MacPhail was an energetic man who walked quickly with a lift in his step.   He always looked at the person he was talking to and fairly often when he was explaining something to any athlete or to the committee he is reported to have asked, “Now, d’you follow me?”   The energy seemed almost boundless and Dumbarton AAC and Scottish athletics possibly got more than its fair share.

The stained glass window in Dumbarton Public Library

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

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

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

* Plea For The Pole Vault

* Specialisation Should Begin In School

* Importance Of Minor Clubs

* To Pay Or Not To Pay

*Incentive of Club Standard Awards

* The Distance Track Race

* Raise Your Sights

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

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

or

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

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

Jim’s ‘Scots Athlete’ photograph

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Memories of Jim Logan

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

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

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

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

First and most comprehensive is by Colin Feechan (above with Paul Doran, Clydesdale Harriers)

When one looks at the Scottish road and cross country record books over the last 40 years there is one club whose team achievements stand over all others, namely Cambuslang Harriers. Whilst some clubs have come and gone (literally), and others are presently dominating, it is a remarkable achievement that a club with an average total membership over all age groups of less than 130 runners has managed to punch above its weight for 4 decades. Whilst no single person can take all of the credit, two ever presents during this period are Robert Anderson (featured elsewhere) and David Cooney, whose running career, and contribution and influence in many roles is now highlighted to show how pivotal he is to this ongoing success story.

With 2018 being the 70^th anniversary of the founding of Cambuslang Harriers, David Cooney had been club president for 32 of those years, as well as being a committee member for another 11 years. David joined Cambuslang Harriers as a promising runner in January 1971 and was a major contributor to the growth of the club as an endurance force in Scotland. As an athlete he contributed to early club success in the 1970’s and then in 1980, whilst still competing and having served as a committee member for 6 years, he started his first stint as club president. He withdrew from the role of president for 5 years but continued to serve as a committee member while he and wife Anne spent time with their young family and he then resumed in the role in 1992 when he was re-elected before eventually returning to the “committee back benches” in 2019 after a total of 33 years in the presidency role. It is quite remarkable then that he has also forged a successful haul as an athlete. On top of that David has been the Seniors’ team manager for almost 3 decades, a vital role in which he excels and relishes given his athletics knowledge, experience and commitment to the role.

As an athlete David was always more comfortable on the road and track than over cross country and he was a key member of many of the successful road relay teams of the 1970’s including the 1972 Edinburgh to Glasgow relay team that won the most meritorious award, with David running the first leg and his brother Frank running the last leg. This was the first of six successive outings in this prestigious race, with his final selection being in 1981. David picked up a number of individual awards such as Lanarkshire 10 mile road race champion in 1976, after winning silver and bronze in the 2 preceding years, whilst another silver was forthcoming in 1978 after a great tussle with his aforementioned clubmate Robert Anderson. David enjoyed a fair amount of success throughout the years and as a masters athlete won the M65 Scottish Indoor 3000m championship in 3 successive years from 2015 to 2017, as well as picking up another gold for the 1500m in 2015. His most recent success was the Scottish M70 5k road title in May 2019.

Team prizes are too numerous to remember and recall, however some early ones worth mentioning, as Cambuslang Harriers were on the way up, include the 1972 Lanarkshire road relays bronze alongside Bobby Inglis, Gordon Eadie and Robert Anderson and shortly after his many Senior team victories were recorded in races such as the Neilston Pad and the Clydebank to Helensburgh road race.

The club’s upward momentum continued in early 1976 with bronze team medals in the prestigious Nigel Barge Road Race thanks to David, Peter Preston and Robert Anderson. Another team title Gold medal was secured by David, this time as a masters athlete, in April 1997 at the SAF championships with the aid of teammates John Bates, Sandy Eaglesham and Murray McDonald.

Although not his favourite terrain, David was a member of a bronze winning team for the club in the West District cross country championships in January 1976 and in an M65 Gold medal winning team at the British Masters cross country championships in 2018 alongside Frank Hurley and Barnie Gough. The 1976 result was significant in that it was a breakthrough achievement for the club at the time, the club’s first ever district senior team medals. His fellow team members that day were Peter Preston, Robert Anderson, Gordon Eadie, Alex Gilmour and Bobby Inglis. What happened over the country in the in-between years!! Clubmate Colin Feechan insists the quickest he saw David run over the country was when they were approached by a herd of young inquisitive cows while out on a club training run organised by then club captain Robert Anderson in the late 1970’s, it ended up as “every man for himself” to escape from the cows as David put in an Olympic level effort to reach and jump over the safety of the fence first, whilst Robert casually caught up laughing his head off at the antics of his grown up clubmates!

David’s commitment to the club and to Scottish athletics has always also gone above and beyond the basic role of president/committee member. In the 1970’s and 1980’s he was a regular contributor to both Athletics Weekly and the Scottish Runner magazine. David wrote an interim history of the first 50 years of Cambuslang Harriers in 1998. He also completed an extensive article on the club’s masters athletes achievements for the Scottish Veteran Harriers Club magazine December 2017 edition. He continues to keep the club in the public eye with his legendary race reports on social media and the local newspaper Rutherglen Reformer, and he publishes a monthly updated list of individual and team achievements to club members from success at county level through to national success and national selection for all age groups, which by the end of each season usually numbers more than 20 pages in total which in itself reflects on the continuing success of the club.

As well as administration duties within the club David has also for many years been the main link to club sponsors; the Regional Sports Council; The Cambuslang Rugby and Sports Club and the South Lanarkshire Athletics Partnership.

In his 48 (almost 49) years as a Cambuslang Harrier, David has overseen and driven (along with the likes of Robert Anderson and Mike Johnston) the transition of the club from a local niche mainly senior club to a nationally recognised male and female club successful over country; road; track; trail and hill across all age groups from under 11’s to over 70’s. The cornerstone of the approach has been to develop a family friendly club catering for all levels of participation from health and social to international. David’s emphasis and direction for the club is on participation, competition and the team element of running, and in particular supporting and targeting club participation and success at district and national level and above over all terrains, distances and age groups.

However there’s much more to David’s spell as president than that. David has always striven to ensure that Cambuslang Harriers have the right processes and volunteers in place to develop and support the athletes whether it be local; national or even international level. He is always quick to acknowledge the role of others – his many committee members over the years, some of them very long term like Owen Reid, Dave Thom and Colin Feechan; club stalwart Robert Anderson and Des Yuill who was president from 1986 to 1992; the coaching team led by Mike Johnston; the many volunteers and whilst it doesn’t happen without support equally it doesn’t happen unless somebody is driving it all forward.

David was shortlisted by Scottish Athletics for the Volunteer of the year award in 2018, and he was presented with the SALSC Services to Sport Award in 2019.  The photograph below shows Dave receiving this award.

It is as senior team manager that David comes into his own. He always has a finger on the pulse of athlete’s fitness and persuades/encourages/cajoles the best possible team onto the start line for the major races. In the 1980’s and 1990’s he remarkably kept a strong and competitive track team participating in the Scottish Track leagues Division 1 and 2, a remarkable feat for a club with no home track.

The key to David’s incredible success as team manager includes all of the little important tasks that he does consistently to make a difference, but is sometimes very difficult to articulate i.e. alerting athletes to key race dates well in advance, keeping in touch with non local athletes, ensuring our race entries include these athletes where appropriate, submitting entries on time, providing athletes with important race day information, team declarations and number distribution, making sure the club is not misrepresented via results (accuracy, clubs running ineligible athletes etc.). On race days he provides encouragement and motivation to all competing athletes. This is followed up post-race with acknowledgement to all athletes and volunteers, individually where possible, on their efforts and contribution on the day, and of course his extensive race reports. All of the above, whilst easily stated, involves extensive planning, commitment and time. To do this consistently over a period of almost 4 decades shines a light on why the name Cambuslang Harriers appears so often on the medal table at district and national team championships.

Beyond district and national participation, David was also the driving force behind the club competing in the European Clubs cross country championships in the 1980’s and 1990’s, the regular appearances at the English 12-stage road relays, and of course British Masters team/relay races where team victories have been picked up at every age group, much to the disdain of some English race commentators, although the club is warmly welcomed by athletes and race organisers alike who appreciate the commitment and logistics required to compete at these events.

Whilst a variety of factors come into play to explain why a relatively small club has enjoyed such lasting success, David looks for all athletes to share a sense of ambition imbued with a strong club spirit. This has now become a very important club tradition which is evident for all to see on race day. Loyalty from athletes to the club cannot be overlooked, but has to be earned, and the athlete testimonials below say it all.

His period in charge of the club incorporates great success across the age groups for individuals and teams from Under 13 to M65 Masters on road; trail; track and hills. A few highlights of club achievements during his stewardship include:  

• AT Mays Trophy for the top male cross country club across all age groups at the National Cross Country Champs awarded 23 years out of the 31 years it’s been contested
• National Cross Country Champions 16 times including 8 in a row (plus 8 silver and 7 bronze)
• National male and female age group champions 43 times
• West District Team Champions 23 times.

David’s unwavering commitment, passion and knowledge of athletics, plus the fact the “red and white” of Cambuslang Harriers runs through his DNA is something that has played a vital role in putting this club on the athletics map. David has taken immense pleasure and great satisfaction in witnessing the rise of Cambuslang Harriers from being a small parochial club to becoming one of the leading Scottish clubs on road, country and trail.  48 years and 8 months later he admits that he still gets the same buzz and sense of pride when a Cambuslang Harrier athlete or a Cambuslang Harrier team does well in competition, and the bad news for any rivals is that he has no plans in standing down from his Team Manager role anytime soon.

Quotes from club athletes

Robert Gilroy “Coming from Burnkank I’ve known David for many many years. What a great guy he is and what he has contributed to Cambuslang Harriers is unbelievable! When you’re in races or relays you always hear his shouts of encouragement and it gives you that extra gear. I think you can pick out David’s shouts from a mile away and it gives you that extra push to the finish. As others will testify when you’re injured he emails you regularly to see how you’re getting on and how you are doing and that means a lot. He has done so much for myself including taking me to/from races often, and he has never complained when I ask him to stop at the bookies on the way home!! I am so lucky to be part of a great running club Cambuslang Harriers, take a bow Mr David Cooney.”

Stevie Wylie “I have known David for almost 34 years and it is fair to say he has played a major part in keeping me involved in athletics throughout that time. He welcomed me into Cambuslang Harriers and he has been an inspiration to myself and many others in the club. His commitment to the club always makes you try that wee bit harder in races as you know he takes great pride in all that the club achieve and to me he is what Cambuslang Harriers is all about. He never forgets his athletes even when they are out with long term injuries, he takes time to give you a call and to offer advice and encouragement. David is just a guy who gets the best out of everyone in the club. To me he is Cambuslang’s Alex Ferguson .”

Jamie Reid “Memories of David Cooney – well, where do we all start? I’m sure the historical aspects of David’s time will be well covered by others. My main discussions with David have been on team selection and races to target and more general racing.

With regards to team selection, David has no axe to grind with any member – the only thought is what is best for Cambuslang Harriers. This, of course, can ruffle a few feathers but if you’re honest it is absolutely the correct approach. This has been tried and tested over the many years and I can’t honestly remember one team decision that he has gotten wrong. All he asks in return is honesty as to your fitness levels, and I have always taken this on board and tried to show form in advance of any race selections.

When I joined Cambuslang, I had a broken bone in my left foot which was in plaster. David was regularly on the phone during this time, encouraging me and letting me know he was thinking of me and wishing me well. The value of this support cannot be overstated to what that did for me and for the countless others over the years. I’m also sure he has kept many athletes in the sport – simply because he cared and kept in touch by being proactive.

After that, there was a regular phone call – probably once a week – to have a chat. Again, this was hugely motivating and was sure to help get me out of bed at 6am the next morning. This was a fairly regular pattern for me and I looked forward to a chat, as I wasn’t making it up to the club as often.

When I was fortunate enough to have a family, the chats weren’t as frequent – getting kids to bed became priority – and now the odd email is enough to keep me going. Quite simply, if it wasn’t for David, I don’t think I’d still be getting out for a run, let alone racing for the best men’s cross country club in Scotland.”

Eddie Stewart “Dave is one of these ‘backroom guys’ who you very rarely hear or read about but, without his tremendous enthusiasm and desire for perfection, the sport would never survive. He always amazes me with his memory of races, times, positions of runners etc from 20 or 30 years ago. He knows where I finished in events that I can’t even remember running in. I’m not only talking about Cambuslang runners, but all clubs! He has been one of the backbones of Cambuslang for the last 40-odd years and has always been there at races collecting and distributing numbers, phoning round club runners, trying to make sure that Cambuslang will have the best possible team turned out on the day. This is very often a thankless task, when you get late call-offs due to illness or injury. I think he has probably contributed a great deal to BT’s profit margin over the years.

He has been a tireless worker for the sport all the time I have known him. He loves to see Cambuslang being successful but, at the same time, he’s one of the first to congratulate other club runners or teams if we are beaten. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of rules and regulations regarding the status of runners competing for first or second claim clubs, and will scrutinise entry lists to see if any club is fielding an athlete who doesn’t have the required clearance. Apart from his love of athletics and, of course, his family (his wife Anne and their three sons with their families), Dave’s other passion is Celtic FC and I’m sure he has a second encyclopaedia in his brain, containing all the football facts and figures for the last 40 or 50 years Quite an amazing man!”

Club captain Iain Reid “My memory of David is the time when team selections and decisions to race were done over the phone instead of email. You had decided not to run for whatever reason. David would phone you up. You would be brave and tell David “I’m going to give this race a miss”. There would then be a very long awkward silence (it always felt longer on the phone). It was like Russian Roulette! You then speak up first and give your justification and before you know it you’ve been entered for the race. Cambuslang Harriers are therefore better off!!”

Kerry-Liam Wilson

“David Cooney: If clubs didn’t have someone like DC they simply wouldn’t survive. 

Dedicated. 

Scrupulous.

Always gets the best out of his guys.

Tells shit jokes!”

Dave Cooney as a Runner   David Cooney: Team Manager

David receiving the AT Mays Team Trophy from Leslie Roy in 2019

One man in his time plays many parts and that is as true in athletics as in any other walk of life.   Certainly David has more than played his part in the success of Cambuslang for decades not just for years.   Starting as a runner approximately 50 years ago he contributed as we have seen to many triumphs for the club.   His whole hearted commitment to the one club in his life is seen graphically in his run in the Mamore Hill Race but he also contributed seriously to the club’s most successful years as a very capable administrator and team manager.    Unlike many very good club servants who turn their hand to every single aspect of club activities – coaching, officiating, administration, team management, recruitment, running when required and so on – Dave concentrated his efforts on team management, and specifically senior and veteran teams.   As a result his considerable energies were concentrated on the one aspect of club organisation.   This specialisation and drive were key factors in the develpoment of the club.    The following brief summary of club involvement gives some illustration of this.

 * President of Cambuslang Harriers in two spells – from 1980 to 1986 and then a mammoth period from 1992 to 2019.  

* Track& Field Team Manager (Senior Men) from 1976 to 1994

* Cross Country and Road Team Manager for Seniors and for the Masters Team from 1980 to date

*Club Publicist from 1980 to date     * Athletics Weekly Correspondent from 1980 to 1986

Although he limited it, that is a lot of work for any club member to undertake – especially when you add in work as a Secondary School History teacher and commitments to his family.   The work in itself is considerable at any level – doing it successfully is another matter and there is no measure that you could use that would say he has been unsuccessful.   We only need to look at the statistics from 1980.   It is almost impossible in a profile like this to detail all that the club won while David was team manager, but there is enough below to indicate that his reign was not one with a few lucky trophies, maybe won by one or two outstanding athletes.   It has been consistent good performances.   Good runners, encouraged and organised by a back up led by the team manager.

The photograph at the top of the page shows David receiving the AT Mays Trophy on behalf of Cambuslang Harriers from Leslie  Roy in 2019.   This Trophy is awarded to the club that scores the lowest aggregate number of points over the five races at the national cross country championships,.   ie the club with the best all round performances over all five age groups.   First introduced in season 1988-89, it has been won by the club 23 times out of a possible 31 to date.  

By winning the national cross-country championship, Cambuslang Harriers were automatically invited to take part in the European Club Championships every year.    In David’s opinion the club’s bestperformances were 

Dave, second from the right, running in some good company – John Graham and Bill Yate leading the field

PERSONAL BESTS
1500M 4.12 1977
3000M 8.55 1974 AND 1976
5000M 15.22 1974
10,000M 32.49 1977
10 MILES ROAD 52.03 1986
10 MILES TRACK 53.49 1973
MARATHON 2.44.59 1981

SCOTTISH INDIVIDUAL MEDALS WON
Year Age Group Event Medal Award
1989 M40 5,000M Gold
1994 M45 10,000M Bronze
2001 M50 10K Road Bronze
2010 M60 5K Road Bronze
2014 M65 5,000M Bronze
2015 M65 1,500M Indoors Gold
2015 M65 3,000M Indoors Gold
2016 M65 3,000M Indoors Gold
2017 M65 3,000M Indoors Gold
2019 M70 5K Road Gold

SCOTTISH TEAM MEDALS WON
1990 M40 Road Relay Silver
1991 M40 Road Relay Bronze
1997 M40 (M45 My Age) 10K Road Gold
2001 M40 (M50 My Age) 10K Road Silver

UK TEAM MEDALS WON
1999 M50 5k Road Bronze
2018 M65 Cross Country Gold

REPRESENTING SCOTTISH VETERAN HARRIERS IN THE INTERNATIONAL CROSS COUNTRY
1994 in the M45 Age Group

EDINBURGH TO GLASGOW ROAD RELAY
1972 Most Meritorious Performance

EDINBURGH TO GLASGOW APPEARANCES 7 APPEARANCES
YEAR LEG
1972 1
1973 6
1974 4
1975 4
1976 1
1977 7
1981 7

WEST DISTRICT TEAM MEDALS
1976 Cross Country Championships Bronze
1981 Cross Country Championships Silver

LANARKSHIRE INDIVIDUAL MEDALS WON
1973 Lanarkshire 10 Mile Road Race Silver
1974 Lanarkshire 10 Mile Road Race Silver
1975 Lanarkshire 10 Mile Road Race Bronze
1976 Lanarkshire 10 Mile Road Race Gold
1977 Lanarkshire 10 Mile Road Race Silver

LANARKSHIRE TEAM MEDALS WON
1972 Lanarkshire Road Relay Bronze
1985 Lanarkshire Road Relay Bronze

A COMMENTARY ON MY RUNNING CAREER

By David Cooney

I joined Cambuslang Harriers age 21 in January 1971 after having been spotted by Robert Anderson when out running with my younger brother Frank. I had no real background in running apart from playing non competitive football and regularly running from the house to catch a bus or a train.

The harriers were a small club then with former Scottish Marathon Champion Gordon Eadie and Robert Anderson being the 2 most prominent runners. Unfortunately they had been disqualified in the 1970 Edinburgh to Glasgow event for falling 30 minutes behind the leading club. The club’s fortunes were at a low ebb with Robert valiantly trying to hold the club together.

I started training with the club and built up my experience by competing in a number of local Highland Games which were then popular. My first appearance on the track was at Airdrie Highland Games which always attracted a large audience. I lined up at the start with 37 other hopefuls and then it was hell for leather once the gun went. I could say I settled in at the back but it would be truer to say I was shunted to the back by the brisk pace of the field. I got into a rhythm and was pleased that I was not last. Later during the race a huge cheer went up as I was coming off the far side bend. I naively thought the cheers were for a popular local runner who was about to catch me up. Before I knew it 3 runners, 2 of them local, came flying by me – Ian McCafferty, Jim Brown and Ronnie MacDonald! I was being lapped by the elite of Scottish distance runners! Undaunted I kept to my pace and finished 31st out of 37 runners. Being a glutton for punishment I ran the 1,500m handicap 10 minutes later and finished 2nd last. I persevered with some other Highland Games running on either grass or ash tracks and was pleased to record 9.20 for a 3,000m in an inter club event with East Kilbride.

I gained further valuable experience by competing in the road and cross country relays and open races during the winter season of 1971-2 in events such as the McAndrew and Allan Scally Road Relays. These events attracted the top distance runners from the west, east, north and south of Scotland which helped to raise the standard of distance running and greatly fostered team spirit and competition. Unfortunately today with the proliferation of so many different races being held at the weekends top runners can easily avoid one another.

I was delighted to gain my first team medal success in January 1972 when I was the 2nd counter in the Cambuslang team which took the bronze medal in the East Kilbride 6 miles road race. I continued to improve my times during the summer of 1972 competing again in the Highland Games and in inter university competitions. My highlight that summer was taking 46 seconds off my 5,000m pb to record 15.52 on the Westerlands ash track. I also made my 10,000m track debut at Bellahouston clocking 33.12.

November 1972 saw Cambuslang along with other 19 clubs being invited to compete in the Edinburgh to Glasgow 8 man road relay which was the blue ribbon event of Scottish road relays. To be invited was a great honour for the participating clubs especially for Cambuslang considering their disastrous performance in 1970. This was to be one of the best days in my running career both personally and from a team point of view. Although ranked the slowest runner by time on the opening leg I finished strongly in 12th spot and the club ended up in that position to be awarded the most meritorious performance. Cambuslang had exorcised the ignominy of their 1970 performance.

Over the next few years I was pleased to help Cambuslang Harriers achieve team medals in various events such as double bronze medal in the prestigious Tom Scott 10 miles road race, double bronze in the Lanarkshire road relays, gold, silver and 2 bronze medals in the Clydebank to Helensburgh 16 mile road race, gold and silver medals in the Clydesdale 6, double gold in the Mamore 16 miles hill race, double gold in the Cathkin Braes hill race and also gold in the Neilston Pad along with team prizes in a number of Highland Games.

On a personal level I continued to improve my times and lowered my 3,000m track time down to 8.55, my 5,000m time to 15.22 and 10,000m to 32.49. I also ran 53.49 for 5th place in the Scottish 10 miles track championship at Meadowbank.

The midweek Lanarkshire 10 mile road race invariably held over undulating country roads became a favourite event for me in which I finished 2nd to Scottish internationalists Alan Partridge in 1973 and to fellow internationalist Alastair Macfarlane in 1974, 3rd in 1975 again behind Alastair and Davie Lang, first in 1976 ahead of Robert Anderson, Hugh Forgie and David Fairweather and 2nd in 1977 being sandwiched between clubmates Robert and Colin Feechan.

Mamore Hill Race 1975 – team victory

Cathkin Braes 1975 – team victory

1976 was another important landmark year in my running career and in Cambuslang’s progression when I led the club, with back-up from Peter Preston and Robert Anderson, to its first ever podium place – 3rd- in the historic Nigel Barge road race. This was followed shortly by the club achieving its first ever senior team medal (bronze) in the West District cross country championships. On my least favoured surface I was the 6th counter behind Peter Preston, Robert Anderson, Gordon Eadie, Alec Gilmour and Robert Inglis. 5 years later the club went one better and lifted team silver thanks to the efforts of Rod Stone, Eddie Stewart, Peter Preston, Colin Feechan , Robert Anderson and myself.

With the emergence of such talented athletes as Rod Stone, Eddie Stewart and Alec Gilmour and David McShane, Jim Orr and Charlie Thomson in the junior pipe line, allied to the arrival of my first son and increased professional pressures, my contribution to team success naturally diminished but not so my celebration of their growing achievements. While continuing to run my energies were focussed more on team management in road, country and track competitions and on club management having taken up the post of club president in 1980. I occupied the post until 1986 when I stepped down when my 3rd son was born although I continued to serve on the committee. I resumed my post as president in 1992 for a further 27 years only to step down in September 2019. In total my presidency spanned 33 years. In addition, I post regular reports on the club website and in the local papers on the club’s successes. Previously in the early to mid 80s I had been one of the Scottish correspondents for Athletics Weekly. This was an unpaid job albeit I received a free weekly magazine. While I am no longer president I am continuing on the committee and hope to contribute to any future club success in any way I can.

My contribution to team success kicked off again when I turned a vet 40. I was a member of our 8 man team which won silver and bronze in the Alloa to Bishopbriggs road relay in 1990 and 1991. I was also pleased to gain 2 Scottish vets 10K team medals, gold in 1997 and silver in 2001. On an individual basis I took the M40 5,000m gold medal in 1989, a bronze M45 10,000m track and a bronze M50 10K road medal. I also represented the Scottish vets as a M45 in the Cross Country International in 1994 and gained my first UK team medal as part of the M50 Cambuslang Road 5K bronze medallists in 1999.

McAndrew Relay 1989 – winning M40 team

During my running career I had been mainly fortunate in avoiding any serious injuries until I turned 53 years of age. However, long before that I was involved in an accident which could have ended my running career or worse when I was hit from behind by a motor cycle in April 1981 during the Glen Nevis 10 mile road race. With only 1 and ½ miles to go I was lying a close 6th when the incident occurred. I was oblivious to what had happened. According to Lochaber’s Ronnie Campbell, who witnessed the event unfold from behind, a young Lochaber motor cyclist in his eagerness to get back to the finish misjudged overtaking a car which he collided with. He and his bike bounced off the car and smashed into me propelling me high up in the air in summersault style before landing on my head and bouncing along the rough road surface. I must have lost consciousness for a few seconds and was unsure of what had happened until I heard someone groaning nearby. I was struggling to see as my glasses had been knocked off and then I saw this blurred image of someone pinned under his motor bike with the wheels still spinning. Not surprisingly I gave him a mouthful. While the young lad was waiting for an ambulance to come Ronnie kindly took me to A&E where I was examined and discharged despite the large Tom and Jerry like lump at the back of my head. Fortunately the point of impact had been my left buttock rather than my spine. The next morning I found it very difficult to get out of bed and came down the stairs on my bottom as my whole body had stiffened up as a result of the impact. Later that night when it got dark I went out for a one mile very slow hirple thinking that this would hasten my recovery. I persevered with this for the rest of the week. The following weekend I was called back into action much sooner than planned. when doing my team manager at a Scottish Athletics Track League meeting someone did not turn up and I duly stepped in as a replacement and surprised myself with a 16.12  5,000m performance so soon after the accident.

Going back to the theme of injuries I developed problems in my right knee in the late summer of 2002 which eased a little after some rest and physio. I was determined to appear in my 32nd consecutive McAndrew Relay and toed the line. However, 2/3rds of the way round my knee gave way but rather than drop out I hobbled on to the finish. I now found walking even difficult and had no chance of competing in what would have also been my 32nd consecutive Scally Relay. To cut a long story short I had keyhole surgery in that knee in May 2003 and then the other knee required the same treatment later in November. My sabbatical from competition was to last until I was 61 in 2010 when I finished 3rd M60 in the Scottish Vets 5K road champs at Clydebank. During the interim period I was only doing very light jogging while continuing my roles as team manager and as club president.

When turning M65 in 2014 I was 3rd in the Scottish 5,000m track championships and then the following year picked up double gold indoor medals over 1,500m and 3,000m in spite of suffering from shingles and repeated my 3,000m indoor success in 2016 and 2017. The icing on the cake as a M65 came in 2018 when Frank Hurley, Barnie Gough and I narrowly won the UK team gold just pipping Inverness by 3 seconds. I was still recovering from flu and had not run at all for 2 weeks and had only started some tentative jogging in the days before the race. I was still feeling weak but it was a case of finishing for the team on the very testing 2 lap Forres course. After coming off the hills for the second time I knew I would finish and was able to dig in for the final ½ mile on the short parkland grass.

I turned M70 in April of this year and had been training for the Scottish 5K road championship at Silverknowes, Edinburgh, in May. Unfortunately I suffered an ankle injury which greatly interrupted my build up. If I ran one day I had to take the next 3 to 4 days off to let the swelling go down. I had made up my mind not to run and on the Tuesday before the Friday race I phoned Adrian Stott to tell him I was withdrawing if he wished to re-allocate my number. The following day Scottish Athletics announced that there would be individual medals for the various masters age groups. I phoned Adrian again to ask if my number was still available and he said yes. I told him I would try a warm up and then hope to participate. On the night after a very limited warm up I lined up at the back of the field and started cautiously. My strapped-up ankle held up reasonably well until the 3K mark and thereafter it was just a matter of shuffling on one good leg to the line in a personal worst of 24.38. I did not know how I had fared in my category as the entry list had not indicated ages. However, I hoped I might have been in the first 3. The individual computer printout gave me first M70. My painful effort had been worthwhile. Shortly afterwards I discovered that I was the only M70! If I had known that I could have walked round and saved myself from aggravating my injury and which has resulted so far in a 5-month enforced rest from running.

Presentation at Silverknowes in 2019   (Bobby Gavin’s photograph)

(David also ran well in 1974-75, as several result sheets prove: well in front of old rival Brian McAusland in the Nigel Barge Memorial Trophy, who he also defeated in the Balloch to Clydebank; a second-class certificate (behind Brian) in the Tom Scott; and in 1975 a strong run in the Glasgow University 5, in front of young Fraser Clyne (Aberdeen University) and Martin Craven (ESH).)

Interview in 1986 Scottish Marathon Club Magazine, 1986

David Cooney : Team Manager    David Cooney : What Others Say ..

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

David Bowman leading the field for the Edinburgh Highland Games Marathon

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 1970 Commonwealth Games

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

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

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

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

And there were many more in similar vein. 

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

Graham running in the Three Towers

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

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

QUESTIONNAIRE

 Name: Graham Bennison

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

Date of Birth: 21/08/46

Occupation: Retired

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AS AN OFFICIAL/COACH/ADMINISTRATOR

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

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

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

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

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

Graham (centre) running in the first London Marathon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graham with the Commonwealth Games Relay Baton, 2014

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

Charles with daughter Jenny – in Inverness colours, of course!

Charles Bannerman is a name known in Scottish athletics for many things including coaching, journalism and broadcasting on sport, but these days possibly as a prolific poster on internet forums with insight, opinions and comments on all issues to do with athletics.   There is a lot more to him than that and he is living proof of a truth not often mentioned in the Press which is that Scottish athletics extends beyond the central belt although that’s not how those from the central belt usually see it.

When it was decided to hold the Scottish Cross-Country Relay Championships at Kinmylies in 1980 there were many who thought it was asking too much.   There were discussions, special club committee meetings and articles in the papers about why go all the way up there, how could they manage it, there should be a special train, team selection was difficult because a key runner had to work on Saturday morning and so on.   The event went off really well and was enjoyed by all those who were there.   Mind you, it didn’t go back there until 1989 and it hasn’t been back since.   This of course body swerved the question of how those from Inverness and further North managed to come to races in Glasgow, Edinburgh and their environs week after week for the entire year, every year.   Both these championships were organised by a man whose name is well-known in cross-country circles nationwide – Walter Banks, president of the SCCU in 1981/82.    Charles was asked about Walter whom he had cited as one of the men who had a big influence on him.

“The Banks had been close family friends for as long as I could remember and when Walter realised that I had a growing interest in athletics, he did a huge amount to encourage that in very many ways. That was tremendously influential.  I worked very closely with Walter for about 40 years and his input to athletics in the North was enormous.   At the 1980 national relay championships he put me in charge of the course and in 1989 the results. He attended his last meeting when he was in his mid 80s and not long retired from official duties, which included timekeeping.  I sat with him in the stand where, just for fun, he was taking his own times.   I unobtrusively scribbled down what he had for one 400 metre race to check it against the automatic timing.   The average error across the entire field was a mere 0.04 seconds!”

This all confirms, if confirmation were needed, that those outside the central belt are as enthusiastic about our sport as anyone in the land and work extremely hard not only to keep it alive but to develop it.    For those from the area who want to progress in the sport there are many hurdles to overcome and we can see from  Charles’s career in the sport what these hurdles are and how he overcame them.

In a very good article in the “Inverness Courier” he is described as “the ultimate multi-tasker” and it is probably how he manages to fit in everything he is involved in and still make an impact at national level.   As we look at his career it becomes clear how many strands intertwine all the way through.

Charles was brought up in Dalneigh in the west of Inverness and his career in athletics did not have an auspicious start. At primary school he was consistently last in the sports, even trailing in, he says, behind the lad who had a mild case of polio and wore a light caliper!   But athletics was appearing regularly on television where people could see top class athletics unavailable to them locally.   Charles’s developing and fundamental fascination with athletics, was fanned by the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, live by satellite for the first time.   That was the year of course that Scotland’s Fergus Murray and Ming Campbell competed for the British team.   Whether it was the impetus provided by the Games and other meetings shown in black and white on television, or simple maturity, or more likely a combination of both, Charles tells us that  “For some reason during early secondary, I acquired a modest athletic ability and eventually settled down at 400/800 (OK – 440 and 880 to start with!) although I competed at all distances in the 100 – 1500 range plus a little cross country and road racing. I first joined Inverness Harriers in 1969, I am now its longest serving member and have been a life member since 2007.”

Charles sat his Highers at Inverness Royal Academy in 1970 which was an auspicious year for Scottish athletics – the Commonwealth Games came to Scotland, to Edinburgh which was to be his choice of University.   It is impossible to think that he was not as inspired as the rest of Scotland by this event.   There was even an Inverness input.   In a report on the www.scottishdistancerunninghistory.scot website we read that

“There was an interesting Highland prelude to the 1970 Games when eleven athletics competitors from four Commonwealth countries took part in the Inverness Highland Games on Saturday, 11th July, as part of their preparations for the Meadowbank event.   The appearance was negotiated by the North of Scotland AAA officials including the late Donald Duncan, President of the SAAA in 1957.  

The squad was managed by former 440 yards world record holder Herb McKenley who was then Jamaican team coach.   From Jamaica there were 400m runners Leon Priestley and Eshinan Samuel and high jumpers Yvonne Sanders and Andrea Bruce.   The Canadian contingent consisted of endurance athletes Ray Verney, Andy Boychuk and Dave Ellis along with shot putter Brian Caulfield, while reigning Empire and Commonwealth decathlon champion Royal Wiliiams and hammer thrower Warwick Nicoll represented New Zealand.

Completing the eleven strong squad was Scotland’s own 800m specialist Mike Maclean who returned a time of 3:57.2 in the 1500m to defeat Verney.   Maclean also returned a surprisingly modest and comfortable 52.8.  

North distance running legend Alastair Wood moved to the very bottom of his range to take on Canadian opposition in the 5000m where he recorded 14:56 on a grass track whioch had suffered from an extremely wet summer.   He eventually conceded defeat to Boychuk and Ellis who crossed the line together in 14:41.  

The turf was wet enough for Saunders and Bruce not to risk High jumping but they instead contested the 200m which Saunders won in 25.8.  

Nicoll won the wire hammer, the only event of its kind on the North Amateur games circuit at the time, with a throw of 56.29m, nine metres clear of former Scottish internationalist Alex Valentine of Elgin AAC and RNAS Lossiemouth.

However the technical departure to the Scots hammer appears to have got the better of Nicoll who, deprived of the capacity to turn, had to concede defeat to Tony Cohen of Inverness Harriers.”

The next day, the NSAAA officials acted as ‘taxi drivers’ to get the athletes back down south where they were due to compete at another meeting over the then customary pre-Games distances of 150, 300 and 600m on the black Rubkor track at Grangemouth.

Ian Tasker, who wrote the “Courier” report,  was at that time a competitor himself but has just retired from handicapping after 43 years in the job.

After leaving the Academy in 1971, Charles went to Edinburgh University where he gained a first-class honours degree in chemistry.   The Courier reports that his multi-tasking skills were in evidence when at University; he told them “I’m quite good at using a lot of short spaces of time to do different things. For instance, when I was at university and exams were coming up, if I was waiting for a bus I would just open up the folder at the bus stop and revise a couple of lectures.”    The University experience was important, he says, in that  “I realised that there was a whole world of athletics outside the circuit of Highland Games which used to be such a limiting influence in the North. It is that limiting influence, which held back North athletics for so long, which has left me with a lifelong wariness of over exposure to Highland Games.

David Lease

Charles became a freelance sports reporter for the BBC in 1985 but only had limited involvement in active athletics when his two children were very young but began to train and compete again in 1989.   This involved a combination of track and road 10Ks where, about to become a Vet, he managed 37:36.    (which is incidentally two and a half minutes slower than his daughter’s current PB).   You can turn runners into coaches but you can’t stop them wanting to run and Charles still runs as frequently as his aching connective tissue allows.   He would, he says, love to dip below 50 minutes for 10K once again (best for 2015 is 51:31).

His broadcasting career continued to develop and in 1994, when Inverness Caley Thistle and Ross County joined the Scottish Football League, he began to do live match day radio and television reports.

He couldn’t stay away from coaching for long and during the 90s he dabbled in short term coaching projects such as advising Mel Fowler on how to prepare for the European Police 400m championships whilst based in darkest Skye and helping David Barnetson with an experiment in 400 hurdles.   Mel was an interesting athlete who had started his career as a long and triple jumper with Victoria Park AAC and was already an internationalist when he joined the police and went north.   David was Jayne’s brother and a top athlete in his own right, winning the SAAA high jump three times, being second five times and third twice, with victories indoors and in the pentathlon.   His best 400m hurdles was 52.6 seconds in 1996.   So, although not responsible for their entire careers he was working with top quality athletes and, basically, taking up where he had left off.   He was however not involved in the nitty-gritty of full time coaching and came back into coaching in 1998.

The club was short of coaching specialists  and Charles spotted two extremely talented youngsters – Vicky O’Brien and Lesley Clarkson – and decided to take the plunge into coaching again. His Assistant Club Coaching qualification had lapsed but Charles received discretionary reinstatement to what has nowadays evolved into Level 3.   [Coaching qualifications at that time had three levels – ACC, Club Coach and Senior Coach.   The standards were high and the written examinations at Club and Senior level difficult.  On one occasion when Frank Dick was taking a group of Russian coaches round Britain, these professional coaches found it difficult to understand how amateur coaches could have the level of knowledge the senior coaches in Britain had].

The following year Vicky O’Brien won the Schools International long jump and the Scottish under 17 title with 5.95 and gained a GB under 18 selection. Lesley Clarkson became AAAs junior indoor and British Universities outdoor 400m champion in 2001, with a time (54.44) which qualified her for the European Juniors, in advance of making the 4 x 400 pool for the Manchester Commonwealth Games.

David Lease had maybe left a note for his successor or Meg Stone was really au fait  with what was happening in the country and was extremely encouraging, and gave Charles an opportunity as sprints coach with the Scottish team at the 2000 Loughborough International.   He worked as a coach for a whole Commonwealth Games four year cycle and withdrew from coaching until 2008 when his daughter, Jenny, made a delayed comeback to the sport as a road runner.   He is currently coaching Jenny and thinks he will stick with that.   Jenny has a series of marks ranging from 2:20 for 800m through to 58:51 for 10 miles via 9:51 for 3K and 35:15 for 10K.

Meg Stone

Away from the track, he is membership secretary for Inverness Harriers, a post he has had since he retired from teaching in 2013.   Having joined the Harriers in 1969, he has been involved in the sport for over 50 years now and has had time to think on the changes that have taken place over that period and how he feels the sport should be developed.   I asked him for his thoughts on where the sport is going and, maybe where it should be going.  This is is reply.

“My philosophy of athletics comprises a set up with clubs firmly at its centre, dedicated by commitment and hard work to achieving the highest standards possible for athletes all abilities – Olympians down to the most modest wearer of a club vest.

As a result I have little time for distractions such as Jogscotland, over priced city road races, Highland Games, Sportshall and Fun Athletics, especially distractions which dilute commitment and competitive ethos. The critical criteria for me, therefore, do not relate to elitist performance standards but to the values and attitudes within a competitive sport. I therefore welcome anyone of any standard who is prepared to pull on a club vest and compete.”

Meanwhile, where is he now?  Charles continues his broadcasting activities with shinty having been added to his responsibilities.   He has won awards as a sportswriter for his journalism at the Highland Media Awards ceremonies in both 2001 and 2005 and that continues.   He has written six books over the years including  “Against All Odds”, the official account of the controversial Inverness football merger, and “Maroon and Gold”, the history of Inverness Harriers up to Glasgow 2014.   We have already mentioned his post as membership secretary of Inverness Harriers and his coaching of daughter Jenny as a road runner plus his own continued quest for a sub-50 10K   – if you want a job done, ask a busy man!

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

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

AS A RUNNER

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

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

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

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

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

AS A COACH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AS A RECRUITING OFFICER

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

AS A COMMITTEE MEMBER  

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

 Robert on the left at a team mate’s wedding   

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

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

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

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

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

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