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Inter-Clubs at the Games: Cowal

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Cowal Stemor

Lachie Stewart and Norman Morrison at Cowal Highland Gathering

Of all the Highland Games meetings, Cowal was probably the best known among the general public and among athletes it was seen as a two-day meeting, a well sponsored meeting (they paid expenses for invited teams!), and the one with the biggest crowds by far.   Clubs took buses to Cowal – it was a long drive – and many athletes went by train to Craigendoran (at Helensburgh) and then went by boat to Dunoon.   The journey, whether in a busload of friends or by train and steamer, was part of the whole day.   And the quality of the athletics was always high.    When I started going there, there were only six teams invited to the two miles team race and one of them was always an English club.    We were sharing the dressing room and lining up with the best of Longwood and Saltwell Harriers, for instance.   Running at Cowal was a dream of a day for men who normally had to pay money and travel to England to race these guys.

If we look at the 1959 Cowal Games first …    They were held on the last weekend in August and the inter-club element was usually by invitation unless there was a championship relay being held.   “Three runners in the two miles invitation caught the eye – GD Ibbotson (South London Harriers), a former world record holder for the mile, GE Everett (Shettleston Harriers) the Scottish mile champion, and AH Brown (Motherwell YMCA), holder of the Scottish native record for the three miles.   The first mile was completed in 4 minutes 25 seconds with Ibbotson allowing Everett to make the pace.   The position was generally similar until the last lap when Ibbotson went to the front and opened a wide lead from Everett, who appeared to be tiring rapidly.   Brown made a strong effort to chase Ibbotson but the Englishman finished 10 yards ahead of him in 8:37.7 , Brown’s time was 8:59.4 and Everett was third in 9:15.2 – a time which he has easily beaten on previous occasions. “

Everett was out again in the medley relay where the Shettleston team won (Everett, McNulty, Meggat, Dewar) from Garscube and Ayr Seaforth.

Another Englishman won the event in 1960 – John Anderson of Saltwell Harriers winning from Bill Kerr (Victoria Park) and Eddie Sinclair of Springburn in 9:05.7.   Team victors were Victoria Park (15 points) from Bellahpouston (21) and Springburn (24).   The West District relay was included on the programme and as won by Victoria Park (Dunbar, Turner, Hildrey and Whitlock) in 42.3, a native record, from Larbert YC and Ayr Seaforth.   The medley relay was Seaforth from Bellahouston and Liverpool Harriers.   The inter-club component was important to the development of the athletes and the sport and to be representing your club before tens of thousands of spectator at what was an international gathering gave the athletes a real shot of adrenalin.   The Rangers Sports were still going strong but they had no inter-club element to them – they fulfilled another function.

The team race in 1961 was on a higher plane than for many years when Ibbotson, Anderson and Everett faced each other on the starting line.   It was a wet day and times generally were slow but the report read: “The two miles was a close race among JD Anderson (Saltwell), GD Ibbotson (Longwood) and GE Everett (Shettleston).   They finished in that order, in 9:11, 9:11.8 and 9:12.2.   Anderson had the edge for speed on his opponents down the finishing straight.   GD Ibbotson turned out in the open mile, and although he made good progress through the big field of handicap runners, he just failed to be placed.   JT McLatchie (Muirkirk AC) showed fine form and won from 45 yards in 4:11.8.”

The team race was won by Shettleston Harriers (20) from Bellahouston Harriers .   Bellahouston had their consolation when they won the medley relay from Liverpool Harriers and Seaforth AC.   Their winning team of Currie, LaPointe, Robertson and Greig was timed at 3:35.5.   The West District Relay was again won by Victoria Park whose team was Ballantine, Hamilton, Hildrey and Whitlock in 43.2 seconds.   The only other invitation event was the Youthe 880 yards which was won by Hugh Barrow (VPAAC) in 1:57.2 from Jim Johnston and Jim Finn (both Monkland).

On  the second day of the 1962 meeting John Anderson achieved a notable double when he won the invitation mile as well as the two miles.   The photograph in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ showed three men straining for the line – Anderson, Ibbotson and Jim McLatchie with times of 4:08.9, 4:09.9 and 4:09.9.   The Two Miles was another hard race between the two Englishmen with Anderson’s 8:56.6 beating Ibbotson’s 9:01.2 and John Hillen (Saltwell) in 9:01.4.   As they took the eye of the photographer and the spectating masses, there was a hard team race taking part which was won by Motherwell YMCA.   The Medley Relay was won by Bellahouston (Currie, McGaw, LaPointe and Greig) from a fast finishing Seaforth AC  and Liverpool Harriers in 3 min 31.7 sec.    Bellahouston (Mayberry, McGaw, LaPointe and Rae) also won the West 4 x 110 yards relay in 43.6 seconds from Seaforth and Clydesdale.   Ibbotson had enjoyed his previous experiences at Dunoon so much that he brought his wife Madeleine up in 1962 and she won a women’s invitation 880 yards from Scotland’s Georgena Buchanan and Ireland’s Maeve Kyle.in 2:16.0.

31st August, 1963,  was another good day for JP Anderson of Saltwell.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ report read: JP Anderson was one of the most successful competitors at the annual Cowal Games on Saturday at Dunoon.   He won the invitation two miles in the most satisfactory time of 8:54 on a track that had been made soft and heavy by continuous rain.   There was never ever doubt about Anderson’s ability, for when he decided to take control of the race all that was left was to see who was going to be second.    In the circumstances young I McCafferty (Motherwell YMCA) showed considerable ability, for in determined fashion he beat the more experienced JJ Hillen (Saltwell) for second place in 9:00.2 for his personal best and the best time ever shown by a junior.   Motherwell again won the team race with 15 points with the brothers AH  and  AP Brown the supporting members for McCafferty.   Bellahouston Harriers retained the Western District 4 x 110 yards relay championship.  Ayr Seaforth and Clydesdale were again second and third respectively.   

Saltwell Harriers was second in the two miles with 30 points and the medley relay was replaced by the SAAA junior medley relay which was won by Victoria Park (Laurie, Smith, Lappin and Wood from Edinburgh Southern and Seaforth.

*

This was Anderson’s third year at Cowal, and Ibbotson had been there twice.   What was the attraction?   The arena consisted of an ash track round a very tight infield.   On the infield there was always (a) two pipe band circles, (b) a highland dancing platform, (c) a wrestling competition and the runners had to warm up around them, keeping an eye out for the pipe bands marching into the arena.   On the outside of the track there was a crowd of 40000 or 50000, so close to the track that the athlete in the outside lane could shake hands with the spectators.   It was a very intense experience.

*

Cowal was always a two-day meeting with an incomplete programme on the Friday with most of the standard track events, then on the Saturday with a complete programme of events.  This enabled distance men to run two races, sometimes three, over the weeend.  On 29th August, 1964, young Hugh Barrow took the plaudits.  On the Friday evening he set a new SAAA record for the rarely run three-quarter mile distance of 3:00.5, just beating John McGrow on the line.   He would go on to equal this time twice – at Airdrie in 1968 and 1969 – but never to beat it.  Not content with that, he was out for his club on the Saturday in the two miles team race.   Second in the two miles to Derek Ibbotson, who won in 8:49.4, he set a personal best time by no fewer than 11 seconds when he ran 8:54.   Ian McCafferty was third in 8:59.4.   Glasgow University (McGeoch, Gibbons, Ewan and Campbell) won the Western District 4 x 110 yards in 43.1 seconds from Seaforth and Clydesdale.   The SAAA Junior 4 x 110 yards was won by Bellahouston  (Carmichael, Brown, Symeonides and Ritchie) from Edinburgh Southern and Victoria Park in 44.1 sec and in the SAAA Junior medley relay (440 + 220 + 220 + 440), Bellahouston (Baillie, Carmichael, Ritchie McLean) beat Ayr Seaforth and Victoria Park in 2:28.6.

WHB McGrow Cowal

Barrow (right) beats McGrow in 1964

Came 1965 and Edinburgh Southern Harriers were back at Cowal and led by  Kenny Ballantyne, they acquitted themselves well.  “The most absorbing contest on the track was the two miles in which R McKay, KD Ballantyne and E Knox ran in that order for most of the way.   McKay, the veteran of the three, was obviously trying to take the sting out of his rivals finish during the last two laps, and succeeded with Knox.   Ballantyne however had too much left and in the home straight fought past McKay and won in 9 minutes exactly. “

Bellahouston Harriers won all three relays that year – the West District 4 x 110 yards, the SAAA Junior 4 x 110 championship and the SAAA junior medley relay championship.

The 1966 Games 440 yards invitation race was a personal triumph for Hugh Baillie of Bellahouston Harriers who won in 48.7 but the two miles team race where the country’s top clubs faced each other was as hotly contested as ever.    Ian McCafferty (Motherwell YMCA) won from Hugh Barrow (VPAAC) by 17 seconds.   Only Barrow attempted to go with him and their times at the finish were 8:42.2 and 9:05.6.   McCafferty had come through the first mile in 4:21.   Motherwell won the team race, as they did at so many venues in the 1960’s, with 9 points (1, 3, 5).    In the relays, Bellahouston (Williams, Symeonides, Baillie and Carmichael) won the SAAA West District 4 x 110 yards in 43.4 seconds, and with a team of Johnstone, Wood, McAlpine and Wallace) the SAAA Junior 4 x 110 yards in 46.3.    Edinburgh Southern Harriers (Hay, Miller, Railton and Stewart)  however won the SAAA Junior medley relay in 2:32.2 from Bellahouston.

als-cert

Alastair Shaw’s prize ticket from the mid-70’s: the prize was a cake stand

It is interesting to reflect on what effect all this head-to-head racing of runners of all standards at the various meetings had on standards generally in Scottish athletics.   It should be borne in mind that Cowal was not as easily reached as all the other central belt venues – Gourock, Ibrox, Shotts and the rest were all well attended and the top men, the clubmen and the young pretenders all faced their own rivals on tracks around the country week in, week out and although the times were not good the lessons in hard racing were learned and perfected.

*

Star turn in 1967 was Lachie Stewart’s one hour run on the Friday evening in which he covered 12 miles 188 yards to set a new Scottish record.   He also ran in the two miles on the Saturday and although always up at the front of the field, he dropped back allowing Ian McCafferty to win in 8:59.4 seconds leading Motherwell to team victory with 8 points(1, 3, 4).   McCafferty also won the mile from Hugh Barrow in 4:03.1.   The relays?   The West District 4 x 110 was won by Garscube Harriers in 44.4 seconds after the ‘winning’ team from Victoria Park had been disqualified despite being well ahead at the finish, the SAAA Junior 4 x 110 yards was won by Shettleston Harriers in 44.8 seconds and the SAAA Junior medley relay championship was won by Shettleston in 2:32.2.

For some reason the Glasgow Herald correspondent took to reporting English fixtures at greater length about this time and the reports on Cowal and other Games and Sports dwindled and only winners were listed and, even less praiseworthy, the team events were not given their proper place.   In 1968, Lachie Stewart won the mile against Walter Wilkinson of Longwood Harriers in 4:05.7 as well as the team race in 8:59.6.   The West District 4 x 110 yards was won by Bellahouston and the SAAA junior 4 x 110 yards by Airdrie Harriers.   Shettleston retained the junior medley relay title in 2:34.0.   In 1969, the event went again to Lachie Stewart whose time was 8:52.6 and Shettleston won the team race; the West District 4 x 110 yards relay went to Victoria Park, thanks to a ‘splendid run by Andrew Wood, Victoria Park’s anchor man which enabled his club to win by six yards from Bellahouston Harriers .   Wood later ran from scratch in the final of the open 220 yards and won by two yards in 22.7.” 

Cowal continued to be  good meeting but the point has been made about the inter club element being an ifactor.   Man against man is what the sport is about but the club element where runners challenge themselves against their equals or betters for their club, when they would not do so for themselves, has always been an important factor in athletes development.

As an example of a typical meeting for the athletes we have extracts from the 1971 programme with all the results.

The meeting was still drawing the crowds in 1989 –

Unfortunately after many years as a model of how the light athletics (running and jumping events) should be incorporated into the programme, Cowal dropped all athletics events other than the heavies and the programme is less varied in other respects.   The only running event in the 21st century is a 5K road race (plus some schools races), and the arena events now look like this.   In the Stadium there are Heavy Events, Highland Dancing, Pipe Bands and Wrestling; and in the Performance Arena there is Axe Throwing.   This is a sad loss for the athletics community and for the local athletics fans in Dunoon.

 

Inter Clubs at the Games: Babcock’s

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IMG_2686

Lachie Stewart (48) leading from Dick Wedlock (45) and Hugh Barrow (71)

Inter-club rivalry and competition did not stop with Tuesday or Thursday night matches but continued at Sports Meetings and some Highland Games during the summer season.   Many of these occasions were enhanced by the inclusion of a two mile team race and one – or at times two – relays at the end of the meeting.   Of course, athletes travelling to such meetings, would also enter individual races to maximise their pleasure or competition experience on the day.   It was not unusual to see a runner finish the team race and immediately change the race number for the one he would wear in the up-coming mile handicap; it was unusual to see – as we saw Gordon Eadie of Cambuslang do once – a runner win a 14 mile road race and then step on to the track for the two mile team event!   The sprinters in the 4 x 100 relay would as a matter of course also enter two of the 100 yards, 220 yards or 440 yards.   I remember at Cowal the relay came before the 220 yards handicap and since so few turned up for the furlong, it was decided to have a straight final.   After the decision was taken and the announcement made, the sprinters trooped across from the relay and it was discovered that there were almost two dozen runners for the straight final!   They went ahead with it and it made for a most interesting race.   But the thing is that the top men turned out in these races and with, say, Motherwell YMCA, Victoria Park and Shettleston facing each other almost every other week, the head to head racing that helped develop the top men, was the highlight of many a local sports day.

One of the most popular was that held at Babcock & Wilcox Sports in Renfrew at Moorcroft Park, on the third Saturday in June.  By then the runners were well tuned up having run  in the team race at the Lanarkshire Constabulary Sports at Shawfield on the first Saturday of the month and then as individuals in the Glasgow Police Sports on the second Saturday.   The Glasgow polis did not have a two mile team race at this point.   The track at Moorcroft Park was just good grass – it had no eccentricities (Cowal had a big hole on the inside of the second bend, Gourock had an uphill last bend and finish, and so on) , was easily reached by public transport and there was a trophy (the Empire Exhibition Trophy) for the club with the highest points for the afternoon..   In addition the prizes were of a good standard – eg we once had 54″  x  27″  fireside rugs for being second team.

In 1960 the race was won by Graham Everett in 9:00.2 at a time when he was SAAA Champion and GB Internationalist for the Mile.   To keep the inter-club theme going, Edinburgh Northern Harriers won the Medley Relay in 3:38.8.   1961 was also a close run thing in the team race – Graham Everett again won the two miles from two Bellahouston runners – Joe Connolly was second and Dick Penman was third but Bellahouston won the team race convincingly with 9 points to Shettleston’s 20.   Everett was out again in the medley relay and this time Shettleston won in 3:37.8.   The Empire Exhibition Shield went to a third club – Springburn Harriers who were closely challenged by Bellahouston and Victoria Park.   Nobody won anything unchallenged at Babcock’s.

Having come close in 1961, Victoria Park won the Shield in 1962 and possibly the two miles team race (the exact result is not available) but the Mile Medley Relay went to Larkhall YMCA who won in 3:38.8.   Came 1963 and it was Bellahouston Harriers’s turn to win the Empire Trophy and the match incorporated a match between Renfrew and London which was won by the home team.   The Two Miles was a clean sweep for Motherwell whose first three were Bert McKay (9:08.9), Andy Brown and Alex Brown with the team race being decided on these three places, with Victoria Park second  and Edinburgh Southern Harriers third.   The medley relay this time went to Maryhill Harriers from Dumbarton in second and Clydesdale Harriers in third.

In 1964 Lachie Stewart won the two miles in 9:6.8 while Motherwell again won the team race but the relays were the high point of the meeting.   The medley relay was won by Ayr Seaforth for whom Jim McLatchie, home on holiday from America, ran the first stage but an added attraction was the holding of the two SAAA championship relays over 4 x 100 and 4 x 440 yards.   The former was won by Glasgow University (McGeough, Gibbons, Ewan and Campbell) in 43 seconds, holding off Edinburgh Southern by a yard; and the students from Glasgow also won the long relay (Foster, Wilson, Hodelet and Campbell) in 3:19.1 by five yards.   The inter-club events added a great deal to the sports – coming just a week before the SAAA Championships didn’t hurt either.

Lachie won the race in 1965 in 9:11.6 with Victoria Park taking the team race.   Dumbarton AAC went one better than in 1963 when they won the mile medley relay in 3:42.3.   In 1966 the weather was wet, the ground soggy and times generally slow but Victoria Park again won the Empire Trophy which they had won a year earlier and the race of the afternoon was reported to have been the two miles which was won again by Lachie Stewart in 9:24.8 while Bellahouston defeated Dumbarton to win the medley relay in 3:50.2.   Bellahouston won the relay again in 1967 in 2:31.8 and Lachie Stewart of Vale of Leven won the two miles in 8:58.

Thereafter the third Saturday in June – which had always been taken up with the Scottish Schoolboys Championships, the Scottish Schoolgirls Championships and Babcock’s Sports was invaded by more and more meetings and one of the most enjoyable meetings on the calendar disappeared.

The point made at the top of the page – that inter-club competition which was beneficial to the clubs, to the individuals and to the sport in the country was continued throughout the season in a variety of ways.   We can look at some of the other sports and games that included two miles team and relay races on another page.

Inter Clubs at Shawfield and Brockville    Shotts and  Gourock    Cowal 

Track Inter-Clubs: 1960

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WHB Inter Club Report

The inter-clubs were in the main  organised by the clubs concerned and were often annual fixtures – for instance Clydesdale Harriers always had track matches with Vale of Leven, Greenock Glenpark Harriers and Springburn Harriers with others (Shettleston, Victoria Park, Maryhill, etc) being less frequent.   They should not be looked back on in a patronising fashion – they were far from being easy, wee social occasions – although there was always a social element present.    I have printed the results of the first one here had 16 events, including almost all field events, and others had eighteen events on the programme.   Bear in mind that they required all the hurdles on the track for both hurdles races, the uprights and other kit for the high jump and pole vault plus all the throwing equipment to be present and in a good condition and that track events usually went up to 6 miles and had both relays..

They were not contested solely by B string or C string athletes – note some of the names below – SAAA champions such as Ming Campbell, Joe Connolly, Tom McNab, Peter Milligan, Alan Dunbar, Mike Hildrey and so on all appeared in them.   Arranged before the season started, these matches were often written in to the competition before the season began.

This is just a sampling of the fixtures – those from the East Coast are not here, nor are many of the local meetings in the counties around Glasgow such as Dunbartonshire, Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire or Ayrshire.   Not all results have been printed.   If you want any particular set added, it can be done.   Here we go.

Wednesday, 27th April, 1960:   “Bellahouston Harriers beat Shettleston Harriers by 117 points to 82 last night in an inter-club contest at Corkerhill.   R Sykes (Bellahouston) won three events,  the shot putt (41′ 9″), discus (126′ 4 1/2″) and the long jump (19′ 7”) and he was equal first in the pole vault.   Other winners:

100 yards: D Robinson (S) 10.7 sec;   220 yards: A McGaw (B) 22.9 sec;   440 yards: R Cairney (B) 51.6 sec;   880 yards: B Forrest (B)  2 min 9.3 sec;   Mile:   B Dickson (B) 4 min 32.3 sec;   Three Miles: J Connolly (B) 14 min 21.8 sec;   Six Miles:  J Irvine (B) 31 min 7.1 sec; 120 yards hurdles:  G Brown (B) 16.6 sec; 440 yards hurdles: Brown, 60.6.

High Jump: R Santini (S)  5′ 5″;   hop, step and jump: T McNab (B) 43′ 11 1/2″;   Javelin:  D Fraser (S) 149′ 8″;   pole vault: F McDonald and Sykes 9′;   Hammer:  T McNab (B) 79′ 1 1/2″;   4 x 100 yards relay:   Bellahouston (S Watson, R Sykes, S Wineberg, S McGaw)45.4 sec;    4 x 440 yards: Bellahouston (W Robertson, J Currie, A Forrest, R Cairney) 3 min 35.1 sec.”

Friday, 29th April:   Tomorrow there is a triangular contest at Barrachnie where Shettleston Harriers will have  Seaforth AC and Garscube Harriers as visitors.   Shettleston should prove too strong for both opponents as they have a much stronger team than that which lost to Bellahouston.”

Monday, 1st May:  Shettleston Harriers won a triangular match against Seaforth AC and Garscube Harriers with an aggregate of 89 points to 66 for Seaforth and 36 for Garscube.   J Meggat and T McNab (Shettleston) had doubles in the 100 yards and 220 yards  and  the long jump and shot putt  respectively.  

Results:   100 yards:  J McNulty (SH)  10.4 sec;   second race:  J Meggat (SH) 10.5 sec;   220 yards: W Stockton (SH) 23.6;  second race:  Meggat (SH) 23.6 sec;   440 yards: J Baird (SH) 53 sec;   second race: J Wilson (SAC)  53.2 sec;   880 yards:  J Young (SAC) 1 min 58 sec;   Mile: J Davidson (SAC)  4 min 35 sec; Three Miles:  I Donald (SH)  15 min 7.8 sec;   High Jump:  A Santini (SH) 5′ 3 1/2″; Long Jump:  T McNab (SH) 19′ 5 1/2″;  Shot Putt:  McNab (SH) 36′ 10 1/2″; 4 x half lap relay:  Shettleston  1 min 17.2 sec.

[There were also races for Youths and Boys]

Wednesday, 3rd May: “Bellahouston Harriers beat Jordanhill Training College by 108 points to 84 last night at Corkerhill.   G Brown (Bellahouston) won the 120 yards hurdles and 440 yards hurdles in 17.3 sec and 60 sec respectively.  Another notable performance was achieved by J Connolly (Bellahouston) who won the three miles in 14 min 13.5 sec, 2 sec outside his own personal best for the distance.”   

Friday, May 6th:  “Shettleston Harriers will meet Edinburgh University in what should be a very closely contested men’s inter-club match at Barrachnie.

Glasgow University should give a good account of themselves in a three cornered contest at St Andrews against the local students and Queen’s University, Belfast.    The Scottish Universities B Teams with Clydesdale Harriers will have a match at Westerlands.”

Monday, 9th May at Barrachnie:   “Edinburgh University beat Shettleston Harriers by 78 points to 64 at Barrachnie.   T McNab and RA Findlay, both of Shettleston, won two events.   McNab won the long jump and the hop, step and jump and Findlay the shot putt and javelin.   The students won 10 of the 15 events.”

Wednesday, 11th May:   “Bellahouston Harriers beat Victoria Park by 82 1/2 points to 78 1/2 points in an inter-club contest last night at Nethercraigs.   G Brown (Bellahouston) won both hurdles events, the 120 yards in 12.1 seconds and 440 yards in 57.4 seconds, and RC Sykes (Bellahouston) won the shot putt with 39′ 11″and the discus with 112′ 10″.   In the high jump, C  Fairbrother (Victoria Park) cleared 6’6″ but failed at three attempts at 6’8″.   

Friday, May 13th:  Springburn Harriers with 72 points won a triangular contest at St Augustine’s playing fields, Milton against Glasgow University (66 pts) and Garscube Harriers (45 pts).”

Monday 16th May, at St Andrews:   “One of the best performances at the triangular match between St Andrews University, Edinburgh Southern Harriers and Shettleston Harriers was the pole vault of 12′ 6″ by N Brown (Shettleston), beating the ground record by 9″.   St Andrews won the men’s contest with 95 points to Southern’s 62 and Shettleston’s 27.   Jordanhill Training College, with 39 points won the women’s contest from Southern, 36 and St Andrews, 33.    DJ Whyte (St Andrews) won three events – 100 yards (10.4 sec), high jump (5’11”) and long jump (22′  6 1/2 “)”

Wednesday, May 18th:   Glasgow University narrowly won an inter-club contest at Westerlands last night with an aggregate of 79 points.   Victoria Park AAC were runners up with 74, Jordanhill Training College third with 52, and Shettleston Harriers fourth, 38.   CW Fairbrother (Victoria Park) the British high jump champion, was one of the outstanding competitors with a jump of 6′ 7″, only half an inch outside the Scottish record.   G McLaughlan (Victoria Park) equalled the 120 yards native hurdles record with a time of 15.3 sec.

[This was a particularly interesting match with many top class athletes competing – eg Mike Hildrey won the 100 yards, Graham Everett won the mile, Joe Connolly won the three miles, Tom McNab won the triple jump and hammer, PeterMilligan won the pole vault and Fraser Riach won the shot, discus and javelin.]

Friday, May 20th:   Shettleston Harriers beat Glasgow University select by 71 points to 66 last night at Westerlands.”

Monday, 23rd May:   Edinburgh Southern Harriers beat Victoria Park AAC by two points at Fernieside.   Six ground records were broken and one equalled.     Bellahouston Harriers beat Ayr Seaforth by 71 points to 45 at Ayr.

Wednesday, 25th May:   “Glasgow University beat Bellahouston Harriers by 109 points to 78 last night at Westerlands.   R Sykes (Bellahouston) won the shot putt (41′ 8 1/2″), the discus (124′ 5″) and the pole vault (9′).   AM Miller (University) won the 100 yards in 10.4 sec and the 220 yards in 22.5 sec, and RR Mills (University) also won two events, the 120 yards hurdles (16.1 s) and the 440 yards hurdles (57 s).”

Friday, 27th May:   “Victoria Park AAC beat Glasgow University by 58 points to 40 last night at Westerlands.   I Binnie (Victoria Park AAC), holder of records from 7 to 12 miles, took part after a long absence from the track.   He won the two miles comfortably in 9 min 55.5 sec in heavy rain.” 

[June had most club championships, some county championships and a few open meetings – the big one was the SAAA Championships at the end of the month and the inter-clubs had been well used by most of the big names to get themselves in shape, often by running distances other than their usual but also some hard racing away in relatively private conditions against other top competitors. There were never many two or three club fixtures in June.    July was the ‘holiday month’ with all the various Fair Holidays – several had the first fortnight as their annual break, others had the second two weeks and and very few clubs could field a complete team at that time of year.  If you add in the AAA’s Championships with the best athletes competing there and having to prepare on their own for the week or two beforehand, the problem was exacerbated.   So June and July were relatively free of the inter-club fixture although there were a few.]

 Tuesday, June 14th:   “Garscube Harriers beat Springburn Harriers by 108 points to 102 last night in their inter-club contest at Knightswood.   MM Campbell (Garscube) won the 100 and 220 yards in 10.4 sec and 23.6 sec and E Sinclair (Springburn) won the mile in  4 min 33.5 sec, and the two miles in 9 min 33.1 sec.”

Friday, 12th August:   “Shettleston have a contest against Edinburgh Southern Harriers tomorrow at Scotstoun.   Shettleston, who have already beaten Victoria Park and Glasgow University, out to be more than a match for Edinburgh Southern.   The Glasgow club will be without GE Everett, who will be competing at the British Games at White City, London, but Southern will be more heavily handicapped through the absence of RB Cockburn in the sprints, KD Ballantyne in the middle distance events and D McKechnie in the jumps.   These three are included in the Scottish side who are due to compete in the Belfast Highland Games.”

Monday, August 15th:   “Edinburgh Southern Harriers beat Shettleston Harriers by the narrow margin of four points (95 – 91) in their inter-club event at Scotstoun.   Each club won 9 of the 18 events.   K Skilder was a triple winner for Edinburgh Southern in the shot putt, discus and pole vault.   F Davidson (Edinburgh Southern) and R Stephen (Shettleston) each won two events.   Both relay events were won by Shettleston, W Stockton, the Scottish quarter mile champion, paving the way for his club’s win in the 4 x 440 yards.”

Monday, August 22nd:   “Bellahouston Harriers beat Springburn Harriers by 58 points to 32 in their inter-club contest at Nethercraigs.”

Rome, 1960

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Alex Br

There have been several very good ex-pat Scots who have competed with distinction in the colours of another country – Mike Ryan in the Mexico Olympics, Paul Bannon in the Edmonton Commonwealth Games are the outstanding examples in modern times.   Early in the twentieth century   Jimmy Duffy ran for Canada after a good career in Scotland and ran in the Stockholm Olympics.

However there is another who is seldom spoken of – born in Buffalo, NY, he lived in Glasgow and ran for Victoria Park AC, setting Scottish records and winning titles.   Alex Breckenridge moved to the United States, had an equally distinguished career there and was selected for the 1960 Olympics in Romeo.   Then in the Tokyo race, Abebe Bikila won after a great duel with Moroccan Abdesselem Rhadi.   The ‘Scots Athlete’ was only a memory and there was no sports magazine in Scotland which could have covered it.   So Breckenridge in the Olympics did not feature very much at all on these shores.

The 1960 Games were a source of great disappointment for British distance runners – apart from the fact that there was only one “Scot” in any of the distance events, and he an Anglo who seldom set foot north of the Border – did not make the Scots feel any better.  Have a look at the men and their performances.

Marathon:   Denis O’Gorman   16th  2:24:16.2     Arthur Keily   25th   2:27:00   Brian Kilby   29th   2:28:55

10000m:   John Merriman   8th   Martin Hyman   9th   Gordon Pirie   10th

5000m:   Frank Salvat  7th Heat 1;   Gordon Pirie  8th Heat 3   Bruce Tulloh   4th Heat 4

Steeplechase:   Eric Shirley   10th Heat 1   Dave Chapman   6th Heat 2     Mike Palmer   8th Heat 3

1500m:   Laurie Reed  9th Heat 1    Brian Kent-Smith  4th Heat 2    Mike Wiggs   sixth Heat 3

800m:   Brian Hewson   4th Heat 1   Tom Farrell   1st Heat 2    J Wenk  3rd Heat 5

Out of these runners only one made the second round – Farrell in the 800m where he was eliminated in the second of four rounds.    The British (and Scottish) Press was so busy criticising them as a group and, in some cases, as individuals that there was no time left at all for commenting on Breckenridge’s selection.   He had better Scottish credentials than either  of the two who had worn the dark blue – Bruce Tulloh was Scottish until England asked him to run for them, and John Wenk was an Anglo whose connection with Scotland was rather tenuous.

Alex’s career has been dealt with on another page, see the link above, but a quick recap is maybe in order.   He was born in Buffalo, New York, on 17th April 1932, and christened Alexander Dalglish Neilson Breckenridge.   Brought up in Scotland he won national titles as a Junior and as a Senior and ran in the world cross-country championships for Scotland in 1953.    An excellent athlete he had personal bests of  4:13.8 for the Mile,  8:56.8i for Two Miles, 14:32.1 for 5000 metres, 30:47.0 for 10000 metres, and a Marathon best of 2:27:17 set in 1962.

The 1960 Games Marathon was a very dramatic race: run in the dark, from Capitoline Hill to the finish line at Arch of Constantine.   Bikila ran barefoot and ran almost all the way with rival Abdesselem Rhadi of Morocco, only escaping to victory with 500 yards to go.   It was a real sensation of a result and the world’s press was caught on the hop – Bikila had only been added to the team at the last moment as a replacement for Wami Biratu, there was little information about him in print and reporting was all about the first two finishers.

The other major story of the Games was of the close-knit Arthur Lydiard group’s successes: Peter Snell drew himself to the world’s attention when he won the 800m from Roger Moens of Belgium, Murray Halberg (whose withered arm proved a source of wonder for the journalists present) won the 5000m from Grodotzki of Germany and Barry Magee was third in the marathon.   Stories about the athletes and their coach proliferated.

With two stories like these, and other events and other sports to cover, there was little room – in even the most Scottish of Scottish papers – for coverage of others in the 26.2 mile event.

The story of Breckenridge’s selection is an interesting one.   I quote:

In the spring of 1960, the 19th April Boston Marathon provided the next great racing opportunity.   Finland’s Paavo Kotila came over to race, took the lead near 11 miles, and no one could catch him (2:20:54).   “Johnny the Younger” Kelley was expected to give him a fight but was hobbled by a heel blister and dropped out at 20 miles.   Gordon McKenzie of the United States was runner-up in 2:22:18.   This caused a problem for the United States team selection as Kelley was of Olympic calibre but stated policy required that athletes desiring a team berth had to finish both the Boston race and the AAU championship at Yonkers on May 22.   Kelley went on to win at Yonkers for a record fifth time in a course record of 2:20:13.6 and McKenzie was runner-up.   A Marine, Alex Breckenridge, finished fourth at Boston and third at Yonkers.   McKenzie and Breckenridge were named for the United States team, and a recommendation was made that Kelley be the third man on the basis of previous excellence and his recent good performance.   This recommendation was approved.”

The  course was described as a tour through Roman history and Bikila’s winning time was world best performance by 0.8 seconds, and the first Olympic marathon sub 2:20.   There were four others under this barrier, it was the fastest marathon in Olympic history with 61 under 3 hours compared to 53 at Helsinki

Breckenridge finished thirtieth, one place behind Britain’s Brian Kilby who won both European and Commonwealth marathons in 1962.   Behind him were Watanabe of Japan and four of the top eight were Africans.   Breckenridge’s time of 2:29:38 would have placed him seventh in 1956 and ninth in 1952.   In Rome he was thirtieth.

He was one place behind Britain’s marathon specialist Brian Kilby and among those behind him was the great Alain Mimoun.   Breckenrdge had had a good run in a very fast race obscured as far as the Scottish press was concerned by Bikila’s win and the emergence of Arthur’s boys.

Hoffmann Peter 1978 (Mike Street)Peter Hoffman in 1978

Peter R.W. Hoffman (Date of Birth: 1.07.56) was one of the country’s fastest ever 400m/800m runners who had a very short career at the top of the sport in Scotland.   If we look at the bare statistics we see the following.

  •  10 Scottish Championships (1973-1978) at Youth, Junior and Senior: 50 metres (Indoors x 2); 300 metres (Indoors x 2); 400 metres (x 5); and 600 metres (Indoors )
  •  7 AAA medals (1974-1979): AAA Gold Junior 400 metres and Senior 800 metres (Indoors); AAA Silver Junior 200 metres (Indoors) and 400 metres; AAA bronze Junior 200 metres; 400 metres (Indoors) and Senior 800 metres (Indoors)
  •  1978 UK Silver Medal 800 metres (1st Seb Coe)
  •  1975 European Junior Silver Medal 400 metres;
  •  1976 Olympic Games 4×400 metres
  •  1978 Commonwealth Games 800 metres, 4×400 metres
  •  1978 European Championships 800 metres

All very impressive figures but they have all been superseded by the present generations – after all it is now almost 40 years since the performances were recorded.   However if we look at Scotland’s all-time ranking lists for 2015 we see that he appears in two of them.

At 800m the top men and dates of their performances are:     1:43.88 Tom McKean 28 Jul 89;        1:45.47 Brian Whittle 20 Jul 90  1:45.6;           Graham Williamson 12 Jun 83  1:45.66;    Paul Forbes 8 Jun 83  1:45.76;    Frank Clement 10 Jul 76  1:45.81;     David Strang 12 Jul 96   1:46.4;      Paul Walker 22 Jul 971:46.63;      Peter Hoffmann 11 Jun 78  1:46.65;      Guy Learmonth 21 Jul 15  1:46.8;      David McMeekin 6 Jun 74  1:47.15.      Peter is ranked eighth with the best of the current crop Guy Learmonth almost 0.2 sec behind him.

At 400:   44.93 David Jenkins 21 Jun 75  45.22;    Brian Whittle 25 Sep 88  45.58;     Ian Mackie 13 Jul 03  46.06;     Jamie Bowie 27 Jul 13  46.37;     Kris Robertson 1 Aug 09  46.49;     Roger Jenkins 6 Sep 75  46.65;     Grant Plenderleith 6 Jun 15  46.72;     Allan Stuart 28 Jun 03  46.75;     Patrick Swan 26 Jun 10  46.76;     Peter Hoffmann 12 Jun 76  46.79;     Brett Rund 10 Jul 05 46.89.   Peter is still tenth all-time with the best of this generation Jamie Bowie 0.42 second ahead and Grant Plenderleith a mere 0.07 seconds faster

His times stand up well to modern standards.   Whatever measure we use – competitive or statistical – Hoffman deserves to be ranked among the very best.  

Hoffman 110   *

Peter Hoffman and the other top 800m runner of his generation Paul Forbes, were good firends and lived close together when they were youngsters.   They both joined Edinburgh AC and were initially coached and brought along by Eric Fisher.   Both ran cross-country until they were Under 17’s and Eric asked Bill Walker to take over the coaching.   Where Paul was basically a fast 800m man who also ran 400m and won titles at 1500m and the steeplechase Peter never seemed to run further than 800m and won titles and appeared in the rankings for 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m.    His speciality initially was the 400m but when he moved up he was selected for Commonwealth Games and European Games sin the same season.   His best distance?  The 400m –  or was the 800m his best event?   Maybe had there been an international standard for 600m it would have been ideal for him.

Peter first appeared in the Scottish rankings and started to draw national attention in 1974.      As a Junior (Under 20) he was in the top 6 in his age group in no fewer than three events (200m sixth, 400m second, 800m sixth) and sevententh in the 100m.   Given that his was an age group rich in sprinting talent this was quite a feat.   He was competing against Andrew Harler, Roger Jenkins, Andrew McMaster, Bryan Dickson and others when in the Junior ranks, and had Don Halliday, Les Piggott and David Jenkins to contend with in races which included senior men.   The first championship of the season was the East District event at Meadowbank on 25th May and there Peter finished fourth in the 200m in 22.2 seconds.   In the 100m in a meeting at Meadowbank the following Monday he was second in a windy 11.2 seconds.    Edinburgh AC had a very strong track squad at this time and with several League meetings Peter was asked to do his share of the work in the shadow of some of his more illustrious colleagues but he had a busy enough season.   The result was that he was quite sharp going in to the SAAA Senior Championships on 22nd June, again held at Meadowbank.   Running in the 400m, Peter was third behind Roger Jenkins (47.7) and Brian Gordon (48.5) in 48.9 seconds.   The Scottish age group championships took place on 29th June and Peter won the U20 400m in 49.3 and on the strength of the victory was selected for the senior Scottish team in their match against Norway in Oslo  against Norway and Bulgaria on 9th and 10th July.   It was his first senior international appearance and he finished sixth in 49.1 seconds with Roger Jenkins in third place in 48.1.    A creditable first outing for young Hoffman.   He also ran in the third placed 4 x 400m relay team with Norman Gregor, Stewart McCallum and Roger Jenkins.   

In the AAA’s Junior Championships at Crystal Palace on 4th August Peter was unlucky to be out of the medals when he finished fourth in the Final in 489 seconds, with Roger Jenkins winning in 47.3 seconds     Then on the 14th of the month in the Northern Trophy Meeting between Edinburgh AC and Edinburgh Southern Harriers, he was second in the 800m in 1:57.4.    Reports of the meeting however concentrated on the fact that rugby international Andy Irvine ran in the 400m for ESH where he finished second in 53.2, the winner was Keith Ridley of EAC in 51.3 seconds.    Another fast 400m, 48.5 seconds, at Crystal Palace on 26th August and a 488 at the same venue on 21st September saw him end the season on a high note with best times for the season of

112 seconds for 100m; 22.2 for 200;   48.5 for 400; and 1:574 for 800 were excellent figures, add in his first place in the SAAA Junior 400m and his third place in the Senior 400m, and it is easy to see why the compilers of the Scottish Athletics Yearbook described him as “an outstanding junior” and called him “the most improved sprinter in the country with four performances under 49 seconds and a total of nine runs under 50 secs to compare with a personal best of 52 seconds in 1973″

*

In 1975 Hoffman had very good marks at shorter distances – 10.8 second for a wind assisted 100m, 21.8 for 200m and 34.7 for 300m – but he really proved himself as a 400m runner.

On 17th May he won a British League match 400m at Sutton Coldfield in 48.9 seconds.   EAC won the match with other winners being Jim Dingwall in the 5000m in 14:05.6 and Paul Forbes, better known as an 800m athlete, in the steeplechase in 9:07.4.   Two weeks later, 31st May, in the British Games at Crystal Palace in London he ran a 47.8 400m.   Then on 28th June at his home track of Meadowbank, he won the SAAA title for the 400m when he won in 48.7.

Having run in the 100.200, 300, 400 and 800m, he ran a totally different event on 5th June in the British League match at Crystal Palace, winning the 400m hurdles in 54.2 which placed him third in the Scottish rankings at the time, a position that he still held at the end of the track season.   The AAA Junior Championships wereheld on 26th July at Kirkby in Liverpool and he was second in the 400m in 47.8 – reports all indicated that heled until Brian James’s strength carried him past Peter at the end of the race.   Peter ran in al or most of the British League and Gold Cup matches, the Scottish Men’s League tended to be missed but on 3rd August at Meadowbank he won the 400m in 48.4 seconds.

At the end of 1975 he had best times for the 100m of 10.8w;   the 200 of 21.8/21.81w (6th in Scotland); 300m of 34.5;      400m of 47.27 (3rd in Scotland);    800m of 1.53.0i (10th);   400H  of 54.2 (3rd)

Peter finishing his Heat in Athens, 1975

The season started slowly for all who regraded themselves as contenders for places in the Olympic Games, to be held that year in Montreal.    Peter ran in the SAAA Indoor Championships at the Bell’s Arena in Perth over 600m and won in 1:20.5 from Ray Weatherburn who was second in 1:20.7.

Outdoors, when the District championships came along at the end of May, the entries were naturally a bit bereft of top class content and Ron Marshall, of  the ”Glasgow Herald’, chose to go to Coatbridge for the West Championships rather than to Meadowbank because he thought the fields there might just be better.   However in the paper on Monday, 31st May , he commented that “unhappily the Olympic preparations had turned the championships into an artisans’ gathering.”   He should have been at Meadowbank that Saturday, the 29th May, where among several good performances, the 400m was won by Peter Hoffman in  49.0 seconds.

The two big meetings that year were on 5th and 12th June at Crystal Palace where the Kraft Games doubled as the Olympic Trials.   The 400m trial was on the second weekend and Peter was fourth in his best ever time to that date of 46.76.   Ron Marshall in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ commented “Into a ‘Probable’ category I would put 19-year-old Peter Hoffman the Edinburgh 400 metres runner  who improved his fastest time to 46.76 seconds.   A relay position must be his fervent hope.”    

He was duly selected as part of the relay team for the Games which started on 17th July and as a consequence did not run on June 26th  in the  SAAA Championships which were won by Roger Jenkins in 49.0 seconds.   We have had nothing at all about his training so far, much less about the amount of dedication required of those aiming for the top.

Ronnie Browne of The Corries recently published his autobiography titled “That guy fae the Corries” (which I heartily recommend) and  said therein: “Someone I knew who did have spirit and vision was my wife’s nephew, Peter Hoffman Pat and I went to the Crystal Palace to support him when he won his place in the Great Britain over 400 metres to go to the Montreal Olympic Games of 1976.   We had been proudly following his progress up the athletics rankings and I remember the day he explained to me that, in training, he was in the habit of running a few 400’s at full speed, then running some more, until he was physically sick.   He would spew his guts up, take a short break and a drink of water and run a few more 400’s until he was sick again.   You know what showed the pure spirit of the man?   Sometimes he would put himself through this process without the presence of a coach or anybody else to force him on. 

Two years after Montreal, he moved up a discipline and, on the starting line of the British Indoor  800m at RAF Cosford, an over-zealous official objected to the type of spikes he was wearing, although they were exactly the same shoes he had been wearing the day before in his qualifying heat, and banned him from wearing them.   Peter simply took them off without argument and ran barefoot.   Trailing at the back of the pack  through the bell, he came with a rush to win the title in 1:51.4, his fastest time indoors or out.   “My feet are in a right mess,” he quietly told a reporter after the race, and hobbled off to get medical attention.   What a man.” 

Although he did not actually run in the Games, Peter must have been at least partially satisfied that he had actually been selected for the team and been part of this wonderful occasion.   His best times for 1976:

100: 10.7 (41st)   200: 21.8 (7th)   300: 34.74 (1st)   400: 46.76 (3rd)    600 1.19.7i     800 1.55.4 (19th)    400H 56.0 (10th)

*

By the end of 1977, Peter had brought his 400m time down even further with a 46.6 seconds for a season’s best, was fourth on the all-time list at 400m, and brought his 800m down another two seconds to 1:53.2, had picked up another SAAA 400m gold and represented his country on his home track of Meadowbank..  There was an indoor 400m on 16th January in which he was third in 47.36 but he started the outdoor season as he had been doing with shorter, faster runs and turned in a windy 10.9 on 25th April.

His first serious 400m was on 28th May when he won the East District championships in ideal conditions in 47.5, just one tenth in front of Andrew Kerr of Central Region.    A week later on 5th June, Peter represented Scotland in the International Match against Greece at Meadowbank and duly won the 400m in 48.01.   Scotland also won the 4 x 400m relay with a team of Kerr, Roger Jenkins, Paul Forbes and Peter on the anchor leg.   Time?   3:18.12.   Another week later and on 12th June he ran 48.01 seconds followed by 47.87 on the same afternoon.   After a week without competition he turned out in the SAAA Championships and won the 400m in 47.7 from Kerr (47.9) in another very close finish.   Into July and on the 16th there was a 47.36 seconds followed by a midweek 200m in 22.2 seconds.    A 48 seconds on the 22nd followed by a 47.62 on 23rd indicated the kind of form he was in  the times kept on coming in race after race.   A 48.08 at the Edinburgh Highland Games on 20th August was followed by a 1:53.2 800m on 21st August leading to the British international match against Russia – a major fixture for any athlete.   Peter ran in the 400m and was third in 47.78 behind Laing of Britain (47.2) and Valutis of Russia (47.50).

1977 ended with season’s bests of:  100 10.9w     200 22.2w   400 47.36    800 1.53.2 

Peter beating David and Roger Jenkins in the SAAA 400m in 1978

1978 was the season when Peter really started to take the 800m distance seriously and began the year with a victory in the AAA’s indoor 800m   Outdoors, on 22nd April at the Edinburgh AC championships, he won a ‘relaxed 400m’ which was followed by an 800m in 1:50.2 on the 23rd in which he defeated team mate Paul Forbes with both men given the same time.   Less than a month later (14th May) he ran in the 800m in an international match against Greece in Athens.    He ran in and won the 800m.   “Hoffman strolled past the bell in the 800 metres in sixth place, seemingly out of contention, and even with 200 metres to go he had only clawed back one place.   Then an electrifying burst up the home straight zipped him past everybody including the leader, Paul Forbes, for the cheekiest win of the night.   His time, 1 min 47.9 sec, was his fastest ever, and Forbes was a fraction outside his best a tenth of a second behind.”

1978 was of course another Commonwealth Games year and  with the Games being in Edmonton from 3rd – 12th August the athletes were trying to impress the selectors fairly early on.   Peter was making a good job of that and his next outing was on 27th May when he added to the impressions so far created when he won both 400m and 800m in the District championships  on the same day.   He won the 400m in 48.7 seconds and 20 minutes later lined up for the 800m which he won from John Robson in a sprint finish in 1:49.2.    The SAAA championships were also early that year and on 3rd June Peter won the 400m national title in 47.1 collecting two very good scalps in the process – Roger  Jenkins was second in 47.2 and David Jenkins third in 48.1.   This was his third national 400m title in four years, it was his fastest win and by defeating the Jenkins brothers he must surely have ensconced himself as the best 400m runner in the country at the time.   The 800m was won by Terry Young of Grangemouth in 1:49.4 from Paul Forbes in 1:51.1.   He had already beaten Paul over 800m and his times were better than Terry’s, so he was probably already the best 800m runner as well.

Having run for Scotland earlier in the season, Peter was now chosen to represent Britain and the event was the match against East Germany at Crystal Palace on 11th June.   He ran in the 800m and the report read: “In the 800m Peter Hoffman demonstrated that he could become a world class competitor, but his inexperience, having stepped up from the one lap event, was patently obvious.   He elected to run from the back once again and was nearly 15 yards adrift of the East German pair at one stage.   But he came through to snatch second place in 1 min 46.63 with his usual electrifying last 200 metres.”    Then in the Kraft UK national championships on 15th July he lost his national title to Sebastian Coe who had been disqualified for cutting in too early, and the re-instated on appeal:   Hoffman’s time was 1:48.3.

Selected for the Games after the Scottish Championships, Peter’s next outings were in Edmonton on 8th August.   Doug Gillon reported in the ‘Glasgow Herald’: “It was the usual sorry tale from Hoffman.   After seeming to have laid the bogy of his usual rear running tactics with a comfortable third place in a sensible first round race, he was back to his diabolical worst and was comprehensively cut out, finishing sixth in 1 min 50.1.”    His heat time had been 1:49.1.   A disappointing run but he had got through the first round and, bearing in mind that it was his first year of concentrating on 800m, maybe Doug was a wee bit hard on him.   After all, unlike the 400m the 800m is a physical contact sport at speed.  The actual results of the races were as follows.

Heat Two:   1.   J Higham (Aus)  1:48.9;  2.   C Szwed (England(   1:49.1;   3.   P Hoffman   1:49.1;   4.   G Grant (Wales)  1:49.3.

First Semi-Final:   1.   S Newman (Ken) 1:48.83;   2. G Grant 1:9.25;  3.   C Darval (Aus)  1:49.26;  4.  P Lemashon (Ken) 1:49.93;   5.   P Hoffman  1:50.10;   6. C Szwed  1:50.89;   7.   D Wournell (Can)  1:1:51.23.   J Maina (Ken) disq.

The Games season of 1978 was not yet over for Peter Hoffman.   The European Games were held in Prague at the end of August and he was running in the 800m.   The other British runners were Steve Ovett and Seb Coe so he was accompanying to legends who, in these Games, had their own problems to solve .   He ran 1:49.3 in his heat and did not qualify for the semi-finals.

Still, it had been a very good season for him: he had six of the top 12 times by a Scotsman over 800m (including the top two), won national title, run for Scotland and for GB in separate internationals and run in Commonwealth Games as well as European Games.   His best performances:

200m: 22.2 (18th)    400: 47.1 (3)    800: 1.46.63 (1st)    1000: 2.24.8 

Praha

1979 was inevitably a much quieter one for Peter Hoffman after the excitements of 1978.   With no Games to aim for and British, Scottish and District titles already under his belt there must have been a sense of anti-climax.   He defended his British indoor championship unsuccessfully at the start of the year but did pick up a third place medal to add to his collection.   He was an absentee at the District championships where he had had a double win the previous year, and you would search in vain for his name among the medallists at the SAAA Championships on 16th June.     In fact, there would be no more medals at domestic championships of any sort after 1978.   Nevertheless, by the end of the year he had best times of 50.3 for 400m which ranked him  16th among Scotland’s one lap specialists, and 1.51.69 for the longer distance which kept him in the top ten at 7th place.   In 1980 he was marginally quicker in the 400m with 49.97 seconds and his 800m was consistent with the previous year at 1:51.72.   1981 saw slower times yet: 50.4 for 400 ranking him 32nd among the one-lap men and he was out of the top ten 800m runners with a best of 1:52.25 which placed him 15th.   By 1982 Peter was not ranked at all in the 400m for the first time ever and his 800m of 1:55.2 was his slowest since 1976 – remember he started to specialise in the 800m in 1978.   

He was only 26 when he stopped competing and it was unfortunate for both the man himself and Scottish athletics that he had to retire when there was probably more to give.   Whether it was through chronic injury or developments away from the track is unclear but the break was complete.   He himself describes his athletics on social media as being ‘in another life.’    He has a blog at    6oxgangsavenueedinburgh.blogspot.co.uk  which he describes as “the everyday life of eight families living in one of the post-war new council housing schemes” .   It is an interesting rad and notes that among the neighbours is a chap called Paul Forbes.   There is a number of interesting photographs of both of them as boys there too.    What is he doing at present?    I quote

“Married to Alison; Paw to ‘Atticus’ and ‘d’Artagnan’. Author of ‘The Stair’ (Summer Has Gone). After graduate/post-graduate studies in Edinburgh worked for SCVS; Scottish Episcopal Church; private sector and then mainly in local government as a chief officer. In a previous life, Olympic, European and Commonwealth athlete. Artist; diarist; epeeist; tennis and footie player-not necessarily in that order!”

A short career but a brilliant one.   You have read Ronnie Browne’s comments on Peter’s dedication as a competitor; I have also been told of the boys from that area being so keen that they would jog down to the track on club nights, do their training and make their way back home on foot afterwards.   At the time he certainly had the attitude to go with the undoubted ability.

You will find a selection of Peter’s own photographs  here

Paul Forbes

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Forbes SmithPaul Forbes, number 2, leading Tom McKean into the back straight at Meadowbank

Photo from Alastair Shaw

Paul Forbes is a name not well known among the young athletes and their coaches of the twenty first century – buit it really should be.   Look at the Scottish all-time rankings for his best distance, the 800m:

  1.   1:43.88   Tom McKean 28 Jul 89  
  2.  1:45.47    Brian Whittle 20 Jul 90  
  3.  1:45.6     Graham Williamson 12 Jun 83
  4.  1:45.66    Paul Forbes 8 Jun 83
  5. 1:45.76    Frank Clement 10 Jul 76
  6. 1:45.81    David Strang 12 Jul 96
  7. 1:46.4     Paul Walker 22 Jul 97
  8. 1:46.63    Peter Hoffmann 11 Jun 78
  9. 1:46.65    Guy Learmonth 21 Jul 15
  10. 1:46.8      David McMeekin 6 Jun 74

There he is.  Fourth behind McKean, Whittle and Williamson and in front of several better known names such as Clement and McMeekin with today’s top Scot Guy Learmonth almost a full second behind him.   He ran in two Commonwealth Games and won medals at Scottish and UK Championships and set records.   His career should be better known than it is.

Paul, date of birth 20th November 1956,  started off as a junior boy with Edinburgh AC being coached by Eric Fisher.   Although Paul is best known as an outstanding track runner, at this point in his career he was a good cross-country runner and we should maybe look at his development through the ranks over the country.   He was a successful cross-country runner right from the start,  winning the East District Junior Boys Championship in 1969/70 and leading Edinburgh AC to team victory.  The race was held at Grangemouth and having sprinted up the finishing straight to victory he kept on running till he reached Eric and said “We’ve done , we’ve done it!”   That season he was also sixth in the National Championships in a field of 120 runners.   In  1970/71 as a first year Senior Boy (Under 15) in the National Championships at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow, Paul was  58th finisher and fourth counter for the club team which finished third – at least he went home with a Scottish medal.    He learned from this and the following year, ’71/’72,  he was eighth in the District Championships in the team which finished second.   The national saw an improvement on the previous year – but only a slight one  and he finished thirty eighth in a team which was fourth, well behind Monkland Harriers who were third.   He went up another age group in ’72/’73 but finished higher up the field in the District championship where he was sixth leading the Edinburgh AC team to first place.   If he ran in the national at the end of the year, he finished well down the field, nor was the club team placed in the first three.   As a second year youth in 1973/74, he moved up to fourth in the District championships, and the team won again: in his four years in these championships he had three team golds and one silver.   In the national he finished eighteenth in a field that had many excellent athletes – Nat Muir, Graham Crawford, John Graham, Hammy Cox, Mark Watt and Graham Laing among them.   At this point when he was due to move up to the Junior age group, he stopped running cross-country, although he did run in a few team events – the National Relays in November 1975 where he was in the EAC second team,  and two good runs in the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay (third stages in 1975 and 1976 – each time the team was second) he was destined to be almost entirely a track runner for the rest of his career.   Eric Fisher had passed him to Bill Walker and it was  with Bill that he trained from then on.

Summer 1974 was a very good one for first year Junior Paul.    Running mainly 800m and 1500m and still at school, he was ranked top Junior in the 800m and won medals at both distances.  His best 800m time was set right at the start of the year when at Bell’s Indoor Arena in Perth he was timed at 1:54.8 to win the event on 3rd February.   The East District Championships were held at Meadowbank on 25th May and Pal ran in the Senior/Junior 1500m and finished third in 4:10.5 behind  Paul Kenney (3:56.0) and Graham Laing (4:10.5) – you will note the close finish for second and third.   The championship trail then led on to Pitreavie on 15th June where Paul, running for Forrester Secondary, won the 800m at the Scottish Schools Championships in 1:58.0, half a second quicker than Alistair McLaughlin (Knightswood HS and Garscube Harriers).   Only one year earlier Paul had won the Group B 1000m steeplechase at these same championships so it was his second gold medal in succession.   In the Scottish Junior Championship at Meadowbank, Paul had another good run but had to settle for second place to John Fleming of Springburn who won in 1:55.9 to Paul’s 1:56.5 with John Robson third in 1:57.9.    At the end of the season his time from Perth away back in February led the junior rankings and placed him sixteenth among the country’s best seniors.  

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By 1975 he had left school and there would be no three in a row for him there but he was nationally ranked in no fewer than five events – 400m, 800m, 2000m steeplechase and 3000m steeplechase.   Quite a range.     The 3000m time came in a British Athletics League Match at Sutton Coldfield on 17th May  when he recorded 9:07.4.    Then on 22nd June in the Scottish Junior Championships, he won the title in 1:54.5.    The SAAA championships had Irishmen in the first two places so there was no way that a first year Junior would be among the medals that year but Paul went on to victory in the AAA’s Junior 800m championships with a time of 1:50.7.     The Athletics Weekly report on the race read: “In the 800m Chris Van Rees led at the bell in 55 seconds and stayed there until about 500m when Paul Forbes (a 9:07.4 steeplechaser) took over with Malcolm Edwards(W&B who headed the rankings with 1:50.1) on his tail.   Paul stayed in the lead despite a challenge from Edwards for victory in 1:50.9 – a personal best.”    SAAA and AAA title holder Paul then headed for the European Juniors in Athens on August 24th, where “Paul Forbes battled into the final, recording 1:53.7 in his heat and 1:50.4 for fourth in his semi-final, but was “a shadow of himself” when finishing eighth and last in the final (1:57.9).   He has endured three races in three days.” .
There had been a proliferation of fixtures that year – championships (Euro Junior, British, Scottish, Scottish Junior, District, club), Leagues (Scottish and British), invitation and open races – but by the season’s end it was clear that it had been a very good year indeed for Paul with best marks of
400: 50.2 (ranked 15th);   800:   1.50.0 (5th);   2000S: 5.56.8 (2nd);   3000S: 9.07.4 9
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It was a hard year to follow but he was faster in 1976 and his range of events was narrower being mainly 400m and 800m races with steeplechasing nowhere to be seen.  The first championships of the year were the Districts held at Meadowbank on 29th May and Paul was again the winner of the 800m in 1:52.5 as part of an EAC squad which won the 200m/400m/800m and 1500m to make a clean sweep of the middle distance events.   Unplaced in the SAAA or the AAA championships, there followed another season of racing all over the country at a time when there was more in the way of track running available for runners than for some time before and certainly more than is available in the twenty first century.  For example the SAAA 800m had heats on the Friday and a final on the Saturday, the AAA was a two day event, the District championships often had a first round of some events on the Wednesday and the final on the following Saturday and in addition to the two-day events there were other representative matches to be contested such as an inter-area match.   Paul raced a lot and by the end of the season his best times were 49.8 seconds for the 400m (13th) and 1.48.8 for the 800m (3rd).     
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 By 1977 Paul was 20 years old and already on the Scottish all-time top ten for 800m with his 1:48.8 making him ninth on the list – and his career there had not even properly started.   That summer he was to have 8 times in the top 20 by Scots – more than any of the others who included Frank Clement, Terry Young and John Robson  and, if that weren’t enough, win two events in the International with Greece.
 
His first championship of the summer was on 28th May in the East Districts at Meadowbank where he won the 800m in 1:51.4 which equalled the championship record – it was a day for records with his team mates Peter Little (Youths 100m), Peter Hoffman (400m) and Ross Hepburn (Youth High Jump) all set new bests for their events.   Three days later (31st May) he ran for the Scottish League against Scottish Colleges and Universities at Grangemouth in a 400m where was clocked across the line in 49.3.   There was a men’s international against Greece on 4th June at Meadowbank where the runners performed nobly but the team lost the match 112 to 89.   Paul did his bit however by winning the 800m in 1:50.3 and the running in the 4 x 400m relay where the team won with a quartet of Hugh Kerr, Roger Jenkins, Paul, Peter Hoffman in 3:18.12.   It is worth noting that three of the team were coached by Edinburgh AC’s Bill Walker.   In the UK Closed Championships at Cwmbran he was unplaced in the 800m but turned in times of 1:51.9 on 10th June and 1:51.6 on the following afternoon.    Paul finished the season with 1:50.4 on 22nd July and 1:51.2 on the thirtieth of the month to round off another good season’s racing. 
 His best times and ratings at the end of 1977 were:   400 49.3 99th); 800 1.50.3 (3rd); 1000 m: 2.24.21.
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 A year later we had the remarkable feature of Paul having 7 of the best 19 times in the country and Paul and Peter Hoffman recording 16 of the best 19 times of the year between them.   What was remarkable about that?   Paul and Peter had grown up near each other as boys, they had played together, they were almost the same age and now they were members of the same club and Scottish international runners over the 400 and 800m distances and ran together in many record setting teams for club and country.   Check out Peter’s blog at     6oxgangsavenueedinburgh.blogspot.co.uk   where you will see pictures of them together as schoolboys.
 
Paul started the season on 23rd April in an open graded meeting at Meadowbank, Hoffman and Forbes both ran 1:50.2, leading Ron Marshall in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ to say “In a case of Peter (Hoffman) robbing Paul (Forbes) even the electronic timing could not split them.”   The international with Greece came along on 14th May, in Athens this time and with Wales and Luxembourg added to the cast list and the final result was Greece 260, Scotland 218, Wales 163 and Luxemboourg  118.   The friends and rivals were first and second in the eight man international field.   Peter was first in 1:47.9 while Paul was an agonising tenth of a second behind in 1:48.0.   In the East District Championship on 26th May he ran 1:49.6 for 800m and then on 28th May the 400m was covered in 48.3.   The SAAA Championships resulted in a win for Terry Young (1:49.4) from Paul in second place in 1:51.4.    In the UK Closed Championships at Meadowbank on 15th July Paul ran a very good 1:49.1 but was again behind Peter who ran 1:48.3.   It was of course Commonwealth Games year and there were many meetings designed to help athletes get the times required.   The report of a race on 31st July read: “Paul Forbes, one of two Scots restricted to village quarters won the 800 metres in a warm up meeting for the Commonwealth Games.   The 21-year-old Edinburgh runner  overcame a good field of United Kingdom runners to to win in 1 min 49.8 sec.”
 
Forbes and Hoffman were both chosen for the Games which were held in Edmonton and they both ran in the heats and then took to the track in the second round on 8th August.   Let Doug Gillon tell the story of the race.   “Scotland’s big let-down of the day came in the men’s 800 metres.   Peter Hoffman and Paul Forbes were both eliminated in the semi-final.   It was the usual sorry tale from Hoffman.   After seeming to have laid the bogy of his rear-running tactics with a comfortable third place in a sensible first round race he was back to his diabolical worst and was comprehensively cut out, finishing sixth in 1 min 50.1 sec.   But the blackest spot was reserved for Forbes.   He was lying second at the bell, which was reached in 55.4 sec by the leader Mike Boit (Kenya) but going up the back straight the pace hotted up.   Forbes’s head fell and he was dropped by the pack like a hot potato trailing in last and finishing in just over 1:57 – a time well within the capacity of an average runner of many Scottish clubs.”
The ignominy did not end there.   Several Scottish male athletes were reported in the Press for drinking in public, for being caught on the women’s floor of the accommodation and sundry beaches of discipline.   Paul was one of them and after the issues were investigated he was banned from international running for one year.   It was a black mark which ended an otherwise good year which had end of season rankings of:   
400 48.3 (5);  800 1.48.04 (2nd); 1500 3.59.5 (42);  
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The suspension was carried out to the letter and his next international was in January 1981.    In the meantime life went on: Pau;l continued to race successfully, setting good times and winning races.   He won the East District Championship 800m in 1:50.7 and on the same day won the 1500m in 3:47.2.   It’s a double not often won in any championship.   The report in the “Glasgow Herald” was under the headline “BANNED FORBES HITS BACK WITH TITLE DOUBLE”  and read
“Paul Forbes of Edinburgh AC, an athlete currently serving a one year ban from internetional competition following incidents at last year’s Commonwealth Games, was the outstanding competitor at Saturday’s East District Championships at Meadowbank.   He recorded an excellent double in the 800m and 1500m  –  beating John Robson the Commonwealth bronze medallist who dropped out when leading 250 metres before the end of the latter event.   Forbes’s 800m time of 1:50.7 was a championship record and he set a personal best of 3 min 47.2 in the longer race.”   
Sticking with the longer distance, he ran for his club in the Guardian Royal Exchange British League match at Meadowbank on 9th June and won the 1500m in 3:44.6 – not only a personal best but the fastest in Scotland that year up to that point and a full two seconds ahead of Adrian Weatherhead.   The SAAA Championships in 1979 were held on 16th June and he was again racing at his home track of Meadowbank.   This time he wasn’t as successful.   The 800m was won by Chris McGeorge from Cockermouth from Graham Williamson with Paul in third place and the winning time was 1:48.7.   With no international races to take part in and few big invitations, it was a quiet year by Paul’s standards.   Edinburgh AC had a very good year in their league competition and Paul played his part in that.   However at the end of 1979 his best times for the two distances were 800 1.49.4 (2nd);   1500 3.44.6 (4th) 
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Paul started the summer season in 1980 with a run for a Scottish team at Meadowbank against Northern Ireland and Luxembourg on 10thMay.   He won the 800m in 1:50.4 from fellow Scot and British internationalist Steve Laing.   This was good but it led to even better things.   The headline on 26th May in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ read  “FORBES’S COMEBACK GIVES OVETT FRIGHT.”  It went on –
“Paul Forbes (Edinburgh AC), bouncing back from his year’s suspension after the Edmonton Commonwealth Games, has just enjoyed the best weekend of his athletics career.   At Grangemouth yesterday, in the Falkirk British Airways Games, he ran his fastest 800m for two years beating Graham Williamson in the run in, but afterwards Paul chose to bubble about his run in Belfast the previous evening in which as he put it, “Steve Ovett got the shock of his life.”   Running in an invitation 600 metres the Edinburgh man found himself two metres in front of Ovett with 60 metres to go.    “I thought I had him.   We were running into a wind and he still hadn’t passed me with 30 metres to go.   Then his strength finally told.   He beat me by less than a stride and that’s the closest he has come to defeat for a longtime.”     Paul’s time in Belfast had been 1:17.1 and his winning time at Grangemouth was 1:48.5.    By the SAAA  Championships on 21st June the top Scottish 800m men were Graham Williamson and Paul Forbes.   Paul beat Graham, who was suffering from a cold, but both were upstaged by England’s Dave Warren who was looking for a time in Olympic year and won in 1:48.54 with Paul second in 1:49.75.    That was undoubtedly the high point of Paul’s 1980 season and hisn times and rankings  at the end of August were1980 400 48.13 (2);   600 1.17.1;   800 1.47.32 (1);   1500 3.49.6 11.    
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In 1981 Paul seemed to run more 400’s than he had been doing in the past – at the end of the season he was ranked at 400 and 800 where in the past he had been among the best in the land at 800m and 1500m.  By the end of the year he had the top three 400m times in the land as well as the top two over 800m.   As for the steeplechase, it was apparently gone for good.   The year began for Paul with a win in the AAA’s championships at Cosford in the 800m in 1:50.3.   Then on 28th May at Grangemouth in the British Airways Games he ran 47.7 and according to the Glasgow Herald reporter commented that he could have knocked a second off that.   Two days later in the East District Championships at Grangemouth he won the 400m in a personal best of 47.69 and the report remarked that on a better day he might have beaten the record of 47.5, set by his old training partner Peter Hoffman who was in the crowd that night.   How times change – he was once described as Hoffman’s training partner, now it was the other way about!   On 21st June in the Dundee International Games at Caird Park, Paul won the 800m in 1:49.6.    Into July and on 11th at Meadowbank in the British Athletic League match he was one of only two EAC winners when he took the 800m in  1:48.18.   On 26th July Paul was in Gateshead for the the international against England, Hungary and Norway where he ran into third place in the 800m behind Steve Ovett (1:47.96)and Garry Cook (1:48.68) of England in  1:49.82.   One week later, on 1st August,in the Scotland  v  Ireland international he won the 800m in 1:49.40 and ran the anchor leg for the winning Scots 4 x 400m relay team.    Seven days later and he was taking on the big boys again on 8th August at Crystal Palace where  he won his heat of the 800m in 1:49.02, then dropped down to 400m in 48.21 seconds on the 16th.
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 The Edinburgh Highland Games was always a classy meeting and on 22nd August Paul ran in the 800m where he was second to American M Enyeart (1:47.9) in 1:48.0.    The last international of the season was held in Athens on 25th and 26th August.   In what was once called the Small Nations International, Scotland took on Greece, Wales, Israel and Luxembourg.   Paul ran in the 400 metres on the first day and the 800 metres on the second.   He won them both – in 48.83 seconds and 1:51.6.
Another good season and by the end of August he had best times of 400 47.69 (1st) and 800 1.48.00 (1st).   With the top three 400m times and the top two 800m times (5 of the top 7) he could justly claim to be the Scottish number one in the pre-Commonwealth Games year.
Paul F Gmouth0002
 
The Commonwealth Games were to held in Brisbane, Australia between 3rd and 9th October so there was a whole season ahead of him to get the qualifying times done and the important races won.   It was maybe doubly important for Paul after the disappointments of the Edmonton Games.   He started, as in 1981, with an indoor season.   At Cosford on 30th January he was just squeezed out of second in the 800m to finish third in 1:51.3.   The outdoor season started early for Paul, as for many contenders for places in the Games team, with a win over 800m at Meadowbank on 17th April in 1:48.81.   The UK Closed Championships were held at Cwmbran in Wales on Sunday 30th and Monday 31st May and competition was serious.   Paul won his 800m heat on the first day in 1:49.74, and in the final on the second day he was again first in 1:46.63.   There were two Scottish champions that weekend and both were from Edinburgh and both were 800m runners – Paul was one and Ann Clarkson the other.   I quote:
“The splendid weather brought a rash of records , none more impressive than Paul Forbes’s victory in the 800 metres in 1 min 46.53 sec which removed Seb Coe’s meeting best from the book.   Forbes, for so long the ‘bad boy’ of the sport and suspect under pressure, led almost from the start in confident style and was still strong in the final straight where in the past he has been picked off.   Now he not only hopes to redeem himself for past misdemeanours but also to win a Commonwealth Games medal and his other ambition is to make the British team for the European Championships.    
Ann Clarkson, already a proven competitor, having won the WAAA title twice, chose the hard way to win the title, being badly boxed in for most of the race.   But she kept cool and found a way through coming up the home straight and went on to win in 2 min 3.6 sec.”
A 1:48.94 800m at Crystal Palace on 19th June kept him in the selectors’ eye and in a poorly supported Scottish international at Stockholm Paul ran a 1:48.37 to finish second in the 800m.   He stayed in Scandinavia long enough to run in Norway on 7th July.   The position was maybe his lowest of the season in the international meeting in Oslo but the race was the fastest he had ever run in.   It was won by England’s Gary Cook in 1:44.71 with Paul fifth in 1:45.90.   It had been a very good four days for him – with others supporting their clubs in the British League and turning down the Scottish selection, he had run and picked up valuable points for the country, and followed it up with a very good personal best in a quality race.   The run was poorly reported – the reporters justly preferring to go big on Dave Moorcroft’s world record for 5000m set at the same meeting – but it was hardly mentioned in the domestic Scottish press.
On 18th July at the Falkirk British Airways Games he preferred to go for the shorter 400m distance and finished behind Mark McMahon (ESH) with both recording 48.3 seconds.   When the team for Australia was selected, Paul was there.   His first round race was on 5th Aoctober and he was in the third heat where he went to the starting line knowing that Bourke of Australia had won the first heat in 1:50.8  and Crew of Australia had won the second in 1:54.28 (first five inside half a second with John Walker fourth!).   Withe five to qualify Paul did enough to win in 1:51.64 with Cook of England fourth in 1:52.34.    The second round  was later the same day with first four and fastest loser to qualify.   Paul made no mistakes and won the first semi in 1:50.87 and Cook did not finish.   The second semi was won by Bourke in 1:50.56.    After two days rest, the finalists were Bourke, Maina (Australia), Chris McGeorge (England), John Walker (NZ), Brett Crew (Aus), Spyros Spyrou (Cyprus), Juma Ndiwa (Kenya), Sammy Koskei (Kenya and Paul.   In heat and semi he had already beaten Crew Maina, Walker, Spyrou and Ndiwa so he must have been fairly optimistic.   Unfortunately it was not to be – although a vastly different story from the ’78 Games, Paul could only finish seventh of the eight in 1:49.05.    It looked as though he was not in form but the race story was vastly different.   Doug Gillon reported: “Paul Forbes (Edinburgh Athletic Club) took the race by the scruff of the neck, leading at the bell in 52 seconds, but having been man-handled aside by ex-Olympic 1500m champion John Walker, Forbes blew up 200 metres from home and finished in 1 min 49.05 sec.”     Six foot plus Walker manhandles five foot and a smidgen Forbes at speed – that would seem to be the story here.
1982 was possibly Paul’s best year – just look at the marks: 400 in 48.3 (4th);  600 in 1.17.60;   800 in 1.45.90 (1st)    and add in UK championship, the 600m in Belfast v Ovett and the Commonwealths.   
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1983 started as the last two with a successful indoor season.   In the Phillips AAA Indoor Championships at Cosford, he too part in what reportedly described as “rollerball without the ball”.   Punched at the start and left stranded and still last at 200 metres, he got through to lead at the bell.   Overhauled in the last 30 metres by  Milovan Savic (1:50.92) the winner, and Thierry Tomelier of France.   His own time was 1:51.32.   He was then selected for an international against Germany on 19th February.   In the match in Dortmund he was one of only three British winners in the men’s and women’s contests when he won the 800m in 1:47.55.   Paul , the defending champion at the HFC UK Closed Championships on 28th May, was expected to have a battle with England’s Peter Elliott but as the ‘Glasgow Herald’ reported, the race turned into a procession when Paul had to withdraw after sustaining a back injury in a car crash.   A week later however, on 4th June, he was the outstanding Scottish athlete at the British League Second Division match at Colindale where he won the 800m in 1:49.4.   
 
Then came the time of the season for Paul.   On 8th June in Florence Paul ran 1:45.66 behind Rob Druppers of the Netherlands.   Druppers was timed at 1:45.12, then came Forbes, then Nian of Senegal in 1:6.30.    At the same meeting Graham Williamson was second to Said Aouita in the 1500m in 3:34.94.   And then, just four days later, Graham Williamson ran 1:45.60 at Loughborough to snatch the top spot in the Scottish rankings and take Paul’s record by 0.06 of a second!   Statistician Arnold Black tells us that neither time (Paul’s or Graham’s 800m) was recognised as a national record by the SAAA as the handbook continued to show Paul’s 1:45.76 in Oslo (7th July 1982) as the National Record until Tom McKean bettered it.   It was a time of course when administrators required a properly completed record application form signed by the chief time keeper or track referee before the performance could be recognised.   Frank Clement fell foul of the same regulation with his 1500m in Zurich in 1976 of 1:46.76.   However, record or no record, Paul was in such form that it is hardly surprising that he followed this with  victory in the SAAA Championships – in 1:49.114 from Tom McKean who ran 1:49.49 and Donald McMillan third in 1:51.04.
 
I had been organising races for the British Milers Club that year and had one lined up for an Open Graded Meeting at Meadowbank on 24th August at which Alistair Currie had agreed to take the pace through 400m in 52.   There were several regulars that year who supported every race, they all wanted in that one and by the Monday of that week, two days before the race we had 12 runners.   On Monday evening I had a call from Paul who said he wanted to run in the  race, the pace was not fast enough, he could provide his own pace maker.   I said I’d ask the runners because the field was already big and he had never run in a single race over that or the previous two years.   They tentatively agreed and on the night Paul approached me, intorduced himself and said that Jim Learmonth would take the pace through 400m in 48!   The others were up for it and, sure enough, Learmonth came through in 48 and kept the pace rolling to just over 500m.   The field was pretty spread out by then but Paul never faltered.   Kept it going all the way to the finish and ran 1:46.32 which would have been a Scottish Native Record.   He came across and thanked me and went on his way.   Seven of the 13 finishers set personal bests that night with Keith Cameron (EAC) second in 1:51.96, John McKay third in 1:52.10 and Alistair Currie fourth in 1:52.58.   Paul did not get the record this time either because, as it was explained at the time, he was wearing neither a club vest nor a Scottish one, he wore a pink vest that night!    That was the biggest 800m field I’ve ever seen but I figured at the start that a 48 second lap would sort out the field very quickly and the runners were a really fast runner and a less fast runner in each lane so that bumping would be down to a minimum.   In addition Paul’s confidence that night was extraordinary.   Really up for it, no doubts that he would run a good time and just went out and did.   It was an extraordinary evening.
 
’83 had been a very good year for him with a good indoor season, a Scottish record and his first SAAA Championship over 800m as a senior.    Best marks for the year:
400: 48.98 (10th);  600 1.19.4i;  800 1.45.66 (2nd)  
 
Forbes McKean Cameron
 
Above (and top): 1983 SAAA Championships.   Paul (2) and McKean in red easily recognised.
 
There was little sign of Paul in 1984 before the AAA’s Olympic Trials at Crystal Palace on 6th June.   For the 800m, selection was for one place only: Seb Coe had been pre-selected and Steve Ovett pulled out through illness but he was still hopeful of being allowed to double up in the Games which left only one place up for selection.   Peter Elliott was the favourite and he duly won the Final in 1:47.72 while Paul failed to qualify from his heat, recording only 1:48.4.   By the year’s end, that was Paul’s only ranking time for any distance but it still placed him equal first with Tom McKean who was also on 1:48.4 while Graham Williamson could only manage 1:49.1 for 800m in 1984.
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There were more medals and more good times for Paul in 1985    He won the East District title at Meadowbank on 25th May in 1:51.13.   This was the fourth time he had won the event, the first win being in 1976.   Two weeks later he should have been at the official opening of the new track at Crown Point in Glasgow but unfortunately was side lined by a sore throat.   He was back in action on 22nd June for the SAAA Championships at Meadowbank for a race which Doug Gillon described thus: The men’s 800m represented a victory for youth over the old head.   Former UK and Scottish champion Paul Forbes played a waiting game, trailing through the bell in 59.18 seconds, but he was outkicked by newly crowned UK champion Tom McKean, a Lanarkshire labourer, who had to dig deep with a last lap of 54.21  for victory.”   Paul was timed at 1:54.28, with Don McMillan third in 1:55.03.
 That was Paul’s season finished as far as championships were concerned with one gold and one silver from two races.   His best times for the summer were 400 48.9 (10th);    800 1.49.0 (2)  
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In 1986 he won the East District 800m yet again was of course another Commonwealth Games year, and one to be held on Forbes’s home track at Meadowbank.   Yet again he won the East District Championships on that very track on 24th May in 1:55.4.   After this came a trip to Lloret de Mar in Spain for the international against Ireland and Catalonia on 9th June.   He doubled up with Tom McKean in the 800m and they finished first and second: Tom won in 1:46.69 with Paul second in 1:48.11.   The following Saturday in the SAAA championships, with McKean running in the 400m, Paul won the 800m from Tom Ritchie in 1:50.14.     These performances and his competitive record over the previous few years saw Paul selected for the 800m in the Games which were to be held between 24th July and 2nd August.   
 
Paul qualified for the 800m final at the Games but after the race the story was all about Tom McKean’s  second place in 1:44.8 behind Steve Cram but also behind them, and a bit down the field than he would have liked, came Paul Forbes – back in seventh in 1:51.29.   He was not finished with international athletics just yet though – on 16th August he won the 800m in the match against Hollan and Northern Ireland in Leiden in 1:52.14 with Tom Ritchie second in 1:52.75.    His season was basically finished by then and his best time for the year was the 1:48.11 behind McKean in Catalonia with no top times in 400m or 1500m.
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 1987 was the last year that he was to appear in the rankings or among the winners of championships.   He won the East District Championships at the end of May with a time of 4:04.2,    He stayed with the longer distance for the SAAA Championships, held on 19th June at Meadowbank,  where he ran 3:49:94 in the Heats.  On 4th July in a British League match at Leeds he won the 800m in  1:51.9 to help the club in their fight for promotion.   His best 400m was also in a League appearance – on 25th July at Meadowbank he ran 50.18 to be fourth.   That year he and his club mates did so well that by the end of the season Edinburgh AC won Division Three and was promoted to Division Two.   In the last championships of the season, the AAA at Crystal Palace on 1st August, he ran 1:51.50 in the heats.  Internationally, Scotland was now in the era of Tom McKean with other young aspirants such as Tom Ritchie contesting the 800m event.  That year Paul ran, and ran well, but it was really his final season at the top.   To recap, his best times for the summer were 
400 50.18 (24);   800 1.51.50 (8th);   1500 3.49.94 (11th) 
 
Paul Stan D
Paul at Meadowbank, 1982, Stan Devine on his shoulder
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Paul became a veteran in November 1996 (you had to be 40 in those days) and had a short career as a vet.   He had an excellent battle on 2nd February, 1997 against the previously unbeaten Alastair Dunlop and lost out by 0.01 seconds after a terrific battle in the finishing straight.   Alastair retained his title by diving desperately over the finish line.    One one-hundredth of a second is not a lot over 800 metres.     Doug Gillon reported on the race in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ of 3rd February 1997.
 
FORBES DENIED AS DUNLOP TRIUMPHS IN DUEL OF THE DAY
FATHER TIME NOT IN THE RUNNING AS RIP-ROARING OVER 40’S TAKE TO THE TRACK
Pride of Place at the annual Scottish Veterans Championships must go to Alastair Dunlop and Paul Forbes whose 800m duel was the best race of the day the pair separated by just one hundredth of a second after four laps of the 200-metre track.   The warmth of the Glasgow arena was a rare treat for Dunlop a physical education teacher who has no indoor facilities on Lewis where he is forced to train by the sea on the wind-swept machair.    A late athletics starter in 1983 – just four years before Forbes quit after a lifetime’s success including three Commonwealth Games (two finals) and UK and AAA’s titles – Dinlop clocked 2:00.60 diving across the line sprawled on the track to deny Edinburgh’s Forbes (2:00.61).   
 
Dunlop won European veteran bronze last year  and holds the Scottish record at 1:58.36 – first veteran Scot under two minutes – but Forbes who started training after ten years indolence just before his fortieth birthday in November showed he has surrendered little of his talentto the advancing years and spoke with some  conviction of a world record.
 
 
 National champion and record holder before the McKean era and still ranked fourth on the Scottish all-time list with 1:45.66 Forbes was ecstatic with his time.   “I’ve been training for just three months and have entered the European and UK indoor championships ” said Forbes.   “I’ve discovered that you get lots of niggles as you get older – I’ve barely strung together three weeks without an injury but if I can run as fast as this on what I’ve done, I honestly believe I can get close to 1:51 – yes I know the world record for Over 40’s in 1:55.” 
 
That was in the euphoria of the moment but for whatever reason – niggles becoming injuries probably – Paul’s come back did not really materialise.   It was a shame because the talent had clearly not gone away.
 
Nevertheless he had had an outstanding career with gold, silver and bronze in abundance at District, National and UK levels, he had also been in medal winning road and cross country teams and run in three Commonwealth Games.   He is still – in May 2016 – number four on the Scottish all-time list for 800m.
 

In 2017, Paul Forbes (still EAC) made a surprise come-back in the M60 age-group, after running many Parkruns, with a 5k in 18.19 and 10k in 39.34. Then he raced cross-country. In 2019, he returned to the track, finishing a meritorious 6th (2.20.24) in the World Masters Indoor Championship 800m in Torun, Poland; as well as winning 800m events in the English Inter-Area Challenge and the Scottish Masters Championships, where he improved to 2.17.22. In 2020 Paul won Indoor M60 800m titles in both Scottish Masters and British Masters Championships.

Then he broke a World Record!

Athletics Weekly reported: 

SCOTTISH VETERAN AND THREE-TIME COMMONWEALTH GAMES COMPETITOR SMASHES M65 INDOOR MARK WITH 2.15.30.

GLASGOW 12’S FUN DAY & GLASGOW AA YULETIDE OPEN GRADED MEETING, DECEMBER 18TH 2021.

Almost 40 years since he reached the 1982 Commonwealth Games 800m final (a feat he repeated in 1986), Paul Forbes broke the World M65 indoor 800m record with a 2:15.30 clocking.

The time is half a minute outside his lifetime best – 1:45.66 set in Florence in 1983 behind world silver medallist Rob Druppers’ 1:45.12.

Forbes began as a cross-country runner and won the Scottish East District Junior Boys Championships in 1969 and he was sixth that season in the Scottish Championships. In 1973 he won the Scottish Schools 1000m steeplechase title and then won over two laps in 1974 in 1:58.0.

In the Scottish Under-20 Championships, he was second in 1:56.5 but ahead of future Commonwealth Games 1500m medallist John Robson and in 1975 he won the AAA Junior title in 1:50.1 and made the European Junior final that year in Athens where he placed eighth.

Forbes won the UK title in 1982 in a championship best 1:46.53 narrowly ahead of Steve Caldwell (1:46.65) and Peter Elliott (1:47.76) and he also ran for Scotland in the 1978 Commonwealth Games where he was a semi-finalist.

After his successful senior career – spanning three Commonwealth Games – he had a complete break in his 30s before later returning as a Master and he was involved in a stunning battle with Alastair Dunlop in the Scottish Championships in his first major race as a vet with Dunlop edging home in 2:00.60 to Forbes’ 2:00.61.

After that 1997 race Forbes said he felt he was capable of a World Masters record if he could train seriously but the world record ultimately took nearly another 25 years with injury regularly scuppering his ambitions.

He competed in the European masters 10km as an M45 in 2005 and ran a few other Masters road championships before eventually re-focusing again on the track.

He made another comeback as a M60 – finishing sixth in the World Masters 800m at Toruń in 2019 and winning the Scottish and British Masters indoor titles in 2021 at the age of 64 – but it was turning 65 in November that gave him the opportunity to make a real mark in the Masters.

The previous best was held by Ireland’s multiple world age-group champion Joe Gough with 2:16.65 in Dublin in 2018.

Forbes’ 2:15.30 is his fastest in recent years, equalling his outdoor best of 2021 and is even faster than the outdoor UK M65 best.

The Scot’s run took an astonishing nine seconds off Pete Molloy’s UK indoor best of 2:24.48 set in 2014 and is even fractionally quicker than Dave Wilcock’s M60 UK indoor record of 2:15.60.

Then, in mid-February 2022, Paul missed (by less than a second) breaking the 1500m M65 Indoor World Record but, a few days later in London, smashed the One Mile M65 Indoor World Record, which had been held since 2008 by American Frank Condon with a time of 5.11.43. Paul ran a tremendous 5.04.2!  Shortly afterwards, in Braga, Portugal, Paul became the M65 European Masters Indoor 800m Champion (and also won a silver  medal in the 1500m).

Paul commented in detail about this achievement and the training which led up to it.

“I am delighted with the record but I think the real achievement was in the preparation for having a crack at it.

Using a sub 2.16 800m as a target, I planned the training backwards from the race (late December) to the beginning of October. Having a great group to train with and staying injury-free meant that we could train consistently and progress to plan, which is both a psychological and physiological fillip. Like all the events in our sport, run, jump or throw, competing is far easier than the input required to get to the point of competition. A successful outcome is a culmination of planning, technical nous, support and hard work. Getting that right is the real achievement.

As for getting fit after a long lay-off, well, it wasn’t easy! After an operation to put a broken ankle together, I decided to try using the parkruns as a way back into getting healthy. I was quite happy plodding along at 25mins and losing a wee bit weight. I then came across a couple of guys from back in the day – they were running 20/21. I wasn’t having that! I started doing a couple or runs during the week and a parkrun at the weekend. As I dropped the weight, I gained momentum and the wee flame I carried in my memory started to burn.

After a year or two dabbling with the roads, I went to watch the World Masters in Spain. I ran a 40 min 10k out there but, watching the track races, I knew that that was where I should be putting my energy. I went back on the track in late September and by the early March I had run 2.20 indoors.

A lot of thought went into my track work. I couldn’t run as many sessions as I used to, since injuries were frequent and taking a lot longer to heal. I moved to a ten-day cycle, rather than the traditional seven days – this gave me more time to rest between the three sessions that I needed to do.

These sessions were along the lines of a 5k tempo run, a miler type session and a 400m type of workout. ALL of these sessions were run at a moderate to hard pace but staying within the bounds of my aerobic capacity (I still train like this now). Each training session was now being run on relatively, fresh legs which helps to keep the tempo high. Generating speed was never a problem for me. I’m convinced that, like an aerobic or speed endurance base, it’s possible to hold a speed base also. (At any one time of the year, I can turn out a 60-62 second 400 after a few days of speed work.) All the running I do is designed to get me to the next session. I never knock myself out in training (racing is a different matter) I don’t believe there is anything to be gained by training to failure.

Coming back into the sport has been the best move I’ve made for a long time. I’m enjoying my life immensely at the moment. When I run against the youngsters, I feel I’m racing the future. I get a kick out of being asked my opinion on their training or advice on a particular discipline.  My perspective on growing older has changed also. Not the part about growing old gracefully though, I have no intention of doing that!”

 

“Scottish veteran Paul Forbes smashes 800m World Masters record”

Those who were surprised at Paul’s record had obviously not been paying attention to the previous season’s track running.    To run so fast and to train so hard as a 60+ veteran can only be done if you really love the sport.   You need to train regularly over a long period and you need to race frequently.   To see how hard Paul trains, have a look at this video which was made after he became the fastest man in history over 800m in his age group –

Paul Forbes – Track Session (Bonus *Masters* Episode) – YouTube

This all speaks of a man who loves the sport.   Many leave the sport when they have stopped being competitive in open races.   A runner knows when that time comes.   Emmet Farrell said when he failed to make the British marathon team “I have shed my silk as a runner.”   But he loved the sport and kept running until he was in his late 80s and even into his 90s.   That was a love of the sport.   Paul has a similar love of the sport.  It is wonderful to see, and the question now is, what does the future hold for Paul Forbes … and for World Vets 800m records?  

WELL, HIS SUCCESS CONTINUED.

“Edinburgh AC’s Paul Forbes continues to set the standard in masters track and field. The 67-year-old – who won world and European titles in 2022 and broke records from 800m to the mile in the M65 age group – has further excelled in 2023. He won double gold over 800m and 1500m at the World Masters Championships indoors and European Masters Championships outdoors. He also broke M65 world records in the 800m (2:13.74) and 1500m (4:39.15).

“It’s a bit of a thrill, I must be honest with you,” says Forbes when told he’s been voted by AW as the British Masters Male Athlete of the Year for the second successive year. “They’ve made an old man happy.”

In February 2024, World Masters Athletics (WMA) announced that Paul Forbes, 67, of Great Britain was the 2023 Male Athlete of the Year.

What does it mean to you to be nominated for this honor?

Gives me the opportunity to express not only my gratitude to the many people who help me over the season, but for them also to be acknowledged by the wider athletic community. My small but successful masters training squad consists of Graeme Gemmell, Paul McMonagle and Laura Haggarty (all are masters finalists at European/world level), and each contribute to our collective success. It goes, almost without saying, that the nomination acknowledges the support of my wife Kim. A successful athlete in her own right, she is very supportive of all my endeavors.

What are your goals in Masters Athletics for 2024?

My goals remain remarkably consistent from year to year. My aim is to train and race to the best of my ability, What changes is my approach to each new season, planning a schedule to ensure improvement in my running, challenging myself over new distances, adapting my mindset to cope with any physical decline in speed or strength. These goals are set against and within a sustainable framework of physical and mental well-being. Something which is critical in today’s society and advancing years.

What Master/s Athletes do you admire and why?

I admire anyone with the willpower and determination to get out of bed each morning and try to make a difference, whether for themselves or for others. Positive attitudes, glass half full not half empty sort of thing. I am fortunate that through my active participation in Masters Athletics much of my time is spent in contact with such individuals.

What else would you like people reading the announcement to know about you?

Although past retirement age, I remain in employment as a part-time care and support worker for those more elderly and infirm than myself, I struggle to give up the satisfaction of the day-to-day interaction I have with my clients and I expect to be working for the foreseeable future. Much of my satisfaction these days comes less from my own achievements and more from my direct or extended family, along with my training group and a few other athletes I advise on an ad-hoc basis.

(In March 2024, Paul ran right away from the field to win the European Masters Indoor M65  800m Championship.)

 

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MERV LINCOLN: 1933- 2016

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ML 1

From Runners World:

Merv Lincoln, Miler Who Was Always Second Best, Dies at 82 | Runner’s World 

Mervyn (Merv) George Lincoln, who was the second-best miler in the world in 1958 behind his fellow Australian Herb Elliott, died in Melbourne on April 30. He was 82.

In Dublin on August 6, 1958, Lincoln ran a mile in 3:55.9. The time was 1.3 seconds faster than the world record, yet he finished second to Elliott, who ran 3:54.5 in the same race.

Lincoln took the silver medal in the Commonwealth Games in 1958 in 4:01.8, well behind Elliott’s commanding 3:59.03 for the gold. Albie Thomas, who was third, gave Australia a rare sweep.

Lincoln’s misfortune was to emerge as the likely heir apparent to world-record breaking Australian John Landy, only to be repeatedly overshadowed by the even more exceptional Elliott. Track & Field News ranked them one and two in the world for the mile in 1958. One famous photo from the era shows Lincoln in a race in Perth failing by the narrowest of margins to defeat Elliott, who never lost at the mile.

After the Dublin race, where he was beaten by Elliott despite smashing the world record, Lincoln joked with Ron Delaney, Ireland’s Olympic champion, that he “might as well take up tennis,” according to the 1973 book Runners and Races:1500m./Mile by Cordner Nelson and Roberto Quercetani.

Lincoln held no bitterness about his string of second-place finishes.

“There’s not the slightest shadow of doubt in anyone’s mind, including my own, that I was inferior to both Landy and Elliott in terms of winning and losing races,” Lincoln told the author Brian Lenton in his 1983 book, Through the Tape. “I never beat either so there’s no point in discussing who was the better. What I think is important is what you feel you got out of it and what it did for you as a person. The fact that I was able to run against those fellows, I regard even now as a privilege. It’s something my life would have been worse off for having not had.”

Part of the interest in the friendly rivalry between the two Melbourne runners was that Lincoln trained mainly on intense repetition intervals, prescribed by his Austrian-born coach Franz Stampfl (who also helped Roger Bannister to the first sub-4:00 mile). Elliott was following the natural lifestyle and sand-dune resistance training advocated by Percy Cerutty.

Lincoln continued to run long after Elliott retired. For many years, Lincoln annually managed to “run his age” for the mile, running 5:00 at age 50, 5:30 at 55, and 6:00 at 60.

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A great summary

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Received from Hugh Barrow, this one is on how to be the very best distance runner you can be.   As he says, it is by one who has been over the course.

Written by Steve Flint spot on written by somebody who has been over the course 

Here’s my take on being the very best middle distance runner you can be  . . . .  

1. You can’t avoid miles during the winter – no matter how you do them in training , cross country or indeed road racing or mixture of what works best for you.

2. Interval training spring and summer – again its your take: track , sand , parkland or hills or indeed whatever the mix that fits you.

3. Health – staying healthy ” injury free” is the glue for 1 and 2 because this is where you gain the  “compound interest ” year in year out and this alone will put you way ahead of the game.

4. Prospective – take your own path – don’t compare yourself to others who may be over-training or indeed those who are even just two or three years older – if they have stayed healthy they have  way more compound interest than you – with age your time will come .

5. Coach – choose someone who believes in you and who has a clear vision of how to lay down the foundations of your journey  . . . . . don’t be afraid of changing coaches if its not working for you  . . 

6. PBs / Times  – this is only feedback on one day in a point of time – don’t confuse running fast with ” winning “ 

7. Winning – is racing and racing makes winners – not time trials anyone on good day can run fast – fast runners don’t make good racers because to race you have to react to what is happening around you as the race is coming to the finishing line – getting in position to compete to win is the tough learning curve –

8. Failure – deal with it – learn form it – let it light the fire within  . . . . . . . .

9. Passion – if you’re  not passionate about what your running you can’t underpin all the above – and if you can’t under pin the above – you’re doomed  . . 

10 . Don’t take life too seriously – no one gets out alive 🙂

An Open Letter.

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I received this one yesterday – it is what it says it is and I don’t need to recommend a document signed by the eight people at the foot.   Four of them are Scots.   Read on.

Open letter to everyone who cares about athletics:

Track and Field Athletics; The Facts

In the last 30 to 40 years athletics has changed from being run largely by volunteers (3 paid professional administrators and 9 National coaches under the British Amateur Athletics Board prior to 1991) to having 220 administrative and coaching staff costing over £10 million per annum. Since funding for performance began in 1999 more that £300 million has gone to athletics governing bodies, of which more than 50% has come from lottery or public funds.

Many people who have been directly involved in the sport during this transition in both voluntary and professional capacities are deeply concerned that the present powerful, rigid and very expensive structure masks overwhelming but officially denied decline in track and field athletics. The facts are:-

Participation
The latest Active People Survey 2013 (APS) states that 140,000 people over the age of 16 take part in track and field athletes as their prime sport. But analysis of results on the governing body’s own website shows that, in fact, approximately only 7000 over 16s compete in the sport 5 times per year or more. If the APS figures were correct around 1000 athletes would be found on each track in the country on training nights. Observation suggests that the real figure is around 50, which is compatible with the 7000 who are known to compete. The number of senior athletes declined in 2013 from 2012. The APS overstates the figures by a factor of 20.

Elite Performance
When elite funding was approved in 1998 the only objective KPI was to increase medals at Olympics and World outdoor Championships. The target for athletics at the Olympics was set at 6 medals for 2000 (matching the 1996 total) rising to 12 in 2012. The total achieved in 2012 was 6, no increase after 14 years of funding. In the World Championships in 1997 Great Britain won 6 medals and in 2013 Great Britain won 6 medals, again no increase.

Coaching
In a letter to an MP in Dec 2012, the head of Sport England stated there were 42,000 active coaches in athletics. The latest figures from Sport England, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act in 2013, gives 14,111. More than 50% of this number are not designated as coaches but ‘leaders’, having obtained this qualification by merely attending a one or two day course. Analysis of qualified coaches from 2008 to 2012 suggests the number has declined by 50%. The number of active qualified coaches is now around 3000.

Officials
It is very difficult to obtain accurate information on officials, but the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming. At all levels below elite, meetings are being run without sufficient qualified officials. The majority of officials are not registered and more that 50% of all meetings could not take place without using these officials. A meeting a Loughborough (an athletics Centre of Excellence) to select athletes for an international meeting was cancelled through lack of officials in March this year.

Summary
A lack of transparent, consistent whole sport performance measures hides the fact that £300 million since 1999 has resulted in just 7000 16+ track and field participants and 3000 coaches in 2013. Only 6 medals per global championship have been achieved, as opposed to the 12 targeted when performance funding started – and 5 of the 10 individual medals have been won by athletes who live and train abroad with foreign coaches. There has been no Olympic Legacy other than decline, a situation that demands urgent enquiry.

Gwenda Ward, Olympian, coach; Rob Whittingham, Track Statistician and author; Tom McNab, ex National coach, author and playwright; John Anderson, ex National Coach; Bill Laws, Chair, ABAC: John Bicourt, Olympian, coach; Hamish Telfer Ph.D coach, author and academic. Frank Dick Ph.D Former Director of Coaching, British Athetics Federation.