Author: The Author

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:

John, from Rosyth in West Fife, came into the sport as a runner and competitor on the professional games circuit.   Many from Fife ran as professionals – partly because of the county’s traditional circuit which was as well established as the Border Games and the Highland Games but possibly also because of the difficulties of linking up with any amateur club.  It may simply be that there were a number of pro schools in his area and he went along with some of his pals..   Whatever the reason, John was a well-known athlete on the professional circuit where he won a number of prizes and has been described as a formidable competitor.    The photograph below shows him running in a handicap event at Braemar with other competitors such as Alastair Macfarlane from Bannockburn and the Murray brothers from Kilmarnock.   He competed throughout the 1960’s and his career as a runner gradually moved into one as a coach.

Braemar handicap mile: John is on the right

.Like many ex-professionals, he went in to coaching with an amateur club.   In his case this was with Pitreavie AAC where he started coaching in the early/mid-70’s.   He initially assisted other coaches but soon found his own coaching niche in middle/long distance and cross country and continued coaching in these events for the next 50yrs , even when latterly , he was not in the best of health.  He coached countless numbers of youngsters, many of them going on to win Championship medals at Scottish and British Championships.    One of them is below with a proud John in the middle of the back row..   Among his most successful athletes were 

Clark Murphy, who represented Great Britain on the track and cross-country ;

John Newson; who went on to win 9 medals in Scottish championships with 3 different clubs

Kathryn Pennel; ranked 14 times at distances between 800m and 3000m

Siobhan Coleman; aan outstanding distance runner for Pitreavie and Villanova University, USA

Ben Potrykus, who was twice placed third in Scottish championships and ran for Pitreavie and Bradley University, USA

Justly proud of Clark Murphy’s selection as the first home Scot to run for Britin in the re-vamped World Cross eligibility rules, he is quoted in the following cutting.

A very good club coach but more than that – John became Scottish Staff Coach for 5000m and 10,000m in the 1990s.    This involved working with the Scottish squad at training days and in competition, filling a similar role with the Development squad (ie U17 and U20 athletes) and in coach education.   I remember that on one warm weather training camp in Portugal, John noticed Steve Ovett’s coach, Harry Wilson, at a nearby table in the cafeteria.   He approached him, introduced himself and asked Harry if he would talk to the members of the Scottisg endurance squad.   Harry obliged and the squad benefited from the session the following afternoon.   The full complement of coaches for the national squad at the time included Brian McAusland (Group Coach),  Mike Johnston (800/1500), John Wands. (5000/10000m), Gordon Crawford (steeplechase), and John Graham (Marathon).   Not bad company to be in.   

He coached countless numbers of youngsters, many of them going on to win Championship medals at Scottish and British Championships.    One such team is below with a proud John in the middle of the back row.. 

He was listed in the Pitreavie AAC Coaching set up as a Performance Coach working with two Development Coaches in Euan Miller and Bill Lindsay who were Assistant Coaches.   His involvement did not stop there however.   He had grown to love the Highland Games and Gatherings all over the land and was involved in the main as an announcer, and as an announcer he was one of those who knew the events, who knew the competitors and had enough knowledge the traditions of the various meetings to be able to fill in the blanks in the programmes – and even the ‘down time’ between events.   The talent did not go unnoticed  and he developed the role into being a commentator at Scottish championships in arenas across the country, such as the Emirates indoor arena in Glasgow.   

As an indication of the esteem in which he was held, he was elected a Life Member of Pitreavie in 2003.   Knowing John, though, despite all the various things he was involved in, he was happiest among his athletes and mixing with the competitors.   At Pitreavie, the comment of another club member was simply: 

 “He’ll be sadly missed around the place as he’s always been there, seemed to never be a club training night that he wasn’t there.”

Bill outside the Old Clubhouse restaurant in Gullane in 2012.

BILL WALKER is known throughout the UK as a top class coach: a quiet and friendly man, a former athlete and committee man, he is relentless in his pursuit of success (however you define it) as a coach on behalf of his athletes.   Generous with his time and with a rare sense of humour he is deservedly popular.   However because of his quiet and unassuming nature, he is not as well known as he should be, despite the fact that he has had a very successful  career in the sport.   He has received many awards including life membership of Scottish athletics and as recently as last year he received a special award from UK Athletics for his services to the sport and was also the subject of an edition of ‘Surprise, Surprise’ where no one was more surprised than he was!

Richard Winton wrote the following in the ‘Herald’ in 2012 when Bill had won the Winning Difference Award and was about to be presented with it at the Kelvin Hall.

“Bill Walker equates coaching to painting the Forth Bridge; just as he has finished guiding one athlete to the peak of their performance, another talented youngster emerges demanding his attention and expertise.

It is the reason why, 52 years after taking his first session, the septuagenarian can still be found at Meadowbank Stadium six days a week, gently cajoling elite performers, kids and those with a disability alike to shave one more second or inch from their previous bests in pursuit of their own personal glory.

It is also the reason why he will spend tomorrow afternoon at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, awkwardly stepping into the spotlight at the Aviva International Match to be presented with Winning Scotland Foundation’s annual Winning Difference Award ‘in recognition of his exemplary achievements and significant and lasting contribution to Scottish sport’. Walker scoffs at the suggestion he might mark the occasion, insisting that it is more cause for concern than celebration.

“I’m worried that by getting this they maybe think I’m about to die or something, that’s the danger at my age,” he says, judiciously ignoring congratulations.

Instead, he insists, his reward comes from the success of those in his command. And how rich that reward has been. Some of Scotland’s finest have come under his tutelage over the years, most notably Alan Wells, who worked on his starts with Walker in the months leading up to his 100m gold in the Moscow Olympics.

“A coach is only good if they’ve got a good athlete and Alan was never satisfied and always looking for improvement,” recalls Walker, clearly more at ease when not talking about himself. “He always felt he couldn’t be perfect so he was self-motivated, which served him well when he went out and beat every American afterwards after people tried to talk down his achievement.”

The increasing paucity of world-class Scottish competitors in the intervening years means winning a track-and-field gold in London later this year is unimaginable. As much as it pains Walker to acknowledge as much, the fact is that athletics struggles to attract the most gifted youngsters in the face of more financially appealing disciplines, such as football, tennis and golf, amid an ever expanding sporting spectrum.

Consequently, the standard has dropped – “at one time I had two part-time 800m runners doing 1.45/46mins who would be superstars now” – despite the prevalence of sponsorship deals and development of more appealing facilities affording young Scots a better chance than ever to reach the top in their chosen event.

“It’s still feasible if they are prepared to work but I think it’s a different animal now,” Walker says. “Kids don’t have the mobility and range of movement they once had because they are always sitting down playing on computers rather than being outside. Sure, we are working on identifying those weaknesses and working on them but without those basic motor skills we are starting from a lower level and their technical capabilities are limited because of that.”

We can come back to this article later but to begin at the beginning, Bill Walker like so many very good coaches started out as a runner.   Like all of his generation he was called up to do two years National Service in the Army.  Starting in Bath, he was transferred to Leuchars in Fife where he managed to get his 440 yards time down to 49.1 – and on grass at that.   National Service was brought to an end in 1960, so Bill’s running was in the 1950’s.  The time above would have placed him twelfth on the Scottish ranking lists in 2015.   In other words his time on grass would have been beaten by only eleven Scottish runners on tartan more than 50 years later!   He is quoted as saying “There weren’t enough jobs for everybody so I was pushed into sport to get rid of me,” he explains. “I ended up running with them and basically getting a big skive because I was practically a full-time athlete. In fact, it was so good that I signed on for an extra two years.”

The  Braidburn Junior Champion trophy being presented to Ronnie Browne

When he did finally leave the RAF, Bill worked at electrical engineering firm Ferranti before going to Heriot-Watt University as a physics lecturer.   He had also joined Braidburn AC, a club with several very good runners such as Neil Donachie and Bill Linton, by then and was training with Tom Drever.   It was at Ferranti that he began coaching, setting up sessions for colleagues who had spotted him training alone. That continued when he moved to Heriot-Watt.    Incidentally, one of the younger members at Braidburn was a  boy called Ronnie Browne (related to Peter Hoffman as it happens) who discusses his time at Braidburn in his autobiography “That Guy Fae The Corries”  and ‘Big Tam Drever’ is mentioned fairly often – the book even has a picture of a young-ish Bill Walker presenting the club’s Junior Champions Trophy to Ronnie.

When Braidburn merged with several other clubs to form Edinburgh Athletic Club, Bill and Tom joined the new outfit. Bill later married Tom’s daughter Kay.  Another Ferranti employee was Eric Fisher who also joined Edinburgh AC.   They became friends and competed for the club as individuals but also in league matches for the team.     Eric remembers travelling with Bill as part of an Edinburgh AC team trying to qualify for the British Athletics League.   Bill doubled up the 400m, 400mH, steeplechase and 4 x 400 while Eric doubled up on the steeplechase and 5000m!

While working at Heriot-Watt Bill was also involved in their athletics activities setting up coaching sessions for his colleagues who joined in with his sessions.     Doug Gillon, now well known as one of Scotland’s best ever and most respected sports journalists joined Edinburgh AC in 1964 and trained alongside Bill, becoming a firm friend.   He remembers the time, the training and the friendships well.   He recounts that

“I first met Bill when Jack Macfie and I joined EAC in the autumn of 1964.   We knew nobody, but Bill (and Claude Jones and John Convery) made us very welcome. Because my girlfriend (now wife of 45 years) lived in the next close in East Claremont Street, Bill frequently gave me lifts home, to her house.   He was still competing then, but was very helpful with racing and training advice, though he was never my coach in any formal sense.

John Fairgrieve (later first paid SAAA secretary), was the same vintage. At that stage I had no formal training schedule – I was absorbing the methods of Lydiard, Cerutty, and Stampfl, and picking bits out of each in a completely haphazard and ill-considered manner. I would turn up and do whatever session seemed best – no structure at all.

Club nights at Ford’s Road usually, for Jack and I, and as I recall, John Fairgrieve, would mean tackling a track rep session, usually with Bill lending advice and encouragement, and holding the watch.   I do recall him joining in 200 and 400m rep sessions, but not the most savage: a 6 x 660 with a 2-min interval.    At our best, the peak target was 90 seconds. Bill would be holding the watch for these. Jack, John and I would lead out two each, alternating every 200m, then free-for all on the last 200, attempting to make the time, with Bill shouting encouragement, and the seconds as we went through. The format of switching every 200m was Bill’s.    It was possibly not coincidence that Jack, John and I finished in that order in the mile at the Scottish Schools the following year. In hindsight, I reckon these tough track rep sessions, drawing each other out, played a part in our modest success.

When I went to Heriot Watt University, after a year at EAC, Bill was in charge of the electron microscope. He was also in charge of the athletics and cross-country teams.     He was always a great enthusiast and motivator. In winter, at lunchtimes, he oversaw weight training in the university’s mining engineering dept in the Grassmarket. Generations of athletes would have learned or been introduced to the sport, and conditioning, by him

Bill selected the teams for track and cross-country matches – always seemed involved in every aspect, up to laying courses. Not every university was as disciplined. I remember a match on a poorly-marshalled and marked course at Caird Park in Dundee. Adrian Weatherhead was about 100 yards in front of me and took a wrong turn. I put in a desperate mid-race sprint, yelling at him to come back – which he did, and still won!

For track meetings it would be much harder to put together a team. He could be compellingly persuasive: I think that’s where I first heard the philosophy of: “just go round for the point”. In hindsight I wonder how he managed to fit in the day job. 

He would give lifts to highland games, explain the pleasures and pitfalls of handicap racing, and how it taught pace judgment.

*

He continued to coach his athletes and Eric Fisher tells of the first night back at the club after the successful Commonwealth Games  when there were 129 children down at the track, most of them for the first time.   In the midst of this, Bill was trying to do a session with Adrian (mile time in 1970: 4:00.7).   At that point Eric and he had a conversation in which Eric agreed to work with the younger athletes in the club and pass the best of them on to Bill.   It was a system that worked well.   Bill was recognised as one of the best coaches in Scotland at the time.   Frank Dick was the National Coach and the individual coaches included Eddie Taylor, Alex Naylor, George Sinclair, Gordon Cain, Sandy Ewing and Bill.

If we want to see how good Bill’s athletes became, it is instructive to look at  some of them.

* Norman Gregor was SAAA 400m hurdles champion in 1974 and had 5 second places in that event as well as at 400m flat.   He had personal bests of 21.8 (200m), 48.4 (400m), 16.1 (110mH),    51.56 (400mH) and 1:49.4 for 800m.

Peter Hoffman

 * Peter  Hoffman had been a very good sprinter who became a very good class 800m runner.   His career at the top lasted from 1974 to 1982 and he competed in Olympic, European and Commonwealth Games, won gold silver and bronze at British and Scottish championships, and had pb’s of 10.8 (100m), 21.8 (200m), 34.7 (300m), 46.76 (400m), 1:46.63 (800m), 2:24.8 (1000) and 54.2 (400H).    He was an outstanding athlete by any standards.

* Paul Forbes:   Bill and Paul always had a close contact although John Anderson also had some input.   Paul started out with EAC and was coached by Eric Fisher before training with Bill.   Paul had pb’s of 47.69 for 400m, 1:45.66 for 800m and competed in three Commonwealth Games, and won gold at both UK and Scottish championships.   In 1983 Paul ran 1:46.83 which would have been a Scottish Native Record but he was denied the honour because he was not wearing a club vest;

* Peter Little was a top class young sprinter who competed between 1976 and 1981.   He had best times of 6.84 (60mi)10.6 (100m), 21.5 (200m), 48.49 (400m) and won gold, silver and bronze  both north and south of the border, winning GB championships indoors at a time when there was no Scottish indoor scene at all.

* Roger Jenkins won the SAAA 400m twice, one second, and was third in the AAA’s 400M.    Competed in the European and Commonwealth Games and had pb’s of  10.5 (100m), 21.3 (200m), 46.49 (400m) and 51.66 (400mH).

* Ross Hepburn was a high jumper who was originally coached by Tom Drever.   I quote directly from the SATS website: Talented young athlete who set world age bests at the age of 13 (1.88m) and 14 (2.04m).   He represented Scotland at the age of 14 years 334 days  v  England and Wales, then represented GB  v  Russia aged 15 years 316 days.   This made him the youngest male athlete ever to compete for Great Britain.   AAA Youths champion but retired from the sport through injury while still in his teens.

He has also worked with others such as  Graeme Grant,  Ann Dunnigan and Mary Speedman .

The Edinburgh AC club record for 4 x 400m relay is a magnificent 3:08.9 and was set by a team of Peter Hoffman, Paul Forbes, Norman Gregor and Roger Jenkins: all coached by the same coach – Bill Walker.

Norman Gregor

Several of the wonderful athletes mentioned above were in action at the same or similar distances at the same time and yet another top class athlete – Adrian Weatherhead  – spoke of some of them and Bill’s sessions.

“I first met Bill when I was an undergraduate at Heriot Watt University.    I was just starting my athletics career and Bill was very keen to organise a Heriot Watt athletics team using his expertise from his days in the RAF where he had been a 400 metre runner.    When he left the university to take up a post of Assistant Manager at Meadowbank he rapidly accumulated a very successful squad of athletes with whom I trained a number of times each week.
Many of the sessions had an all GB international line up ( Pete Hoffman, Paul Forbes, Norman Gregor, Roger Jenkins and myself) and were of the most murderously high quality where each individual had some dominant quality which he could impose on the others.
Bill has continued his excellent coaching and has inspired young athletes over the decades.   I am proud to relate that he has many times over the years given some shock therapy to some of his protégés by informing them of the quality of the sessions attained by the GB training squad of the 1970s!!”

*

Bill was also very active in the club away from the track and as well as organising club coaching, he served on the the Committee and progressed through the system until in 1969 he was elected on to SAAA East District and General Committees as the Heriot Watt representative.   By 1977 Bill was the fourth longest serving member of the SAAA General Committee, with only Oliver Dickson, John McClurg and Eddie Taylor having been longer than he had on the 43  strong body.   He had progressed to being on the  Joint Coaching Committee and had qualified as a Senior Coach for Sprints.   As an official he was  a Grade 1 for track. jumps and throws, a marksman and Grade 3 Timekeeper.   He had come a long way in a relatively short time.

The Commonwealth Games of 1970 had been a great success and sports promoters started to bring the best athletes in the world to Scotland.   There were three tracks of a high enough standard for these meetings, Grangemouth, Coatbridge and  Meadowbank, which was not just a track but a stadium with memories of the great athletes and performances at the Games.    Athletes like John Walker, Irene Szewinska, Steve Scott and many others from Europe, the Antipodes and America  were mixing it with the best of British and Frank Clement, Geoff Capes, Allan Wells and David Jenkins.    On 19th August 1978 the Glenlivet Highland Games took place at Meadowbank and many of the Scottish athletics top brass were involved as was Bill, by then assistant manager at Meadowbank, in the organisation of the meeting.    On the following day the Coca Cola Meeting took place at Coatbridge – this was not the first time that the two meetings had followed one on the other and athletics fans loved it.   Almost all the same athletes turned out: Capes, Wells, Clement, Black, etc were all there.   Everybody knew that these athletes were being paid, at the very least generous ‘expenses’ were on offer.  The European circus was just starting up and payment of athletes was an open secret.   Unfortunately details of some athletes expenses from Meadowbank became public and the SAAA Committee started to ferret out the truth of the situation.   Attention finally focused on Bill Walker and his team.   The investigation did not take place until after a police inquiry had been held.   The police found no reason to proceed any further. As has been said, Bill was on general committee of the SAAA and a special meeting was called.    The upshot of that meeting was that he was suspended.

This provoked an uproar in the athletics community.   Andy Arbuckle of Fife AC acquired the signatures of the requisite number of clubs to call a Special General Meeting of all clubs with the intention of having the suspension lifted immediately.   The result was the lifting of the suspension.   There is no doubt that Bill’s reputation and the high regard in which he was held made a great contribution to the final decision.   The whole affair was a blot on the record of the SAAA.   An interesting side light on the affair was that an attempt was made to investigate the expenses paid at the Coatbridge meeting.   However at the meeting at which the decision was taken to lift the suspension the following appeared in the minutes:   “On 24th May 1979, a letter was received from Monklands District Council, stating that the information requested would only be made available on condition that an inquiry would be held into all International Sports Meetings held in the UK, Europe and America in 1978.”   There followed a correspondence with the Council but no action was taken with regard to Coatbridge.

It should be pointed out though that there was general support for Bill from the Scottish athletics community, and two British international stars spoke out on his behalf – David Jenkins and Geoff Capes – at a time when it could have ruined their careers as sportsmen.   In addition, the spotlight shone on the proceedings by journalists such as Doug Gillon made sure that nothing that happened was exempt from scrutiny.   It was nonetheless a very difficult time for Bill and his family.

The surprising thing is that Bill went on coaching through it all.  He kept producing top class athletes despite the toll that the whole affair must have had on his family life as well as on him personally.   A look at the names above indicates that he was working with  Adrian Weatherhead, Peter Hoffman, Peter Little and others – none of them suffered at all.

What was he like as a coach?   What did he expect of the athletes?   One thing they must do, he said in an interview, is demonstrate an appetite for work.   He continued,  “It keeps me young and, as long as the athletes are giving me everything, I’m happy,” explains Walker, whose science background led him to dabble in photo finish and electric timing technology years before it became popular. “If they are committing themselves, they deserve the same commitment back but I won’t tolerate skiving. If they are wasting my time I will tell them, no matter what level they are at. With that attitude, I think they’ll have to carry me off the track in a coffin in the end but that would maybe be quite a nice way to go.”

Bill has a reputation of being a very strict coach who thinks that athletic clubs should not spend their time with those who come along not prepared to do the work.   His sessions all start on time and there is the tale of an occasion when there was no athlete ready to go at the appointed starting time.    Bill called “Go!”, started his watch and after the non-rep rep went to the cafeteria.   A late arrival turned up in the cafeteria only to be told, it was over!    At another time, an international sprinter was to practice sprint starts: she had three faulty starts and Bill told her to go home.   When she protested he told her that’s what would happen in a competition, so – go home, we’re finished for tonight!    The same man stands up for his athletes – who always come first – at times to extremes.  As at the time when he encouraged his women runners to move from Edinburgh AC to their city rivals Edinburgh Southern Harriers because the demands being made of the athletes in team competition were against their better interests.

Many coaches and athletes remain friends long after the athlete’s career in the sport is over and Doug Gillon says “In my career as an athletics journalist, I have lost count of the number of athletes who have sung Bill’s praises, who talk of his selfless help, generosity, and integrity. His good humour and enthusiasm is unfailing, and remarkable after so long spent as a  coach.”  

Bill on holiday at Lake Konstanz with Ross Hepburn

Ross Hepburn , for whom Bill was a friend and advisor, remains a good friend to this day, decades after Ross’s retirement from high jumping.   He says:

“I was at Fords Road when Mr Jones (Claude) and Mr.Carrigan (Jimmy) suggested when l was 12 years old that l go to Meadowbank to improve my talents as l was more a jumper/sprinter, with needs regarding training other than what was possible at Saughton. There, l was to meet a Mr. Walker.

Bill introduced me to his father in law, Tom (Drever), who started me off on my road as a high jumper. I remember Tom and Bill taking me in 1974 into the Meadowbank weights room to test me at sit-ups, pull-ups etc. I can still see them both giving me a nod of approval. Later Bill would allow me to join in one or two winter sessions with his athletes – sessions like 20 x 200 with a walk back recovery – l never saw the end of a session, and Bill would just smile at me saying l told you that you still have a long way to go – and l decided l’m not going that far – l think he knew that anyway.

I left for Germany at a young age (17) but when l came home every other year for a visit l instinctively headed for Meadowbank. Bill would be pleased to see me and always found time for a cup of tea in the cafeteria, and he would insist on paying for it, and to enquire how l was doing. Or we would go for lunch together and he would inform me of what was going on … this has gone on now for the best part of 36 years!

During these years l did run into one or two of life’s tests and troubles, Bill was someone l could rely on for good advice. Last year I visited Bill at his home in Edinburgh, and was physically moved to see a large photograph of Tom hanging in his hallway, a great man! And I recall a nice demonstration of Bill’s commitment to the sport. I remember hearing a story of Bill driving past Meadowbank with his family in the car, and one of the kids in the back said: “Look mummy, that’s where Daddy lives” …… you can’t describe dedication much better than that!

Three years ago Bill came over to Germany and stayed with me for a week. This was great for catching up on old times, and l was astonished at how fit he was for his age when we walked up a hill one day. If l ever reach his age then (late seventies) then l’ll try that hill, and probably see Bill saying “You still have a long way to go!” 

I hope there are many more years ahead for our yearly or twice-yearly lunches together!”

*

When addressing new coaches, Jimmy Campbell, another master coach, used to take the chalk, hold it sideways to maximise the size of the letters, and write on the board the single word   DIVORCE, before saying that that was where they might be heading if they did the job properly.   Bill never had that problem.   His family were all involved in the sport and that support must have been invaluable to him throughout his career.  His son Clint has followed Bill into the area of electronic timing.   Ross looks at this and says

In 1976 Tom moved to Limassol, Cyprus, after he lost his wife. Once settled in he invited his grandson Clint (Bill’s son) and I to visit him for Christmas / New Year ’76/’77. It was a great trip for two young lads. Bill later used this Cyprus connection for a few years, taking athletes to warm weather training. Bill also organised the Christmas party and dance for EAC for a while. One story Bill enjoys telling was when he had 16-year-old Clint helping at Meadowbank during an international match. Clint’s job was to guard the outside door from the track which led to the concourse and stairs up to the cafeteria and office area. You could not get through unless you had a pass. Well along comes TV commentator Archie McPherson. Clint, being a bit like his dad – very straight and correct – asks him for his pass. Archie didn’t posses one, and was kindly told by Clint he can’t get in. No comment as to what Archie said. 

Clint later followed his dad into the field of electronic timing. I remember Bill always was technically strong, and tried to set up the best possibilities for athletes regarding timing. Bill mentioned to me how Clint was fascinated by this. He later went on to programme the most complicated systems and worked at many major Games for a Swiss timing company. Sadly, last time I visited Bill he had had a lot of his equipment stolen. Thieves had put a small child through his small living room window and got the gear out that way. Being Bill, he periodically checked the local pawn shops and was able to get some of the stuff back!”

Staying on the topic of timing where Bill’s expertise is generally acknowledged, Doug says that he remembers Bill and Clint working on the photofinish/timing at stadia all over Britain. “They invariably seemed last of the technical guys and officials to leave. And in a media context he was always singularly helpful, in contrast to the majority of the blazer brigade. He always struck me as an “athletes’ man” rather than an “officials’ man”, in much the same way as I always regarded Raymond Hutcheson and Bob Stephen, and many of our other coaches . . . the kind of folk who never forgot what it was to be an athlete, and what was important to them.”

He also discusses fitness levels in the community at large in the article by Richard Winton quoted from above and which can be accessed at

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/13045776.Local_Hero__the_Walker_who_just_keeps_on_running/

Bill has taken part in many activities fostering sport in the community and has received several awards for this.   He almost always passes on any money raised to athletics causes, either to the club or to another related cause.   See this article from Deadline News of 12th March 2012which as about efforts to assist a young sprinter come back from Gambia to Scotland.

http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2012/03/12/scots-coach-raising-funds-to-fly-gambian-sprinter-back-for-commonwealth-games/

This interest in Community Sport was the key to getting him to the television studio in Edinburgh in August last year when he was the  subject of a “Surprise, surprise!” sting.   Old friend and club mate Eric Fisher lured him to the studio on the pretext that they were to take part in a discussion about sport in the community where he was duly surprised!

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/city-olympic-hero-s-coach-on-surprise-surprise-1-3600837

Finally, we have tributes to Bill and his work from three coaches who know him well – Hamish Telfer, Eric Simpson and Frank Dick on a separate page which can be seen by clicking    here

Eddie Pictured in 1949

Eddie Taylor was one of a generation of great club men, one-club men, that spanned the war years.   He was the first to enunciate for me what many others of that generation lived by and that was the belief that “You do what your club needs you to do.”   In Shettleston there were David Morrison,  Wilie Laing and the Scally family for a start, in my own club of Clydesdale Harriers there were  David Bowman, George White, James P Shields.   Bill Elder at Glenpark was another.

Starting as an endurance runner, Eddie had some good runs for the club in the 1930’s.   In season 1935/36 he ran for the club in the Midland District Championships where the team finished fifth.   The following winter he ran in the National Novice Championship where he was a non counter in the wining Shettleston team.   He was also in the four man B team in the Midland Relays that finished a creditable seventh.   In 1937/38 he was a member of the winning team in the McAndrew Relay at Scotstoun along with Jim Flockhart, Willie Sutherland and Willie Donaldson.   In 1938/39 he ran in his only Edinburgh to Glasgow relay on the fifth stage where he pulled the team up from ninth to seventh before handing over to Jim Flockhart who picked up one more on the star studded sixth stage of seven miles.   He also ran in the National that season.

Eddie was running well in the years immediately before the War and won several club championships: in 1936/37 he won the club novice championship and also won the Shaw Cup which was held over eight handicap events varying in distance from 75 yards to two miles.

When the War intervened, the club members who were not, for several different reasons, in the Forces, kept the club going and Eddie was one of those men.    He had been secretary in the 1938/39 season, and then acted as treasurer from 1940/41 to 1942/43 before taking the President’s chair in 1944/45 and 1945/46.   There were further stints as club president in 1953/54, 1965/66 and 1966/67.

As can be seen, he was a good committee man in the club, filling many more posts than those mentioned above.   This was not a situation that changed over the years either.   In 1960, the club sent two buses to the Rome Olympics and Eddie had been one of the organisers of that expedition.   It goes on to add that one of the highlights for Eddie and his wife Meta had nothing to do with the athletics.   “Strolling through the Olympic Village they came across a group of bambini in a very agitated cluster.   Closer examination revealed that they were being entertained by a handsome young black American, the new Olympic light heavyweight boxing champion, Cassius Clay, later Muhammed Ali.   Not content with bagging one international personality, they turned a corner and almost bumped into Bing Crosby.”

As a coach he coached high jumps, long jump, triple jump and javelin to Senior Coach level as well as sprints, middle distance, shot and discus at club coach level.   This is an incredible list – nowadays they would be level four for the first four and level three for the second four!   Little wonder he was one of the first to be recognised as a Master Coach when the award was first instituted.   He was also Scottish coach for various disciplines as well as for what was at that time called multi-events.   He was very far sighted as a coach: in a letter to the ‘Athletics Weekly’ a number of years ago, one coach was complaining about his sessions being stolen by other coaches.

Eddie was the very reverse of that.   Two examples.   First from the official Shettleston Harriers history quoting the  minutes of a club meeting.   “Going into the track and field season the club had amassed a greater number of coaches than ever before ‘for all events’ and was now offering specialist coaching on an individual basis and not only to club members.   Coaching convener Eddie Taylor urged the Committee to encourage others outside the club “to place themselves in the hands of the many coaches”, an approach that was to become a feature of the club’s policy during the 60’s”   Eddie was never narrow of outlook.   Second, when we at Clydesdale Harriers were holding throws coaching sessions for local schools, we invited several coaches from outside the club to help.   Eddie was the national coach for javelin at the time and he came along willingly  nd when another coach from another local club refused saying that “Clydesdale only wanted to recruit for themselves,” he rebuked him saying it was good for the sport.   The Shettleston AGM in 1964 was magnanimous in its praise of the coaching of young athletes done by Eddie and by Alex Naylor – another who coached “the body of the Kirk”.   Both believed in the “all who will may enter” school of coaches.   He was a very good and popular National Coach for the Multi-events, now known as Combined Events.   We were both on the West District of the SAAA Coaching Committee in 1979 and 1980 and he passed on a lot of very useful information informally at these events.

Even though by then he was known as a very good coach indeed, he never failed to take any opportunity to add to his store of knowledge and was a regular attender at coaching courses wherever they were being held.

As an administrator he served on club, county, district and national committees rising to senior positions in them all.   The highest position in Scottish athletics, President of the SAAA, was held by Eddie in 1974, after he  had worked his way through all the committees and subcommittees over the years.   He was also accorded the honour of life membership of the SAAA.

Shettleston Harriers history reported that the club had 4 possibles and one certainty for the team going to the 1974 Commonwealth Games.   The one certainty was Eddie Taylor who had already been selected as team manager.   When it came to the Games, Lachie Stewart had this to say about him: “Eddie is the best team manager we ever had, because he had such an easy-going attitude but was still effective.”

Having been admin officer, coach and team manager for Scottish international teams and representative squads literally for decades, Eddie was certainly effective.   For example when I was admin officer for the men’s team in the Bell’s Junior International in 1980, Eddie was team manager and he gave the appearance of being ‘easy-going’ but he was very sharp indeed.   He knew all of the athletes in the team and knew how they all had to be dealt with and which ones to watch late at night as well!

As far as awards were concerned, he was rightly recognised by the authorities.   In 1990 he won the Betty Claperton Trophy which is awarded annually to the person considered by the Coaching Committee to have given outstanding service to coaching and in the same year was awarded the Tom Stillie Memorial Trophy which is awarded annually to the person considered by Council to have contributed most to Scottish Athletics.   To be awarded either is an honour but to be awarded both in the same year is unique.

Athlete, coach, committee man nationally and locally, and administrator, Eddie was also a reporter for the ‘Scots Athlete’ magazine which was the Bible of the sport in the 1940’s and 1950’s.

Eddie was never unprepared – he was always up-to-date with his knowledge of coaching of Scottish athletics generally.   He was genuinely ‘easy-going’ as Lachie said, but behind that was a thorough going professional attitude to everything that he did.

This first one is from John Anderson: you will have noted from Hamish’s remarks in the profile that he has a deep respect and admiration for John – John thinks equally highly of Hamish.

“I met Hamish when as a schoolboy he came along with his friend Cameron McNeish who I was coaching.   Cammy was a gifted long jumper who excelled in schools athletics and beyond and who subsequently went on to gain national and international acclaim as a hill walker and mountaineer.

Hamish did not display any special talent as an athlete but what he did have was an overwhelming desire to be the very best that he could be.   I decided to see if I could harness this ferocious energy and hard work and develop his potential as a distance runner.   His level of success unfortunately sadly didn’t match his driving level of hard work.

Hamish Telfer brought to his endeavours a level of commitment rarely surpassed.   I have coached very many national and international athletes who achieved outstanding performances.   Hamish might not have had their talent but he certainly tried as hard as any of them.

Whilst Hamish might not have achieved his goals as an athlete, he took his passion to helping others and became an outstanding coach.   His zest for knowledge and his ongoing determination to be the very best coach he can be has proved fruitful.

As an athlete he gave it everything but failed to achieve the highest levels.   Fortunately that energy and passion for knowledge has been redirected and has meant that he has excelled as a coach.”

Hamish (on the right) and Cameron McNeish

Photo from C McNeish

Cameron, Hamish’s long time friend says … 

I first met Hamish when we both joined the West of Scotland Harriers in circa 1964/65. The club was looked after by a lovely old gent by the name of Johnny Todd who took Hamish and I under his wing. 

West of Scotland Harriers was predominantly a cross country running club and although Hamish and I considered ourselves sprinters we were encouraged to become involved in everything that was going on at the club, no bad thing for youngsters. That included winter Saturdays at the Stannalane running track near the Rouken Glen where we went cross country running with some fine old timers whose names I’ve forgotten (Hamish will remember). Included in our group was another young athlete who went on to become a Scottish international 400 metre runner by the name of Ian Walker. Ian is now a fairly well known and established folk singer, and we all still keep in touch. 

Hamish and I have very fond memories of dank, wintry Saturday afternoons at Stannalane. We probably ran between 5 and 10 miles, mostly around the Barrhead waterworks, and on our return to the ‘pavilion’ – a basic wooden shack, we all had to share one shower to scrape all the cow shit off us! That was followed by a cup of tea and a tea biscuit for which we all donated, if I remember correctly, tuppence! 

It was all very Alf Tupper’ish and we absolutely loved it. At that time Hamish showed some promise as a cross country runner and he and I used to finish reasonably highly in Under-15 cross country events, although the lads of Shettleston and Springburn Harriers usually dominated. 

Despite our relative success we still considered ourselves sprinters and after the Tokyo Olympics we were both inspired by the gold medal performance of Lynn Davies of Wales. I went on to enjoy a long correspondence with Lynn which lasted several years and we eventually met at a Home Counties international in Leicester when I competed for Scotland and he for Wales. I seem to recall Hamish also corresponded briefly with Lynn but he came to know him better later in life at various coaching functions and events. 

I went on to become a reasonably decent long jumper and represented Scotland on a couple of occasions when I was Scottish Junior Champion. Hamish trained very hard but soon realised that he wasn’t going to make it as a sprinter or a long jumper, so he began a slow progression through the track events – as a middle distance runner, then a long distance runner and eventually as a marathon runner, sadly without any real success. I think he may have run just under the three hours for the marathon. 

We used to go for long runs together as lads. Although I was specifically training as a long jumper Hamish was always happy to do some sprints training with me and I was always willing to go for some long runs with him. We both simply loved athletics and we both loved training, even before we met John Anderson. We did a lot of sprints training on the grass in Queen’s Park, near to Hamish’s parents home in Langside. 

On one occasion, when we were 15, we ran from my parents home in Hillington in Glasgow, down to Bishopton to visit an aunt and uncle of mine. We had a cup of tea before running back again. It wasn’t a huge distance – about 15 miles, but on the way back Hamish literally seized up and my father had to go out in the car to collect him. 

But Hamish never allowed these things to get him down. He had grit and determination in abundance. Where I had some natural ability, which led me to ease off training when things became too hard, Hamish was motivated by sheer hard graft. Indeed, John Anderson used to tell people that Hamish was the least successful of all his athletes, but the hardest worker! 

We met John Anderson at a schoolboys Easter training camp at Inverclyde. He took us under his wing and we often travelled out to Hamilton where John lived with his first wife Christine to help him collate training films and such like. On one later occasion, when we were both 17 I had bought a Honda motor bike but Hamish had splashed out on a wee scooter-type thing which barely went about 15-20mph. We both decided to go out to Hamilton to visit the Andersons on a particularly cold winter day. I got to Earnock about an hour before Hamish and when he appeared Christine had to take him into the house, place him in front of the fire, and thaw him out. I reckon he was suffering the first stages of hypothermia! 

Our weekends were entirely taken up with training – usually meeting Anderson somewhere and then going to the new all weather running track at Grangemouth Stadium. Later on that changed to Meadowbank in Edinburgh. We were in an excellent group of athletes that John coached that included Scottish shot put champion Moira Kerr, hurdler Lindy Carruthers (her mother was a coach with Maryhill Ladies, but more of that later) 400m runner David Jenkins (later became infamous as a drug cheat but we always called him Gwendoline – can’t really remember why…) the decathlete Stewart McCallum, middle distance runners Duncy Middleton and Graeme Grant. There were others but I can’t remember them now.

 Hamish and I were training partners to some noted Maryhill Ladies athletes such as Avril Beattie and we benefitted from the extra training opportunities that training with the girls of Maryhill Ladies brought (eg Friday evening indoor gym sessions). By now my parents had moved and I had left West of Scotland to join Bellahouston Harriers but Hamish remained very faithful to West of Scotland Harriers. But it was Maryhill Ladies where his coaching would eventually start.”

 We both had various girlfriends who were athletes and so life was a lot of fun. However, that hasn’t gone unnoticed. I remember Alex Naylor from Shettleston Harrier, who rarely failed to call a spade a spade, telling us we were a pair of pansies because we liked to train with the girls. 

About this time Hamish had his sights on joining the Police Force. I wanted to be a PE teacher. I then decided I’d quite like to be a policeman too so we both applied to join the City of Glasgow Polics cadets. I was accepted but Hamish wasn’t – he was too wee! I think he was about an inch short. Instead he stayed on at school and eventually went to work with the Bank of Scotland – yes, Telfer was a banker, but not for long. By this time he had decided he wanted to be a PE teacher and applied to Jordanhill Training College. It wasn’t easy. Hamish wasn’t a naturally talented sportsman and he had to perform various gymnastic routines to get accepted onto the course. I think I’m right in saying he sought out his old schoolteacher and got him to teach him gymnastic routes, and he worked bloody hard at it to make sure he qualified. And he did.

 After Jordanhill he went to teach in a school in Greenock where he stayed for a while. He then applied for, and became, a National Life Saving Coach which really surprised me. I didn’t even know he could swim! 

But that got him involved in the whole national, and international, coaching structure and even when he was working as a life saving coach his heart was still in track and field. By this time he had his own squad of athletes and he dedicated a lot of time to them. I think John Anderson was his inspiration. Like Hamish, John wasn’t a gifted athlete but worked very hard as a coach. Hamish did the same. No-one worked harder than Hamish and he never asked his athletes to do anything he had never done. He knew what it was like to be sick by the side of the track, or to be so knackered he could hardly stand. 

After life-saving I think Hamish went into academia and although we never quite lost touch we didn’t see a lot of each other through the eighties, nineties and early years of the noughts. He married Gail, but she died when she was quite young with cancer. They had one child, Lyndsey, and Hamish, despite all his commitments, brought her up as a single father, and did a marvellous job too. Lyndsey is now married and living in London but they are still very close, as you could imagine.

 I went off to climb hills and mountains and make a living doing that while Hamish became more involved in academia and coaching track. He eventually became British Universities coach and worked with some good athletes, but I’m afraid my knowledge of those athletes is pretty hazy. Hamish did become very involved in the whole drugs in sport controversy though and worked closely with the late Ron Pickering in trying to expose it.”

[Hamish comments:

Hamish

Picture from the Leisure Review

This next contribution is from  Eric Simpson who worked with Hamish on the Scottish Coaching Committee.

“The first time I came across Hamish was watching a documentary on television  about drug taking in the G.D.R.  I was stunned when asked if he suspected that there might be people in Britain taking drugs and the reply was YES. What was this someone with courage of his convictions to state was already known or should I say suspected. 

Hamish, on right of GB University team,  en route to Turin for World Cross-Country Championship

Scotland has produced many very gifted coaches in recent years and the names of John Anderson, Frank Dick, Tom McNab and Tommy Boyle are exceptionally well known.    Hamish Telfer – Dr Hamish Telfer – is another very good and successful coach from north of the border and is well respected by his peers but is not all that well known in Scotland itself.   Like the others mentioned, he is well educated and is at home discussing the intricacies of coaching theory, like the others he is totally dedicated to sport and has spent countless hours working with athletes of all standards, like them he has worked extensively in the field of sports education and his expertise has helped performers in a wide range of sports.   These are all reasons why we should know a bit more about him.

Hamish Telfer was born on the south side of Glasgow in 1950 and brought up in Glasgow where he was educated first of all at Carolside Primary School, and then at Queens Park Senior Secondary School – another similarity because John Anderson had also been a pupil there.  He lived in the Clarkston, Whitecraigs and Giffnock areas until 1961.  Like all boys in Glasgow he played mainly  football, indeed for a short time he was attached to Queens Park Football Club where was a ball boy for the club and for the SFA.   But he was also interested in and involved in athletics, after a friend invited him to go along to the West of Scotland Harriers club.   He met Cameron McNeish, better known now as a noted outdoors man, hill walker and climber and they were coached by John Anderson.   Hamish says that Cameron was picked up by John who realised that they were a good team and therefore  included Hamish in the group.   They trained hard from  about the ages of 15/17 and he remembers a particular session in a snowstorm with Hugh Baillie, Dunky Middleton, Hugh Barrow and Bob Lawrie among others.   Both boys started ‘serious’ training about 16 with weights sessions at Springburn Sports Centre,  Sunday Grangemouth sessions and training after school.  While he did have a life outside of the sport, it was more about training and competing all over Scotland.  Did the usual Highland Games circuit of youth handicap races in addition to local and national championships and also went around the country with John as his ‘demonstrators’ for coaching courses

Cameron explains the beginnings:

“I first met Hamish when we both joined the West of Scotland Harriers circa 1964/65. The club was looked after by a lovely old gent by the name of Johnny Todd who took Hamish and I under his wing. 

West of Scotland Harriers was predominantly a cross country running club and although Hamish and I considered ourselves sprinters we were encouraged to become involved in everything that was going on at the club, no bad thing for youngsters. That included winter Saturdays at the Stannalane running track near the Rouken Glen where we went cross country running with some fine old timers whose names I’ve forgotten (Hamish will remember). Included in our group was another young athlete who went on to become a Scottish international 400 metre runner by the name of Ian Walker. Ian is now a fairly well known and established folk singer, and we all still keep in touch. 

Hamish and I have very fond memories of dank, wintry Saturday afternoons at Stannalane. We probably ran between 5 and 10 miles, mostly around the Barrhead waterworks, and on our return to the ‘pavilion’ – a basic wooden shack, we all had to share one shower to scrape all the cow shit off us! That was followed by a cup of tea and a tea biscuit for which we all donated, if I remember correctly, tuppence!

It was all very Alf Tupper’ish and we absolutely loved it. At that time Hamish showed some promise as a cross country runner and he and I used to finish reasonably highly in Under-15 cross country events, although the lads of Shettleston and Springburn Harriers usually dominated …. “

“We used to go for long runs together as lads. Although I was specifically training as a long jumper Hamish was always happy to do some sprints training with me and I was always willing to go for some long runs with him. We both simply loved athletics and we both loved training, even before we met John Anderson. We did a lot of sprints training on the grass in Queen’s Park, near to Hamish’s parents home in Langside.

As a long jumper Hamish was always happy to do some sprints training with me and I was always willing to go for some long runs with him. We both simply loved athletics and we both loved training, even before we met John Anderson. We did a lot of sprints training on the grass in Queen’s Park, near to Hamish’s parents home in Langside  …. “

“We met John Anderson at a schoolboys Easter training camp at Inverclyde. He took us under his wing and we often travelled out to Hamilton where John lived with his first wife Christine to help him collate training films and such like. On one later occasion, when we were both 17 I had bought a Honda motor bike but Hamish had splashed out on a wee scooter-type thing which barely went about 15-20mph. We both decided to go out to Hamilton to visit the Andersons on a particularly cold winter day. I got to Earnock about an hour before Hamish and when he appeared Christine had to take him into the house, place him in front of the fire, and thaw him out. I reckon he was suffering the first stages of hypothermia! 

Our weekends were entirely taken up with training – usually meeting Anderson somewhere and then going to the new all weather running track at Grangemouth Stadium. Later on that changed to Meadowbank in Edinburgh. We were in an excellent group of athletes that John coached that included Scottish shot put champion Moira Kerr, hurdler Lindy Carruthers (her mother was a coach with Maryhill Ladies, but more of that later) 400m runner David Jenkins (later became infamous as a drug cheat but we always called him Gwendoline – can’t really remember why…) the decathlete Stewart McCallum, middle distance runners Dunky Middleton and Graeme Grant. There were others but I can’t remember them now

Hamish and I were training partners to some noted Maryhill Ladies athletes such as Avril Beattie and we benefitted from the extra training opportunities that training with the girls of Maryhill Ladies brought (eg Friday evening indoor gym sessions). By now my parents had moved and I had left West of Scotland to join Bellahouston Harriers but Hamish remained very faithful to West of Scotland Harriers. But it was Maryhill Ladies where his coaching would eventually start.”

How does Hamish himself remember these early days?   He was  asked to complete the questionnaire.

Hamish with Diana Brown and Jeanetta McPherson at Bellahouston in the Maryhill coaching days

Name: Hamish Telfer

Club/s: West of Scotland Harriers (coached with Maryhill Ladies AC)

Date of Birth:    28^th April 1950

Occupation:    University Lecturer

How did you get into the sport initially?  “Ran for my Primary School in the relay team; then secondary school then joined West of Scotland Harriers.”

Personal Bests?  “55.9 for 400m indoors at Cosford in 1967; 4m 12 for 1500 aged 18 – all very modest.”

Has any individual or group had a marked effect on either your attitude to the sport or your performances?

“I owe a great deal to the late John Todd of WSH and almost everything to John Anderson former Scottish National Coach who coached me from age 15 to 21.  Must thank the late Jimmy Campbell and also Frank Dick for getting me started in coaching.  Jimmy was a great inspiration.  Later in my career there were a number of individuals from other sports from whom I learned but I have a particular affection and respect for both Bill Walker and Peter Warden in athletics and the late Geoff Gleeson (former GB National Coach for Judo) –  all very wise and intelligent coaches.”

What do you consider your best ever performance as a runner?

 “Not many but being in the WSH team that placed 3^rd in the Scottish Youth XC Champs; that 400m indoors at the age of 16 and possibly the struggle to break 3hrs at Marathon in later life.  As a coach – my first athlete Sandra Auld (nee Weider 100/LJ) with whom I made so many mistakes in coaching without realising; watching Lucy Elliott smash the English Schools 400mH record to win the Seniors and get her first England vest; Steve Watson win BUSA 10k track Champs; Rona Elliott(nee Livingston) over 400; Brenda Walker running at the Auckland Comm. Games in 1990; John and Suzanne Rigg over 400/800 and marathon respectively and probably all my athletes who always gave everything and why I had so much fun coaching. My contributions to coach education across the UK.  Oh …. and the 5 World Championship wins with my GB teams in the World University XC Champs. from 1992 to 2004.”

What did you do apart from running to relax?

“Worked; brought up my daughter after my wife died; coach education work both in England and Scotland; hill walking and trekking; music (all sorts); reading – Scottish political history; philosophy and ethics and now cycling and cycle touring and at the age of (almost) 65, triathlon training.”

What goals do you have that are still unachieved?

“Very few.  Probably to destroy all the other old gits in my first Tri and complete the Munros (only 20 odd to do).  Keep cycling all over Europe.”

Can you give details of your training?

“More to do with my coaching and principles.  Take care in developing the background for development; share your thoughts with your athletes on training and competition; develop a real ‘I can do anything’ mentality; immerse yourself and show them that you and them are a ‘team’ working to a common goal; have loads of fun; never be afraid to make mistakes and more importantly admit the cock ups; always remember that you will get to a point where the more you know – the more you know what you don’t know! Be reflective.”  

Do you have any thoughts on current training and/or racing theories that you would care to pass on?   

“I have always been a believer in good all round conditioning.  All my endurance athletes for example went through coordination drills and agility work (with varying degrees of gracefulness and competency!); winter background conditioning was a very clear emphasis with me as it laid the foundations; I used a lot of basic exercises using the upper body as well as trunk; on track I guess I was not so different from other coaches other than I spent huge amounts of time getting my athletes into the frame of mind that anything was possible and doing this through high intensity work, modifying volume and duration as I thought necessary.”

What changes would you like to see in the sport?

“More of the coach focused approach which we are ‘told’ about actually happening; more attention paid to supporting clubs; a recognition that our population of children coming in to the sport are qualitatively and certainly ‘quantitatively’ different!  It is now taking longer to get children and young people into a shape where they can even train competently.”

You also did some hill/mountain running.   How did that come about?

“That was entirely the fault of my mate Cameron McNeish.  We once did some local hill running as athletes because he thought it ‘would be a good idea’ (like his good idea to run to his aunty’s in Langbank and back from his house in Glasgow when we were schoolboys – 18 miles in one evening – I had rigor mortis for 2 weeks!).  Later, in our early 30s he phoned me out of the blue and asked me to partner him in the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon.  While I died the death of a thousand dogs we did manage to win a sub category.  Run most of the Scottish hills for fun after that.”   

_____________________________________________

Hamish as a young National Coach delivering a session at Crystal Palace in 1976

We should maybe go back to what happened to Hamish after Maryhill Harriers and into employment.   Cameron tells us that Hamish first thought about joining the police force, then decided to stay on at school and become a banker.  Hamish tells the tale.   “School and education eventually kicked in for me just as it was perhaps getting too late!  After a disastrous series of O grades (just 3!) I stayed on at school after getting rejected for the Police Cadets (lack of height) and did my Highers.  Cammie got in to the Police Cadets and I got enough Highers to get in to the Scottish School of PE at Jordanhill after a short spell in a bank as a bank apprentice.”

Hamish kept on competing and usually made the finals in the Scottish championships.   He stepped up to the 800/1500m just as he left school and during the 1968 Olympics while doing his Highers, he changed his body clock to be able to go to school, do his paper round, eat, sleep and do his homework AND be able to watch the Olympics on TV every night.   John had asked him to get the miles in before he came back from Mexico City so Hamish ran 1000 miles in three months because he thought it would be ‘a good thing,’    Unfortunately during his first year at Jordanhill he had a bad knee injury (in 1970 – his knee cap came out of joint), and John encouraged him to start coaching.   He also started hill walking with Cammie and developed a love of the outdoors and canoeing.   He even joined the Lomond Mountaineering Club and became their secretary for a while.   The coaching developed, he graduated from Jordanhill and by that time he had a group of athletes including Sandra Weider, Mary Ingram, Lynn Doran, Jeanetta McPherson and a few others.   He teamed up with Iain (Rab) Robertson and Jimmy Campbell at this point – a better pair of coaches you couldn’t find.    

It was hard work at Jordanhill  –  ‘and Hamish worked bloody hard’, says Cameron, to gain the qualification, and left with a Dip. Phys.Ed with a merit in Education.    During his last years at College, Hamish ‘consumed information as if there was no tomorrow’.   He did have time though to represent the College at Volleyball and Hockey: although he is rather dismissive of the standard he reached, he was given half colours.   Graduating in 1973, he decided not to teach in the Glasgow local authority but taught instead in St Columba’s High School in Greenock.   Those were the days when teachers on graduation ‘interviewed the local authorities’ before deciding on which one they would work for.   In my case I attended interviews with Glasgow, Dunbartonshire and Renfrewshire.   Hamish chose Renfrewshire – St Columba’s was a school with well over 2000 pupils and Hamish introduced several initiatives with varying degrees of success:

* Tried to start an outdoors club  –  failed;

* started a swimming and life saving club – succeeded;

* helped coach the school volleyball club;

* helped in the school Gilbert and Sullivan productions;  and

* worked as a part-time youth worker after school at the youth club

It is interesting in the twenty first century to note the range of activities being carried on in an ‘ordinary’ state secondary school.   These were not confined to Hamish’s school, many schools followed a broader curriculum than is possible now and it probably helped develop Hamish as a coach.   How so?   Well, he was mixing with the pupils in all sorts of contexts – as an instructor, as a partner and as a friend as well as in a teaching capacity.   There was a breadth of interaction that would have been difficult to replicate elsewhere.   Of course, he also kept the athletics coaching going and (another initiative) changed the school sports day from one where only about 40 kids out of 2,200+ took part, to one where over 160 took part.   This was done by making it ‘self competitive’ using the Thistle Award scheme.

But the one activity which had the biggest effect on his future was his activities in life saving.   He took the school life saving team through to the Scottish National Championships in two consecutive years.   Second time there he was asked if he would be interested in the role of National Development Officer for the BLSS – UK.   Having had an application for promotion within Renfrewshire rejected, he just went for it and became what was in effect the post of National Coach.   At the age of 24 he was the youngest National Coach in any sport in the UK.   The two aspects of the job that could have been improved upon were location (it was in England) and sport (it was not athletics).   Typical of Hamish, it was not to be the first time that he took on something that he knew only a little about and learned about it ‘on the job’. 

 Cameron McNeish again:.

“That got him involved in the whole national, and international, coaching structure and even when he was working as a life saving coach his heart was still in track and field. By this time he had his own squad of athletes and he dedicated a lot of time to them. I think John Anderson was his inspiration. Like Hamish, John wasn’t a gifted athlete but worked very hard as a coach. Hamish did the same. No-one worked harder than Hamish and he never asked his athletes to do anything he had never done. He knew what it was like to be sick by the side of the track, or to be so knackered he could hardly stand.”

He started with the RLSS on 1st January 1975 in England which meant that his athletics coaching had to stop.   It had been going well, he had got his Senior Coach Award at the age of 23 and had a very good squad indeed.   He stayed with the Life Saving until 1978 in the Midlands and North England and helped coach their GB squad for the World Championships held in London in 1976.   He left the job when he got married and took up a post a Liverpool University as a Lecturer in PE and got started back in athletics when Rona Livingston asked him  to coach her for a last try at making the Scottish team for the Commonwealth Games.   She was an ex-pat living in Liverpool and started to do well.   He quickly got a squad together and others joined in, including Donna and Bill Hartley, Ikem Billy and Rob Harrison.   He was himself noticed and picked up and taken into the official system in the North West of England by Carl Johnson and Peter Warden as well as by Frank Dick.   This led to him working in coach education for athletics and he began running the courses in the North West.

In 1981 he moved to Lancaster University and coached the University squads – the road racing team was particularly successful.   He also ‘discovered’ Lucy Elliott who was only 13 at the time and she was to become his first GB athlete.   He also dabbled in coaching hockey to such effect that the University team went up a league and he also coached the full Cumbria County squad.   His athletics squad was now up to 15 athletes at one time across a range of events.   Several of them were doing very well indeed – eg John Rigg, Brenda Walker, Steve Watson, Lucy Elliott and John Blackledge.

Drugs and doping were big issues in athletics at the time and suspicions about foreign athletes – particularly but by no means exclusively the East Europeans – were rife,  Hamish was one of the few British athletics people to get involved.  This was the time when David Jenkins was arrested in America and it became an even hotter topic as a result of that.   Hamish, along with the late Ron Pickering and two journalists from ‘The Times’, Pat Butcher and Peter Nichols, worked on an expose  of the British scene which was printed in ‘The Times’.  There was even a lengthy correspondence in the pages of ‘Athletics Weekly.’    This led to the Coni Inquiry which found that there was indeed an issue that needed to be dealt with.

After reading for a BA at the Open University and then an M Ed at the University of Liverpool, Hamish became really involved in top flight athletics.   I quote from ‘The Leisure Review’:

“Hamish consolidated his career at Lancaster within British track and field athletics, coaching a squad of athletes of which some 14 became British internationalists competing at World, European and Commonwealth Games levels. He was appointed GB Team Coach for the World Universities Cross Country Championships 7 times and the athletes he selected and worked with gained 5 world titles over this period in addition to numerous silvers and bronzes”

In 1991 he stopped coaching his personal squad when his wife died very young of cancer.   His priority immediately became his five year old daughter.   Despite his own unimaginable grief, he managed through his professional work to keep involved in coach education through research and courses which, being one offs were easier to juggle alongside his new family responsibilities.     At this time he kept contributing to Coach Education across all sports.   He worked for the National Coaching Foundation (which is now Sportscoach UK) and with the various Sports Councils.    We have already seen that he had been working at international level with life-saving and athletics, and in 1995/’96 he spread his wings a bit further when he was a Great Britain Team Coach (Coach Support) for Wild Water Canoeing (remember that he started out with football and he has also been involved with hockey).

There were also many published articles and papers on Coaching, more Coach Education materials as well as ‘academic type stuff’ on coaching practice and generally got involved through that avenue.   Academically he had seven main areas of interest and expertise – sport history, olympic studies, coaching practice, practice ethics, safeguarding and children’s values in sport.   There are many of these papers available which indicate the consistent quality of his work.   Even a cursory look over his publications on the internet provides extensive evidence of this.   Five minutes timed with a stopwatch produced this:

http://www.theleisurereview.co.uk/events/HamishTelfer2.pdf

http://sccu.uk.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/SCUK-Analysing-your-coaching-article.pdf

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Hamish-Telfer/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3AHamish%20Telfer

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=d4HFBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT151&lpg=PT151&dq=hamish+telfer&source=bl&ots=uPD6AqKzES&sig=uR8izpgPhR–D2nfpMxreH3sQbY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=M9IjVcTqCMyRsgGbiYJw&ved=0CCAQ6AEwADgU#v=onepage&q=hamish%20telfer&f=false

http://impact.ref.ac.uk/casestudiesapi/refservice.svc/GetCaseStudyPDF/21486

….  and there are pages more!

In 1991 he had been seconded to Charlotte Mason College in Cumbria as a lecturer in physical education for two years.   Then in 1993 he moved to be Senior Lecturer in Physical Education at St Martin’s College Lancaster (which later became the University of Cumbria) – he held this post until 2010.   At St Martin’s he was specifically tasked with setting up, with the existing two members of staff, a new Department of Physical Education and Sport, starting with a new degree in Sports Science, followed by degrees in Sports Studies, Coaching and Sport Development, the MA in Sport Coaching and Sport Development,  and a degree in Leisure and Tourism.   At this time he was also secretary and chair of the local branch of the University Lecturers Union and completed his PhD in 2006 at Stirling University.

This period saw more sporting honours for Hamish as his talents and work-rate were recognised.   For 12 years, from 1992 – 2004, he was Great Britain National Team Coach (Cross-Country) for the World Student Championships.  Of this period he says :  “The World Student Cross-Country was a terrific and privileged experience.   There was only one championship out of seven where we did not return with medals of some colour.   We won five World Titles between 1992 and 2004 (including an almost clean sweep of three out of the four in 1994) and a good number of silvers and bronzes.   I was able to really apply some of the coaching concepts I had developed with the athletes involved.   We clearly had the talent coming through as we were able to demonstrate.   What happened after they left us …… !!!!?”

What happened after 2004 for Hamish was that he felt that after twelve years he had done his bit and stepped down. 

Addressing the International Olympic Academy, Olympia, Greece, 2003

Back at home in Scotland he was voted by the Scottish coaches to be vice-chair on the Scottish Coaches Commission and this pleased him greatly.   The Coaches Commission worked hard but was ultimately unsuccessful – almost certainly for political reasons within the sport rather than through any failure on the part of the coaches involved.    For an overview of his coaching career and some reflections on the period maybe a look at the second half of the questionnaire would be useful.

This produced the following comments.

“Were there any significant inspirational figures who influenced your coaching practice?

“No question about John Anderson.   Also Jimmy Campbell and my young coaching mate Iain (Rab) Robertson who started around the same time as me.   Alex Naylor was also a magnificent example of an inspirational and hard working coach who always encouraged in between making sure I never got too big for my boots with that wonderful sense of humour.   Eddie Taylor also helped a lot.”

How far did your own running and competition influence your coaching theory and practice?

“John Anderson taught me about hard work and commitment.   That has shone through all my own coaching.   Never too bothered about whether an athlete was good or bad or had potential, but always hammered home that they had to work hard (at whatever level) or I wasn’t really interested.   Great believer that if you give everything you can then there will be no ‘what ifs’.”

How did you get involved in coaching at national level?

“Partly due to Peter Warden, Frank Dick and Carlton Johnson.    Also I had been a full-time GB National Coach in another sport and ‘returned’ to Track & Field.   Got coaching a group in Liverpol; got involved in Regional Coach Education as a staff member then as the lead co-ordinator.   Was involved with British University Sport where I met Malcolm Brown and we got on well (he asked me on to the Athletics Committee for moral support!); I had been to the Commonwealths in 1990 with an athlete and so in 1991 he asked me to work with him with the British Cross-Country team for the World Championships (I was already working with the English Students Team at Home Nations level).   Thereafter it was Malcolm Brown and myself until about 1998 and then Chris Coleman became my team manager until I left in 2004.”

What Scottish, GB or University teams have you been involved with?

“One Scottish Junior team, numerous English University representative teams, Isle of Man team for a Commonwealth Games, and numerous GB University teams (mainly cross-country but also some track & field teams from 1992 until 1994.”

What Scottish, British or University International teams have you been involved with?

“One Scottish Junior team, numerous English University representative teams, Isle of Man team for a Commonwealth Games and numerous GB University teams (mainly cross-country but also some Track & Field teams from 1992 until 2004).”

Are there any coaches that you particularly admire – either coaching at present or in the recent past?

“John Anderson, Frank Dick for his achievements in trying to make ‘coaching a greater priority within the governing body, Tom McNab for his wide ranging skills, intellect and native cunning, Malcolm Brown for his abilities to transfer his coaching skills into Triathlon so successfully, John Mills for his thoughtful approach to coaching within British cycling, the late but wonderful gentle Geoff Gleeson of British Judo who spent hours talking to me as a young and very inexperienced National Coach, Trevor Clark who helped me think about my coaching via his sport of hockey and Peter Warden with whom I had some fantastic fun coaching our respective squads.   I also had a lot of time for the late Patrick Duffy who tried to lead, develop and improve the structure of British coaching.   Bill Walker has always brought a quiet confidence to his work and there are other coaching colleagues over the years including my colleagues on the late lamented Scottish Coaches Commission (including that wee fireball Eric Simpson).   I will have left some out but all colleagues with whom I coached were part of how I thought and worked.”

Hamish retired in 2010 when he took ‘early retirement’ and has never been tempted back to coaching in athletics.   He has done his bit and like many of us might have problems with the new bureaucracy in the sport:    “I think I might commit homicide with various ‘professionals’ in the governing body at UK level.”   He still does ‘bits and pieces’ and is currently involved with a club based piece of work with athletics clubs in the north west of England re the state of ‘technical events’ where we still have a problem.   He is also still doing research work as what he calls a ‘semi retired’ academic.    (And it seems to me that he has set up another ploy when he asks “What happened after they left us? )

Let him have the final word  about life after coaching:

“Cammie McNeish and I have renewed our auld alliance with a vengeance by cycling. Done Lands End to John o’ Groats, France top to bottom, Ireland from bottom to top and this year we are about terrorise Spain.  A bit like Compo and Cleggy in lycra or an old married couple (take your pick). If you see us, then feed us cake – we respond well to that.”

I mean, the second last word – you can read what some of his colleagues and athletes think  at  Hamish Telfer’s Friends

The picture below of Hamish on his bike is from Cameron.