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There was an Easter Weekend Training Course at Dunoon in March 1948 which was apparently a great success – reported on in ‘The Scots Athlete’ below.

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After the 1945 War the Olympics were held in London in 1948.   Britain wanted to well and in 1945 FAM Webster was appointed by the AAA in England to develop and oversee coaching.   As one consequence of this, Webster appointed Geoff Dyson who brought other very good coaches such as John Le Masurier on board.   Webster had written the classic coaching book (see here) and then during this period produced smaller books dealing with the training and development of athletics.   Three of these are below.   They are reproduced with thanks to Chris Holloway.

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After the War (’39/’45) there was a great thirst for coaching and technical  information) that the athlete could use on their own or as part ot an athletic club’s training programme.   The official handbooks as well as booklets and articles in magazines such as Athletics Weekly, Athletics World, Scots Athlete and others were well perused and there were many books on the topic.   Older books were reprinted or resurrected from the attic.Just some of these books are here below.

Runners were always anxious to do the right thing books about running were about something they were familiar with but books on circuit training, yes and even ballet exercises were bought and used or attempted.   It was hard after 20 or so years of running to get into some of the positions suggested in the books.   One such book was the following, sent by Joe Small (as was the one above).

 

The BAAB Booklets with their bright covers and many illustrations were welcomed by clubs and coaches all over the United Kingdom – nowhere more so than in Scotland but they followed the pattern of the AAA’s publications which were produced in the period of post-war austerity and were plainer in appearance but no less attractive in content to the athletics public.   Note the following.  eg the Middle Distance Running AAA’s by J W Ll Alford (National Coach for Wales) is clearly a fore runner of the edition with Herb Elliott’s picture put out in the late 50s/early 60’s.   F.A.M. Webster was appointed by the AAA as coach from 1945 – ’48 and was succeeded by Geoff Dyson.   A few of Webster’s covers are shown here.

 

 

 

Some even bore the WAAA imprint –

Just as with the BAAB books there were booklets dealing with officiating, organizing sports meetings and so on which were frequently updated.

 

Graham McDonald tells us that this is the third edition of the book published in the 1970’s – the books all had information that you might find interesting inside the cover – eg when it dates from and pages two and three from this one are below.

 

 

Photo from Keddie’s Centenary History of the SAAA

For all that St Modan’s AC was a very well known cross-country and road running club, it covered track and field athletics too with teams competing in the Scottish track league and individuals turning out in open sports meetings and highland gatherings.   The most successful and  well-known was George McLachlan, a Scottish and British internationalist, who started as a sprinter and hurdler before taking to the Decathlon where he won titles and set records.     He was the first Scot to run under 15 seconds for the 120 yards hurdles without wind assistance.   He did this at Edinburgh Highland Games on 18th August 1962 on a grass track in a time of 14.6 seconds when finishing second to Nigerian Alfred Belleh.   He himself had a time of 15.2 waiting for ratification but this time took 0.7 seconds from the existing record and ranked him number five in GB for the event.   He had been competing well for several years before that and had won the SAAA.s high hurdles in 1961 (15.4), it was at this point that he turned to the Decathlon.

His career was summaries as follows by John W Keddie in the excellent centenary of the SAAA,   “Scottish Athletics” –

“In George A McLachlan (St Modan’s AC) Scotland had another decathlete who was to develop his potential in the ensuing years (ie: after 1960).   In 1961 McLachlan won the Scottish title with a record 5666 points , and just over a month later, at Loughborough on 10th/11th August, was runner-up in the AAA event with 5777.   His great adversary in Scotland, the enthusiastic and hard-working John Alexander Jones of Trinity Academicals AC was 3rd in these Championships after being runner-up in the Scottish event.   As the winner was a Rhodesian, D Burger (6343) it could be said with justification that McLachlan and Jones were the top Britons that year.   They maintained good form the following year, though McLachlan had to play second fiddle to Australian Z Sumich (Sale Harriers) both in the SAAA and in the AAA Championships.   In the former, held at Westerlands on 8th/9th June, the scores were fairly modest – 5744 for Sumich to McLachlan’s 5456 – but the AAA decathlon saw a closer and higher scoring confrontation.   It was McLachlan’s finest performance though his UK record score of 6184  (6579 based on 1962 tables) was finally 53 points adrift of Sumich’s total.   McLachlan did not compete after 1962.”

We asked Graham McDonald (Pitreavie AAC) who met George at meetings and he said that  

The ranking performances below are taken from the www.scotstats.net website and George’s competitive record is at the foot of the table.   The same website tells us that he competed twice for Scotland – on20th August 1960 against Wales where he won the 120y hurdles, and in the same event against Holland on 18th August 1962 where he was second behind Alfred Belleh, a Nigerian living and studying in Scotland at the time, with Scotland filling the first two places.   Both were home fixtures.

St Modan’s AC club champions, end of season 1959/60

The Cross-country teams in the younger age groups were going from strength to strength in season 1959/60.   In the District Championships held at Renton, Dumbarton on 23rd January, 1960, the youths team had the first two finishers in the formidable double act of Willie Fleming and Mike Ryan.   With three to count in the team race they were unfortunate to be beaten by the better packing of the Monkland Harriers squad.   Result below.   

The same duo led the Youths team into second place in the national at Hamilton on 5th March where teams had have four runners finish to complete the team.   It was the same three runners who led the field in as it had been in the Districts, but the order had changed.  Finn won this time round and although Fleming was placed second and Ryan third, they were both given the same time.   The scoring runners were Fleming 2nd, Ryan 3rd, Rutherford 25th and R Gourlay 54th.   R Howden was the back up runner in 61st place.   In summer at the West District Championships at Westerlands on 28th May, J Cameron was second in the Junior 880 yards behind Hugh Barrow (VPAAC) who won in 1:59.4 seconds.   A week later, 4th June, in the Lanarkshire Constabulary Sports at Shawfield, Mike Ryan won the Handicap Mile in 4:11.1 running from 90 metres.   Another week later and Ryan was third in the handicap mile at the Glasgow Police Sports at Ibrox Park behind Renton of Teviotdale and Bert McKay of Motherwell.   At that same meeting team mate Willie Fleming ran in the 3000m steeplechase where he too finished third, behind R Henderson  (Braidburn) and J McLatchie (Muirkirk).     At the SAAA championships at the end of June, Ryan won the junior mile in 4:20.8, defeating Jim McLatchie of Ayr Seaforth and Jim Finn was in third.   After the championship meeting George McLachlan was selected for the AAA’s Championships  at Welwyn Garden City on July 8th and 9th.   In that championship, McLachlan was third with 5583 points behind C Andrews of the Army who set a new GB record of 6176 points and J McKinney of the Irish club Albert Foundry who scored 5732. 

Having run at Shawfield Stadium and Ibrox Park, it was local Brockville Park in Falkirk that welcomed the athletes for the Falkirk FC & Falkirk Victoria Harriers meeting on 30th July and Mike Ryan (50 yards) won the handicap mile from Willie Fleming (100 ) in 4:16.8.   At the Strathallan Games on 6th August McLachlan won the 100 yards on a grass track off half a yard in 9.8 seconds.   

It was now into the new 1960/61 season and in the Midland Relays on 5th November at Stepps, the St Modan’s AC team caused a stir when they finished third ahead of Victoria Park, Bellahouston Harriers and Springburn Harriers.   The team was made up of Charlie Meldrum (14:34), M Ryan (14:28), JH Murray (14:54) and W Fleming (14:37).   There was also a second team that finished 21st of the 38 teams that started the race.   Their team was R Rutherford (16:13), A Muir (16:26), D Clelland (15:43), AT Roy (16:12).   The packing in the first team was excellent with Ryan only 7 seconds behind the sixth time of the afternoon.  The Midland Championships were held at Renton on 21st January 1961.   In the Senior/Junior race, the team was fifth with Meldrum 6th, Ryan 13th, Murray 26th, Fleming 49th, Clelland 65th and Roy 80th.   There were three more runners who completed the course – Muir 91st, Kielt 100th and Howden 108th.   The return of Clelland was interesting and he would prove to b very useful to the club again.   In the Youths race, there was a new find for the club when J McHattie finished second, 5 seconds down on Jim Finn and 7 seconds up on Lachie Stewart; he was accompanied by Christie in 45th.    Goldie (12th), Brown (17th) and Lochrie (16th) saw the team finish in third place with other runners being Stewart (26th), Lennon (42nd) and Duffy (44th).   It had been another good day for the club.  

It was a weakened squad of senior men that faced the starter for the national championships at Hamilton on 4th March 1961.   The Senior team was led home by JH Murray in 46th, new man from Vale of Leven AAC Jimmy Garvey in 47th, A Galbraith in 137th and new senior AT Roy in 155th.   The Junior team of Ryan in second behind McLatchie and one place ahead of Jim Alder from Morpeth, Rutherford in 58th, Curran 66th and Howden 95th finished ninth of the 20 teams entered.   There were three runners in the Youths race – J Cameron 27th, D Christie 86th and A Drummond 87th.   The boys team was eighth of the 17 who ran: Goldie 31st, Brown 33rd, Lochrie 43rd and Tasker 73rd.   It was a much better turnout than during the dark days of the mid 50’s but there were many expected names missing – No Meldrum, no Clelland, no Fleming, No McHattie.   

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Picture and details from Graham McDonald

We have had a look at the career of George McLachlan above and it is appropriate to have a look at another club stalwart, and more than that, Charlie Meldrum.   He had been running for the club as a Youth (U17) and after a spell at Jordanhill where he ran for the college on the track and the club in winter.   After his time at College he became a PE teacher at Riverside Secondary School in Stirling.   He returned to the club and the standard and numbers competing rose notably.   He served on the club committee reaching the position of President.   Athletically, he was often in the first 10 finishers in good quality cross-country races and there were other open races (eg 6th in the SAAA steeplechase, he won the 8 lap steeplechase at Ibrox in the Rangers Sports,, and the New Year’s Dar Race at Beith where he was second in the scratch race).   He also became an official starter and officiated at many good races on track and over the country.   Involved in official training he helped many new starters including the well known and highly respected Barry Craighead.   Barry says that apart from the legendary Fred Evans, Charlie “was my mentor and inspiration.”   Dick Littlejohn was the starter’s marksman for both of them.   Unfortunately Charlie died in a car crash far too soon on his way to officiate in an international match.   A very good clubman, a runner, an official, and highly respected.   If he was not working at a meeting he would be out cheering on and encouraging the rest of the team.    All clubs need members like that.

In summer 1961, the West District Championships were held at Westerlands on 27th May, and it was a good day for the club.   To start with George McLachlan was third in the 100 yards, and second in the 220 yards, Mike Ryan was third in the Mile, Charlie Meldrum won the steeplechase from Tom O’Reilly, WA Christie was third in the javelin, and J Cameron was second in the Youths Mile.   A gold, two silver and three bronze medals on the same Saturday.    The Glasgow Police Sports were held on 10th June at Ibrox and Charlie Meldrum was second in the 3000m steeplechase behind T Thomson of Paisley to whom he was conceding 35 yards in the handicap.   In the Junior 880 yards, JR Cameron was second.  Meanwhile on the same day Jimmy Garvie was third in the Scottish Marathon Club’s 12 mile road race at Springburn in Glasgow.  

The SAAA Championships were held at New Meadowbank on 24th June.   Mike Ryan continued his successful career when he was third in the Mile behind Graham Everett and Kenny Ballantyne – two really top class milers.   WA Christie was third in the javelin, G McLachlan won the 120 yards hurdles, in the Junior Hammer JR Cameron was second and in the Youths Shot Putt competition, H Cameron won with 44′ 5 1/2″   It had been probably the best AAA’s championships for St Modan’s AAC ever.   Two firsts, one second and two third place medals was a more than respectable haul.   

 George McLachlan won the SAAA Decathlon on 1st July at Redford Barracks, Edinburgh from JA Jones and RL Hay.   His best performances were noted by the Glasgow Herald as 10.9 for the 100 metres, 15.5 for the 110 metres hurdles and 10′ 8 1/4″ in the pole vault.   The first three were selected to compete in the AAA’s event at Loughborough on August 11/12th; McLachlan and Christie were picked to compete for the SAAA against Atalanta the following Saturday.   In that match, McDonald was second to Belleh in the 120 yards hurdles, and he was part of the relay team with the members of Victoria Parl that broke the Pitreavie arena record.   Christie missed the javelin but McDonald filled the gap and finished third.   On 29th July at the Falkirk Sports at Brockville Park, George McDonald was the star of the show with a victory in the special invitation 100 yards in 10.0 on the grass track.   The Strathallan Gathering was always held on the first Saturday in July and Graham McDonald inspected his programme for the 1961 meeting and tells us that there were no fewer than nine men from the club competing that day: 

It had been a splendid season for the club with almost every event from 100 yards to the marathon and several field events being contested at championship standard – or every event if you count George McLachlan on his own.   What would the winter bring?

Winter 1961/62 saw the club with two teams in the Midlands District Relay Championship with the A Team finishing sixth and the B Team 23rd.   Mike Ryan had the third fastest of the day behind John Linaker and Andy Brown of Motherwell.   The runners and their times were:-

A Team:  J Garvie  13:51;   M Ryan 12:26; D Clelland  14:21;  C Meldrum  13:32.      B Team:   A Roy 14:56; A Cameron  15:42; G Pearson  15:14;  I Howden  16:04. 

The reason for the two teams was soon in evidence: the club was taking part in the eight man Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay.   It was a prestigious event, entry limited to 20 clubs and by invitation only.   The race was held on 18th November, 1961, and the names on the programme from whom the team would be chosen were

The chosen runners, in order and place in the race were as follows:   

H Taylor  1st stage  16th; M Ryan   2nd stage  15th;   R Rutherford  3rd stage  19th; W Fleming  4th stage  19th;   AT Roy  5th stage  19th; J Garvie  6th stage  19th;  GG Pearson  7th stage  20th;  D Clelland  8th stage 18th.

It should be noted that the second and sixth stages are generally regarded as the toughest because they are the longest but, more importantly most of the very best runners in the country tackled them.   Nor is the race itself for the faint hearted – there were always lots of supporters in cars, team buses  or even on motor bikes following the race roaring their runners on.  The course wound through villages, along open roads with fields on either side, across busy roads, there were stewards at all corners and junctions (often enough there was a policeman directing traffic) and it was a daunting experience.   Very few runners could turn on their best performance in their first appearance in the race.   It is notable that the man who picked up most places was the man who had experience of the event when running for Falkirk Victoria – Dave Clelland.   The absence of Charlie Meldrum must have been a blow to the club’s chances too.   It was however a good solid performance – not in the last two so not an automatic bar to competing the next year.

The Midland District Championships in January 1962, were held a Strathleven on 20th January 1962 and in the Senior/Junior race, Mike Ryan was the first St Modan’s runner when he crossed the line in seventh to be first Junior.    The other club members to finish were J Garvey 37th and H Taylor 60th.   In the Youths race,H Lochrie was 10th, T Goldie 13th and J McHattie 14th to see the team finish 4th.   There was alsos a Boys race where the trio of J Fleming 6th, T Brown 7th and W Samson 13th was third team with the club also represented by H Tasker 21st and I McRae 22nd.   The National was held at Hamilton Racecourse on 3rd March 1962.    The senior men on the day were  J Garvie 89th, A Galbraith 126th, G Pearson 148th.   In the Junior race, Mike Ryan was the only club man and he was third,   In the Youth Race, J McHattie was ninth and, again, the club only had the one runner forward.   

In the Boys race, St Modan’s won a first national championship.   Newcomer Walter Eadie was third behind D Middleton and R Wedlock followed by Tom Brown sixth, Jim Fleming twelfth annd W Samson twenty eighth.

The summer came around and the club was represented in meetings as usual with championship performances noted here. First, in the West District Championships at Westerlands on 28th May, Mike Ryan ran in the Three Miles and finished second to Calum Laing of Glasgow University and George McLachlan won the 120 yards hurdles. and G Thomson was also second – in the discus.  Another promising young middle distance runner made his first championship appearance when he was second in the Junior 880 yards – Tom Brown was behind Dabney of Ayr Seaforth and ahead of Middleton of Springburn.

In the SAAA Championships on 23rd June, McHattie won the Junior mile in 4:23.1 to duplicate Mike Ryan’s victory and be the only St Modan’s athlete to win a medal at the meeting.   On 28th July, at Falkirk, McLachlan was third in the invitation 100 yards sprint which was hotly contested – all the top sprinters in the country had come along and three heats were required to get the finalists.   McLachlan was only beaten by WM Campbell and RW Whitelock.  Mike Ryan was second in the mile behind W Morrison of Larkhall.  In August, 10/11th, George McLachlan set  Scottish and British records for the decathlon when finishing second to Z Sumach.  Sumach was not eligible for the record since he had only come to Britain from Austraalia 18 months previusly.    He actually led until the second last event – the javelin – when Sumach went well ahead in points.   McLachlan was in front ot Sumach in the 1500m but not far enough to catch him or the title.   One week later at Murrayfield in the match against Holland, McLachlan was second to Alfred Belleh in the 129 yards hurdles to ensure maximum points for Scotland who won the match by only one single point.  

The winter 1962/63 Relays were held again at King’s Park in Stirling and the St Modan’s team ran well enough to finish sixth of 37 teams with the result as below:

Mike Ryan had the third fastest time of the day and the team above had a good blend of youth and experience – Jimmy Garvie had a few years of running experience behind on the road and on the track, and McHattie was at the other end as a Junior man while Mike Ryan was an experienced medal winner for the club on the track, road and country with Taylor a solid club runner.   The District Championships were held at Strathleven again on 19th January 1963 and again Mike led the team home when he finished eighth.   Jimmy Garvie was 41st, J Gray was 81st, Charlie Meldrum (now a PE Teacher at Riverside HS in Stirling) 88th, G Pearson 93rd, I Howden 105th and AT Roy 114th.   The Boys race was won by J Fleming of the St Modan’s team with J Sloan close up in fourth with D Aitken eighth.   Their 13 points won the team competition from Springburn who had 20.  Withe 7 finishers in the senior race, the club had more than any year for some time and with first individual and first team in the boys race, they had good cause to celebrate.   

The National Championships were held at Hamilton on 3rd March, 1963 and the in the Junior Men’s race Ryan was second and McHattie 13th.   In the Youths event there were several ‘new boys’ who would prove to be excellent athletes.   Tom Brown finished fifth, less than 20 seconds behind the third placed runner in a race won by Ian McCafferty from Ian Young of Springburn, R Carroll of Edinburgh and Jim Brennan of Maryhill.   The next club finisher was Walter Eadie in 18th and he was another talented runner who led the Strathclyde University team for several years, Alastair Macfarlane was 40th in his first ever National at Hamilton and he would go on to win many  races on track, road and country including the Scottish Marathon Championship, and Marshall Prentice in 46th completed the team which finished fifth.   In the Boys race, Jim Fleming finished fifth, D Aitken was 13th, I Sloan 19th, A Roberts was 38th, T McAllister 59th  to have the team finish third and go home with medals from the Scottish National Championship.  

Mike Ryan was running well and Willie Fleming was still running, there was a very good Under 17 team led by Tom Brown and young Jim Fleming was coming through in the Boys Under 15 age group.   Something else was happening – Allan Faulds was running very well for Glasgow University and in March 1963 he joined his local club – St Modan’s.   It was a massive gain for the club.   

.Allan Faulds winning the Springburn Cup from Mike Bradley, Paisley Harriers

Allan led  them to second place in the Springburn Cup race almost immediately thereafter.  In 1963 there was a Central League for young athletes run by a group containing Alex Naylor (Shettleston), Bert Winter (Bellahouston) and others and St Modan’s had athletes taking part in it.  There was no limit on the numbers entered by any club but only the first two scored any points.   Entries across the board were not required.   There was also a winter league and on 2nd March St Modan’s had athletes entered for the meeting which took place in Pollokshaws.  In the Senior Boys race, J Fleming won from Eddie Knox of Springburn by 17 seconds, with D Aitken third and since they also had the fourth finisher, they won the team race.   In the Youths race, Tom Brown was second to Ian Young of Springburn being beaten by 13 seconds.   The team was second with 20 points.   Springburn (10) and Victoria Park (26) were first and third.  

For the club, the track season again had its moments of triumph .   The Western District Championships were held on 25th May at Westerlands and J McHattie was second to Lachie Stewart in the Three Miles with Billy Murray of Glenpark in third and Hamish Cameron third in the Hammer in the Senior events.   Tom Brown was second to Hugh Barrow in the Junior Mile.       On 1st June at the Lanarkshire Constabulary Sports at Shawfield, Tom Brown won the 880 yards and J McHattie won the Mile.   At Falkirk on 27th July, George McLachlan won the special invitation 100 yards.   In the Open 220 yards, DV Smith of St Modan’s won in 22.4 seconds from 14 yards handicap.   Later in the season, at Shotts on 7th September, Tom Brown was third in the Two Miles behind Ian McCafferty and Jim Johnston (Monkland).

The West District Relay was held on October 26th, 1963 at Stirling and were responsible for the programmes and the trail stewards – these might have weakened the teams but were an indicator of a club with fairly healthy numbers.   The club did fairly well.   Ryan was fourth fastest individual and the team finished sixth.   The other runners in the team were McHattie, Prentice and Pearson.   There was a second team of Murray, Meldrum, Rutherford and Howden.   Reserves were Garvie, Galbraith, Gray and Faulds.   There were over 60 teams in the event. 

Allan Faulds kept running well in the colours of Glasgow University but young Walter Eadie was also running well – but in the club’s colours.   On 2nd November in the Garscube Harriers Open Races for younger age groups, Walter was third fastest Youth and the team finished second behind Springburn.   Eadie was also second fastest behind Knox on 23rd November in the Clydesdale Harriers Youths race.   Duncan Middleton of Springburn was third and Tom Brown was fourth for St Modan’s.   The race incorporated a Ballot Team competition to give all runners the opportunity to win a team prize and Tom Brown was in the winning team with Eadie in the second placed team.   

Away from the competition arena, at the SAAA AGM on 21st December, 1963, Joe Walker was elected Vice-President to the Association.   He would go on to be President for 1965/66.

The Midlands Championships were held on 18th January at the Renton Dumbarton.   The St Modan’s Youth team of Brown 5th, Eadie 6th, and Fleming 8th were second to Springburn’s team of Middleton 1st, Knox 3rd and McLean 12th.   In the Boys race, R Clarke was 9th, I McShane 17th, and I Harvey 28th.   Nationals were again held at Hamilton at the start of March and there were only three Boys – I McShane 65th, R McLean 80th, I Harvey 87th – when four were required for a team.  There was a team of Youths, a GOOD team too – of  W Eadie 4th, T Brown 5th, J Fleming 19th and A Macfarlane 31st – which finished second 10 points behind Edinburgh AC and 38 in front of Kirkcaldy YMCA.   Marshall Prentice had by now gone to Glasgow University and was running for them and finished 69th.   Allan Faulds was also running for Glasgow University and was 14th in the Senior race.     Only G Pearson ran in the Senior Men’s race and finished 157th.   Charlie Meldrum was among four noted as ‘Failed to finish’.   

How was the club faring on the track in summer ’64?   They were competing in the Track League (three clubs, each scored against the other two making it three two-club competitions) and the Glasgow Herald of 11th May reported like this.

 A very good start to the summer with two victories out of two and a significant number of victories.   One week later in a similar format match, they beat RCST by 58 to 49, and Glasgow University 58 to 44.   On 23rd May, in another three-club league contest they defeated Maryhill Harriers by 83 to 56, and Forth Valley 77 to 60.   Despite all this league success which meant turning out many athletes week after week, there was a disappointing number of club members among the medals at the West District Championships at the very end of May.   Tom Brown,  second in the Junior Mile was the sole medallist.   Walter Eadie was performing well for the RCST and won the Universities Championship Three Miles in 15:07.4 from Jim Bogan of Glasgow University on 6th June.   Distance seemed no object to Tom Brown who travelled to Kinlochleven HG on 4th July where he won the mile handicap race from Knox  of Shettleston.   

The SAAA Championships were held on 27th June   Again Tom Brown was second in the Junior Mile and H Cameron won the Junior Hammer Throw.   Cameron was really in form when on 8th August at the AAA’s championships at Crystal Palace he won the British Hammer Championship by four feet with a best of 183′  6 1/2″  .   The track season ended at the local Highland Games with Tom Brown winning the 880 yards and finishing second to Ian McCafferty in the Mile.   It was then on to the Cross-Country for 1964/65.

In the McAndrew Relay at Scotstoun on 3rd October, 1964, the club achieved its highest position yet when it was eighth, 14 seconds behind promoting club Victoria Park.   Motherwell won the race.   The test of the squad came at the start of November when the took part in the Midland District Relay.   This was really the first time Allan Faulds had run in a championship for the club.  The team of Tom Brown (13:04), George Jackson (13:15), Allan Faulds (12:50) and H McHattie (13:47) finished third – the first time they had won medals in a major championship as a senior team.   George Jackson was another interesting  runner.   He was a member of two clubs – a member of another club affiliated to the SAAA, he had to join another to run cross-country under SCCU rules.   The National was held on 16th January at the Renton and unfortunately, the club could only turn out four runners in the Senior race.   These were Faulds (10th), Meldrum (33rd), M Coyne (91st) and G Pearson (105th).   There were no Youths and only one one Boy, W Adam who finished third.   Not a good championship.  

In the National at Hamilton on 27th February, 1965, there were no runners from St Modan’s in any of the races at all, although in the Junior race Walter Eadie finished fifth in the colours of Strathclyde University and won a place in the Scottish Junior team for the ICCU Championships in Belgium.   There were five entered on the programme for the senior race- Faulds, Coyne, Jackson, Meldrum and Pearson, two juniors – Brown and Macfarlane, one Youth Fleming and no Boys at all.   Where was the club going from here?  They had many good runners and a complete Track & Field team in the summer just gone.   What was happening?

Mike Ryan emigrated to New Zealand in 1965 and subsequently won bronze medals in the marathon in the 1966 Commonwealth Games and the 1968 Olympic Games.

There were no medals for the club at either the West District or the SAAA Championships on 25th June, 1966.   In fact it was difficult to find nems of club members at any meetings that year including the Dunblane Highland Gathering, and there was no reporting at all of the track leagues.   

The following winter started with the McAndrew  Relay at Scotstoun on 2nd October and the team finished ninth with Allan Faulds turning in the fifth fastest time of the day.   Next relay was the Midland District event on 30th October at Stirling.   The team did exceptionally well and finished third for the second successive year.   Runners this time were Jackson 13:44, Meldrum 13:57, Faulds 12:57 and Brown 13:41.   Only the formidable Motherwell and Shettleston teams were in front of them.   They had B and C Teams out which finished 17th with J Fleming, G Pearson, K Henderson and F Flynn) and 32nd (M Coyne, J Murray, J Talbot and J McHattie).   Results from the Midland Championships on 15th January 1965 are not available but we do know that Allan Faulds was third finisher – ne place ahead of I McCafferty of Motherwell YMCA.    

The National of 1966 was quite significant for followers of St Modan’s AC.   There was no St Modan’s AC team entered but there was a Stirling AC team in the programme.   Their senior runners were 

Yes, St Modan’s had changed their name. to Stirling AC which would be a short lived club.   Their athletes would go on have good careers with other clubs but Scottish athletics was diminished – as it always when a good local club disappears from the scene.   It had done well by the people of Stirling and had produced in its short life since 1947 two British track & field champions – George McLachlan and H Cameron, and several Scottish champions in the mile, the 120 yards hurdles and the hammer throw as well as cross country champions across all the age groups.   The question of why it changed is asked, and the reply is that the club stopped using St Modan’s HS as its headquarters and moved elsewhere.   The new name maybe had added advantages.  

1947 – 52   1952 – 60

 

 

Above: The 1953 SAAA Marathon

Although the 1952 – 60 period started fairly well with the club with Joe McGhee being one of the best in Scotland, the decade as a whole was a poor one with the club losing their three best athletes over the period – Stewart Petty joined Bellahouston Harriers, Joe McGhee left for Shettleston and club captain Dave Clelland joined Falkirk Victoria Harriers in 1954.   Others were at institutions of further education  such as Glasgow University or teacher training college.    Petty joined Edinburgh Southern Harriers and was a member when Ian McKenzie joined in 1952.  Ian comments, “he was in Southern when I joined in 1952 and he remained a member for at least the next 40 years. He also married a fellow ESH member, living in Edinburgh for many years before moving to Dunfermline. When he finished his career as a half miler he took to running cross country for enjoyment rather than as a serious competitor, he established a group of fellow runners which he called “the scrubbers”. He was also a great supporter of SVHC, running in most club races, especially the Xmas handicap at Bishopbriggs which I don’t think he ever missed. In the summer he competed at the vets champs usually throwing the discus until well into his 50’s., such was his love of the sport.”   The club seemed depressed thereafter but things started to look up when Charles Meldrum really started working for the club.   A teacher who temporarily ran summer seasons for the training college, he was a good runner, a good club administrator and a very busy starter at sports meetings.   

Unfortunately the club championships and domestic races have not been recorded in the popular Press: paper was scarce, coverage of athletics was scanty and the only club championships covered were of the older established and successful clubs such as Shettleston Harriers, Victoria Park, Bellahouston Harriers and when it came to Stirlingshire, Falkirk Victoria Harriers got the coverage.  The pattern of the decade was (a) a promising start; (b) a disappointing meddle and (c) a really upbeat end to the decade wit District and National medals being won.  For this section we have to rely mainly on what can be gleaned from the pages of the ‘Scots Athlete’ and the ‘Glasgow Herald’ as well as the official Scottish Athletics historical archive at 

http://www.salroadrunningandcrosscountrymedalists.co.uk/Archive/index.html

1952/53 started off with the McAndrew Relays organised by Victoria Park AAC at Scotstoun in Glasgow.   Held on 4th October, there were 27 teams entered and the St Modan’s team finished 16th with the runners being J McCracken (16:47), A Galbraith (17:41), J McGhee (16:11) and D Clelland (16:49).   McGhee’s summer marathons had not blunted his speed but rather seemed to have enhanced it.   The annual Clydesdale Harriers Youth Ballot Team Race was on 1st November and was won by G Tierney of Cambuslang with St Modan’s being represented by D Kaney who finished 15th of the 47 runners and as part of the second placed Ballot team (the others were J McGregor of Greenock Wellpark in fourth and G Wallace of Shettleston in 18th).   One week later the Midland District 4-man relay took place at Stepps and Joe McGhee was on the first stage where he finished second to D Kennedy of Bellahouston in 13:24 before sending D Kaney (15:52) off on the second stage.   J Murray was next up (14:54) followed by J Kielt (15:14) to bring the team home.   McGhee had fourth fastest time of the day behind Bannon of Shettleston, Kennedy of Bellahouston and Calderwood of Victoria Park, and Harry Fenion of Bellahouston was fifth.   He was starting to be noticed by the athletics community at large – his opponents had already seen enough to convince them of his class.   

The Midland District championship were held at Lenzie on 31st January, 1953, and McGhee did indeed have a high place – fourth behind Bannon, Breckenridge and Fenion – unfortunately the St Modan’s team failed to finish the requisite number of runners for a place in the team competition.   The runners who did finish were A Galbraith 59, A Kielt 73, D Clelland 76 and P Donnelly 85..   Clelland was not displaying his usual high standard of running and the impression is that he was injured or could not get the appropriate training done.   Either way, it was unfortunate for the club.   In the Youths race there was only one finisher – FD Kaney was 23rd.     

Emmet Farrell in the February, 1953 ,issue of ‘The Scots Athlete’ had this to say in the course of his predictions for the national cross-country:    “McGHEE HAS STAMINA AND USEFUL PACE.   That promising young marathoner, Joe McGhee of St Modan’s may win his first International vest.   He has consistently taken high places in comparatively short distance events demonstrating that he does not lack speed, and the extra mileage of the National should suit a runner with his marathon background.”     The National was held on 28th February at Hamilton and in the Senior 9 Miles Race McGhee had a disappointing run to finish in 11th place and fail to make the team.   It must have been disappointing for him to be the only St Modan’s runner to turn out in the Senior National.    Farrell in his post race comments revealed that McGhee, who was doing his National Service in the RAF, had raced mid-week in a services race and that that had maybe affected his performance.   There were no club runners in the Junior race, and only one in the Youths event – D Kaney, who was 23rd.   

St Modan’s were still holding their annual open sports meeting and it was on 2nd May in 1953.   The first open sports meeting in the west of Scotland it attracted a large and high quality entry.   Their own runner Joe McGhee won the 15 mile road race in 90:49 from Harry Howard of Shettleston and Alex McLean of Glenpark.   A raw nerve may have been touched when JS Petty turned out for the winning Bellahouston relay team.   A note of the main event winners indicates the standard of the meeting.

100: JF McLaughlin (Bellahouston)  10.7 sec;   220: R Mill (VPAAC)  23.7 seconds;  880 yards:  RM Leslie (Tayside)  2 minutes.

Mile:  F Scally (Shettleston)  4:27;  Two Miles:  A Breckenrdige (VPAAC) 9:43.9;  Team race:  VPAAC 7 points.

Women:  100 yards:  E Hay (Q Club) 12.0;  220 yards: SS Turner (Bellahouston) 27.7;  Relay:   Ardeer Recreation Club.

On June 6th, McGhee travelled to Dundee and won the 15 miles round the city road race in 78:13 from Chick Robertson.

A Young Joe McGhee, front, right, starting in the Perth to Dundee Road RaceI

Picture from Bob Donald

In his preview of the SAAA Championships to be held in June, Farrell told us that JS Petty was in good form but that he was now a member of Bellahouston Harriers.   In his predictions for the marathon he forecast that it would fall to CD Robertson of Dundee Thistle although if there had to be a surprise, then it would probably come from J McGhee of St Modan’s ‘whose current form has been so good.’   The race was held on 27th June, 1953, and run from Laurieston (Falkirk) to New Meadowbank.   Always up with the leaders – Duffy of Hadleigh, McLean of Greenock Glenpark, P Collins of Edinburgh University – McGhee led at 5 miles in 28:20.   “The pace was a cracker and of the leaders McLean looked the fittest.   Duffy always gave the impression that he was punishing himself although he looked very sun bronzed and fit.   Joe McGhee looked his usual self.   At the 10 miles watering point McGhee still led by a few yards from Duffy with McLean training along.”     By 15 miles Duffy led in 1:25:09 with McGhee and McLean in close attendance.   McLean went in front at 18 miles and at 20 miles he led in 1:55.1, Duffy was on 1:55:50 with McGhee dropped to 1:57.0.   At 24 miles it was McLean 2:20:57,  Duffy 2:22:05  ,  and McGhee  “running well” in 2:23:32.   McLean unfortunately faltered and eventually, almost within sight of the stadium, started to walk.   Duffy passed him with a mile to go and won by 43 seconds with McGhee only 19 seconds further back.   A medal for McGhee but the feeling at the time was that if he had punished himself a bit more, he could have won the title.   

McGhee was in long distance action again on 29th August when he took part in the Perth – Dundee Road Race.   In a very competitive race he was second in 2:01:32 behind EI Smith of Leeds Harehills  (2:01:13) and ahead of A Lawton, also Leeds Harehills, (2:02:40).   The first two were inside the previous best time for the course.     

The Midland District relays were held at Millerston as usual on 7th November and the St Modan’s team, minus the top runners of recent years, was ninth of the 26 teams in the race with A McHugh (14:58), D Kaney (15:28), J Murray (15:24) and J Kielt (15:25).   It was a more evenly balanced team with all runners contributing an even share of the work.   The ‘Scots Athlete’ of February 1954 forecast that J McGhee would finish fifth in the National Cross-Country – running in the colours of Shettleston Harriers.   A huge blow to any club to lose such a talented athlete but McGhee had been coached by Allan Scally of Shettleston for some time and felt that he should join his club.   In the Midland Championship at Lenzie on 6th February, McGhee ran well enough to be fourth for his new club but could not count in the team race as his change of club had been so recent.   There was no St Modan’s team in the event.   In the National Championships at Hamilton, there was only one from the club in the Senior race – J Lynn who was 65th – and one  more J Murray, ran in the Junior race where he finished 36th.   

With no one running in the finals of the SAAA Championships of 1954, it was down to the Junior SAAA event and there J Irvine was third in the 440 yards in 54.3 seconds.   Although there were many open meetings across the country – amateur highland games, sports meetings such as Babcock and Wilcox, Singer’s, etc, although sports clubs promoted their own events, coverage at the time was scanty and so tracing the activities of individuals in an individual sport is difficult.   In the course of just over a year, St Modan’s had lost Stewart Petty to Bellahouston and Joe McGhee to Shettleston.   They had been far and away the best runners the club had produced and among the best in the country and their loss must have depressed the club somewhat.   

Into winter 1954/55 and there was no St Modan’s team among the 29 in the McAndrew Relay.   The Midland relay also came and went without a club team being forward.   By the Midland Championship at Lenzie on 29th January 1955, St Modan’s were back in action.   In the Senior race, C Meldrum was12th finisher – a very good run at a time when the standard was high, followed by J Lynn in  109th.   In the Youths race, T Gunning was 18th.   In the National on 25th February, Lynn was the only senior in action and he was 115th.   T Gunning was the sole representative in the Youths race, finishing 41st.     Note that the Falkirk Victoria senior team was led home by a  D Clelland in 15th with the team sixth.

There was an interesting finalist in the 1955 SAAA steeplechase – CM Meldrum of Jordanhill Training College finished fifth in 9:59.9.  This was the same CM Meldrum that had been racing for St Modan’s for several years – he still kept the club membership but while at the college took part in summer competition under their colours.   Numbers competing were still small and it is a tribute that the club continued to work as well as it did through these difficult times.   There was no club team in the McAndrew relay in October, nor was there among the 32 teams in the Midland District relay, there was one runner in the Clydesdale Harriers Youths race where M Roy finished 36th.   The next appearance by club members in a championship race came in the District Championships at Lenzie on 28th January, 1956.   In the senior race, entered as individuals, were Charles Meldrum in 28th, J Murray 71st and J Kielt 100th.   In the Youths race, joint sixth team with Glasgow University was the St Modan’s trio of A Gunning 17th, A Roy 23rd and DM Flaherty 30th.   Unfortunately in the National at Hamilton, there were no seniors entered although A Galbraith ran for Glasgow University and in the Youths race there were two runners – PM Flaherty in 50th and A Roy 59th.  

In the Youths Kingsway Relay Race at Dundee in October 1956, the St Modan’s quartet was seventh with AT Roy recording 8:04, M Conlon 8:22, GG Pearson 8:44 and PM Flaherty 9:07.   It was first time for the race and the team was 3 seconds behind the home team (Dundee Hawkhill) and exactly one minute behind the winners.    Then at Stepps on 3rd November in the Midland District relay, the team finished 15th with JH Murray on the first stage running 15:42, Charlie Meldrum being next up in 14:49, J McCracken 15:16 and JJ Kielt 15:58.   In the National, Meldrum was 67th  while Dave Clelland was 46th for FVH.   In the Youths race, the club was fifth out of 15 teams – GM Dewar 13th, AT Roy 27th, GG Pearson 49, Millar 38th (the scoring quartet), JA Turpie 62nd and TG Harrower 97th.   The team was again one place behind Dundee Hawkhill (3 points), one place ahead of Falkirk Victoria.   

There were several small clubs in and around Stirling in the 1950’s and in the  SAAA Youths championships on 6th July 1957 there were athletes who had already represented St Modan’s turning out for smaller clubs.   In the half mile championship for instance the winner was GM Dewar and second was GG Pearson.  They were both representing Tillicoultry & Hillfoots AC and the race was won in 2:05.7.    Other than the Scottish championships, the biggest track and field meeting in Scotland at the time was the Rangers Sports.  The standard of competition was high, the numbers of competitors was also high.   Held on the first Saturday in August every year, this was the year that Charlie Meldrum of St Modan’s won the handicap steeplechase held over 8 laps of the track.   Running from a mark of 230 yards he won in a time of 10:00.2.   The last meeting of the season was a local meeting for the club and the Dunblane Highland Games were held on 14th September.   The only club winner was G MacLachlan who won the 100 yards from a mark of 5 1/2 yards in  10.0 seconds.    1956/57 had been a good year for the club, but better was to come in the near future.

 

A Young Mike Ryan preparing to run at Springburn

Photo from Bobby Mills

1957/58 was the season when Mike Ryan started to show his ability as a distance runner with a series of good performances.   on 28th December in Pollok Estate he won the won the Richmond Trophy two mile event beating Lachie Stewart by 200 yards.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ named hio as favourite for the Midland title at this point.

In the Midland Championships on 25th January, 1958 the Youths team was third behind Shettleston and Springburn Harriers and ahead of Victoria Park AAC.   The runners were led home by GM Dewar in sixth place.   In the Boys race Mike Ryan was first club man home in third place and the team second.    Two sets of team medals plus one individual.   The best club performance in a major championship for several years.   The National at Hamilton would be even better.    

National Youths results, March 1958

In March 1958 the signs of the upturn in the club’s fortunes became really clear when,  on the first of the month in the National cross-country championships at Hamilton, there was another St Modan’s team competing which won medals in the nationals.   If we go through the age groups in order we see that C Meldrum in the Senior ace was 31st, with J Murray 56th; then in the Junior race, AT Roy ran as an individual and finished 70th.   and then came the breakthrough.   The Youths team finished second only 13 points behind Shettleston.   The runners were GM Dewar 7th, AR Brown 20th, A Cameron 27th and GC Pearson 33rd forming the team and WM Lumsden 59th as back-up.   There were over 100 runners.     For the first time ever there was a race for Boys under 15 in the National and there was a St Modan’s team out in it.   Mike Ryan was second, T Lavin tenth, F Simpson 19th, R Rutherford 20th for a team total of 51 points and second team behind George Heriot’s School.   The back-up runners were R Ross 52nd, J Howden 64th and J Ward 75th.    The club had been represented in all four races and won two team silvers and one individual silver too.   Far and away the best club performance up to that point.    

If winter ’57/’58 was good, ’58/’59 was almost but not quite as good.   In the Midland Relay at Stepps on 1st November there was a St Modan’s senior/junior men’s team of C Meldrum, (13:41), A Roy (14:03), J Murray (14:47) and G Dewar (14:45) which finished 15th of 33 starting teams.    In the actual championship, held in JamuaryRobin Gourlay was third in the Under 13 boys race and Willie Fleming was second behind Glasgow University’s Jim Bogan, in the Under 17 Men’s race leading the team to third place with 42 points behind Bellahouston’s 31 and the winning team (Vale of Leven) which had 23 points.   Detailed results for Senior and Junior races are not available.    In the National at Hamilton there were no seniors in action, but AT Roy turned out in the Junior Men’s race finishing 60th.   The Youths team was led home by Willie Fleming who won from Jim Johnston of Monkland Harriers but there were only three seconds in it.   The team was eighth of 16 starting teams and had five runners,   Fleming was first, Rutherford was 30th, AR Brown 47th, R Curran 67th and J Howden 71st.   There was also a team in the Boys race – and a total of 4 runners from the club.   They were  R Gourlay 16th, R Ross 53rd, S Drummond 58th and B Lauder 62nd for the team to be eighth of 20.   There was however a rather ominous sign in the summer of 1959 when GM Dewar won the SAAA Junior 440 yards title in 51.2 seconds – but he was representing Shettleston Harriers at the time.   The good news from the same championship meeting was that a St Modan’s member won the Junior high jump with a 5′ 7″ clearance and his name was I Campbell.   Graham McDonald has the programme for the Dunblane Highland Games in 1959 and there were several club men entered there.   

What would the Sixties bring for St Modan’s AAC?   

St Modan’s AAC 1947 – 1952       St Modan’s 1960 – 66

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above information comes from the Scots Athlete” of October/November 1947 and notes the first affiliation of St Modan’s AAC, noted as St Modan’s High School AAC.   St Modan’s High School was located in Stirling and the all-ages club affiliated in 1947  would produce many very good athletes as a school but also as a separate club within the SAAA fold.   Names Like Joe McGhee, Mike Ryan and Allan Faulds would wear the club vest with distinction.   

However St Modan’s AAC had been founded in 1933 by, among others, the highly respected and well liked Joe Walker and entered teams from the high school thereafter.  It would seem to have been a school club only since only teams in the Youths (Under 17) age group were entered.   eg at National Championship level, there were no teams in any age group entered in 1934, ’35 or ’36 and a team (J Doran 28, P Donnelly 41, P Cafferty 51 and W Power 55) from ‘St Modan’s School’ finished 13th in the Youths race.   In 1938 only two boys ran in the same age group – J Docherty 59th and P Donnelly 82nd.   

That the club in 1947 was well organised can be seen from some of the first results – we can look at some championship races over the first few years in the following tables.   Midland District Relays first

1947/48	Venue: Stirling	Seniors	A Crawford, M Kaney, J Wilson, D Clelland	16th	Crawford 8th fastest
1948/49		Seniors	A Crawford, A McHugh, J Wilson, D Clelland	8th	–
1949/50	Coatbridge	Seniors	A Crawford, A McHugh, J Wilson, D Clelland	8th	–
1950/51	Stepps	Seniors	A McHugh, A Galbraith, M Kaney, D Clelland	16th	–
1951/52	Stepps	Seniors	D Clelland, J McGhee, J Lynn, M Kaney	12th	–

 

Midland District Championships

1947/48	Senior	23 D Clelland, 89 P Donnelly	No Team
	Youths	1st C Hogan, 12 M Kaney, 16 C Girvan, 17 J Quinn	Team 2nd	First two medals: 1st Individual + 2nd team
1948/49	Youths	7 M Kaney 18 A Lafferty	No Team	–
1949/50	Youths	1st W Fleming, 2nd M Ryan, 24 H Gourlay	Team 2nd	Two of Scotland’s best with Ryan medalling in the Olympics
1950/51	Senior	25 D Clelland,  49 M Kaney	No Team	–
	Youth	12 A Galbraith 17 C Meldrum,  27 C Gray, 29 K Murie	Team 5th	–
1951/52	Youth	2nd C Meldrum, 6 D Kaney, 19 C Gray	Team 3rd	One senior, D Clelland, ran and was 81st

Among the names mentioned above, Charles Meldrum would become one of the real club stalwarts – a good runner, he was an excellent administrator and committee man and a well known starter at races all over the country.   Mike Ryan would win medals in every national championships at every age group until he emigrated to New Zealand in whose colours he won third place medal at the Mexico Olympics in the marathon.   

1950: Hamilton: SCCU Championship: Willie Fleming in front with Mile Ryan behind

Photo from Willie Fleming

It can be noted that the despite the fact that the school/club only officially registered with the SAAA in October 1947, 17 year old Stewart Petty won the SAAA Junior 880 yards championship at Rugby Park in Kilmarnock on 28th June, before only about 100 spectators.    James Logan, writing in the ‘Scots Athlete’ remarked that he won in the ‘very moderate’ time of 2 min 11.8 sec but he ‘has since proved his ability to beat this time by at least 11 seconds.’ 

If we go back to the beginning with the 1947/48 cross-country  season we see that the first mention of the new club was when C Girvan (St Modan’s AC) ran in the Clydesdale Harriers Youths two and a half mile road race on 8th November where he finished eighth of the 74 runners.   The first  championship held that winter was the Scottish Novice Championship at Pollok Estate on 22nd November, 1947.   Held over 5 miles in ‘adverse weather conditions’ and won by Joe Duffy of Garscube Harriers, G Pollock of St Modan’s AAC was 127th but there was no team from the club.    The Midland District Senior Relay Championships were held on 6th December at Dalziel Estate, Motherwell and there was  a team from the club running; unfortunately three teams including St Modan’s AAC and Victoria Park AAC  C  teams went off the trail ‘in the dusk’ on the third stage and turned up near the finish ay almost the same time as the winning Shettleston team.      The Midland Youths and Juniors title races were held  at the start of February and ‘the Scots Athlete’ reported on a good day for the club as follows.   “The Midland District Junior Championship and two and a half miles Youths race were held at Pollok Estate on 7th Feb., 1948.   The 9 teams and 14 individuals in the Youths race were sent off first by starter Mr D Corbet into a strong wind and uphill over a rain-soaked course.   In 15 minutes the leader came in sight, rather a surprise to most, in the person of newcomer C Hogan of St Modan’s, followed by RF McLean (Springburn) and E Bannon (Shettleston).   Bannon, however, led his clubmates Birt, Scoular and Chisholm to victory in the team race with a total of 40 points, with St Modan’s second, 46 points, and Bellahouston 3rd, 55 points.”

There was only one Junior from the club running and D Clelland finished 23rd.   The victory led Emmet Farrell writing his preview for the National Championships to say – “After his win in the Midland race the St Modan’s boy, C Hogan, will be the popular fancy for the Youths title, though placed men, R McLean (Springburn) and E Bannon (Shettleston) with W McKay (Victoria Park) must still come into the reckoning.   These boys will have keen rivals in Armstrong of Greenock Glenpark, pint-sized Harry Fenion of Lochwinnoch, Ian Ross of Glasgow YMCA, Lockhart of Castlehill, whom enthusiastic Jas. Watson of Carluke thinks will ultimately develop over the longer stretches, and last but by no means least, the fair-headed youth from West Kilbride, J. Adamson.”

Unfortunately the race did not go entirely to plan for Hogan but the team did finish among the medals – second team with 88 points they had six running.   The scoring runners were Hogan (9th), Girvan (20th), J Quinn (29th) and G Pollok (30th) behind Kirkcaldy YMCA.   Their two non-scoring athletes were J Mallor (32nd) and M Kaney (56th).   D Clelland was again their only senior competing and he finished 77th.   

The club showed their determination to assert themselves in Scottish athletics at the start of the 1948 summer season when they advertised a sports meeting in Stirling.

 

The meeting went well with several of the country’s best men taking part.   This report is from ‘The Scotsman’.   You will note the name of J S Petty in the winner’s list again along with SAAA champions like Emmet Farrell, Andy Forbes, McLennan and McLean.   It had all the ingredients for a successful meeting:  a schools race (it is well known that one school pupil runing brings two parents, probably a sibling or two and maybe an auntie oir uncle as well to swell the takings), a 5 a side football tourney (featuring the local side against one of the country’s top and best supported sides), champion track and field men plus a road race.   

Petty was running very well as a first year senior , born in 1929 he was still only 19, and mixing it with the top Scottish half-milers.   But although he did not run as well as expected in the Scottish championships in June, 1948, Emmet Farrell had this to say of his performance.   “JS Smart (Edin. Southern) had a merited and easy win in the half-mile.   There was a surprise in the heats when JS Petty (St Modan’s) the most highly thought of youth, only qualified by being fastest third.   He was even less impressive in the final.   There is no doubt of his sterling class, but was he past his peak or was he too youthful to stand the nervous strain of the scratch championship running?   His form was hard to understand though to our mindhe is still Scotland’s most promising half-miler.”

Although he had failed to get a medal domestically, he did get a bronze in the AAA’s Junior championships to go with the one he had obtained in 1947.   To show that he was still the country’s most promising half-miler, if any more proof were needed,  was shown in this report from the ‘Scotsman’ of  Monday, September 6th, 1948 – 

 

The winter season of 1948/49 began as usual in October and the club was keen to continue where they left off the previous winter.   On the first Saturday of October the club had two teams out in the Victoria Park McAndrew Relay at Scotstoun – the first team was 21st out of 41 complete teams to finish with the second team being 39th.   The National Novice Championship was held over Hamilton Racecourse on a two lap, 5 mile trail.   St Modan’s entered a good team which finished ninth of the 35 which had entered (31 finished).   Five men from the club took part – the first four being counting runners for the team:- A Crawford 26th, M Kaney 33rd, G McCracken 58th, P Donnelly 95th, A Lafferty 109th 155, 176.   This was followed by the Midland District Relay Championship, held at Stirling on 4th December, 1948.   Even though it was on a home trail, St Modan’s first runner captured significant inches in the national press.   ‘The Scots Athlete’ for instance covered his run in these words.    

“It was a dry and clear day favouring the runners and spectators both.   Internationalist G Craig of Shettleston Harriers ran a nice race to hand over a lead to his clubmate at the end of the first lap but honours of the first lap really went to practically unknown C Crawford of St Modan’s AAC (Stirling) who finished a very strong second ahead of A Kidd Garscube) who was second”   The club inevitably fell away against such strong clubs as Shettleston, Victoria Park, Bellahouston and Garscube to finish 16th of the 26 competing teams.   Runners this time were Crawford (whose 15:10 was eight fastest of the day – one place ahead of Jim Flockhart), M Kaney (17:15), J Wilson (16:21) and D Clelland (15:28).    Flockhart’s time was 15:13 with Bellahouston’s Bob Climie 10th fastest on 15:14.   

If we move on to the Midland District Championships, we see that there were    Seniors on the programme but there were none who actually ran in the race.   The Youths team however had M Kaney in 7th position, and A Lafferty 18th, both running as individuals.  As a matter of interest, they had six Youths entered – Kaney, Lafferty, J Quinn, J Kilgannon, J McCracken, C Girvan and G Shearer and C McGhee were listed as reserves.    The senior squad entered consisted of D  Clelland, M McGurr, JF Walker, J Wilson, J Kerr, P Donnelly and A Crawford.   Note the name of JF Walker – that would be Joe Walker who started the whole St Modan’s High School ball rolling and who would play a big part in Scottish athletics for decades to come.   The club had the numbers but not enough prepared to travel to Hamilton for the championships.   

Came the National on 5th March 1949 at Ayr Racecourse and the club had six youths entered but only tow seniors – Clelland and Donnelly.   The Youths team of McCafferty 9th, M Kaney 30th, G McDonald 41st, J Quinn 52nd was seventh with A Lafferty 57th and J Brown 79th as non-scoring runners.     Clelland was 19th in the Senior race, one place behind W Gallacher (Vale of Leven) and ahead of CD Robertson (Dundee Thistle), AC Gibson of Hamilton, J Ellis (VPAAC), T Tracey (Springburn) and H Howard of Shettleston.   Transport was not easy in those post-war days and in addition most men worked on Saturday mornings.   They were probably contributory factors to the small turn out of seniors, just not for St Modan’s alone.    

In  Summer  1949 Stewart Petty was again the top name for the club in track athletics and as a club they held their open meeting on 14th May, 1949.  The star of the afternoon was Ireland’s JJ Barry.     Lots of Scottish internationalists turned out and performed to their abilities – Donnie McDonald won the sprints, Petty won the half mile, Chick Robertson won the Road Race – to make the day a success.   To cap it all, there were two club successes – in addition to the half-mile, the club’s representative, A McLaren, won the high jump

 

Two weeks later on 23rd May at Ibrox in a really top class meeting with athletes like Olympian Tom Richards competing the report referred to Petty’s “excellent time for the half-mile” but didn’t say what it was.   It was Glasgow’s first ever Highland Games and the handicap 880 was won by J Reid of Victoria Park from a mark of 40 yards in one minute 55 seconds.   One week later on 30th May he ran in the Gala Sports where the report read “JS Petty (St Modan’s) last year’s Scottish half mile champion, ran a splendid race in the event at the Gala Harriers and Gala Cycling Club’s meeting.   “Running from scratch he overtook all but D Dick (Edinburgh Northern) whop had an allowance of 32 yards, and was beaten by only 3 yards in 2 min 1.5.”     There was a rare defeat for Petty on 11th June when in the Glasgow Police Sports at Hampden Park he was second to T Begg (Glasgow University) in the invitation 880 yards handicap race.   Running from the 36 yards mark (Begg was off 40) he defeated Boysen of Norway who started from 18 yards.   The SAAA Championships of 1949 were also held at Hampden Park on 27th June when running from scratrch of course he won the title in 1 min 56 sec from the same T Begg with J Smart in third.   Of this race, Emmet Farrell commented on “The darting, quicksilver finish of JS Petty in winning the 880 yards.”   

A few words about Petty are in order.   He was born Joshua Stewart Petty in Stirling in 1929 he died 2010 in Dunfermline.    His national rankings were as follows.

 1949:  880y 1:56.0,          1950 880y 1:55.3, 800m 1:54.6.          1953 1:59.0 est 880y.          1954 60.5 440yH.

Later in his career Petty went on to run for BellahoustonAlready noted are his two SAAA 880 titles as a Junior and as a Senior as well as his two bronze AAA medals..    

If we go back to the 1949 championships, the club was also represented in the Junior championship by T Smith who won the Shot Putt with a istance of  41′ 6 3/4″, and was second in the Discus.    It was not a one man club but the name Petty keeps coming up.   The Rangers Sports were held on the first Saturday in August and in 1949 there were approx  60,000 spectators who saw top class sport from athletes from the USA as well as from all the home countries.   There was even a story attached to this win.   The report in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ told us all about it.    “GW Nankeville, who was to have run in the mile, responded to the appeal of the English team manager and ran in the “half” instead because of the absence of CT White.   Nankeville shaped well for a lap but the Scottish champion JS Petty, and a former champion, J Smart, running off12 and 18 yards respectively, resisted the challenge.   Petty with a superb effort, caught Smart on the finishing line and won in 1 min 55.9 sec which is probably one of the best performances ever by the St Modan’s youth.   Nankeville faded before the finish.” 

PETTY’S SEASON WASN’T OVER YET THOUGH.   He was given two different names on the same page in the ‘Scots Athlete’ of August 1949.   The first was with reference to the Open and Invitation Floodlight Meeting at Ibrox when the report said that  “Stewart Petty confirmed his recent great improvement by clocking 1 min 55.8 sec off 8 yards for the half-mile.”   In the very next column the reference was to the triangular international in Belfast when it said   “Joshua Petty ran a fine race for Scotland and finished a good third.”   

The opening race of winter 1949/50 was the McAndrew four man Relay at Whiteinch in Glasgow and there was only one team entered instead of two as in the year before.   The quality was higher this time though.    The team of A Crawford, A McHugh, T McGhee and D Clelland was seventh in afield of 43 teams.   The younger athletes were not forgotten either – on 3rd December 1949 at King’s Park, Stirling with 24 teams and 20 individuals competing.    They did not perform as well as might have been expected on what was basically their home territory.   The team was 20th of the 20 teams to finish with T McCracken (87th), A Galbraith (93rd), M Kelly (94th) and M Foxworthy (113rd) being the runners.

There was no National Novice Championship in 1949 – the event was discontinued after the 1948 race.  However the Midland District Relay was also held on 3rd December at the Inveresk Pavilion of Monkland Harriers in Coatbridge with a record entry of 37 teams.   The St Modan’s team was eighth – A Crawford (14:53), A McHugh (15:40), J Wilson (15:34) and D Clelland (14:44) were the club’s men this time.   The District Championships were held on 5th February, 1950, at Motherwell and were won by Walter Lennie of Vale of Leven from Tommy Tracey of Springburn.   The first St Modan’s runner was D Clelland who was 20th.   Clelland had been a very good club man having run in relays, open races and championships over all distances since the club was formed, often enough as the only club runner toeing the starting line.   He was accompanied by A Crawford in 36th, A McHugh 75th, J Wilson 106th, P Donnelly 122nd and J Keilt 136th.   The club was 12th out of the 19 entered teams.   Crawford is another interesting individual in that he ran well in relays year after year but seemed to fight shy of the longer cross-country races.   This is the first note of him in a long team event.   The other runners on the day were all good regular club servants who helped keep the club going.   There were 12 teams entered in the Youths race and St Modan’s was 10th finishing club.   They were represented by A Lafferty 35th, A Galbraith 41st, M Kelly 45th, and T McCracken 53rd with A McGhee as a non-scoring runner in 58th.        The local convener was JF Walker, making one of his first steps towards what would be a very good career in which he would give much to the sport.

The senior and junior national championships were held at Hamilton on 4th March.   St Modan’s Seniors were again scarce on the ground with D Clelland firts club man across the finishing line in 25th place followed for the club by J Wilson 90th – and that was it.   The Junior team was very interesting – 

Unfortunately none of them ran.   The first name is maybe significant – the first entry of Joe McGhee in the National.    It had been a good year for the club but when it came to the National championships, there were two seniors, no juniors and the Youths team finished 20th out of 20.   

What would the summer of 1950 bring?   On 27th May in the Glasgow Highland Games there were several of the club taking prizes home to Stirling.   JS Woods showed his versatility by having two third places – in the 220 yards and then in the 880 yards and A McHugh was second in the Mile.   When it came to the SAAA Championships on 24th/25th June at Hampden however, Petty made the Final where he was unplaced after a controversial race – “The half was an unfortunate affair.   At the first bend Hugh Hatrick was tripped (no, of course not deliberately, but tripped all the same) and stumbled.   It seems that the holder, Stewart Petty strained himself having a hasty look round and in any case had to retire to leave the others to fight it out.   Ex champ Jim Smart tried a jump on the back straight but hadn’t the strength of Tom Begg who raced powerfully home in 1 min 57.1 secs.   Though feeling sorry for Stewart (we don’t think Hugh would have been “in at the death”) let’s not detract from Tom’s grand win.”    There was a medal for the club however when Dave Clelland took second place in the steeplechase behind Burns of Kilmarnock and just in front ot Lamb of Bellahouston.   Petty was back in action soon and was third in the Invitation Hal-Mile at Rangers Sports on the first Saturfay in August behind Mal Whitfield who set an all-comers record, and Jim Smart.   Then in the Triangular match against England & Wales, and Ireland, Petty was third again in the half-mile with Smart in fourth place. the race being won by Arthur Wint (1:52.4)  from Roger Bannister (1:54.5) .

Above: The start of the 1950 Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay as shown on the cover of the programme for the 1951 race

The winter season of 1950/51 started with the McAndrew Relay where St Modan’s finished eighth of 49 teams completing the course.   Runners were McHugh  16:28, Kaney 16:43, Clelland 17:04 and J McGhee 17:04.   There was also a B team which finished 42nd with ‘that man again’ on the first stage – JS Petty in 18:00, then A Galbraith in 17:41, P Donnelly 17:45 and C Girvan 17:19.    The reason for two teams became clear in November when, on the 18th of the month, the club took part in the prestigious eight man Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay.   There were 13 runners listed on the programme which is listed below.   The names are all familiar to us by now and it is well known that competing clubs allused the short relays such as the McAndrew to prepare their potential team for the News of the World sponsored race.   

The runners in order were A McHugh who was 11th on the first stage before handing over to Joe McGhee on the very difficult second and who pulled the club from11th  to 9th running the tenth fastest time on the stage.   J Wilson ran third and dropped to 12th before passing the baton to A Galbraith on the fourth stage and at halfway the club was running 12th.   It should be pointed out that for a club as young as St Modan’s running for the first time in the biggest winter race of the year in the cut-throat rivalry, this was not a bad position to be in.   P Donnelly was next runner on the exposed fifth stage and he dropped to 17th before Dave Clelland faced the really competitive sixth stage racing against some of the biggest guns in the race. For instance Cick Robertson started the stage in 18th and finished the stage in 18th with Dave fending him off and running an excellent 6th fastest time of the day.   The club stayed in 17th all the way to the end with the last two runners being M Kaney and J Walker.    Would that J Walker be the Joe Walker who was such an important figure in Scottish athletics official and administrative circles for decades to come?   Almost certainly.    

The Inter-Counties Championship was held at Stirling on 16th December and there were several St Modan’s men in the Stirlingshire team – D Clelland was rewarded for his superb running in the E-G and led the team home in 5th place with Joe McGhee in tenth, M Kaney 15th and A Galbraith 21st.   The team finished third.   The ‘Scots Athlete published a list of the top Scots track and field athletes for the 1950 season and the top five were all fields events men, with JS Petty at number nine because of two half-mile times – 1:54.6 in England and 1:55.4 in Scotland.   Unfortunately the venues and dates were not included in the review.   

The Nigel Barge road race took place as usual on the first Saturday of the New Year at Maryhill in Glasgow and there was a St Modan’s team aming the 17 taking part.   D Clelland was 21st, M Kaney 32nd, A Galbraith 50th,  J Lynn 54th and J McCracken 65th.   In the February, 1951 issue of the ‘Scots Athlete’ magazine a letter was published from club captain David Clelland which highlighted two things – the need for coaching to spread further, faster through the country, and the difficulties of travel at the time.   HAL Chapman had been appointed national coach a year or so before the letter which read 

It’s not clear whether it was in response to the letter, but National Coach Chapman held a coaching day in Falkirk later that month.   The District Championships themselves were held at Stepps Stadium on 4th February 1951.     In the Youths race, the club was fifth of eight, with A Galbraith first man home in 12th followed by C Meldrum in 17th, G Gray  27th and K Murie 29th.    There were again very few senior men in action, possibly because of the travel difficulties in the country at the time – D Clelland was 23rd and M Kaney 49th were the only finishers.   The National was held at Hamilton again on 3rd March 1951.   Joe McGhee was first club man in 25th, David Clelland was 22nd and that was it for the Seniors.   For the Juniors J McCracken was 49th, J Lynn was 77th and B Maxwell 83rd.   The Youths race H Galbraith was 24th and C Meldrum 40th.   The season was now over and like other clubs, St Modan’s headed for the track.

The club was still holding its meeting at Annfield in Stirling but reports on it are difficult to find in papers that at the time were down to 10, 8 or even 6 pages at times.   We do know that there was a medal for the club in the SAAA Championships at Hampden on 23rd June – but this time it was not JS Petty but a man who repeated his run of the previous year. – Emmet Farrell describes the race thus.   “Bob Climie (Bellahouston) is a sporting athlete who is game for a race, be it a “220” to 10 miles cross-country was a sporting winner of the steeplechase.   He was just too strong for another “game” runner in Dave Clelland (St Modan’s) who made the pace most of the way.   The St Modan’s boy was runner-up also last year.”   The result was Climie first in 11:02.4, Clelland second in 11:05..4 and John Stevenson of Springburn in 11:11.0.   

We have mentioned Joe McGhee running for the club on the road and over the country but that he was destined for great things on the road as was shown on 25th August when he ran in the Perth to Dundee 22 miles road race, where he finished sixth in a very good field including Chick Robertson (Dundee Thistle), Harry Howard (Shettleston), RW McMinnis (Sutton), A Arbuckle (Monkland) and Alex Kidd of Garscube Harriers.   His time of 2:09:41 was less than 8 minutes behind Robertson.      He also ran in the City of Edinburgh Marathon where again he finished sixth – and again behind Alex Kidd – in 2:48:19.

The Winter 1951/52 McAndrew was held on 6th October with 55 teams entered.   The St Modan’s team finished 17th with Clelland on the first stage recprdong 16:31  followed by A Galbraith who ran 17:41, then McGhee on 1643 and J Lynn (17:23).   In the Midland Relays on 3rd November at Stepps, St Modan’s team was led off by Clelland in 15:03 who then handed over to McGhee (14:48 who was followed by J Lynn (16:08) and M Kaney (15:53) for the team to be 12th out of 26 finishers.   With no team from the club in the E-G relay, it was on to the Nigel Barge Road Race at Martyhill at the start of January where Joe McGhee finished 8th to lead the team of himself, J McCracken 20th and J Lynn 37th to sixth place – only two pojnts ahead of the Greenock Wellpark team of the Stevenson brothers and George King.   The Midland Championships were held at Lenzie on 2nd February, 1952 and run in atrocious weather conditions.   Nevertheless the day got off to a good start for the Stirling club when the Youths team finished in second place behind Cambuslang and Bellahouston – it was a very close run thing with the points being 24, 25 and 27!    The heroes were C Medlrum 2, D Kaney y6 and C Gray 9.   There were only two seniors who finished the course for the club – Dave Clelland, club captain and double SAAA track medallist, who was pretty well and ever present in championship racing, finished 81st in dreadful, wet and muddy weather  and Joe McGhee who was sixth finisher.   What company was he keeping?   the first five were Eddie Bannon, Dave Nelson, Andy Forbes, Bob Climie and Tommy Tracey.   Emmet Farrell remarked that his sixth place underlined once more that he is one of Scotland’s most improved runners.   He went on in the same issue of the magazine to note him as a challenger for international honours after the upcoming national championship.   Unfortunately, the results of the National at Hamilton that year, as published in ‘The Scots Athlete’ did not have a single runner from St Modan’s in any of the three races – Youths, Juniors or Seniors.   Rather surprising given the talent already displayed previously that winter.

Jim Peters set anew world record of 2:20:42.2 for the marathon in 1952 in the AAA’s championship with several Scots in the field and doing well.   One of them was Joe McGhee who finished 16th in 2:39:29.   Came the SAAA’s championship and Dave Clelland again picked up a medal – bronze this time in 11:05.6.   The SAAA marathon championship on 6th August was held on the Methven to Dundee course and was won by local man Chick Robertson in 2:38:07 from Duffy of Hadleigh in 2:38:32 with Emmet Farrell 3rd and Jack Paterson 4th.   Joe McGhee was fifth in 2:44:46 which was three minutes up on Alex Kidd of Garscube.   He had been with the leading pack almost all the way through the race – leading at 5 miles in 29:50 and splits of 57:28 for 10 miles, 1:26:30 at 15 and 2:00:34 for 20.   

St Modan’s AC 1952 – ’59      St Modan’s AC 1960 – ’65

 

 

There were BAAB booklets for all track and field events and they were all kept up to date with revised editions being written by new National Coaches.   In addition to be event specific, they were well produced to be long lasting and were available at very reasonable prices.    The selection below have the names of some of the very best coaches that the country has had – John Le Masurier, Denis Watts, Wilf Paish,, Jim Alford and Ron Pickering were only a few of those who produced them.  They were preceded by the AAA’s Booklets from just after the war and some of their covers can be seen here .    Before we start on some cover shots, the complete series in 1978 is shown:

 

 

You will note the huge increase in price over the years – Pickering’s book at 5/- (five shillings, 25p) as against £2:50 for the ’78 version

When Graham McDonald sent the Decathlon Training Guide, he thought that the note about Tom McNab was worth including – it certainly makes interesting reading.

 

… and there were even BAAB Books for officials …

The one above is the 1963 version, and below are the issues of 1969 and 1987

 

They were so popular that others tried coaching booklets for all sorts of games and pastimes .   Among those were the KTG series (Know The Game) –

 

These and others like them were preceded by AAA’s instructional booklets – maybe less polished in presentation but that was down to the times in which they were printed.   You can see some of the covers from the link below.

AAA Instructional Booklets

 

Brian Gardner’s detailed, five-section memoir – ‘No Cross-Country for Old Men’ – is fascinating to read. Not only is it very well written but, with complete honesty and wry humour, it also traces the highs and lows of life (sporting and otherwise).  Brian had considerable athletic talent, which was nurtured at Airdrie Harriers and Clyde Valley AAC, when he was coached by the great Tommy Boyle.   Young Brian was especially good at 800m, 1500m and cross-country.  He won a Scottish Schools Steeplechase title.  Moving to England (for study and then work) Brian improved his personal bests and finished a very good 14^th in the 1979 Scottish Senior National Cross-Country Championships. Sadly, injuries interrupted progress and led to depression. However, this is a tale of amazing resilience, recovery and achievement, against the odds. Even after his tenth operation meant complete retirement from running before the age of 60, Brian switched to competing in Open Water Swimming. (Earlier, he had also won a British title in the sport of Modern Triathlon (Swimming, Shooting, Running).

Section Four, below, deals with Brian’s stellar running career as a Veteran athlete (M40 to M55). Read and enjoy! 

(As paperback, hardback or e-book/Kindle, the whole book is now available to buy from amazon.co.uk Just type in ‘No Cross Country for Old Men by Brian Gardner’.)

No Cross-Country for Old Men
By Brian Gardner

The Closing Laps: Veteris 

 

   Chapter Fourteen: Crisis

The summer of 1993 was disrupted by another operation, although not for a sports injury: it was a vasectomy. Recovery was supposed to be easy but, thanks to an infection, it was more painful than the last two operations put together.

Going into the biathlon season, I was swimming more often than running. The climax of this was silver in the National. Then they changed the rules, imposing an additional handicap of minus 200 points on every competitor under the age of forty, effectively taking us out of the reckoning. I had one more year of modern triathlon and biathlon in 1994, unsurprisingly without medals, and then decided to return to running. I had joined the newly-formed Calne Running Club and thought it was time to say goodbye to the track, return to my cross-country roots and enjoy some low-key road races and relays.

The road relays were fun, always ending in the pub. I was elected club captain and also ‘player-manager’ of the Wiltshire men’s cross-country team. My final race of the 1995/96 season was in the Wessex League at Blandford where I clinched third place overall after improving from eighteenth in the first round to second. It was twelve years after my last medal in the same league. The standard in the league had slipped, like most of UK distance running. It was my final race as a senior because two weeks later I turned forty.

And became a veteran.

I wasn’t tempted by the disappearance of the 200 points penalty that a return to modern triathlon would bring. Armed with the knowledge gained from coaching and coach education as well as twenty-three years of running, I was preparing for a season at 800 metres and 1500 metres.

Not the marathon?

Here’s how the conversation goes, one that has been repeated ad nauseum many times since the marathon boom of the early eighties.

‘So, you’re a runner, then?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Marathons?’

(Notice it’s always ‘marathons’—plural—as if one marathon isn’t enough.)

‘No, not marathons. I run track and cross-country.’

‘How far is that, then?’

‘Well, there’s 1500 metres on the track.’

‘1500 metres: that’s not even a mile.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Not much of a challenge, is it?’

‘Well, it depends how hard you run it.’

‘But marathons are a bigger challenge, aren’t they? You could move up to marathons, couldn’t you?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I enjoy running 1500 metres and cross-country. I want to try my best to improve my times and win championships.’

‘How far is cross-country, then?’

‘It varies, usually about five miles.’

‘Oh well, then you could probably manage marathons; really test yourself.’

*******

Approaching the bell at the end of the first lap of the 800 metres at the South West Veterans Championships, Exeter.

A balding runner moves up alongside me, vying for pole position.

An old balding bloke? I can’t let somebody like that beat me. But, hang on: I’m an old balding bloke. (I’ve been warned that there’s something uncomfortable about being at an event when everyone is over the age of forty.) I pick up the pace and hold the bend.

And win in 2:05.0.

An hour later, I’m watching the back of the early leader of the 1500 metres as he pulls away.

But only so far, then I start to reel him in.

200 metres to go, I’m on his shoulder. Do I take it on now or wait until we’re in the final straight? I’m feeling good: let’s go now.

I win in 4:15.8.

It’s my first veteran-only competition and I’m a (double) South West Champion.

So far, so good.

*******

On reaching the age of forty, many runners think it’s going to be easy: they’re the youngest, all they have to do is match times achieved in their late thirties and they’ll win. It’s not that easy: it’s more about managing your inevitable decline than being a slave to your times from younger days. And it’s competitive: standards are high at the top level of the ‘vets’.

My training was going well. I was following the five-tier system: progressive sessions at 400 metres, 800 metres, 1500 metres, 3,000 metres and 5,000 metres pace. A progressive competition programme was more of a challenge: there was the Wiltshire Senior Championship and the occasional open meeting but Calne had no track team: I was the only one. However, I did manage to run 2:01.2 for 800 metres leading up to the British Veterans Championships and a return to Exeter.

The 1500 metres on Saturday was a straight final. Showing some of my old aggression I led for the middle section and wound up fifth in my fastest time of the season—4:12.38—a pbv (personal best as a veteran). Looking at the results on the board, I thought about changing my name to Dave: all four in front of me were Daves. I won my heat in the 800 metres on Sunday and finished last in the final. This could have been another crying-in-the-showers incident. However, twenty years older, I reflected that 2:03.70 was a respectable time, it was my third race of a weekend that included a season’s best exactly when it should be—in the final of the most important event of the season—and it had been a successful return to the track.

Encouraged, I wrote to the Scottish Veterans team manager, asking to be considered for selection in the Veterans’ Home Countries International Championship, coming up in November. I wrote about my performances that season on track, the previous season on the country and my fourteenth place in the Scottish in my younger days. Fingers crossed, I posted the letter and waited for a reply.

Meanwhile, we were hosting the first Calne 10K road race, which was to incorporate a veterans’ race and a trophy.

Dad’s trophy.

The year after Dad died, Mum had commissioned a trophy in his memory for the first veteran to finish the annual road race in Airdrie. When the race ceased to be held, the trophy lay dormant in Mum’s attic, from where I reclaimed it and had a new inscription added: First veteran to finish the annual road race in Calne. It was a proud moment when I walked up wearing my Airdrieonians shirt to receive Dad’s trophy.

Unlike the long-running exchange of letters leading to my selection for British Colleges, there was a straightforward reply from the Scottish Veterans manager. It confirmed my selection for the Scotland over forties’ (M40) team and provided details of where and when to meet. With the minimum of fuss, I was on the edge of achieving a lifetime’s ambition: to run for Scotland.

It wasn’t the World Cross but it was the only international veterans’ event of the year when top quality in-depth was guaranteed. Although only five nations gathered for the British & Irish International Cross-Country Championships, this was usually a higher standard than the European and World Championships. Whilst there were stars amongst athletes from all over Europe or the World at the continental or global championships, nobody got there by selection: they all entered as individuals and paid their own way. On the other hand, only selected athletes made the start line at the British & Irish, and competition for selection was fierce.

The championships were hosted on a five year cycle by England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales and, as in 1996, Scotland. In less than glamorous circumstances, I drove to Airdrie after school on the Friday, Susan drove Mum and me to Irvine for the race on Saturday, and I drove back down to Calne on Sunday.

It was a huge thrill to pull on my Scotland vest and line up to represent my country at last. In my excitement I started too quickly but recovered and ran a sensible race thereafter to finish twenty-fourth (eighteenth M40). Overtaking another Scotland M40 in the run-in, I had squeezed into Scotland’s scoring four, helping the team to silver medals. It was my first international medal, although I didn’t see it until a week later: we left before the presentation, because of my early start and long drive home the next day. Once again, I was an unknown: turned up, ran the race, didn’t have time to get to know the team, went home.

But nothing could diminish my sense of achievement. I left wanting more.

*******

Looking for more regular races as my second track season as a vet began, I joined the British Milers’ Club (BMC), which had been set up to raise standards in middle-distance running by providing regular, meaningful competition. I ran for the BMC Vets in a successful world record 4×1500 metres attempt at Watford. Unfortunately, I was in the ‘B’ team, which failed to finish. It was no compensation that we ran a decent 3×1500 metres. However, 4:10.6 was a promising start to the season, nearly two seconds quicker than my best.

But I would run no faster.

It was nothing to do with injury, bad planning or over-racing.

It was the start of a long period of illness.

Brought about by stress.

At school.

It was another crisis.

I came to the village school in January 1996 with a good reputation, forged during six years in Swindon, where amongst my post-Snap projects had been writing and implementing a new Physical Education policy and scheme of work, and grounds development. Raising funds from grants, I coordinated the planting of thousands of trees, hedging, shrubs and flowers. Together with new fencing, bird boxes, extensive pathways and a redevelopment of the pond area, the grounds were transformed from a featureless ‘green desert’ into a haven akin to a nature reserve. Every child in the school was involved: from planting a bulb to designing plans.

It was in the midst of this transformation that the headteacher of the village school came to observe me in my classroom. She was visiting all candidates who were due to interview for deputy head at her school. She liked my style of teaching and saw in me what she felt her school was missing: a leader with a firm understanding of the curriculum.

I should have heeded the warning signs but, excited by an opportunity, I was in denial.

It was my tenth interview for deputy headship: could I not see that the previous nine were trying to tell me something? There were ninety children on roll in the village school but the headteacher did not teach a class. Did that not ring any alarm bells for me? She wanted a deputy head with a firm understanding of the curriculum. Is that not the headteacher’s job? What had she been doing with the curriculum so far? The Swindon school was in a relatively poor area where most parents took little interest, whereas the village school was in a middle-class area, where most parents wanted to be involved, not always in a positive and helpful way. Could I not see that transplanting ideas and methods from one school to the other was going to cause problems?

If only we could benefit in advance from hindsight. In ignorance I blundered into the crisis. As well as teaching my class full-time, I developed policies and schemes of work—none of which were already in place—in every subject area. Inevitably, in the limited time available, this work was rushed, without full consultation or involvement of staff and governors. Everything had to be in place by the end of the year and a half between a worrying pre-inspection review (before my time) and a forthcoming Office for Standards in Education  (OFSTED) inspection. I tried to teach my class with the same methods that had brought success before, not giving myself time to think that this school and these children required a different, bespoke approach. Almost idiotically, and shortly after joining the school, I volunteered to coordinate another grounds development project.

The number on the school roll increased to over a hundred during that year and a half.

And still there were only three classes, not the more obvious four.

My own class grew from thirty-three to thirty-nine, made up of all of the Years 2, 3 and 4 children.

And still the headteacher did not teach a class.

It was a recipe for disaster.

By the time the inspection week came along, I was running ragged.

The school did not fail the inspection.

Neither did I.

The school was not put into special measures.

Neither was I.

But strong recommendations were made.

And it appeared that I was to be the scapegoat.

Had I suddenly changed from being a good teacher to a poor one?

*******

‘It’s not our job to advise; would that it were’.

‘Improve the teaching in the middle class.’

‘This is down to you.’

‘If you walk out of that classroom now, you’ll never come back.’

‘Go and have your nervous breakdown somewhere else.’

*******

Driving home on Friday at the end of OFSTED week.

I haven’t failed, but I’m a failure.

As a teacher.

As a husband.

As a father.

As a person.

When I get home and walk through the door, what am I going to do?

What do I say?

How am I going to get through the weekend?

And go back to school on Monday?

How do I face that?

How do I face…

Anything?

On the edge of a steep drop.

Why not…

Drive the car…

Over the edge?

Turn the steering wheel.

Crash through the fence.

Let go of the wheel.

Let go of everything.

Let myself go…

Over the edge.

End it all.

Is the drop steep enough?

*******

The edge of a cold loch.

I didn’t do it then.

I found a way forward.

I won’t do it now.

I’ll find a way.

But how, what?

*******

Friday evening.

I’m sitting on our kitchen floor, rocking back and forth.

Jane makes an appointment with our doctor.

For Saturday morning.

*******

‘You’re ill. You’re not going back to work. I’m signing you off. Taking you out of the situation that’s causing you this stress.’

I’ve never been off with stress before.

I’ve always kept going.

Have to keep going.

Can’t let the children down.

Can’t let the family down.

Have to keep the income coming in.

‘You’re ill. Your priority is to get better. It’s the only priority.’

Okay, I’ll go off sick.

But after I write the reports, after I take the class on a planned trip, after I finish…

‘No. Someone else can do all that. You’re ill. Go off sick now.’

*******

I’m in my classroom.

On Saturday morning.

We’re all there: Jane, Sam, Emma and me.

It’s a compromise.

Put things in place to make it easier for a supply teacher to take over.

Then go home.

Phone the head.

Go off sick.

Stay off.

Three hours later, that’s exactly what I do.

*******

Three weeks later.

Sixteen years of teaching plus four in training.

Twenty years.

I had never been off sick for three consecutive weeks before.

It had never before occurred to me to go off sick, despite the obvious signs and symptoms that I was suffering from work-related stress. I had responsibilities to the school. I had to keep working, get through the OFSTED week, do my best to take the school forward.

Nor had it occurred to me to give up teaching altogether. I had responsibilities to the family. I had to provide for them. How would we manage without an income?

I had responsibilities to myself, too. I had trained for four years and had been teaching full-time for sixteen. It was my vocation. It was part of me. I couldn’t give it all up after twenty years.

Could I?

Then I discovered that income wasn’t an issue: I would be paid 100% of my salary for six months and then 50% for a further six, when sick pay would make up the difference. For a whole year we would be no worse off.

A whole year.

Would I really be off sick for a whole year?

Then what?

‘Deal with that when it comes,’ my doctor advised. ‘I’ll keep signing you off. Concentrate on getting well.’ He prescribed anti-depressants and referred me to a mental health consultant.

I thought I was the only one.

‘You’re not the only one,’ my doctor assured me. ‘There are hundreds, maybe thousands of teachers just like you.’

This was 1997.

People still didn’t understand mental health, especially men’s mental health.

But there were exceptions, including our GP. It could have been so different: he could have been dismissive. And I had experienced enough of that when I was first injured. But he understood, knew exactly what to say and what to do. Set me on the road to recovery.

A long road

Chapter Fifteen: Tribunal

Who were these thousands of teachers like me? I’d never met any of them. Never heard of anyone. Were we all in denial?

Until I bumped into a former colleague from Swindon, outside the Co-op in Calne. She was off sick too. Her feelings were similar to mine: despair, uselessness, anger, wanting to blame someone, blaming herself, feeling alone despite the support of family. So, I wasn’t the only one but did that help?

At this point I should be able to recount how running saved me: how it provided a release from stress, a distraction, a different focus, time to think and make decisions about the future, a new way forward, a happy ending.

That’s not what happened.

My GP had recommended exercise. That wouldn’t be a problem, I had assured him.

But it was.

At first I hung up my spikes and went out for a run over the hills, trying to relax. I went swimming, cycling and walking the dogs, all at times when I would have been in school. It was a relief. It was almost revenge: doing something that I wanted to do instead of being a slave to OFSTED. If only the inspectors knew how they destroyed lives.

After a few weeks I started to train for the track again. Released from the physical exhaustion of teaching, I had much more time to recover from training, which was going well. I resumed my racing programme.

Which didn’t go well.

My 5K road relay times were a minute slower than pre-OFSTED. Meanwhile on the track, I would get into good positions but when the time came to dig deep and find another gear, there was nothing there. There was no competitive urge. It felt like adrenaline had run dry. Aggression had disappeared.

I hung up my spikes again and went for a run.

This should be when I describe how I connected with nature, reconnected with myself, rediscovered…

Something.

I didn’t.

I described my feelings to the mental health consultant. Were the drugs suppressing my competitive instinct? Did they have an effect on adrenaline? The consultant confirmed that there was some truth in what I was suggesting. Drugs were supposed to be help me feel better and recover from illness. If they were having an adverse effect on running, it was like putting up barriers, a roadblock on my alternative route to recovery. It was counter-productive.

We agreed that I would wean myself off the drugs.

By the end of the summer I was drug-free, and preparing for my second cross-country season as a vet. Having regained some confidence, I had started to volunteer at our local sports centre. Where, after a career of working with young children, I discovered that I had an affinity with older people. Months after withdrawing into myself, I gradually crept out of my shell and chatted with the older people. They were happy that a younger person was taking an interest in what they had to say, and they were interested in me, too. Although I never revealed the full story of what brought me to their group as a volunteer, they seemed to know. Life experience brings perception.

I took them on weekly walks, which usually ended at a café or a pub for lunch, and I started to assist the fitness instructor in the gym. The manager wanted to keep me on and, as he couldn’t pay me, the centre funded my attendance at courses: fitness instruction, the National Pool Lifeguard Qualification (NPLQ), exercise referral, older people’s exercise, even an IT course. Over the course of a year, I was setting myself up for a career in leisure and fitness.

I sent a new doctor’s note to the headteacher every month without fail. So far, there was no pressure to return to school. I was beginning to relax into volunteering and running. One step at a time, I was starting to feel good about myself again: doing something useful, being liked.

And running well: I was called up for Scotland again.

It was odd that the British and Irish always took place in November, much nearer the beginning of the season than the traditional place for major championships at the end. The selectors either had to arrange an early trial race or rely on current or previous form. In my case, it had to be previous form: I had done nothing since the beginning of the track season. Scotland put its faith in me, which made me feel even better about myself.

I wasn’t going to let Scotland down.

It was Northern Ireland’s turn to stage the races. Curiously, Scotland arranged a coach journey, not flights. My journey was longer than most but I saw it as a continuation of my recovery. It was my first time away from home since going off sick. I would miss the family but I was looking forward to an adventure.

Train to Glasgow, then Airdrie to stay a night with Mum. Then train back to Glasgow, Mum coming with me to see me off. Team coach to Stranraer, ferry to Belfast, coach to Ballymena.

On the back of good early season form I ran confidently, finishing seventeenth (fourteenth M40) and third Scot. It was an improvement on the previous year. More significantly, I belonged. The long journey by coach and ferry, the two-night stay in the team hotel and the presentation and dance all fostered team spirit. Unlike the mad dash of my international debut, there was time to get to know my teammates: Archie Jenkins, our top runner, always up for it; Davie Fairweather, team manager, always there for you; Iain Stewart (not that Ian Stewart), always close to my standard; Colin Youngson, another teacher, always eloquent; Jane Waterhouse, an adopted Scot, always there or thereabouts; Hazel Bradley, always cheerful.

I took my good form and renewed confidence with me on the long journey home and into the remainder of the season. Sixteen years after my first attempt, I finally won the senior title in the Wessex League, with two first places and two thirds. I then returned to Scotland for the Scottish Veterans Championship and drove back home two days later with a bronze medal in my pocket. I remember having last year’s winner in my sights in the run-in. It was Fraser Clyne who, as a student, had beaten me in that representative match in Camberley and went on to become one of Britain’s top marathon runners. I was in exalted company again, knowing that one final thrust would take me past Fraser and into the medal positions. It was a proud moment when I walked onto the stage to receive my first national cross-country medal.

As a successful season drew to a close, I completed my leisure and fitness training. I had been shy at the beginning of the fitness instructor course, amongst a group made up mostly of ex-forces personnel and PE student-types. Slowly but surely I found my way. Passing the practical assessment, which required a demonstration of perfect technique in free weights, was a landmark achievement for me, such a contrast from the destructive nature of OFSTED.  In regaining my self-respect, I also earned the respect of the rest of the class, particularly at the final assessment when I led them in a circuit training session.

The course enhanced my own exercise routine, adding quality weights training to my usual long runs, cross-country and hill repetitions supplemented by a weekly swim and regular cycling. My mileage had crept up from the thirty miles per week of my modern triathlon days to around forty-five: not excessive. I had been able to maintain quality and quantity for a whole season and I wasn’t injured. It proved beyond doubt that a sustained period of regular, sensible training leads to good racing.

Running was helping me recover from the trauma of OFSTED, after all. Volunteering and vocational training were providing me with a new purpose in life. However, school was never out of my mind. The end of a year off sick was approaching. By now, I had decided never to return to the classroom. What was I going to do when the salary stopped coming into my bank account? Working in leisure wouldn’t pay the bills. Even if it did, I couldn’t get a job until my contract at school had ended. Rather than let it happen to me, I decided to influence the way that it ended.

History was repeating itself. My recoveries from injury had taught me resilience, proactivity and determination. I sought advice and guidance from my GP, my mental health consultant and my union rep, Craig.

Together we formed a plan.

The doctors agreed that, when my teaching contract ended, I should be eligible for retirement on the grounds of ill health. And yet, they knew that I was getting better. It was a dilemma. At the one extreme, I was volunteering, training for a new career and running internationally; at the other, I needed to show that I was unfit to return to the classroom. Which was undeniably true: no matter how well I seemed on the outside, each and every thought of facing my demons again filled me with dread, caused palpitations, loosened the bowels, made me feel physically sick.

In order for me to extricate myself from teaching, fully recover from the crisis and start again, both extremes had to be in place at the same time. This was the challenge faced by my union rep and me as we attended a tribunal at school.

*******

It’s the first time I’ve been at the school gates since that Saturday morning almost a year ago, when I was here with the family, preparing to leave it all behind.

Conspiratorially, Craig and I turn to each other. He sighs, gives his shoulders the slightest of shrugs, his facial expression saying: here we go, good luck. Taller than me, he pats me gently on the back, almost fatherly, and we walk through the gates and into school.

Two and a half years ago I walked anxiously through these same gates, relishing the opportunity that my first deputy headship would bring, anticipating a turn of fortunes, an advancement of my career.

How could I have known that those fortunes would turn against me? That, far from an opportunity, it would be a nightmare? Far from advancement, it would end my career?

And now, anxious again, anticipating a different turn of fortunes, I hope to walk away again at the end of the evening with another opportunity: to receive an ill health retirement pension. Then I can afford to start afresh. Just like the interview nearly three years ago, everything depends on how I present myself in the next hour.

We’re in the library, the same room as the interview. Once again facing a panel of judges. Do any of them understand how I feel? Do they realise that they hold my future in their hands?

I’m here tonight to shape my own destiny. It’s a job interview and OFSTED inspection rolled into one. It’s ‘down to me’ again.

The preamble describes events since OFSTED: no interim deputy head, only one of the original trio of teachers left (ironically, a previously failing teacher whom I mentored so well that she performed better than all of us during OFSTED), a switch from three to four classes, the number on roll continuing to rise (but still the headteacher doesn’t teach), poor standard attainment tests (SATS) results, a lowly place in the school league tables, parents up in arms. Some of the governors are looking at me as though it’s my fault, the OFSTED scapegoat their obvious target.

But hang on, the Year 2 stats, which I coordinated, brought better results than previous years, and the school roll began to rise at a rapid rate when I joined the school, so I can’t have been all bad. I decide not to comment. Let them ramble on.

‘I wasn’t consulted on this,’ states the headteacher of the (hypothetical) phased return that Craig and I sent in advance of the meeting. Her letter, inviting me to a pre-meeting, arrived on the same morning as the meeting. And sent me into a state of shock. Luckily I managed to contact Craig, who phoned on my behalf to cancel the meeting.

‘I fail to understand how, after all this time, you could be shocked by an invitation to a meeting with your headteacher,’ one of the governors, a vicar, tells me in accusation.

You don’t understand mental health, I think. For a man of God, you don’t understand much about human beings, do you?

But I say: ‘May I remind you that I’m off sick?’ This isn’t the time to be confrontational.

There are two vicars, representing two churches. The other tries a different approach, not unkindly: ‘Do you really think that this phased return will be the best thing for you and the school? Do you honestly want to come back?’

He knows. I like him. When I was teaching, I liked him. During the week after OFSTED, I trusted him, arranged to meet him, went to the vicarage, described how I felt, that it wasn’t all down to me, that they should also look to the headteacher. I confided in him. I admire the compassion of this other man of God.

I lie.

‘Yes.’

*******

Craig and I return to the library when summoned. We’ve been waiting in the staff room while the panel deliberates. It’s so like a job interview that it’s uncanny. Only this interview is to lose a job.

They have made their decision. They tell me, with regret, that they have decided to dismiss me on the grounds of ill health.

I hold my head high as I walk around the room, shake hands and look each and every one of them in the eye.

Eyes down, the headteacher avoids my gaze.

So does the first vicar.

The second vicar returns my look. Is it sadness? Is it disappointment? He may well be the only governor who truly understands what happened here tonight. We understand each other.

*******

‘You coped well. Remarkably well,’ says Craig afterwards. We’re now in the pub, and I’m sinking a pint in relief. It’s possibly the best pint I’ve ever tasted.

I treated the tribunal like a competition. I had my race-mask on the whole time. It was an act. I had trained for it and Craig was my coach. We had prepared well, and it appears that we have achieved the desired result.

Surely I can’t be denied an ill health retirement pension after the school has dismissed me on the grounds of ill health.

*******

I could and I was.

My application for ill health retirement was rejected. The panel (yes, another panel) suggested that as I had been volunteering, I was well enough to work and therefore not unwell enough to receive an ill health pension.

My GP and consultant intervened on my behalf, and there was another anxious wait.

Meanwhile, my year of volunteering over, I took on some paid work at the leisure centre. Not surprisingly, the relationship altered and there was less work for me. It was the odd shift in the gym and lifeguarding now and again. It wasn’t enough. I needed to find another job. But even if I found a full-time job in leisure and fitness, it wouldn’t pay as well as deputy headship. It wouldn’t even pay the bills. We needed that retirement pension. The wait continued.

And then, like a knight in shining armour, the old mantra rode to the rescue: when your running is going well, everything is going well. Two letters arrived on the same day: I was selected for Scotland for the third year in succession, and I was going to receive a lump sum and annual teachers’ pension.

Shortly after another improved performance at the British & Irish, and a sizeable deposit in my bank account, I was offered a new job in a leisure centre in Swindon. It was temporary and part-time, but my hours would increase with overtime and coaching, and there were many opportunities across the borough for permanent work.

At last, after the nightmares of the last three years, the crisis was over.

It was a new beginning.

 

Chapter Sixteen: Targets

An ex-deputy headteacher sitting in a lifeguarding chair, I was leaving myself open to ridicule. I was the oldest member of the team, an oddity. However, I was accepted for being different. I soon settled into my new role and routine, and seemed to be well-liked by customers and colleagues. It was the beginning of six mostly happy and contented years.

And safe: I didn’t have to go back to school. I would never have to face that stress again.

As promised, the hours of work increased to full-time in the gym, plus coaching and overtime. I taught older people’s exercise classes every week, re-establishing a rapport with older people. I learned how to climb and qualified as a climbing instructor. I also helped to start an exercise and social group, to support adults with mental health problems. Some of my colleagues looked upon the group with suspicion. When they saw ‘mental health’ on the duty sheets, they stood back, frowning and said, ‘mental?’

‘They’re not mental,’ I explained. ‘They’re people dealing with challenges, just like you and me.’

It was the turn of the century and people still didn’t understand mental health. But here in Swindon they tried: they changed the name on the sheets to ‘Health’. The name stuck and the group is still running to this day.

My own mental health was improving. The pension, coaching and overtime supplementing my fitness instructor salary, we were no worse off financially than when I was deputy head. That brought security to the family and to myself.

I was respected for being good at my work and more importantly for being myself.

But I was having nightmares.

*******

There are no children. It’s the middle of term and I’m in the staff room, preparing lessons. I’ve returned to teaching on a trial basis and I’m doing okay. It’s a turning point. Do I keep going, rediscover my vocation but run the risk of another breakdown? Or do I give it up at the end of the trial period and return to the comforts of my job at the centre? I don’t know, because I wake up, the bedsheets drenched in sweat. The nightmare, with minor variations, returns another night, and still I don’t reach a decision. I never do.

The nightmare comes back again and again at times of stress.

And still does.

Twenty-five years later.

*******

The hours were long at the leisure centre, but the environment and routine were conducive to training. I had free use of the gym, pool and climbing wall before and after shifts. On days when an evening shift was coming up, I enjoyed running in daylight, free at last from turmoil and stress. Over the hills and Far From the Madding Crowd, I was finally connecting with nature.

I never wore headphones: I wanted to enjoy the full experience. I didn’t want to block out one of my senses. As well as admiring patchwork fields from a hilltop, I wanted to listen to the skylark singing high above. I didn’t only smell the earth: I heard the squelch of mud underneath every stride. I felt the wind on my face and heard it chasing leaves along the trail. I tasted rain on my tongue and heard it splashing in the puddles.

One day I ran above the clouds. The sun was shining high but the valleys were shrouded in mist. Coming across some people enjoying a spot of flying with model aeroplanes, I thought: me too; I’m flying. That’s what it felt like. A natural high.

Once a week I trained on the track with Swindon Harriers, including Pete Molloy, World Veterans Champion at 1500 metres, a member of that 4×1500 metres world record team, an inspiration if ever there was one, and an ideal training partner. Although a few years older than me, Pete was faster but not so much faster that I couldn’t stay fairly close to him. A friendly Yorkshireman, he always had an encouraging word for me.

Minor injuries and illness aside, my performances in competitions were consistent. I won the Wessex League veterans cross-country title every year and was a regular in the Scottish Veterans team. On the track, I was often in the minor medals at the Scottish Vets and once at the British. I wasn’t slowing down much, and age-graded tables demonstrated that in age-related terms I was improving.

I ran a faster actual time for 5,000 metres (15:40) in my mid-forties than I did at any time in my thirties. That was the season of my first taste of international track competition, when the World Veterans Championships came to the north east of England. Without overseas travel and accommodation, I could afford the entry fee. The 5,000 metres was run on a heat-declared winner basis: three heats, based on submitted entry times. My best performance at the time of entry was slower than sixteen minutes, placing me in the ‘B’ race, which I won. It was a huge thrill to win a race at the World Championships but I was outside the top twenty overall. Not exactly setting the world alight.

A strange aspect of veteran athletics is that you look forward to growing older and moving into the next age group, when you’ll be the youngest and therefore in theory have more chance of winning. Entering my final year as an M40 I decided that, rather than wait until I was a year older, I would set myself a new challenge: join Swindon Harriers for regular competition on the track. Returning after a long absence to Southern Men’s League Division One, I was a consistent points scorer for the team in my first season and improved steadily, from 16:16 for 5,000 metres in the opening round to 15:51, alongside 4:14 and 9:07 for 1500 metres and 3,000 metres. Meanwhile, the team had performed so well in the league that we were invited to the British League qualifying match at Bedford. Selected for the 5,000 metres, I had a problem: I was recovering from minor injury and a wasp sting, and working a morning shift at the gym. To cut a long story short, I drove to Bedford after work, arrived just in time for my race, finished second ‘B’, we qualified for the British League, and I won the Club Athlete of the Year award.

At the age of forty-five, I was going to make my debut in national league athletics.

But before then, there was a season of cross-country, and it was Ireland’s turn to host the British & Irish. True to form as a late starter, it would be the first time I had ever been on an aeroplane. The thought of flying didn’t worry me at all: it was fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time that made me feel anxious. It helped that Clara was going to collect me at Dublin and take me to Scotland’s team base near Navan, County Meath. Clara was making a life for herself in Ireland. Long after her early promise as an athlete, she was now a Leinster hockey player.

My spikes caused a minor commotion as I made my way through airport control, but apart from that it was a smooth operation. The bustle of the departure lounge was exciting. Where were they all going? Were they on holiday, business or a stag/hen weekend? It wasn’t difficult to spot other runners going to an international running championship: we all had that lean and hungry look about us. I loved the anticipation as we shuffled from the departure lounge into the queue to board the plane. Excitement building like the buzz of the engine under the seats. That unique feeling in your stomach as the plane left the ground, and then you peered through the tiny window at the map-like view of city, then patchwork fields, then shimmering estuary. Into and above the clouds, waiting to relive the experience in reverse as your destination neared.

While the other teams were enjoying the comforts of hotels in Navan, the Scotland squad was accommodated at the race venue, in a building something like a cross between a youth hostel and a monastery. It had character but it was dark and cold. We were asked to turn the lights off whenever we left a room or corridor, which later caused more than one of us to bump into walls as we fumbled in the dark to find the switch. The heating went off automatically but too early: we felt cold. When one of the team went to reception to ask if we could have the heating on, the reply was: ‘Well, yeez only paid for bed and breakfast.’

The course was on the side of a hill leading down to the river, not far from the site of the Battle of the Boyne, where in 1690 King James II of England and Ireland and the VII of Scotland lost to King William III, sealing James’s failed attempt to regain the throne. There were no such problems for the England cross-country teams: as usual, the most populous nation won most of the individual and team honours. I won my own honours and personal battle to improve, year on year, in this race. I loved that hill as I picked off runners one by one, feeling like I could pass people all day. I entered the finishing straight in eleventh place, only losing out in a sprint finish to Ireland’s Colm Rothery, which was no disgrace as Colm would, the following summer, achieve his targets as World M40 Champion at 800 metres and 1500 metres with 1:52 and 3:55.

My own targets were more modest but unique to me and achievable. Working in a leisure centre brought me into contact with coaches from different sports, and it was a swimming coach who introduced me to tiered targets. Setting single targets such as ‘win the national’ or ‘beat four minutes for 1500 metres’ will result in disappointment if you fail to achieve them. On the other hand, setting targets that are achieved too easily can reduce your motivation. The tiered method sets targets at three different levels: should, could and just might. There are targets that you should achieve if you stick to your training and racing plan and don’t do anything silly. Then there are those that could be achieved if you stay relatively clear of injury and illness, and build up to and approach the major competitions with confidence. On a perfect day, when everything in place and all is right with the world, there are dream targets that you just might reach.

At the beginning of the season I had set myself the following targets:

So I achieved my ‘just might’ target at the British & Irish. Twelfth overall was twice as good as my debut when I was four years younger. I was eleventh M40, which meant that only one M45 (Nigel Gates) beat me. Four months before my forty-fifth birthday, I had a lot to look forward to as an M45, but there were a few more races to run before then. I went on to finish second senior in the Wessex League (could), third senior in the Wiltshire Championship (just might) and third M40 in the Scottish Veterans Championship (could).

Alongside these triple-tiered targets, and five-pace training (in the track season), I had been following a triple-periodised year’s plan since first gaining selection for the annual international match. Much like the double-periodised year with twin peaks at the National Triathlon and Biathlon Championships, the ‘triple’ was designed to help me reach a peak three times per year: the British & Irish in November, the climax of the cross-country season in March and a series of track races in the summer. Unimaginatively I called the phases: Cross-Country 1, Cross-Country 2 and Track. In theory, the system made sense. In each of three short seasons, I would lay a training base, introduce progressive sessions of good quality, and then taper as the key races approached. In practice it was fraught with difficulties. For instance, most races didn’t slot themselves conveniently into the schedule, and the peak races were not exactly four months apart. There were few opportunities for cross-country races in the build-up towards the most important race of the year: the British & Irish. Most significantly of all, if you succumbed to injury or illness during a six-month season, generally you had time to get over it, but if the same thing happened in a four-month season, the key competitions could be upon you before you’ve had a chance to recover.

It may sound complicated. Distance running isn’t complicated, is it? You just run distance, don’t you? But I was learning from experience, including painful mistakes. I was doing my utmost to get the best out of myself.

Cross training provided variation. There was a weekly swim, consisting mainly of general endurance in the early stages of each phase, followed by more specific endurance in the later stages. Twice weekly gym training was in two parts: endurance, on the rower or treadmill, and strength.

As a fitness instructor I had mixed feelings when I saw customers walking or running on a treadmill. It’s better than doing nothing but it’s not as good as the real thing: why pay for an hour on a treadmill, going nowhere, when you could do the same outdoors for free? However, many customers don’t have the confidence to exercise outside, and appreciate the security of the gym and, I like to think, the support they receive from the instructors. At least they should put the treadmill on a 1% incline or higher, when there is less assistance from the rolling belt and less chance of their legs feeling like lead weights if and when they do venture outdoors.

For me, as an athlete, the treadmill opened up a new realm of training opportunities. I designed my own programmes, such as a continuous run with set changes of incline: a tough, hilly challenge during the early stages of each training phase, and a programme with set changes of speed for the later phase. The treadmill belt is relentless, similar in a way to a faster opponent in a race as you try to keep up with him. I endured some really tough sessions, exceeding my theoretical maximum heart rate and pushing myself to my psychological limit to maintain the set pace, willing the treadmill to hurry up and get onto the easy bits. They were emotional times. Customers saw a different side to their quiet instructor: divulged of bulky tracksuit, stripped down and skinny, giving the appearance of floating (so they told me) through the easier sections but gasping for dear life at crucial points in the programme. Those ‘points’ seemed to me more like hours of pain, and there was huge relief and a sense of achievement at the end of each session, which I’m sure prepared me well for races.

My strength training, all with free weights, was also progressive: fifteen reps of all exercises in the first month; three sets of ten, for example legs/biceps/triceps/abdominals for session one and back/chest/shoulders/abdominals for session two, during the second month; sets of ten/eight/six reps at increasingly heavier weights in the third month; and finally, two or three sets of six reps for the fourth month. There were also strip-sets, where you reduced the weight as you increased the number of reps, eventually working a muscle group to exhaustion, and many other variations.

Climbing introduced new elements of technique, teamwork and daring: I loved how different it was from everything else in an already wide ranging training programme. Cycling was taking a back seat, because I simply couldn’t fit everything in.

Despite this wide variety, I still managed to increase my running mileage into the fifties and, a couple of times, sixty. However, as a mature campaigner in my mid-forties, I listened to my body, curbed my enthusiasm, restricted mileage to a sensible level and managed to recover from minor ailments to complete a final, successful year as an M40.

And move up an age group to the promised land of the M45s.

 

    Chapter Seventeen: Promising

I remember a conversation with the eloquent and motivational Colin Youngson, when I revealed that I was proud but frustrated at often finishing second or third but never first in National Veterans Championships. He reassured me that I had established myself as a regular and reliable competitor of a good standard. There would come a time when everything clicked and I’d ‘clean up’.

Would that time be 2001/2002, my debut season as an M45, also my first in the British League? Our team manager at Swindon was Howard Moscrop, another inspirational figure and, like Pete Molloy, a World Veterans Champion (at 400 metres Hurdles). Howard was a down-to-earth man manager, who had a knack of encouraging athletes to turn up: no mean feat, with so many other distractions in the modern world. As a coach, he knew how to get the best out of individuals, leading by example and always showing his appreciation of each and every athlete’s contribution to the team. I was determined to make my contribution count and leave nothing on the track.

In a promising start to the season, I finished seventh in the 5,000 metres with 15:45, faster than I had run during my last couple of years as an M40. The higher level of competition inspired a self-confidence which I took to the Scottish Veterans Championships at Pitreavie, scene of my Scottish Schoolboys win twenty-seven years earlier.

‘GOLD AT LAST!’ I wrote in my training diary. Typically, I didn’t cross the line first as I was beaten by the M40 winner in both the 5,000 metres and 1500 metres but I was finally a Scottish Veterans Champion, twice on the same afternoon.

I followed up with 33:13 10,000 metres for fifth place overall in the British League Gold Cup at Eton, increasing my confidence even more, as a return to the same track for the British Veterans Championships beckoned in a fortnight’s time. I was due to run the 5,000 metres on Saturday and 10,000 metres on Sunday, not a sensible combination, but I wanted to keep my options open in a genuine attempt to win my first British Championship since the modern triathlon of 1993. Frustratingly, I was only fourth M45 in the 5,000 metres, running just outside sixteen minutes on a day when the winning time was slower than my best of the season.

It must be something about that track: my calves had tightened up immediately after the Gold Cup, not surprisingly after twenty-five laps, and now it happened again after the twelve and a half laps of the 5,000 metres. And I had to come back the next day to run another twenty-five.

*******

It’s so hot that there’s a water station on the back straight. There’s not a cloud in the sky as the sun beats down on us relentlessly while we circle the track.

Lap after lap after lap.

I’m in a group of four M45s. We seem to have made a collective decision to ignore the M40s: this is not a day for fast times, let’s focus on winning medals. One of the four will drop off the pace and miss out, and one of us will leave the group behind and win this race within a race. But not yet. The heat is oppressive, burning from above and radiating upwards from the track with every strike of the foot. Face reddening and eyes stinging, only slightly relieved by splashes of water along the back straight.

Lap after lap after lap.

I should be suffering more than most: my tight calves were painful last night in my sleep. But the pain eased during my warm-up, not that anyone needs much warming up today. It was more of a loosening up, and the heat, like a massage, counteracts the tightness in my lower legs. The tightness disappears, replaced by growing confidence.

Lap after lap after lap.

10,000 metres can be the most tortuous race on the track. If you judge the pace poorly and start too quickly, you spend the rest of the race regretting it, each lap progressively slower than the one before.

Lap after lap after lap.

This is where my treadmill training should prove its worth, maintain this monotonous pace.

But it doesn’t need to.

Because, despite the heat, it feels easy.

Because it’s not fast.

Because I’ve run faster.

Because I’m focused.

On the back straight with about half of the race to go, a long way to run. Jostling at the water station. A group of M40s lapping our group. I’m feeling strong, and latch onto the M40s, allowing them to tow me away from the group.

Two laps later. The M40s have dropped me for a second time. I glance behind. I’ve dropped the other M45s. All I have to do is keep going.

Lap

After lap

After lap.

Until the last lap.

Until the finish line,

Where I become a British Champion.

*******

It wasn’t a great triumph: it was a slow time, I was well down the field, lapped and outclassed by the top M40s. But I beat everyone in my age group, so I was a British Champion.

Two Scottish titles; one British; good times at 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres; points in the British League: it wasn’t a bad first season as an M45. Then came a patchy season on the country, interrupted by colds and chest pains. I was diagnosed with supraventricular tachycardia (SVT)—intermittent, rapid heartbeat—but the results from an electrocardiograph (ECG) test were clear. Probably I was simply trying to fit all my training around working too many hours.

Nevertheless, I was in the midst of a decent period of training when the British & Irish came full circle to Scotland for my sixth consecutive appearance and first as an M45. The venue was Callendar Park in Falkirk, where I had represented Airdrie & Coatbridge Boys’ Brigade over twenty-eight years previously. I had a solid but unspectacular race, finishing twenty-fourth overall, some way short of my highest of twelfth a year before. However, as fifth M45, I beat my previous age group best of eleventh and, more significantly, helped Scotland win the team race. We were International Champions. It was brilliant for team morale, an achievement for each and every one of us. But it wasn’t an individual gold. I had yet to win gold in the Scottish Vets cross-country, let alone a medal of any colour in the British & Irish.

I missed the chance to win the Scottish because of illness. However, I finished fifth in the British Vets at the end of the season and won the senior title in my only season in the Avalon League.

My 2002 track season opened with a reasonable run in the British League: under sixteen minutes for 5,000 metres again, but something was wrong. There was a tugging in my groin, not enough to stop me running altogether, but restrictive, annoying, and which didn’t go away after rest. I eased down in training and called a halt to abdominal exercises because of the pain and reduced functionality, which was also making it difficult for me to demonstrate in the gym and at classes.

By the standards of previous delays this injury was dealt with swiftly. The gym’s resident physiotherapist diagnosed an inguinal hernia on 11 June, which was confirmed three days later by my GP, who referred me to a consultant in Swindon. On 17 July, the consultant told me that an operation was required and asked me what I did for a living. When I told him that I was a gym instructor, he asked, ‘Lifting heavy weights?’ A simple nod from me, and the process suddenly accelerated: on the last day of July I was in and out of surgery within two and a half hours.

An inguinal hernia is caused by a weakness in the abdominal wall, perhaps exacerbated in my case by an introduction to weights training relatively late in life (typical), coinciding with long road runs on a camber. Marathon runners talk about ‘the wall’ at around twenty miles, when their energy stores rapidly deplete. I never ran further than twenty miles, but my wall was breached, and the abdominal contents leaked into the inguinal canal, resulting in pain and a visible bulge in the groin. The surgery pushed the bulge back through the wall and held it in place with a mesh.

Simple.

But with a long and painful recovery.

Worse than any of my leg operations.

Worse even than the vasectomy.

On the first day after surgery, on eleven pain killers, I walked 100 metres.

With a stick.

On the second day I walked two hundred.

On the third day, down to eight pain killers, I had my first bath.

On the fourth day I took an hour and a half to have my first dump since the operation. 

Awkward.

But what a relief.

Gradually, I increased my walking and introduced stretching, then gentle resistance exercises, then cycling and swimming.

My first jog (eight minutes) was on 20 August, the day after a scan gave me the ‘all clear’.

The next day I jogged a ten minute mile.

Look out World (Cross)! Here I come!

But progress was slow. Every stride downhill sent a searing pain into my testicles.

Ouch!

I was due back at work after five weeks but I fell down the stairs, damaged my ribs and had to add another week to my recovery. Eventually I was back at work on 12 September, returning quickly to practical duties and reached full training by the end of October.

It was no surprise that I declined an invitation to represent Scotland for what would have been a seventh consecutive year but I did make it to the Scottish Veterans Championships in March to come away with M45 silver, better than my three bronzes as an M40. I also won the Wessex League veterans title for the seventh year in succession and surprisingly finished 175^th in the English National senior cross-country at the famous Parliament Hill course in London. That was higher than before I was a vet. Standards had been sliding down those muddy hills for twenty-five years or so.

The 2003 track season didn’t happen. I spent most of the summer nursing sore Achilles and hardly running at all. I was able to cross-train, which maintained my general fitness and helped me start to run again in September. However, ongoing niggles and recurring, minor illnesses held me back so much that I missed the British & Irish again and didn’t achieve a full training week until the end of the year. It was a pattern that would be repeated many times until the end of my career.

Not done yet, I had a whole month of full training behind me when I made a rare appearance ‘on the boards’ at the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow, for the Scottish Masters Indoor Championships at the end of January 2004.

Oh yes, we were no longer veterans: we were masters now. I guess ‘veteran’ had ex-military connotations but we had been veterans for years, and suddenly we were masters. I had an advantage over most others: I had been a master before in my modern triathlon days. But now, masters of what? We used to be addressed formally as ‘master’ when we were growing up, but now? We were not grand masters of chess. Nor did we play in masters’ golf tournaments. Had we attained mastery of our craft? Were we masters of our own destiny?

These thoughts never entered my head as I won the M45 3,000 metres and became Scottish Champion again. The following week I won the Wessex League February race outright. A fortnight later Jane, Sam, Emma and I were driving along the M4 on the way to Cardiff for the UK Masters Indoor Championships, where I would be amongst the contenders for a medal.

It did not go according to plan.

*******

For the spectators, sitting almost on top of the action, indoor athletics is ideal entertainment. Whereas in an outdoor stadium with a 400 metres track, you could be blissfully unaware of the shot put or high jump at the other end of the arena, everything around the vicinity of the 200 metres indoor track is so close that you don’t miss a trick. The noise bounces off the ceiling, walls and the track itself as the athletes’ feet thunder like drum beats, rhythmically, a crescendo rising each time they pass in front of your eyes. Lap after lap after lap.

For the athletes, waiting for their events, indoor athletics is nerve-wracking. You watch the action unfold and wonder when your event will actually start. Sure, there’s a timetable, but on this day, in Cardiff, it’s way behind schedule. So, what do you do? Warm up at the allocated time and then try to stay warm? Or estimate the delayed start time and warm up for that? To add to your anxiety, there’s no space indoors, so you have to warm up outdoors, where you can’t keep an eye on progress, or lack of it, on the track; are they catching up with the schedule or falling further behind?

Normally, I would choose the former: warm up on schedule and stay loose. But today, we’re about an hour behind, far too long to stay loose and warm. So I opt for the latter.

Big mistake.

I stay in my seat with the family and watch with them, explaining points of interest to encourage them follow and enjoy the action. They retain their interest and are looking forward to cheering me on.

If I ever set foot on the track: it looks like we’re still an hour behind.

After a visit to the gents I’m edging my way back to our seats.

But…

What’s going on?

The M40s and M45s are lining up

For the 3,000 metres.

My race.

The timetable is back on schedule.

How did I miss that?

‘That’s my race!’

Emma and Sam’s faces mirror my distress.

‘Get down to that start now!’ advises Jane.

But I can’t.

I’m still in my track suit.

I haven’t warmed up.

They’re all stripped off and under starter’s orders.

I’ve missed my race.

It’s the first time it’s ever happened.

We decide there and then to go home and not watch the race.

We’re in the car park before the bell sounds.

*******

To this day, Emma and Sam tell me how sorry they felt for me. They say that they can’t forget the shock and disappointment on my face.

Whether by coincidence or not, I developed an uncontrollable itch, just like after Dad died twenty years before. The nurse asked me if we’d changed our washing powder or altered our diet recently. She was looking for an allergy, but I couldn’t think of anything. Blood test results all came back negative. Then my GP, the same doctor who recognised stress at the end of my teaching career, asked me if I was taking any medication.

‘Only Ibuprofen for sports injuries.’

‘That’s it! Now you’re going to tell me that you’ve been taking Ibuprofen for years, aren’t you?’

‘That’s exactly what I was going to say.’

‘It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been taking something: allergies can start at any time of life.’

So that was it: no more Ibuprofen. From that day, whenever completing a medical questionnaire, I would always have to declare my allergy. A small price to pay to get rid of the infernal itching.

In time for the Scottish Masters’ Cross-Country Championship.

Which,

At last,

I won.

It wasn’t an outright win, of course: I was eighth overall but I was first M45.

Finally, I was a Scottish Cross-Country Champion.

Which of course made me proud.

But the next day, I was brought back down to earth.

*******

I’m outside Mum’s house, cleaning my spikes when a paperboy saunters up.

‘Aye,’ he says.

‘Aye.’

‘Whit ur they? Ur they fitba’ boots?’

‘They’re running spikes.’

‘Ur ye a fast runner?’

‘Quite fast.’

‘Ah bet ye couldnae beat me.’

‘I don’t know. I might: I’m a Scottish Champion.’

‘Aye, right.’

‘Aye: over 45s.’

‘Whit? Beatin’ a load ae auld grainfaithers!’

*******

And that was the 2003/2004 cross-country season.

Or half a season.

Two golds in the Scottish wasn’t a bad return.

For an old grandfather,

Which I wasn’t,

But I got the point.

The paper boy thought there was no cross-country for old men.

I was just an old man beating other old men.

And what’s wrong with that?

It’s better than being overweight and unfit like most people of my age.

We’re not the dying generation: we’re athletes.

We run: it’s what we do.

And as long as there are other old men to beat,

We’ll keep doing it.

Lap,

After lap,

After

Lap.

 

     Chapter Eighteen: Building

The beginning of the 2004 track season gave little indication of what was to come later in the year. Flying the flag for the staff in a Superstars competition at the leisure centre, I didn’t place highly, but demonstrated an all-round fitness that enhanced my standing with our customers. However, my form was unimpressive on the track, where I was now in Swindon’s ‘B’ team in Southern Men’s League Division 3 (West): quite a fall from grace after running in the British League. During four attempts, I couldn’t beat 16:14 for 5,000 metres, although one of them was gold at the Scottish Masters in Dumfries. It was some compensation that I now held three Scottish titles at the same time: indoor, cross-country and track.

At the end of a short summer season I showed glimpses of good form. I ran 26:45 to win the Kintbury Five Miles on a hilly course with off-road sections; 15:52 for 5K road, an outright pb and much quicker than my best track time of the year; and a 4:17.4 1500 metres, which was one of my best ever age-graded performances.

A planned break would recharge me for the forthcoming cross-country campaign. Confident, uninjured and in good health, I was nevertheless cautious in setting my goals. I had enjoyed several months of uninterrupted training but had missed most of 2002 due to the hernia, all of the 2003 track season because of Achilles trouble and half of the 2003/2004 cross-country season. Could I stay healthy, regain selection for Scotland after an absence of two years, pick up where I left off and improve on fifth M45?

Training was going well. During a family holiday in Dorset I was up before everyone else and running along the beach and cliff tops. It was impossible to avoid steep hills, not that I had any intention of avoiding them: I targeted the steepest and ran repetitions, building strength-endurance. After each run, I would take our two Springer Spaniels down to the beach to swim. Someone must have taken a stunning photograph from the clifftops of me and my two canine training partners swimming in perfect formation, the early morning sun glinting off the calm surface of the sea.

We’d all spend the rest of the day doing normal holiday stuff, although I did sustain an unusual injury bodyboarding, when a freak wave flipped me over into hyperextension on the edge of a steep, pebbly beach. It was one of several niggles treated on the physiotherapy table, although nothing was severe enough to put me off training.

After that week away I kept doing the basics: long cross-country runs; tough sessions on the treadmill; sustained road runs up to ten miles, touching six minute miling pace; my favourite cross-country reps sessions. You could do reps anywhere: find a field or patch of woodland, preferably hilly, plan a loop that takes between three and six minutes to run hard around, get your first run done, rest, repeat and go again. The exact distance doesn’t matter as long as you run the same loop. As the season progressed I would add a rep or reduce the recovery and try to keep the times consistent, although times varied from session to session and course to course because of changes in the weather and conditions underfoot.

There was also a recovery swim and two or three climbing sessions every week. Focused weights training was bringing a new element to the strength-endurance fostered on the Dorset coast. There was a training method called Body for Life that we were promoting in the gym. The crux was that you could complete a quality session in around twenty minutes (plus warm-up and cool down), rather than wandering aimlessly from machine to machine. Leading by example as always, I was following the programme, making full use of free weights and cables.

My weekly mileage never exceeded fifty. Since becoming a veteran, something would always go wrong when I reached sixty miles and I would have to miss some training, unlike my younger days when I could just keep going. You shouldn’t look back and try to replicate your training from those days: you should work with what you have now and look forward. I didn’t repeat the sixty mile weeks but I didn’t regret having done them before. They were part of the journey that had brought me to the brink of achieving something. Not more than I ever thought possible, because I did think it was possible. But more than I had ever achieved before.

Because I had been selected again for the British & Irish.

And I was feeling more and more confident that this was going to be my year.

What caused this improved form and increased confidence? Well, good form and confidence feed off each other like spreading flames. But what had ignited the flames? There was no single spark. It was a combination of circumstances: the successful second half of the previous cross-country season, glimpses of good form in the summer, resting, a week of training in a different environment by the sea, several months of uninterrupted training, and a pledge to improve my nutrition.

Most athletes know what they should be eating, and nutrition training had increased my knowledge. However, it’s one thing to know, and another to do. As a club athlete you may need a selfish streak to achieve your goals, but living with your family, you can’t always run whenever it suits you or eat whatever you want. There must be compromises. I would never have dreamt of dictating to the family what they ate, but I could organise my own breakfast, snacks and packed meals for work. And I made a simple pledge not to eat sweets, biscuits or crisps. Some say that if you exercise a lot you can eat what you like, but it’s not true: you need good nutrition to fuel good training for good results. I still ate cake, though: you deserve some treats when you’re in full training.

There was also a career decision.

Working at the leisure centre had helped me get back on my feet after the stress that caused the end of my teaching career. I felt valued, comfortable and safe. But I needed a new challenge. I wanted to have some stress in my life again, so I started looking for another job. It would be stimulating and I could handle it. And with that realisation came the confidence to take on anything or anybody, including the best in my age group at international level.

*******

The first race of the season.

The Highclere multi-terrain 10K, on my old stomping ground near Newbury.

The phalanx of 300 runners tapers down to two abreast as we exit the wide meadow and file into a narrow lane bordered by lush trees.

Nobody seems to be doing anything, so I take the lead and open up a gap without really trying.

And not one of the 299 comes with me.

I’m clear and away. I’m feeling good, so I keep pushing.

In front of the castle, up and down hills, through woodland, on tarmac and along rough tracks.

It feels easy.

Puzzlingly easy. Why am I so far ahead?

Walking through the finish funnel, a gauntlet of well-wishers, parents, children, old friends from Newbury.

My winning margin is over a minute and a half, ahead of rivals who are usually much closer. On rough terrain, 33:19 is my third fastest 10K ever and half a minute quicker than my best on the track or road this year.

*******

One week later I ran an outright pb of 1:12:01 at the Bristol half marathon. I could see the time on the finish gantry, second by second, all the way down the straight, and I was trying really hard to make it 1:11:59. It wasn’t an outstanding time by the standards of masters who were road running specialists, but it was an achievement for me. It was only when I saw the photos and results afterwards that I realised that Nigel Gates, multiple champion on track and country, was shadowing me for miles, eventually finishing some distance behind. I guess he wasn’t taking it seriously, but it was another boost to my growing confidence.

Fast forward another fortnight, and my shoelace was undone and flapping about, with a kilometre to go in the South of England (senior) road relays at Aldershot. Conversely, I was far from undone or flapping. I overtook seventeen runners on leg four, beating my own best time on this course by a large margin. Amongst the masters, only two M40s and Nigel Gates ran faster.

When you’re in race shape, non-runners think you’re not well. Mum might say, ‘Are ye okay, son? Are ye eating enough? Ye’re looking awfy thin.’

But runners say, ‘You’re looking lean and mean. You’re on for a good run today.’

It takes one to know one, but here at the relays, a friend and rival said, ‘That’s a huge improvement all of a sudden. Are you sure you’re not on performance-enhancing drugs?’

No.

Never.

It was all honest endeavour.

I was well. Not one hundred percent well—I was being treated for various aches and pains—but who is ever 100% when training hard towards a major race? There’s a fine line between being very fit and being injured or ill, a line that I had crossed many times. It’s not unusual for an athlete to be teetering on the edge. But if you always train the same, you’ll always race the same. If you want to do better, if you want to win, you need to take risks. You might overdo it, get injured and miss some races, important races, maybe even whole seasons. But what’s better: a career full of consistently average performances, or one with injuries, illnesses, periods away from the sport you love but, at your very best—when you’ve planned meticulously and worked hard towards a peak—you achieve something far superior to anything before or since?

Something that you’ll never, ever forget.

*******

So that was a 10K multi-terrain race, a half marathon and a 6K road relay leg. All good. And I hadn’t run on my favourite surface yet. How would the first cross-country race of the season go?

The Wessex League opener.

Glastonbury.

I was rocking.

Like a lead guitarist ramping up the volume riff by riff, all the way to the final curtain.

Next gig, please.

The inaugural Swindon half marathon.

On a very hilly course, against the best road runners from Wiltshire and beyond.

Including Swindon’s own Matt O’Dowd, who ran for GB in the Olympic marathon that same summer.

*******

The roar of the crowd left behind in the town, we’ve run four miles and are heading for the first big climb, up Badbury Hill. Four of us in the leading group: Derek from Pewsey, my clubmates Nathan and of course Matt, and me. I was a bit worried about a sore throat but not now: what sore throat? I’m feeling fresh and full of confidence, so I take the lead.

I’m running along the top of the hill,

And everyone else is still climbing.

Seven miles gone, passing one of the radio cars reporting back to the announcer at the start/finish area.

‘It’s not Matt: it’s a much older runner, and he’s sprinting!’

It must be an optical illusion because I’m only striding downhill. And not that much older.

I’m nearly half a minute clear.

I’ve dropped Matt O’Dowd, Olympian!

What’s going on?

What’s going on is that Matt’s obviously taking it easy. He can overtake me whenever he likes.

But I can dream, can’t I?

Maybe, just this once,

The Olympian will have an off day,

And let me win.

The nine mile mark, another radio car.

‘He’s not the youngest of runners, you know. Isn’t he doing well for his age?’

The ageist remarks don’t offend me: I know I’m doing well. For any age. But I can hear breathing behind me, closer with every few strides.

Matt is waking up.

He’s going to pass me.

He draws level, makes an encouraging comment, which I return, and he’s away.

The next couple of miles are lonely until the noise of the crowd welcomes me back into town. I recognise some voices but don’t risk turning my head to acknowledge them. I’m in no danger of either catching Matt or being caught by anybody behind me but I’m on schedule for a pb: I can’t let myself be distracted now.

I’m pushing hard, uphill into Old Town. It’s tough, it’s painful but I’m loving it. The encouragement from the community thronging on both sides of the road drives me forward to the top of the hill, along level ground to the Croft roundabout, left into the downhill finish towards the Nationwide building. Sprinting, really sprinting down the final straight, under the gantry. A volunteer holds out a medal but she’s too close to the line. I’m still sprinting while holding out my hand but missing hers. When I finally come to a stop, I retrace my steps and walk back to her apologetically, nod a thanks for the medal. Someone thrusts a microphone in my face, and I realise that I’m too out of breath to say anything coherent yet. ‘In. A. Minute,’ I gasp.

Since re-entering town, the last couple of miles, about eleven minutes, have whizzed by. I’ve missed my pb by fourteen seconds, all on that final climb. But on a hilly course, finishing second behind an Olympian, it’s been a much better race than Bristol.

‘How did it feel,’ asks the man with the mike. ‘Leading Matt for so long?’

‘Surreal.’

Surreal indeed: the Olympian, the community, the atmosphere,

Most of all,

Yet another boost to my confidence.

What next?

*******

What next indeed. It was tempting to find a 10K, 10 miles or even another half marathon to see how fast I could run while in such good form. I settled for the Tewkesbury five miles three weeks later.

Two races before the British & Irish International Cross-Country Championship.

I could hardly wait.

It’s like another runner (a better one) has possessed my body.

Those were the clumsy notes in my training diary.

I’m going into open races believing that I’m going to win.

I pinned on my race number—number one—on that cool, still, November morning in Gloucestershire, where I had run my two best races of the summer; the omens were good.

*******

The first mile is fast, too fast. I check my watch as I pass the marker: 5:03 and I’m slightly off the pace, behind the leading three. But I’m not worried: I know I’ll be stronger in mid-race. The second mile is slower at 5:10 and now I’m sharing the lead at halfway, approaching a bridge over the M5 motorway. I’ve never beaten any of these three before but they all seem to be struggling up the short, sharp incline, and before I know it I’ve opened up a small gap on them as we cross the bridge, traffic roaring underneath. The third mile is even slower (5:13) and, crossing back over the M5 further north, the fourth is the slowest of all (5:16), but I’m out on my own, full of running, holding back, waiting to pick up the pace for the final mile.

*******

On every journey up or down the M5 I can’t help but glance up at those two bridges and remember those two key moments during my best ever win on the roads.

The final mile was the fastest—5:02 best ever—as I stretched the lead to half a minute for a final time of 25:43. It was over a minute quicker than Kintbury and, as I found out a couple of months later, the second-fastest five miles for an M45 in the UK in 2004.

‘Did you know that you could run that fast?’ the runner-up asked with suspicion.

‘I knew something was on the cards: I’ve been running well.’

Indeed I was.

And there was one more race before the Big One.

The week before the British & Irish, my win in the second round of the Wessex League was harder work than the first but the margin was about 100 metres. I had been some way behind the leaders for the first of four laps but was confident that my pace judgment was correct and that they had started too quickly. Sure enough, I took the lead on the second lap and soon opened up a gap of fifty metres, which stayed the same throughout the third. It was only on the fourth and final lap that I pulled away. It had been solid preparation for a much sterner test to come. My training diary boldly proclaimed:

Six days to the international: can’t wait…

An easy week followed, as I tapered towards the most important race of my life. At the beginning of the season I had set two generic targets: selection for Scotland and a pb half marathon, both achieved. My specific targets for the British & Irish were:

Should… tenth M45

Could… sixth M45

Just might… medal (never achieved before).

It seemed that everything was finally falling into place, one of those occasions when just might is possible. Privately, I even dared to ask myself: medal… which colour?

Decades of training under a glorious sun or through rain, hail or snow; good races and mediocre races; injuries, operations and comebacks; successes and crises.

And now,

In the best form of my life,

I hadn’t put a foot wrong.

Building towards a climax,

At Croydon in Surrey,

On Saturday, 20 November 2004.

 

      Chapter Nineteen: Peak

We’re all jogging on the spot on the start line, trying in vain to keep warm on a cold, damp and overcast afternoon. There’s a delay because there’s no first aider on duty. This is the British & Irish Masters Cross-Country International Championship: how can there not be a first aider? Well, they’re all volunteers, after all. I’m a first aider but I’m not volunteering. Not today, of all days.

The mass of runners breaks away from the line, putting tracksuit tops back on, striding up and down, spiked shoes mushing the ground into a mire.

It starts to sleet.

Earlier I was reunited with old friends and teammates. We compared notes as we warmed up around the course, keeping an eye on the women’s race, where Scotland’s Sue Ridley finished third overall and first W35. It’s a promising opening for the Scottish squad.

Finally, a first aider steps forward and we’re back at the start, closely packed: all the M40s, M45s and M50s, a seething mass of humanity nervously wishing each other well.

But I can’t speak. I do wish them well but the words stick in my throat, as if letting out the briefest of comments would release pent-up tension and valuable energy stores too early. I need to keep it bottled until the exact moment. Waiting, waiting.

The BANG of the gun unleashes a tidal wave of runners, mud flying up from heels to splatter legs, shorts, vests and faces. Only 100 metres covered; red, white, green and dark blue vests already streaked with mud. It’s important not to be dragged along too quickly by this rush of flailing arms and legs. Let them tire themselves out. We haven’t even reached the first kilometre mark. There’s plenty of time: save your energy. Nobody wins a race after the first kilometre.

Despite the mud, I can make out the numbers on the back of the runners ahead. I don’t know how many are in front of me, but I can identify teams and age groups. There’s only one other Scot close by. It’s Steven McCloone, an M40. He’s forgotten to take off his woolly hat with ear muffs and plaits. As if reading my thoughts, he tosses it aside. 

There are races when suddenly something goes wrong. You lose confidence, the pain in your legs puts you off, your chest hurts, you start going backwards, the rot sets in, you convince yourself that you’re having a bad run, you don’t want to be there.

This is not one of those races.

I overtake Steven, and I think this makes me the leading Scot. I’m moving up and it feels like I haven’t really got going yet.

Targeting a few M45 vests just up ahead, I start to increase the pace. Or do I? I don’t think I’m running faster: more likely they’ve started too quickly and are ‘coming back to me’. I recognise the running style of England’s Andy Wetherill, Alex Rowe and I think it’s Steve Smith, all grouped closely together. Usually they’re much further in front of me but I’m closing. It’s the part of the course furthest away from the start and finish area, and there’s no one about other than us skinny, mud-splattered harriers, a rare species of wildlife, evading the crowds. Not that there are crowds: if any local residents are even aware that an international running contest is taking place so close to their doorsteps, they’ve decided to stay at home out of the cold and sleet. The only spectators are a few hardy friends, family members and runners cooling down after the earlier race or warming up for the next one. But none of them have ventured this far out. You can clearly hear the rhythmic splashing and squelching as spiked shoes slide in and out of the mud.

And I overtake a group including three M45s.

It’s nearly halfway and someone shouts that I’m second M45. I still don’t know how many runners are in front of me but I can spot the leading M45. Who is it? Does it matter? I’m second in my age group, I’ve never been higher than fifth, second is good, can I hold this position? That would be better than I’ve ever done before. It’s my ‘just might’.

Or can I raise the bar and push on?

On a cold hillside in Surrey, awash with mud, sleet falling relentlessly, it’s decision time.

I’m going for the win.

Leading a group of M40s up the hill, legs screaming at me to slow down, a thought comes into my head, something Mr McLean, my first coach, said many years ago: ‘If it hurts you to run up that hill, think what you’re doing to those guys behind you.’

I don’t know who they are—I’ll find out later—but I turn the screw, hurt myself even more but not as much as I’m hurting them. I leave them behind, top the summit, and England’s Jon Cordingley is in my sights. I’ve seen his results in ‘AW’: he’s the only M45 who has run faster than me for five miles on the road.

We’re running five miles today.

But it’s not road: it’s cross-country.

I’m in my element.

Sleet? Who cares?

Mud? I love mud!

Pain? Bring it on!

I’m on his shoulder. I’ve been in this position many times already in this race, and always I’ve breezed past, left the opposition behind.

Jon is not going to be left behind.

I’m past him but a gap doesn’t open up. He’s still with me, draws level, edges slightly ahead.

On another day, I might think: second is good; better than eve; I’ve done well; I don’t think I can sustain this pace; it hurts too much; Jon’s a great runner; I could stop pushing myself to the limit; ease back slightly; hold the others off; keep second place; it would still be the best race of my life.

This is not another day.

This is my day.

I’m going to win this,

And nobody is going to stop me.

I surge ahead; Jon catches up, draws level; I surge again, see a group of four, too far ahead to catch. This cat and mouse affair, now a microcosm of the race, is repeated again and again until, with about a quarter of a mile remaining, a shout from the sidelines: ‘C’mon, Scotland! Ye’re furst!’

I know I’m first, and I’m going to stay first.

Stay ahead,

Eyes forward,

Visualise:

Turn left at that gap in the hedge just up ahead,

Then 200 metres of straight downhill,

Sprint, sprint and keep sprinting,

Leave nothing on the field except the opposition,

Cross that finish line in first place.

Turn that visualisation into reality.

Everything hurts—legs, arms, chest, lungs—everything. You shouldn’t be able to run so hard when it hurts so much. But you have to, you have to find another gear to make that final, lung-bursting effort.

Through the gap in the hedge,

Sprinting,

Arms and legs pumping,

Chest heaving,

Have I opened up a gap?

Don’t look back,

Keep sprinting,

Eyes front.

I can hear something to my right, is that breathing?

Is he still with me?

I pick up the pace again,

One last effort,

Don’t stumble,

Don’t fall over,

Just

Keep

Sprinting

All

The

Way

To

The

Line.

I raise my arms in unrestrained joy, let out a whoop.

I’m the British & Irish International Champion.

There are key moments in life that you remember forever. That become your proudest memories. Graduation didn’t mean much to me. Getting married was wonderful. The birth of our children was amazing.

But nothing compares with this.

I’ve worked for this, overcome adversity time after time,

This

Is

The

Proudest

Moment

Of

My

Life.

I turn to hug Jon. He was a few seconds behind. It couldn’t have been him that I heard at my side: it must have been the wind in my ears. We walk through the funnel to join the other finishers. Only four of them? That group of four was the leading group? I had no idea that I had overtaken so many runners, that I was so far up the field. I’ve finished fifth overall, much higher than my previous best of twelfth, when I was four years younger. One of the four is Nigel Gates, who is in an older age group, but it doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter that I didn’t cross the line first: I’m the M45 champion.

Today, nothing else matters.

It’s 2004.

I’m forty-eight years old.

I am an International Champion.

*******

The rest of the day went by in a whirl, like the still-falling sleet. An ‘AW’ reporter interviewed me; that was a first. Scottish runners gathered around. It’s not that often that Scotland wins an individual gold, and today we’d won two. It was celebration for the squad, a time for team bonding.

I gave Davie Fairweather a lift to the hotel. Davie had selected me year after year, trusting my judgement whether I was fit enough to run or not. He’s always had faith in my running but, after today, perhaps not my driving: the car was so steamed up because of our sopping wet clothes that it was as challenging to see the road ahead as it had been to visualise crossing the finish line earlier. Everything had to be done in the right order: park the car, get the door key at reception, find my room, peel off the saturated gear, shower, text the result to friends and family, meet the team downstairs, relax, get ready for the presentation. My roommate was in the pub, so I negotiated the stairs alone, found our room, and didn’t know how to get in. It was one of those card-key things, and in my naivety I didn’t know how to use it. So, I dragged my sopping wet bag back down the stairs to ask the receptionist to enlighten me. She must have thought that, coming from the wilds of Scotland, we didn’t know about hotels, whereas I had driven along the M4 from the wilds of Wiltshire, and didn’t know about hotels there, either. Finally, divested of mud-splattered running gear (no idea how I was going to get any of it dry in time for next morning’s pack run with our squad), I showered, clogging up the drains with acres of mud, leaves, twigs and who knows what else, phoned Mum and Jane, texted everybody else and got ready to socialise.

The race had been won by Guy Amos, from Clive Bromhall, Nigel, and Andy Wilton, all of England. Guy was half a minute in front of me, and there were only four seconds between first and fourth. It had been quite a battle up there at the front; no wonder I didn’t close the gap. Behind Jon were masters that I had admired and read about in ‘AW’: Keith Newton, Mike Hager, Mike Boyle and many more. The presentation was an anticlimax, in a crowded room with poor acoustics, but nothing could spoil the moment.

Perhaps that’s where the story should end. After over thirty years of not quite making it to the top, this was retribution in excelsis. Should I have called it a day then, retired on a high?

Well, no: I was already looking ahead. Could I take my form to the next level and win a continental championship? I had never competed abroad. The European Masters Indoor Championships were coming up in Eskilstuna, Sweden next March. Oddly, the cross-country championships would be run concurrently with the indoor events. It would be the experience of a lifetime. Could I afford the trip?

The answer was yes: it would be expensive but worth it for a chance of further glory. I might never be running this well again.

It was the end of Cross-Country 1, and I had to force myself to take a rest. Back home, after washing my running gear a few times to get all the mud out, I hid it out of sight for a week. But I wanted to run everywhere: I ran to put the bins out, ran to the post box, ran from the car park to the gym. Nevertheless, I didn’t train for seven days, and headed into Cross-Country 2, rested, refreshed and preparing for a European Championship.

 

    Chapter Twenty: Beyond

At the end of my recovery week, Cross-Country 2 began with a win in a low-key race notable only for its location on my Wiltshire Downs training ground and, because of a painful encounter with an unseen electric fence strategically placed across the line of the course.

One week later, I knew I wouldn’t get close to the first two in the Wiltshire Championship—Chepkwony of the Army and Plummer of Salisbury—and so it proved. I held off the second army runner, who annoyed me after the race with a throwaway comment to his mates: ‘I knew I should be beating that guy in front of me.’

That guy was me, and he didn’t beat me. ‘What makes you think that you should beat me?’ I asked but not loud enough for him to hear. I wasn’t that confrontational. Except when running.

It wasn’t the most sensible idea to race in the Wessex League the next day but I was tempted to run on another of my old training grounds at Greenham Common, Newbury, and I wanted to win the senior title again. Tired after the Wiltshire, I was putting myself in a vulnerable position, and knew I was in for a difficult race when I saw Mark Hargreaves of Bournemouth on the start line. A tough adversary, Mark had won the British Masters Cross-Country Championship the previous year, and didn’t have too much trouble beating me into second place at Greenham. Someone told me afterwards that, upset at his non-selection for England’s M40 team at Croydon, he had sought me out to prove a point. If that was true, I took it as a compliment.

Meanwhile, life was about to take a critical turn. Fishing out a free leisure magazine from the bin at the gym, I spotted a job advert: Physical Activities Coordinator, South Severnside Council. My first thought was: I should be able to do that. My second was: where’s South Severnside? I looked it up on the map and thought: that’s a long way off, but I could drive there. After receiving the job pack and phoning up to find out more, I decided to apply, thinking that I just might be invited for interview. When I was indeed invited, I went along with the attitude: I don’t actually want this job, I can’t see me driving all that way every day but the interview will be good experience. Ten minutes into the interview, my opinion took a decisive shift: I do want this job. It was the attitude of my potential new manager that swayed me: an ex-teacher like me, he was so interested in what I had to say that I thought, if he’s willing to take a chance and offer me the job, I’ll take it. The next day, I received an offer of full-time employment. I didn’t say yes straight away: I had the bare-faced cheek to ask to start at the highest entry point of the salary scale and with a relocation package. To my amazement, my conditions were accepted and the offer confirmed. If an employer is willing to invest in me to that extent, I thought, South Severnside is the place for me.

Three days after the Wessex League, I was driving along the M4 between Swindon and South Severnside for my first day of my new job, terrified.

What was I letting myself in for? Had I made a mistake? Was it one change too many? Was I really ready for a stressful life again? Had I not suffered enough in the past? Adrenaline had fuelled me through the most recent of years of adversity to run at my very best, become International Champion and get the job. But what if the fuel ran dry? What if I lost form? If I wasn’t running well, would anything else go well? Could I cope with the new job, the commuting, the new lifestyle?

Full of doubts, nevertheless focusing on one step at a time, I made friends with my new colleagues in the office and started to feel my way into my new project: coordinating programmes to activate thousands of older people. The Christmas break, so soon after starting the job, gave me time with Mum in Airdrie. A time away from everything, to think about everything.

When 2005 came along, I was ready.

*******

The job was going well but the new routine was tiring, and my running began to suffer. There were showers at work, so I was able to go out for a short run most lunchtimes, but it always seemed to be a rush and I was missing the longer runs in daylight that I used to enjoy before changing jobs. Running under street lights in the evening, after a long day of work and commuting, was far less enjoyable. When my Achilles started to hurt, I was forced to curtail my favourite long runs over the country at weekends.

Nevertheless, there seemed to be nothing to worry about when I won the first Wessex League race of 2005 by a minute and a half. After three firsts and a second, I had won the overall league title with two rounds to spare.

I entered the Europeans and contacted a tour operator to explain that I was an inexperienced flyer: would any of their regular customers take me under their wing? Appreciating the pun, he put me in touch with a friendly, older couple who offered to fly with me from Manchester to Stockholm. It was doable: the Scottish Masters cross-country was a week before the Europeans; I could stay with Mum and travel home via Manchester.

And Sweden.

There were a few more competitions before that key date in mid-March. I ran two short races in preparation for the unusual distance (for cross-country) of five kilometres to be run at the European. The first was 4K against much younger runners at the Reebok Cross Challenge in Cardiff. The main purpose was to gain experience of a faster race pace in the middle of winter and that was accomplished, although I had arrived in a panic after a delayed journey caused by my old car breaking down on the way. A fortnight later I finished second in an open 5K under lights of Street in Somerset. It was only 16:10 but—on a dark, shadowy course with square corners—not too far off my pb of 15:52. Next came the Wessex League again, where, although well beaten into second by a guest runner, I completed a set of four league wins for the perfect score of four points. Seven days later I returned to Cardiff for the British Masters Indoors, this time turning up to the start at the correct time and actually running the race, which was a relief after the nightmare of the previous year. Third place in the 3,000 metres, albeit with an indoor pb, was slightly disappointing but it was a means to an end.

An end that was in sight, three weeks in the future, but was I going to reach it? The pain in the Achilles was coming and going, and I was missing some training sessions. Could I hold on until the Europeans? Would it be worth it? It seemed unlikely as the pain moved up into my calf. I struggled through interrupted training during the next two weeks leading to the Scottish.

Which was painful.

In previous years I would have been delighted with fifth overall and only two M40s ahead of me. I was also beaten by two M45s—Eddie Stewart and Colin Donnelly—demonstrating the strength of our age group in Scotland. Neither Eddie nor Colin had competed at Croydon; how different might that race have been? I had never beaten either of them before, and today was closer to them than ever, particularly Colin, on whom I was closing rapidly in the finishing straight. However, it was a poor run in comparison with my British & Irish win, and I was struggling with injury. Up on my toes every time I tackled the steep hills of Bellahouston Park, pain shot from the Achilles up into my calf. It was too painful to cool down after the race.

It was only five days until my rendezvous at Manchester Airport.

Six days until the Europeans.

What was I going to do?

What I did was self-massage the calf and apply contrast bathing (alternating hot and cold) three times per day and walk, swim and complete a set of body weight exercises every day. Two days after the Scottish and four before the Europeans, a local physiotherapist, recommended by Mum, applied ultrasound and friction massage to the calf and Achilles, and I jogged two miles on soft ground. The next day it was three miles, more like running than jogging, then five miles, definitely running now, and another session on the physiotherapist’s table. It was two days before the race. In only twenty-four hours’ time, I was due to travel to Sweden. I made my decision.

I was going to fly.

Whether I was going to run or not was still in doubt. The pain had eased considerably but I was postponing the inevitable: to recover properly from this injury needed more time. Time that I didn’t have if I was going to race at the weekend. On balance, I thought it was worth the risk of causing further damage to my lower leg. I had paid the entry fees, booked the flight and accommodation, and was committed to the trip. In more ways than one, I had put the miles in. If the Achilles and ankle held up during my warm-up, I would toe the line again. The trip itself was going to be a new experience for me: the first time I would run outside of Britain and Ireland. No longer in top form but, after the past four days of treatment and self-treatment, I should be able to run as well as I ran at the Scottish. And that could be good enough for a medal, and I just might become European Champion. It was too good an opportunity to miss. If I didn’t take it, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

On Friday morning at 2am, I backed the car out of Mum’s driveway and drove downhill towards the M74. Next stop: Manchester Airport.

Where I arrived in good time but in a panic. There would be a hefty parking bill when I returned in a couple of days’ time: in my anxiety to get to the meeting place, I parked in short stay instead of long stay. It was a relief when I met my unofficial tour guides, Carol and Roy. They were so friendly and helpful, that all I had to do was follow them as we arrived in Stockholm and transferred to the train for Eskilstuna without mishap. Through the windows of the carriage, Sweden looked exactly as I had imagined: people skating on the frozen river; white trees, fields and hills as far as the eye could see. Walking from Eskilstuna station to the hotel, we were greeted by snow falling thickly, something for which the championship organisers wouldn’t stop apologising. But we thought it was perfect: this was Sweden in winter and tomorrow we were going to run in the European Cross-Country Championships. Snow seemed such an essential requirement that we would have been disappointed without it.

Lining up at the start, I was the only one in vest and shorts: everyone else was encased in multiple layers. Running with an injury and stripping down to the bare minimum was a gamble but the cold was numbing the lingering pain in my calf and Achilles. I was quietly confident even though, only two weeks short of my forty-ninth birthday, I was one of the oldest in a race which combined the M45s, M40s and the new M35s. Turning to see Scotland’s John Brown standing behind me, I gestured to a place on the front line but he shook his head: ‘It’s okay, I’ll no’ be up there the day.’

John had beaten me by half a lap in the Scottish Masters 5,000 metres the previous summer and had won the M40 race at the World Cross-Country Championships earlier the same year. Today he was coming back from injury. So was I, but I pushed that thought to the back of my mind, focused on the path ahead and waited for the starter’s gun.

Two of the younger runners open up an early gap and stretch their lead inexorably, leaving the chasing group to contest third place. Halfway around the fourth and final lap, although well behind the leading pair, I’m in pole position in our group. To anyone watching, I must look like the hare about to be caught and devoured by the pack. However, on a freezing hill in Scandinavia, battered by snow, all I have to do is maintain this pace, stay ahead of the pack until the final straight and then sprint like nothing else matters.

At the presentation there was a video of the final stages of the race. I watched myself straining and leaning into the finish, a few metres ahead of the baying hounds. I had hung onto third and more importantly, first M45.

I was a European Champion.

It was supposed to be a step up from the British & Irish but it wasn’t: the standard was lower, it was poorly supported, and there was only a handful of competitors in my age group. But you can only beat who’s there on the day, and I beat everyone except two M40s. John Brown thanked me for pulling him along to M40 bronze. The winner was twenty seconds ahead and out of sight in the snow. The runner-up, eight seconds in front of me, had run 8:47 for 3,000 metres on the indoor track earlier in the championships, which would have been fast enough to lap me. Yet, I had overcome adversity and injury once again.

But at what cost?

The gamble in the cold might have saved my Achilles and calf in the short term but, in the long term, there could be months of recovery ahead of me. But once they were out of the way, what next?

Britain & Ireland, then Europe, then?

The world.

March 2006: World Masters Indoor and Cross-Country Championships, Austria. I would be nearly fifty years old, almost certainly the oldest M45. It would be more sensible to wait until I was one of the youngest in the M50 age group but I was in the form of my life, or had been until this latest injury. If I could brush that aside quickly, I’d be back on a roll.

Wouldn’t I?

 

     Chapter Twenty-One: Decline

During the months following Eskilstuna, life outside of athletics was good, as I settled into my new job. Injury-free running would make it even better but seemed unlikely, even after months of rest, cross training, physiotherapy and a referral to podiatry for new orthotics. Rehabilitation, initially promising after a few weeks of running, led to nothing but further injury. As so often happens, one injury led to another: the ankle and Achilles improved but knee pain made an unwelcome return. By the end of the summer of 2005, I had stopped running but cross training was causing shoulder and elbow injuries, which were treated by cortisone injections. After missing the entire 2005 track and 2005/2006 cross-country seasons, I attended a pre-op assessment, in the summer of 2006, for my seventh operation: an arthroscopy to ‘clean out’ the knee joint. I had a good record of coming back strong from surgery, my confidence in corrective surgery was high and I was excited again.

Surgical methods had advanced so much, since my last knee operation twenty-six years previously, that I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of pain on the day after this one. Amazingly, my comeback race in October 2006 was an open win, albeit in a low-key cross-country event. My next race was eighth place in the Wessex League, and I was back in the Scotland team for the British & Irish.

And back to Callendar Park, Falkirk.

For my first masters race as an M50.

Only two years after the race of my life in Croydon, I was brought back to earth with a crash in Falkirk: from fifth overall in 2004, I slid down the field to forty-fourth. However, sixth in my new age group wasn’t a bad debut, a mere four months after surgery. Before Christmas, I had improved in the Wessex League to third and then second, and was in contention for a series medal as a senior, never mind M50. To round off the year, I won the Wiltshire senior cross-country, sort of. Sitting at home after the race, I received a call out of the blue from an athletics correspondent. It was rare for an M50 to win a county championship, and I had to explain that I didn’t really win it. I was on the top of the senior men’s results list but I was only fourth: three juniors beat me. Nevertheless, it was a satisfying end to 2006.

Except that I was injured again: I stumbled on a brick and developed what felt like a bony bruise. Months later, after several physiotherapy sessions and visits to two doctors, I was no better informed and still injured. Needless to say, I missed the second half of the cross-country season, and by the time I was fit enough to compete again, the 2007 track season was over. Since taking my first tentative steps after the 2006 surgery, a year had passed, most of which I had missed because of yet another injury. Surprisingly, my comeback race was another open win, in a competitive trail race at Badbury Castle, which set the scene for my most complete and successful season as an M50.

It was a hollow victory when I won gold at the British Masters Ten Miles Championship at nearby Tadley in Hampshire: Tim Hughes, another M50, had finished ahead of me. National titles were obviously not top of Tim’s priority list, because he hadn’t entered the British Championship, so I won the title by default. However, I beat everyone else and ran a respectable time of 56:24. And the race confirmed my place in the Scotland team for the British & Irish, to be held in Stormont, Northern Ireland, in a month’s time.

Mike Hager, a stalwart of this race and probably the top M55 in the world, was the man to beat in the M50-69 race, and I thought I could do it. Winning gold again and crossing the line first would be the perfect comeback and might feel even better than my M45 win. However, I didn’t commit myself: I was in second place for most of the race but never close enough to Mike to be a threat. When he pulled away, I was overtaken by Mike Weedall of Wales and my Scotland teammate, Iain Stewart. It wasn’t a collapse in form, but an onlooker’s description was that my hips ‘dropped’ and I ‘sunk’ into the ground. It was something that I would need to work on, but it was another individual medal at international level.

My good form continued into the Wiltshire Championship, where I was up against Dave Bishop and Dan Wilson. Dave was on the fringe of international selection while Dan, a young senior, had been winning locally. It was clear to me that the rest of us should fight for third place and leave those two to get on with it. Dave would win easily and Dan would be an isolated second. Dan, however, had other ideas: he thought he could win. It was much to his credit that he had a real go at it but, inexorably, Dave left him behind. Dan, suffering from his earlier enthusiasm, came back to me, stride by stride. As I overtook him, I couldn’t help feeling a wee bit sorry for him but not enough to stop me laughing to myself all the way down the home straight. At the age of fifty-one, I had beaten the young pretender for the first time and finished second.

It was a return to Irvine, scene of my first ever international race, for the Scottish Masters Championships in February 2008. Finishing sixteenth overall after another close battle with my old friend, Iain Stewart, I won the M50 title. Later in the season I won bronze in the M50 race in the UK Masters although, once again, I was fourth over the line, since Mike Hager, as usual, beat all of his younger opponents.

As the 2007/2008 cross-country season drew to a close, I had won Scottish gold, UK gold and bronze and British & Irish bronze, together with a silver at senior level in the county. I had also completed three series: sixth senior and first master in a local 5K road race league; sixth senior and first master in the Oxford League; and third senior and first master in the Wessex League. Now that my club was no longer affiliated to the Wessex League, it was the end of a love affair which began in 1981 at the age of twenty-five. After twenty-seven years in the league, I had run over 100 races, usually finishing in the top six, and with several outright wins but also an eighty-fourth. I had two series wins, five runners-up and four thirds in the seniors; and eleven series wins as a master, missing out only once when injury wrote off the entire season. It was a good haul in a career regularly interrupted by injury and operations.

But neither the season nor the career was over yet.

Because I finally made it to the World Cross.

Not the World Cross of my dreams in younger days, but the next best thing for someone in his fifties: the World Masters Indoor and Cross-Country Championships in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Given the expense of the trip, I would never have travelled it if I hadn’t thought I had a chance of winning, but it was only a slim chance. I had been beaten into third place in both the British & Irish and the UK, and I didn’t have a stack of titles like those accumulated by more successful and seasoned campaigners, but I was in good form and was enjoying a rare season uninterrupted by illness or injury, apart from a tender Achilles, which is nothing unusual for a runner in full training. It wasn’t impossible that, if everything fell into place, on a perfect day, I just might become Champion du Monde.

Travelling by car, Eurostar, Paris underground, train to Clermont and finally tram, I arrived at the hotel in good spirits and proud of myself for getting there almost independently. It was just as well that I had practised my schoolboy French because in Clermont, unlike Eskilstuna, very few of the locals spoke English. Alone and slightly lost in a beautiful medieval city surrounded by mountains higher than Ben Nevis, I had to settle for an evening meal in McDonalds, not the best of preparations for a World Championship but it would have to do.

Any thoughts of winning disappeared when the fast start took me by surprise. This was no poorly supported race like the Europeans three years before: it was a strong field, and I was already some way off the pace. However, I didn’t panic, picked off runners one by one and finished fifth M50. Or it might have been fourth: the Power of Ten website told me I was fourth, often known as the worst place to be in a championship race. The M50s ran with the M45s, so it was difficult to tell on the day, but fourth or fifth, I had run a well-judged race, probably my best of the season. A season that I’d had no right to expect so soon after injury and surgery.

It was strange watching the opening ceremony at the local hall that evening: my championship was already over and I was going home the next day after only two nights. The entry fees, GB kit, travel, single supplement accommodation and food had taken me £500 into our overdraft: obviously not sustainable. Unless I was going to come into a fortune, not to mention better form, this had been my last shot at glory on the world stage.

The Achilles was still tender during the long journey home. The sensible thing to do was to rest and recover but I was enjoying myself, and there was one more race to run: the Grove half-marathon in Oxfordshire.

There’s a photograph of me looking confident and running with a relaxed, upright style, in my black and white Swindon vest, and black shorts, gloves and socks on a black road with verges of white snow. The only splash of colour is my pair of bright yellow racing shoes, which I should never have worn that day. A super-light design, intended to be thrown away after a 100 kilometres of running in races of up to ten miles.

Common sense was to run the thirteen miles in a less flimsy pair.

Despite thirty-five years of experience, common sense deserted me.

Nevertheless, I ran a good race, gradually catching all but one of the runaway leaders, and feeling comfortable and pain-free. Until the ten miles mark, when I rounded a sharp bend and felt more than a twinge in the Achilles. The pain increased during those extra three miles, but I held on to second place in 74:43 and completed the season. A season of one race too many, with or without flimsy shoes. I would rest the Achilles, recover and return to form on the track.

Or so I hoped.

*******

I missed the entire 2008 track season as one injury led to another and the pattern for the next three years set in: injury, recovery, illness, recovery, injury, recovery. At least part of each track or cross-country season, usually all of it, was written off. Most of the time, I was able to cycle and swim. Once a month during late spring, summer and early autumn I would cycle the fifty mile round trip to work and back. And once per week I drove halfway and cycled the remainder. I swam regularly in the pool and, on holidays and days out, in the sea. Then I discovered that if I cycled to the Cotswold Water Park early enough, I could sneak through a side gate and swim from the beach area before anyone else arrived. I set myself the challenge of the forty mile round trip with a swim at the turnaround point every weekend throughout the summer, which I achieved. Including the Swan Incident…

Swimming inside the roped-off area, I’m aware of a family of swans on the other side of the rope. Pool mentality reassures me that I’m in my lane and they’re in theirs: we’ll get along fine, minding our own business. But Daddy Swan doesn’t know about lane swimming etiquette: he thinks I’m a threat to his babies. Hissing and honking, he traverses the lane rope in an instant, rearing and flapping his powerful wings, threatening. I’ve never swum so fast in my life as I flee from that angry cob. Seconds later I’m standing on the beach, watching him glide away with his mate, with several tiny cygnets in tow. Human families have started to arrive to stare at the spectacle. It’s like that scene in Jaws when everyone is afraid to return to the water.

While the swans swim serenely into the distance, I spot a row of large, bright yellow buoys at the other side of the lake.

‘That’s Waterland,’ explains the lifeguard. ‘They do proper open water swimming there.’

*******

On my fifty-fifth birthday in March 2011, despite minimal winter preparation, I was determined to mark my entry into the M55 ranks with my first track season and injury-free summer for seven years. Seven years of bad luck? There seemed little prospect of that luck changing but I made the same decision that I had made on my fortieth birthday: I would return to the 800 metres and 1500 metres.

When you’re one of the oldest in your age group you can’t help but look at the performances of the fastest runners in the next one. Surely you won’t slow down that much. But you do. The first time I ran slower than 16:30 for 5,000 metres was a shock. How could I run so slowly when I had been able to run under sixteen minutes only a few years earlier? And then I ran 17:00, then 17:30, and wished I could still run 16:30. And now, at fifty-five, how would my 800 metres and 1500 metres times compare to my 2:01 and 4:10 as a newcomer to the masters scene in my early forties?

My early-season efforts were abrupt reminders to look forward, not back. 2:20 and 4:50? Let’s focus on the championships, starting with the Scottish Masters at Meadowbank, where (for a change) I was the youngest in the M55+ 1500 metres. The youngest but not the fastest: Alastair Dunlop lined up alongside me. Alastair had been winning national, continental and world championships for years. He was probably the most travelled master of all: even the shortest journeys from his home in the Hebrides to Scottish Championships were, by most people’s standards, major excursions. I told Susan and Mum that I would probably be second, but I had a plan. Warming up, I was hit by a strong gust of wind (and a thought) as I turned into the stadium. Nobody wants to lead on a windy day. Nobody expects anyone to go off quickly. If I did just that, nobody would expect me to stay ahead. This early in the season, maybe Alastair would underestimate me and let me build up a lead until it was too late to chase me down. Maybe the wind would work in my favour, like it did for Alan Pascoe on the same track in 1973, when he hit ‘a brick wall’ but won his European Cup race, while Dad and I watched from the stands. It was a bold plan, setting myself up to be shot down at leisure by a serial international champion. But the plan worked and I won.

It was the only time that I won a national masters championship and crossed the line first.

Alastair would later peak to perfection, finishing second in the World M55 800 metres during a season in which he ran under 2:10. While Alastair used the Scottish as a springboard to success at world level, I made a raid across the border to win the Welsh M55 800 metres and 1500 metres double. Then at the UK Masters I led the first three laps of the 1500 metres but this time the tactics didn’t work: I was overtaken by the eventual winner and then in the home straight by the winning M60. It was a limp performance, not the biggest boost to my confidence as I drove back to the Alexander Stadium with Jane the following day for the 800 metres final.

*******

‘Oh, no! I’m not on the start list!’

I turn in a panic from the notice board to Jane. Yesterday I thought I understood the entry-declaration-reporting procedure. I thought that yesterday was too early to declare for today. I was wrong: I’ve missed today’s deadline. The start list has been finalised and I’m not on it. I’ve dragged Jane a hundred miles up the road for nothing. What am I going to do?

Well, I talk nicely to an official and explain my mistake. She listens patiently, understands, and adds me to the start list.

So here I am. Another start line. Another national championship. There are only four of us but I know that the other three are all good 800 metres runners. This will be a competitive race.

In the home straight for the first time. There’s a runaway leader but he’s not getting any further ahead. I’m tucked in behind the next two.

The bell. ‘sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven…’ Faster than I’ve run for years. I move up to second and chase the leader.

In the back straight for the final time. I’m closing. Feeling the fast pace, but closing.

Round the final bend. I’m hurting but still closing. Push myself, draw level on his outside, the home straight will take care of itself.

Into the final straight and into the lead. If it’s hurting me, what’s it doing to the others? After all these years, after yesterday’s disappointment, I’m leading again, and it’s 800 metres; cross-country runners aren’t supposed to win national championships at 800 metres. Visualise: crossing the line in first place. Only sixty metres to go. I’m going to win. British Champion. What a comeback!

Fifty metres to go. Oh, no! What’s happening? Someone draws alongside, edges ahead. No! Forty metres. Come on! One final effort. My brain works, my will to win is as strong as ever but my legs don’t respond. It’s a feeling unique to 800 metres: it’s been described as ‘treading water’ or ‘tying up’. I’m in a film, playing at slow speed. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

*******

At the finish line I was a full second behind the winner, Stewart McGregor, another Wiltshire runner returning to the track after a long absence. Entering the final straight, I thought I had timed my race to perfection. But I hadn’t: Stewart had. My time was 2:17.87, by far my fastest of a season in which, with the exception of the UK 1500 metres, I improved race by race.

If someone had told me on my fifty-fifth birthday that I would win the Scottish and Welsh, get two silvers in the British and make the UK top four in three events in the Power of Ten rankings, I would have taken all that.

So said my training diary at the end of the 2011 track season. And all on no more than thirty miles per week. More significantly, it was without injury, a trend that continued into the 2011/2012 cross-country season, with an increased weekly mileage of forty, together with weekly cycle rides, swims and weights sessions. Bronze at the British & Irish was the highlight of the season, whereas the same colour of medal in the Scottish was a disappointment. I won the over 50s title in the Oxford League, but was finishing in the forties, rather than the top ten of only a few years earlier.

Although I hated to admit it, I was feeling my age.

*******

2012 was the year of the London Olympics and much talk of Olympic legacy. There had been little previous evidence worldwide of a resultant increase in physical activity following any host nation’s Olympics. Could we buck the trend? My job had moved on somewhat from those early days as a physical activity coordinator for older people. I was managing a large team and leading on projects such as child and adult weight management, exercise referral, health walks and physical activity strategy. I suggested to my manager that the most effective way to establish an Olympic legacy, increase physical activity and develop running in our area would be to start a parkrun.

During an unremarkable track season for me, I ran faster in 5K parkruns (17:29) than for the same distance on the track. But that wasn’t my main motivation for running them: it was product awareness. parkrun was on its way to becoming the global phenomenon it is today. Its ethos was simple: any age or ability, free entry, a one-off registration online, 5K, in a park, 9am, every Saturday, all year round, just turn up. In 2012 it cost £6,000 to start a parkrun: half funded by parkrun’s sponsors and the other half from the local organisers. However, local authorities don’t pay VAT, so for a one-off investment of £2,500, South Severnside Council would gain a lifelong physical activity intervention run locally by volunteers. We would also have access to any amount of stats to demonstrate its effectiveness. Each parkrunner has a unique barcode which is scanned at the end of any parkrun that they choose to run, anywhere in the UK and in many other countries. Within an hour or so, results are available online: finishing, age-group and gender position and time, all compared to previous performances. With a little help from parkrun HQ, we would also know which postcodes were represented by participants, an important public health statistic.

You have to be there to see the unique appeal of parkrun. Although there are a few good club runners, the vast majority of participants are not athletes: they are people of all ages, shapes, sizes and cultures, who run to improve their health. It’s no wonder that parkrun is seen by many as the most effective investment in public health, ever. I listened to the run directors and volunteers talk about the positive impact on their community. And participants told me about the huge difference parkrun makes to their physical, mental and social health.

Without further ado, our senior management put up the cash in principle. Now all I had to do was find a venue and recruit a team of volunteers. After running round in circles in various parks, I settled on Vale Park and met with the local parish council, in particular one councillor who saw the benefits to the community and was keen to get it off the ground. We held a taster run one evening, which attracted over 100 participants and, crucially, a group of volunteers, who became the run directors under the guidance of the event director. After training, the first event was all set to go ahead in the autumn.

At the same time, a partnership with England Athletics was established, to form Run England groups and set up 3-2-1 running routes in South Severnside. Run England groups were not affiliated athletics or running clubs: they were semi-formal groups, led by qualified and insured volunteers. Unlike the old days when only club athletes pounded the roads, there were hundreds of ordinary people running, many of whom would appreciate the supervision and companionship that Run England groups offered. The project began in our own workplace. Several of us trained as Leaders in Running Fitness (LiRF) and then, on the Monday after Super Saturday, we started our recruitment drive at work. We could not have chosen a better date. The buzz created by Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah, all winning Olympic gold within the same hour in London, spread across the UK, including our offices. Colleagues signed up in droves, so many that we set up three different groups—before and after work and at lunchtime—for a ‘go live’ date in early autumn. We also established the area’s first 3-2-1 route, the same route as the Vale Park parkrun, marked out with posts and publicised online and via an illustrated information board on site.

Back on the track I was almost involved in a row at an open meeting in Cheltenham. Apparently, as Jane told me after the 1500 metres, a couple of young athletes in the stands were making fun of me as I trailed round in last place.

‘Look at that old bloke at the back! What’s he doing here? He’s either gonna be last or the judges’ll disqualify him for lifting.’ Or some such wit.

‘Do you not think I have a right to run, then? Have you never heard of ageism? How about encouraging me? What are your pbs? Do you want to know what mine were at your age? How many international titles have you won? How many national? Regional? County? What are your aspirations?’

I didn’t really say all that. I didn’t say anything. I still wasn’t confrontational. Besides, I finished second last, not last.

My undistinguished track season drew to a close at the British Masters 10,000 metres Championship in Oxford. I had no idea that it would be the final race of my final track season.

A race that I still haven’t finished.

It was a struggle for twenty-three or twenty-four laps but then I heard the bell and set off in pursuit of the athlete in third M55 position, overtaking and running away from him in the home straight to claim bronze, a consolation prize for a poor run.

Until the bell rang.

Again.

There was another lap to run.

Amidst the confusion of lapped runners in multiple age groups, an official had miscounted the number of laps. And so had I. Exhausted, confused and not entirely convinced that the lap count was wrong, I watched helplessly as the real bronze medallist ran past me and into this final lap. The logical decision was to get up and run another lap, but I was too tired for logical decisions.

So that was that. Twenty-four laps and still not finished. One day, in a parallel world, I might go back and finish the race.

Meanwhile, in the real world, things were about to go from bad to worse.

 

When Tony Chapman (pictured above)  resigned in 1961, he left behind a very good working coaching system in place.   Starting with almost nothing organised, and with the help and assistance of the SAAA, there was a fairly large body of coaches ranging from very good to competent, and a programme of coach education with a cadre of lecturers, teachers and mentors.   And not least there was a healthy respect for coaching and what it had to offer athletics, in contrast to some of the doubting that he himself had to face when he took up the position.    

The question that the SAAA had to answer was who or what was to replace him?   The SAAA had a coaching committee which appointed Bill Dickinson of the Scottish School of Physical Education at Jordanhill College in Glasgow,  and RAB Foreman to act as cover for a national coach, with Bill looking after the West of the country and RAB the East. Forman had been a very good sprinter in his day and as an administrator had been President of the SAAA in 1958.   Dickinson had been head of the Jordanhill Training College PE Department and would go on to be the first national coach for rugby between 1971 to 1977.   These were interim, part-time appointments, probably because of the funding situation.   When the new Scottish Sports Council took over from the CCPR, money would have become available for more appointments.   There were by now, and partly as a result of Chapman’s work, coaches such as Jim Logan and Eddie Taylor to help look after various events.   The coaching courses continued in various forms – eg the course that several of my own club mates attended in 1962 was held on ten consecutive Tuesday evenings and covered all events with the resulting qualification being for “Club Coach, All Events” .   This was the format until the new Scottish Sports Council took over from the CCPR, and money became available for appointments to all NGB’s.   

Then on 27th February, 1965 the following short report appeared in ‘Athletics Weekly.’.

The administrators named were all well-known and experienced in Scottish, indeed in British athletic circles.   Their involvement in coaching as well as in the organisation of athletics was considerable, with Dunky Wright having been involved in the sport since he started running before the end of the first World War in 1918.   The rest were not quite so long in the tooth but were as good a group as could have been found to tackle the task in hand.   The key name to note from the report is that of Mr R Adams (Kirkcaldy) who would co-ordinate the coach’s activities.    

Although Scottish athletics was separate from England with its own governing bodies (SAAA, SWAAA, SSAA, etc) there was a degree of overlap and co-operation between bodies on both sides of the border.   The end result of the notice published in ‘Athletics Weekly’ was the appointment of John Anderson.   

John had been a very active and successful coach in Scotland where, as well as working with some very talented athletes, he was responsible for the development of Maryhill LAC into one of Britain’s very best women’s clubs.  At this point John was Itinerant National Coach for England, having been appointed in early 1964. He was based in the Midlands and travelled vast distances all over England filling in for other National Coaches who were unavailable for whatever reason.   John was very active, very enthusiastic, very keen on developing his own store of knowledge, and one of only two coaches in Britain (Wilf Paish was the other) to have successfully completed every Senior Coach event qualification available.   An amazing achievement.   His knowledge of the English scene was to be very important, as  SAAA and the AAA  coaching had a lot in common.   For instance the BAAB Coaching handbooks were excellent productions and used on both sides of the border – and further afield too.   They were written by the top men in their event and kept up with the event’s progress – eg. Middle Distance Running by Tony Ward, which was updated to Jim Alford’s version and then brought further up-to-date by Martin Hyman and Bruce Tulloh; Javelin Throwing went to at least five versions; Strength Training for Athletics by Ron Pickering was a standard handbook used across several disciplines,  and was superseded by Frank Dick’s version.   The hurdling booklet below was produced in 1959.     The actual coaching qualifications were BAAB qualifications too although they were administered and assessed by Scottish staff coaches.   More about the coaching courses and qualifications later.

As National Coach in Scotland, a post he held from 1965 until 1970,  John was very active, covering every aspect of the sport in every part of the country.   The Scottish interest in and desire for coach education, so obvious to anyone in the sport after the War, had not gone away, and John developed a network of venues and courses for the growing interest in coach education in the country. 

• He also insisted that coaching be open to both men and women and was responsible for organising women’s coaching courses at Inverclyde.
• The Scottish Schools Coaching Courses at Grangemouth were initiated by John who was the only National Coach that I knew of who even worked with Scottish Schools squad days –  the Scottish Schools tend to have their own event coaches for squad days, 
• He even took the coaching courses out to clubs and took athlete ‘demonstrators’, such as Cameron McNeish and Hamish Telfer with him. 
• There were many different governing bodies involved in the sport in the country and John  helped merge the various coaching committees into the ‘Joint Coaching Committees’.   He covered huge distances and was always available.   
• He was also the man responsible in the beginning for organising the Annual National Coaching Convention.    This was a superb innovation, started by John and developed to a tremendous extent by Frank Dick.   It brought world class coaches from all over the athletics world to speak and talk with Scottish coaches on their own turf.   Every aspect of the sport was covered – technical aspects, fitness and conditioning, physiological testing – and star athletes were often present too.   At the end of the conference, all the papers presented were issued to those in attendance in spiral bound booklet form for further study and for dissemination within the clubs across the land.   Wherever he was, he was approachable.    The coaches were all on side.   

John Anderson

While the scene in Scotland was independent of the AAA’s in England, it is a small island and there was a lot of overlap, and almost all of the coaches knew and spoke with each other.   John had discovered Geoff Dyson’s book ‘The Mechanics of Athletics’ soon after its publishing in 1961 and was immediately taken by it.   Everything he did thereafter had to be grounded in the science of athletics, there had to be a scientific backing for what the athletes were asked to do.  He also used his knowledge of and friendship with coaches from south of the Border.    In England there were personnel changes –  Lionel Pugh succeeded AR Malcolm, then resigned about the same time as Geoff Dyson; Jim Alford took on Wales and West of England; Ian Ward took on North-East England to lighten Dennis Watts’ work load,;  then Rob Pickering took over from Jim  Alford in 1961, Bill Marlow followed Pugh in the Midlands in 1962.   These names were all easily recognised in Scotland at the time, because most of them came up at some time or other – eg Ian Ward spent a day at Nethercraigs in Glasgow on the pole vault and demonstrated using something most of the coaches listening had never seen – a fibreglass vaulting pole.   The latest in athletics technology being shared with new coaches.   In addition they were all known from their writings whether in the form of booklets or in articles in ‘Athletics Weekly, ‘World Athletics’ or even ‘World Sports’.   

Then John had the sessions with athletes.   For instance the lunchtime sessions at Glasgow University’s ground at Westerlands were legendary with many of the very best in the country training there.   The half milers Mike McLean, Graeme Grant and Dick Hodelet were there as was Hugh Barrow from Victoria Park; distance men such as Lachie Stewart were also attendees at the lunchtime training.   Runners really went out of their way to attend.   Hugh Barrow says:    The routine, as described by Hugh Barrow, was:

 

John left the post of National Coach in 1970 to become Direction of Physical Education at Heriot-Watt University.   The job came up and it was a case of ‘take it or leave it.’    Always up for a new challenge, John took it on.     Where was Scottish Coaching at this point of transition?

The coaching structure in Scotland was simple and straightforward – and very effective. 

At the top was the National Coach who had four Group Coaches responsible to him – one each for Sprints, Endurance, Jumps and Throws.   

Within each group there were Staff Coaches for individual events answerable to the Group Coach.  

          Sprinting had individual Staff Coaches for 100 yards, 220 yards and 440 yards plus relays

          Distance running had separate staff coaches for 880/Mile, 3 Miles/6 Miles and Long Distance (including race walking)

          Jumps had staff coaches for pole vault, high jump, long jump and triple jump;

          Throws had separate staff coaches for Shot, Discus, Hammer and Javelin.

Each Group Coach had his own admin officer who took care of all the office work associated with the events.    And of course every one of the staff coaches had his own network of trusted coaches.       

The inside of the Coach’s Passbook – personal details on the left, coaching qualifications on the right

Staff Coaches had slips like the one below to go into the pocket on the right

The coaching courses were held over two weekends – the first was almost all theory and the second was largely practical sessions.   The SAAA owned the Inverclyde Centre at Largs and the  sessions were held there.   These led to the BAAB Coaching awards and came in three categories: Assistant Club Coach, Club Coach and Senior Club Coach.   It was a good system and the titles meant something.   Most awards went in the Club Coach bracket which was appropriate because that was the level most coaches were operating at.   The Assistant Club Coaches had to work very hard for their qualification – it was at a higher level than the current Level 1 Coach award and covered all events.   It also said what it was – the coach with it realised that he was not yet at the appropriate standard to be a club coach and this was an encouragement to progress further up the ladder.  There was no examination for this award, examinations came in for the first time at Club Coach standard.   Senior Coach was a real test of the coach’s abilities – there were the two weekends at Inverclyde but they were specialist sessions as far as the practical work went but there was a higher standard of theory for those taking the Senior award with a three hour written paper and a practical test.   In addition the Staff Coach responsible for the event was (or became) familiar with the work done on a regular basis with his athletes)    The numbers operating in the country reflected this.   eg as late as 1980, there were 32 Senior Coaches in the country but  103 Club Coaches.    On qualification the coach was given a passbook like the one above which had two pockets inside – on the left was the coach’s personal details, on the right were the events and standard of the coaching qualification.   

In addition, the coaches were listed in the SAAA annual handbook together with their addresses and telephone numbers.   Why so?   It was because the qualified coaches had to be available to athletes requiring their assistance.   The Handbook stated at the top of the lists, before a single coach was named, that it was a list of British Amateur Athletic Board Coaches in Scotland.   This statement was then amplified and qualified as follows:                                         

The following coaches have kindly offered their services free to clubs and schools.   Such coaching will be carried out locally so far as their normal occupation permits.   Applications for their services should be made direct to them ( a stamped addressed envelope must be enclosed).   No fee is charged for their services, but travelling expenses must be offered.”   

That was pretty well the situation when John ceased to be Scottish National Coach.   How successful was he?   A look at some of the coaches working in the country at the time tells a story.   Such men as Jimmy Campbell, Iain Robertson, Alex Naylor,  Sandy Ewen, Eddie Taylor and others of similar calibre were gracing the scene.   Senior Coaches were spread round the country – Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Innerleithen in the Borders, Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, Ayrshire, Fife and other centres of population.   Nor were the coaches only working with distance runners – the Senior coaches covered long, triple and high jump, shot, discus, javelin and high jump, sprints, middle distance, distance and relay.         John left just before the 1970 Commonwealth Games were to be held in Edinburgh and was succeeded by Frank Dick.   If we compare the situation in 1980 with that when Tony Chapman was appointed in 1949, coaching in Scotland had come a very long way.   There were a very few gaps – availability of pole vault coaching was virtually non-existent but it was being tackled by several coaches notably by Eddie Taylor who was Administrator of the Coaching Committee.   This was a sub-committee of the SAAA General Committee and this was made up in 1980 of Bob Short as Convener, Eddie Taylor, with Brian McAusland (West District), Charles Bannerman (North of Scotland) and James Kerr (East District) as assistant administrators.   Eddie was a Senior Coach for Javelin and Jumps and club coach for Sprints, Relays, MD, Shot and Discus and would become Staff Coach for what were then called multi-events.   He was also representing the SAAA Coaching Committee on the Joint Coaching Committee with the SWAAA and SSAA reps completing the make-up of that body.

The sport in 1969 and into the 1970’s was in a very healthy condition as far as coaching was concerned.