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

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

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

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

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

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

Hamish (on the right) and Cameron McNeish

Photo from C McNeish

Cameron, Hamish’s long time friend says … 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Hamish comments:

Hamish

Picture from the Leisure Review

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

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

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

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

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

Cameron explains the beginnings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Name: Hamish Telfer

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

Date of Birth:    28^th April 1950

Occupation:    University Lecturer

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

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

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

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

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

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

What did you do apart from running to relax?

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

What goals do you have that are still unachieved?

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

Can you give details of your training?

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

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

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

What changes would you like to see in the sport?

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

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

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

_____________________________________________

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

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

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

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

* Tried to start an outdoors club  –  failed;

* started a swimming and life saving club – succeeded;

* helped coach the school volleyball club;

* helped in the school Gilbert and Sullivan productions;  and

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

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

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

 Cameron McNeish again:.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

….  and there are pages more!

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

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

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

Addressing the International Olympic Academy, Olympia, Greece, 2003

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

This produced the following comments.

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

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

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

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

How did you get involved in coaching at national level?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let him have the final word  about life after coaching:

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

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

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

Ian Grant, John Jones, Rab Foreman, George Sinclair, Ken Hutcheson, Tom Tait and John Turnbull

George Sinclair is one of the best – and at the same time one of the least known – coaches in the country.   He has worked with several of the very best athletes the country has produced.   As an announcer, his voice  has been heard and listened closely to by almost everyone in Scottish athletics: he was employed in that capacity at the Commonwealth Games.  He is however almost unknown outside Edinburgh

A pupil at George Heriot’s School all the way up from primary  to secondary level George competed for them as a sprinter and high jumper.    In 1971, his enthusiasm for the sport, led to him being one of the founders of the very successful Octavians Athletic Club.

George is on the extreme right of the middle row

Octavians was formed in 1962 and was an amalgamation of eight of the Edinburgh fee paying’ schools, former pupils athletic clubs.    Due to falling numbers and a consequent drop in standards, representatives of George Heriot’s School , Royal High School , Daniel Stewart’s College, Trinity Academy , George Watson’s College, Edinburgh Academy, Boroughmuir High Schoo and Melville College met and the club was formed.   George was the club president.  Members were to include two Olympians (David Stevenson and David Jenkins), Commonwealth Games athletes (add John Jones and Ian Grant), GB internationalists (add Bob Hay, Adrian Weatherhead, Gordon Rule and Frank Dick) and many Scottish internationalists.   There is a comprehensive list of members at their website (address below).

Octavians produced, or developed, many quite outstanding athletes.   Robin Morris, a pupil at George Watson’s,  was one of the early members of the club, running for Octavians before he left school in 1967 in the Scottish National League at the new track at Grangemouth as well as turning out in Trophy Meetings for the club.   George ran the Post Office at Goldenacre and coached many internationalists from the Edinburgh Southern Harriers club at Saughton and Fernieside as well as advising many young members.     Robin also tells us that the club moved to start training at New Meadowbank before the stadium was officially opened in 1970 but two of his biggest memories of Octavians were  winning the Land of Burns Trophy at Dam Park in 1969 and the formal winding up dinner at the Balmoral Hotel !

The ‘Land O’Burns Trophy winning team:

Back row: Donald Burr (team manager), John Turnbull, A.N.Other, Peter Burgess, Tony Hogarth, Mike Bathgate. Front row: Tommy Tait, Stewart Seale, Adrian Weatherhead, Robin Morris.

Distinguished international middle and long distance runner Adrian Weatherhead says that George was the first coach to give him advice when he joined Octavians in 1963.   Adrian goes on to say that George also coached Tony Hogarth and Tommy Tait:

*  Adrian was a sub four miler, GB and Scotland international runner indoors and out, on the track and over the country;

*   Tony won 5 SAAA hurdles titles over 110m, 120 yards and 440 yards between 1964 and 1969;

*   Tommy was a top class sprinter, hurdler and long jumper with a long career going from 1960 to 1975.

and of course there were others.

The success of the club can be easily seen by checking out the ranking lists and international team personnel of the period.    There was an emphasis on the explosive and technical events – other than Adrian, their representation in the distance events was scanty.   If we take, as an example, the lists of 1969 we see that George’s athlete Tony Hogarth had six of the top eight times for 110m hurdles and seven of the top 21 as well as winning the Scottish and East District championships; in the pole vault, David Stevenson and Stewart Seale had the top ten times between them, Peter Burgess had first, fourth, sixth and seventh decathlon performances, Adrian Weatherhead was ranked in 800m/1500m/Mile, 3000m and 5000m, and the list indicates Octavians ranked in the 100m (3), 200m (1), 400m (4), 800m (1), 1500m (1), 5000m (1), 110m H (4), 400m H (3), HJ (1), PV (5), LJ (2), TJ (-), Discus (2), Hammer (-), Javelin (1), and Decathlon (3).

George’s athletes contributed strongly to these performances – Hogarth was the stand out of course topping the all-time lists, winning the SAAA Championships, almost monopolising the ranking lists, Tommy Tait was ranked in 100m, 200m, 400m, and ran in both relays.

With the standard within the club so high, why did the club fold up only two years later?   The Octavians AC website is at www.octaviansac.co.uk and it tells us that –

“The Club became a victim of its own success, as the team was principally made up of District and National Champions and both Scottish and G.B. Internationals, as a result youngsters found that they could not get into the team; so they went elsewhere.   The Club folded in 1971 then, after providing two trophies – one in the form of a baton for the Octavian Relays  at Grangemouth, the other a Sword to be awarded annually at the Carnethy Hill Race meeting ( won by club member Robin Morris)”   

The photograph at the top of the page was taken at  the wind-up Dinner on 16th December 1971 at the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh.   Members of the club then went in the main to one or other of the two big clubs in the capital, with George joining up with Edinburgh Southern Harriers.

Helen Golden

Edinburgh had many athletic clubs at this point but two big ones: the newer Edinburgh AC (established in 1962) challenging the dominant Edinburgh Southern Harriers which was one of the very best Scottish clubs.  When Octavians went out of business their funds went to Edinburgh AC and their name was perpetuated in the very successful but now defunct Octavian Relays Meeting run by EAC.

George continued to coach athletes very successfully and one of the very best was Helen Golden, British and Scottish sprinter of very high quality indeed right from the very start as a girl running for ESH in 1965 until she retired from sprinting  in 1980.   The range of George’s coaching talents has already been indicated – sprints, hurdles, middle distance, long and triple jumps have all been mentioned already and another top class athlete who came under his influence was Anne Purvis.

Scottish 4 x 400 relay team, 1982: Lynsey McDonald, Angela Bridgman, Anne Clarkson (Purvis), Sandra Whittaker.

She says, “I started training with George when I was 14 in 1973.  He was then Head Coach of Edinburgh Southern Harriers.   He coached a number of athletes from sprints to Middle Distance.   The athletes I trained with then were Helen Golden, Mary Munroe, Annie Littlejohn, Elaine Douglas and Fiona Macaulay.

George did not believe in over-training young athletes, so I only trained at a maximum of 3 times a week which gradually increased over the years eventually 6 days a week often twice a day. His training was always specifically targeted for competition either club, championships or international.   George was always keen to learn as a coach and apply new ideas to your training.   He always attended the Coaches Conventions organised by Frank Dick and would listen to other coaches.    

He was also happy for you to train with other coaches as he arranged training sessions for me with Donny McLeod’s squad for elastic strength work in the winter and Bill Walker’s squad for quality sessions in the summer.    Over the years a number of other athletes came to him for coaching including  Katherine Shepperd  and Fiona Hargreaves.    All the athletes I have mentioned became Scottish Internationalists, some also competing for Great Britain.

Brian Scobie winning at Westerlands, Glasgow, in early 60’s 

Brian Scobie (born on 16th May 1944) was a very good runner who represented  Maryhill Harriers and then ran for Glasgow University AC in the 1960’s, before becoming a very highly regarded and much respected coach in the 1980’s, 90’s and into the 21st century.   Brian ran while at school and his father was also interested in athletics.   Living in Milngavie, he was eligible for the Dunbartonshire team in the Inter-Counties Youth Sports which was an annual athletics contest between the young athletes from local government authorities and was not a school or club based competition – athletes from schools, clubs, youth clubs, youth organisations, and whatever else were eligible so long as they had demonstrated ability.   Brian was only eleven months younger than Lachie Stewart from the Vale of Leven (also eligible for Dunbartonshire) and their paths crossed frequently in these sports.   With age groups in two year bands, they were in direct opposition every second year.   They competed together several times in that context.   Like many another, Brian describes himself as a ‘would-be footballer’ who ran a bit in the summer but did no formal training.   He did have a paper round however on six days a week with a circuit of about 6 miles.   Sometimes he cycled the route, sometimes he ran but from second to sixth years at secondary he was covering, one way or another, 30 miles in total.

In summer 1961-62 – the year before he went up to University – he was training with Queen’s Park FC Youth team at Hampden where they were not allowed even a sight of a ball until they had done 12 laps of the old cinder track.   Then there was a series of sprint sets – eg from one corner flag to the other, then from the tunnel to the corner flag, then from the edge of the eighteen yard box to the corner flag.   This, together with the school PE teacher he had, meant he won the County 440 yards and then finish second in the Scottish Schools 880 yards.   At that point he joined Maryhill  Harriers and started training with Tom Williamson’s group.     He gained a reputation as a good competitor who could frequently win tactical races.    Jim McLatchie the very good miler and middle distance runner from Ayrshire, moved to Milngavie and immediately the two started doing a lot of their training together, regularly training with the girls of Glasgow Western LAC under Tom Williamson’s guidance in the west of Glasgow.   If we take a look at his time with GUAC it is quite impressive.   He did not make the schools international mainly because, despite a good racing record, his times were not as fast as some others.   He had run in many highland games meetings and became a good tactical runner but tactical success doesn’t always mean fast times.   The performances of others such as Kenny Oliver and Davie Hendry in Dublin also rightly counted with the selectors of course.   He ran in a floodlit international; at Ibrox in September with such as Hugh Barrow in the Scottish team in a race won by England’s Morris Jefferson.

Brian first ran for Glasgow University in winter 1962-63.   Previously a summer runner, he had no experience of cross-country before joining the Hares & Hounds.  His initiation to the arts of cross-country running came when he ran the team trial, then went with the club to Belfast the following week where he was a very good third on the Saturday (27th) and then they went on to Dublin on Monday 30th where he was second to team-mate Cameron Shepherd, beaten by 12 seconds but four seconds ahead of Shillington of Trinity College. The first real domestic race with them was the Edinburgh to Glasgow relay in November 1962.   He ran on the eighth stage and held third place – holding off Chic Forbes (VPAAC) and Les Meneely (Shettleston Harriers) to win a bronze medal.   His next run in a winter classic was in the Nigel Barge Road Race on 5th January, 1963, when he finished 36th and third counter in a GU team that finished fourth and just out of the medals.     A week later in a match against Edinburgh University at Garscadden in Glasgow, he was fifth and third counter in a Glasgow team that won 26 – 52.  On 19th January he was sixth counter for the university in the Midlands District championship when he was 29th for the second placed Glasgow squad.   In action for the fourth consecutive week, he was in the winning team in a match in Glasgow against Aberdeen AAC, Aberdeen University, University, St Andrews and Dundee Hawkhill finishing eighth and fourth scoring runner for the University.   In a race featuring Calum Laing, Alastair Wood, Steve Taylor and Allan Faulds, eighth was not a bad run and the official history of GU AC comments that it was a confirmation of his return to form.   These races were the lead-in to the Scottish University championships on 2nd February when he was tenth, third counter in the team which finished second to Edinburgh.   In the National cross-country championships for Glasgow University on 23rd February, 1963, he finished twenty second for the team that won the bronze medals with 119 points behind Edinburgh University (49 pts) and Edinburgh Southern Harriers (91 Pts).

Brian ran over the summer and on 20th April finished first in the 880 yards in a match with Edinburgh University finishing in 1:59.5, assisting the Glasgow team to an 88 – 45 victory.   Although he undoubtedly raced al that summer, he was too young and too inexperienced to take on the many ‘big beasts’ competing in the country’s middle distance events – an area where Scotland was particularly strong at that time with runners like Lachie Stewart, Ian McCafferty, Graeme Grant, Dick Hodelet, Duncan Middleton, Fergus Murray and many more.

Season 1963 – 64 was a better one for him.  Running for the Hares & Hounds over the following winter, Scobie ran in the team trials on 19th October, 1963, and finished fifth behind such strong runners as Allan Faulds, Dick Hartley, Calum Laing and Jim Bogan with Dick Hodelet sixth.  A cutting from a University paper said that “the reprobate Scobie finished fifth as expected in 41:05.”    Not a regular in the first team, he ran in the Edinburgh to Glasgow in November 1963 on the short third stage and pulled the team from seventh to sixth.  Followed by Dick Hodelet who picked up another two places, the University scribes felt that they had both run very well.   On 23rd November at Kings Buildings, Edinburgh, in a match against Aberdeen University, Edinburgh University, St Andrews University and Edinburgh Southern Harriers, Scobie finished eighth – second Glasgow Scoring runner for the team which finished second to Edinburgh University.   On 7th December, he was second in a match against St Andrews to be second counter in 37:20 for the winning University team.   Into the New Year and Scobie was third in 38:08 to be second scorer in the winning team against Edinburgh U H&H over a six and three quarter mile trail.  A week later on 18th January  in the Midland District Championships he was twelfth and second scorer for the fifth placed team.  On 25th January it was back to Aberdeen to meet Aberdeen University, Aberdeen AAC, St Andrews University and Dundee Hawkhill over 6 miles of road and country where Brian finished third individual and second Glasgow man in the winning team.   On 1st February in the Scottish Universities Championships Glasgow won the team race with Brian Scobie in sixth place after seven miles of road and country.   Later in February he ran in the Junior National and finished twenty third in the Glasgow squad that was eighth.   At the club AGM on 27th April, 1964, Cameron Shepherd the club captain made his report in which he commented on the fine running of Calum Laing, Allan Faulds, Brian Scobie and Terry Kerwin and followed this up by saying that Brian Scobie had had an exceptional season and the Club was very disappointed that he had not been awarded the Blue for which he had been nominated.   It was however awarded the following year.

There are of course team contests on the track in the form of relays and Brian, a good team player, was in the winning teams for the 4  x  440 yards championship in 1963 (3:19.3) and 1964 (3:19.1) and ran the half mile leg of the winning team in the Mile Medley Relay in 1964 (3:36.6).

As the winter work would have led him to a high level of fitness, Brian began the summer season on 2nd May in a match between Glasgow University, St Andrews University and Queen’s University, Belfast, at Westerlands.   Running in the Mile he was second to Glasgow team mate J Wilson who won in 4:24.8.   A week later in the University’s confined championships he was third in the Mile, won by Dick Hodelet in 4:33.8 with Ray Baillie second, and second in the Three Miles, won by Calum Laing in 15:34.7.   As in 1963, the very high standard of competition in his favoured distances was so high that he did not appear in any of the other championships that year – not District, British Universities nor SAAA.   Nevertheless by the end of the season he was ranked 14th in Scotland over 880y with a best time of 1:55.6.

The first winter classic is the Edinburgh to Glasgow relay and in season 1964-65 Brian Scobie ran on the first stage and finished seventh.  The rest of team failed to hold this place and the team was fifteenth.   In the District Championships,  Scobie finished twenty second and the University team was fifth, and again the official history comments on the individual performances of Scobie and Shepherd.   Both were selected to run in the race against the UAU , and Scobie along with Barclay Kennedy and Ray Baillie was selected to run for Scottish Universities against a Scottish Cross-Country team.   He was, with four others, awarded First Team Colours and the report goes on to say “The outstanding member of the Hares and Hounds   over the season had undoubtedly been Brian Scobie; this was recognised by his winning of the Esslemont and McCulloch Trophies and the award of a Blue.”   He had been captain that winter and in his report he commented on the drop in standard of team performances following the graduation of several first team members.   Citing Barclay Kennedy as an example he said “that no-one could claim that Barclay was built as a cross country runner, and yet he had reached the standard of a Scottish Universities’ Select.”   He stepped down as captain at that meeting at the end of the winter season.

After this excellent winter, he started the next summer concentrating on what many felt was his best distance, the half mile.   On 24th April, 1965  Brian Scobie was part of a Glasgow team that defeated Aberdeen University in Glasgow.   He won the 880 yards to get the season off to a good start and the ‘Glasgow Herald’ reported:  “Bill Ewing of Aberdeen was well contained in the 880 yards by BWM Scobie (Glasgow University) who gives every indication of being an even better runner than he was last year.   Scobie had the race in control from the start and led Ewing over the finishing line by about five yards.”      On 1st May in Belfast against Queen’s, Belfast, and St Andrew’s, Scobie was again out in the half mile.  It was a windy day, witness this on the 880 yards, “After allowing lesser mortals in the 880 yards to act as hares, BWM Scobie (Glasgow) broke away with half a lap to go and won in 2:01.2, a time that on any other day but Saturday he would readily have scorned.”   Only one week later was the Glasgow University AC club championship and it was again a day of strong winds, so strong that the officials allowed the 100m competitors to run with the wind rather than against it.   Pity there wasn’t the same opportunity for the half milers – but Brian Scobie won the title anyway in 1:58.9 and the Mile in 4:38.1.   On the last Saturday in May, Scobie was third in the West District 880 yards behind Graeme Grant and Mike McLean – not a disgrace to be behind these two fine runners.     By the end of the season he had a best of 1:54.6 which ranked him sixteenth in Scotland.

I have spoken to several of his contemporaries at University who have all – without exception – said that he did not achieve anything like his potential as an athlete before graduating.

London Marathon, 1986: Brian Scobie A96

Brian moved to Leeds as an assistant lecturer in English in Leeds University in 1969 and stayed there until 2001 – a period of 32 years.   It was over this period that he developed his coaching skills and worked with many athletes of genuine quality – notably in the 1980’s when his squad of endurance athletes, particularly marathon runners, was arguably the best in Britain.   Athletes in the squad included

*  Veronique Marot, who was twice British record-holder, winner London Marathon, 2nd New York Marathon, three times winner of Houston Marathon (’86, ’89 and ’91)

*   Angie Pain Hulley, two Commonwealth Games for England (6th and 3rd), A European Championship competitor, a World Championships runner and an Olympian

*   Sheila Catford,  Scottish Internationalist, winner of the Glasgow Marathon and Commonwealth Games competitor.

*   Sarah Rowell, World Student Games marathon winner, second in London Marathon, third in the Columbus Marathon in Ohio and 14th in the Olympic marathon in Los Angeles

*   Jill Clarke, world student marathon winner and 2:39:42 was fastest GB marathon debut until Paula Radford in 2002.

Julie Holland, currently number 24 on the UK all-time list for 10000m with 32:47:48

*   Sandra Arthurton, an outstanding cross-country runner, multi international appearances.

* Peter Whitehead who finished fourth in the World Marathon Championship (interesting article at www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/other-sport/athletics/merseysides-100-olympians-no-60-3345933 )

* John Sherban – Commonwealth Games athlete

There are many more and those cited have all done much, much more that can be noted in this profile of their coach, Brian Scobie.   At this point he himself made a come-back to competitive athletics but at a much further distance than in his GUAC days – marathon running no less.   His first run at the distance was in the inaugural London Marathon in 1981 with some of his club mates in a time just outside 2:36.   He ran marathons very well indeed.  He ran London in 2:24 and 2:23 with his very best being 2:21:50 in London in 1984.     In 1986 the Scottish ranking lists had him at the age of 42 with marks of 30:52.8 for 10000m, and 2:24:14 for the marathon.    But at a time when the ‘marathon boom’ was in full swing and times were all, Brian was still a competitive runner and had two notable marathon victories under his belt.   Both were in the Horsforth Marathon.   The first victory was ion the second race in the series in 1982 in 2:29:09  from a field of 488 starters.  Two years later he won in 2:27:06.   The time in ’82 was a record by 3 seconds but the 1984 victory took more than two minutes from his own record.   That record still stands.  The 80’s was a good decade for him and after the two Horsforth victories he won the Commonwealth Games vets 25 K in 1986, the Scottish veterans cross-country in both ’86 and ’87 and then later in ’87 won the masters category in Houston in 2:30:59.   No small achievement – the Houston Marathon started in 1972 and by 1987 there were thousands running every year with the winner in ’87 being South Africa’s Derrick May in 2:11:51.

It is of interest to note that at this point in his career he was back working with his old Glasgow University athletics team mate Craig Sharp.   Of this relationship Brian says:   “Craig Sharp was President when I was running for Glasgow University. In 1965 I won the trophy that he had presented a year earlier. My subsequent re-connection with him was when he was heading the newly-created British Olympic Medical Centre, in Uxbridge. In the late 1980s we had a number of professional contacts in relation to my efforts to prepare Veronique for the Worlds and Olympics 1990-1992. Craig was very knowledgeable and very accessible and helpful at every point, friendly and assiduous. Through him I had a mobile lab-van trackside in Leeds at one point, doing lactate field-tests. (Try that nowadays!) So Craig was a big and positive influence for me from the 1960s to the 1990s.”

Brian Scobie, the coach.

Into the twenty first century and Brian Scobie is still working as hard as ever – that his work is successful is seen by some of the positions held:

From March 2003 to 2009 he was a Senior Performance Coach for UK Athletics before taking a post as Sprints Coach at Leeds Met University, a post which he held for a year.   He then became an Area Coach Mentor, Endurance, for England Athletics  in May 2011, a position which he still holds.   What does it entail?   “Mentor to Endurance Coaches in Yorkshire and Humber on behalf of the Athletics governing body in England; he has taken the post on a part-time consultancy basis.   He is required to manage the England Athletics Area Endurance Coach Development Centre which is based at Leeds Metropolitan University.  It involves organising and structuring all forms of coach education and speaking at venues across this huge part of the north of England. If we look at Linked In, his talents include Blind Sport Development, Paralympic athletics, Sprint Speed Coach, Marathon Coach, Endurance Coach.   He has written on all aspects of coaching, several available on the web – eg www.sportscoachuk.org/sites/default/files/CE-Does-Disability-Make-Difference.pdf on the coaching of athletes with a disability.

In the context of working with athletes with a disability he works with Tanni-Grey Thomson and has been described as ‘her boss’ in her new job of identifying talent among those with a disability.   He has also worked as Head Coach of the UK Athletics Paralympic Team.     The involvement with Blind and paralympic sport should maybe be looked at and I asked Brian about it:

“As a result of getting fully engaged in the British Blind Sport project that John Anderson had invited me to be involved in from about 1982, I took a team to the 1984 paralympic event.   I was co-managing with John Bailey who was unfortunately stretchered off the plane in New York with a suspected heart attack.   So I had to manage and coach that very strong team at the event in Long Island.   The event management was poor in many ways and I found myself battling heavily n technical meetings, etc, and having to raise issues for non-English speakers.   As a result, I made friends but also some enemies.   In the end it led to my involvement in the development and growth of blind sports in general within the governing body, IBSA.   By the Atlanta Games I was the Technical Director, responsible for about 16 sports across five continents.   In the early years of this involvement I also managed and coached Visually Impaired athletics but relinquished much of that role due to conflicts of interest.   I was offered a post within UKA to establish the British team for the 2000 paralympics but was reluctant to quit my University post.”

And it didn’t stop there.   Brian worked for a time as a sports development consultant.   Many of the contracts he was involved with were funded by the Spanish organisation for the blind which traded under the acronym of ONCE, which translates as Spanish Blind Association.   He undertook a number of projects with them and their partners in promoting disability sports.   This not only took him to Africa and countries in Eastern Europe but led to his designing a programme for the UK to which he was later appointed as head.   He was also involved with the IAAF and delivered a programme for developing countries at the World Championships in Lille.

Brian is still coaching club athletes, and he coaches athletes from a wide variety of clubs.   The Power of 10 website credits him with 15 athletes from 9 clubs, covering distances from 100m to marathon, both men and women and ranging in age from Under 20 to M40 veterans.   Let no one think he is now coaching at a lower level than heretofore: he always coached athletes of all abilities, bringing many through the ranks to international standard, and in 2013 one of his athletes, David Devine who runs the 800m, 1500m and 5000m in the T12 category, was included on UK athletics world class performance funding programme for 2013.   If you are interested in how he trains his athletes and in the advice he gives to coaches, you can access a slide presentation at

www.slideplayer.com/slide/1679711/

It starts with the picture of the student Scobie winning a race at Westerland shown above and ends with a slide of him running in a marathon pack with Veronique Marot in the mid-80s, but it’s the content that matters.

His is a story of a lifetime’s involvement in the sport going from his days as a schoolboy in Milngavie, just outside Glasgow right up to the present day: and a commitment all the way through to excellence, encouraging the athletes he works with – able bodied and disabled, club standard and international class – to’ be all they can be.’

Eddie, second from right, with some of his runners and Springburn club mates:

John Fleming says of this photograph with many of Eddie’s best athletes included:

Ian Murray is behind the shield then it is me (wearing our Scottish Schools’ tracksuits) then Willie Paterson, Tommy Patterson with Harry Gorman behind them. Eddie’s son , Gordon is in front of Tommy and then between Tommy and Eddie is James Martin (Harry’s brother in law). Eddie’s 2nd son,Graeme, is next (in stripes)- Graeme sadly died. The final athlete is Johnny Buntain.  I think this was taken in 1974 outside Huntershill.. 
It was taken on a regular training night but for some reason the picture was missing National Gold team medalists:- Adie Callan, Graham Crawford Jim Lawson, Joe McLean, Donald McLeod, Robert Craig as well as seniors Eddie Knox and Iain Young. The lad between Graeme Williamson and Bill Ramage is Derek Connacher, who was 9th individual in the Scottish Schools Middles Race (more than 300 runners) and because he was the 5th Lenzie counter he didn’t get a team medal ! 

*

Eddie was an excellent runner who ran for Scotland on the track and over the country.   His  range was wide – from 880 yards to six miles and steeplechase on the track, road racing including the Edinburgh to Glasgow relay and cross-country.   When his running days were over, he did not walk away – he stayed to coach generation after generation of young athletes and arguably did more for Springburn than he had done as a runner.   And that had been considerable.  The sheer numbers of trophies won was staggering.   For instance between 1962 and 1981 his Under 15 teams won medals in 16 national championships out of 19 – each team had of course four to count which meant at least five runners per race, so 80 individual medals at national level for the boys to take home.   Of course he had Under 17 and Under 20 teams under his care at the same time – the numbers not as great as the Under 15’s because at 15 many have to spend more time on their school work or are starting to earn their living in the workplace and the numbers inevitably fall for reasons unconnected with athletics or coaches.   The numbers were large but, another surprising fact, they almost all came from the same area of Kirkintilloch and Lenzie.   Arthur Lydiard said that you can find champions anywhere – Eddie found his almost all in the same small area.   We really need to find out more about him and his methods as far as we can.  

The Springburn team at Bute Highland Games Medley Race: Eddie on the right.

Eddie’e career as an amateur athlete was a relatively short one.   After coming through the ranks as a Youth and a Junior, his senior career lasted just three years – but it was meteoric.   On the track he had best times of  9:06 for Two miles, 14:05 for Three Miles and 9:27 for the 3000m steeplechase.     He won the SAAA Three Miles in 1960 and in the same year he was sixth in the National and was selected for the Scottish team for the International Championship.    As a Youth he had been fourth and sixteenth in the National and as a Junior in 1957 he was eighteenth.   As a Senior it was 6th/36th/15th.    In the Edinburgh to Glasgow, his first run was in 1957 when he was on Stage Seven and moved the club from eight to fifth with second quickest time of the day.   We know he ran the same stage the following year but no details are available about his performance.   In 1959 he was sixth on Stage One and in 1960 – his own personal annus mirabilis – he took over in fifth place on Stage Two after Tom O’Reilly had run well on Stage One, and moved through to second with the third fastest time of the day.   His last run in the E-G was in 1961, again on Stage Two when he took over on Stage Two in eighteenth and held that position – by the time Tom came to run on the last stage the club had climbed to fourteenth and that was where he kept it.   He ran as a pro after that for a while but crept back into amateur athletics soon after.    That’s when the coaching started.

We can begin by looking at the record.   He started coaching in the mid 60’s and we take the years from 1963 to 1986.  At National Championships level his teams won a total of 35 sets of medals, of which 12 were gold championship medals.   In the individual championships, his runners won 29 medals, of which 14 were gold.   The best year was arguably 1973/’74 when Springburn Harriers won the Under 13, Under 15, Under 17 and Under 20 team championships.   The results were of course even better in the Midland Districts (until 1975) and Western Districts (from 1976) where the opposition was less numerous but contained all the strongest clubs such as Victoria Park, Shettleston and Cambuslang.   In fact when the West District started their Young Athletes relays (under 13, under 15 and under 17 running in that order, Springburn won for the first six years in succession until Clydesdale Harriers took the title in 1981/82.    There were also many titles won on the track in all the age groups as well as in the Scottish Schools championships.   Graduates from the Eddie Sinclair Academy of Excellence, had their been such a thing, included Eddie Knox, Duncan Middleton, Graham Williamson and Steven Begen.   We could go on quoting similar statistics but the point is made.   One more point has to be made however: many coaches who have success with boys teams, fail to deliver senior athletes at the end of the process.   Eddie’s record is better than that – the four above were all senior internationalists, three of them won British Championships and one won gold, silver and bronze at world cross-country championships.   If the team/individual medals in the national cross-country championships are looked at we see that there were 5 team and 9 individual medals won at U20 level compared with 8 team and 2 individual at U13.   There were more U20 individual golds than at U13 or U15.   

It was really a quite remarkable record, made the more so by two more facts –

• that he worked on his own – there was no team of supporting coaches following his guidelines.   
• that his athletes came from the relatively small communities of Kirkintilloch and Lenzie with a few from Bishopbriggs.

Graham Crawford

First-class athlete and member of Springburn Harriers Graham Crawford, who was coached by Harry Gorman at the club and says that he learned a lot from Harry, has been a member of the club for a long time, says of Eddie:

“I have strong memories of the man from club nights and races and I’d sum him up in one word- passion.

“Eddie spoke with conviction. He was like an old style tough football manager who could get his team totally fired up. When he talked you listened. He held the stage. When Eddie roared at you in the final stages of a race you always somehow dug deeper, no matter how tired you imagined you were at that point.

As I’ve grown older I’ve found myself thinking more and more that if he had been my coach I’d have run over broken glass for him. I go to races these days to support the sons of a friend and I find that I remind myself of Eddie, chasing the lads around different parts of the course roaring them on. I get completely caught up in the moment, willing them to get everything out of themselves. That was Eddie, he just wanted you (demanded, expected?) to go to your very limit, ask every question of yourself. Why run if you don’t do that? That would have been his bare boned philosophy.

Eddie trained his athletes like most serious runners of that era, no fancy methods just straightforward hard work with a healthy mix of good sustained runs, often with a burn up at the end, and plenty of intense, quality and high rep track work. No – or little – gym work as far as I know.

He had a reputation for training teenagers very hard. It produced strong contenders and champions, and brought accusations in certain quarters that lesser runners were used as cannon fodder for Graham Williamson, ultimately to their detriment. I remember the same being said about Naylor and Nat Muir at Shettleston.

It was also said that during a period of doldrums for Springburn, nobody really turned up except Eddie, Jack Crawford and Williamson. And ask me to name the three most significant people in the club in my lifetime, and I suppose I may have the longest ongoing continuing connection, and it would have to be those three for their constancy, work and impact.

What Eddie did with Williamson was immense. Eddie asked everything of Graham and Graham had the makeup to respond to those demands. The teenage Williamson trained extremely hard under Eddie, with a heavy emphasis on frequent quality training.

Graham was a hard as nails, a ‘leave nothing behind’ racer because that is how Eddie trained him all through his teens. I’ll leave others to argue over the merits of that but I find it very hard to be critical of Eddie. I know stories, and I know he had his flaws and failings (as I acknowledge my own), but to me, his positives – his passion, commitment, drive, and motivational qualities – overrode everything else. He was a force of nature who had very strong views, a cutting tongue and a strong sense of humour.”

[Graham is quick to point out that “anything I have said about my regard for Eddie takes nothing away from the marvellous support and encouragement I got later from Harry Gorman when he coached me for a number of years. Harry gave me a lot.“]

Eddie Knox

Eddie Knox was Eddie Sinclair’s first international champion: in his first run in the ICCU World Championships he finished fifth, then next time, in 1967, he struck gold.   Colin Shields, in his history of the SCCU, says: “Eddie Knox followed Ian McCafferty as Junior international champion in an exciting race.   He was in the leading group throughout and edged his was into the lead 400 yards from the line, holding on for a two second victory over a Belgian.”  

   In the early/mid 60’s Eddie had a quartet of Eddie Knox. Duncan Middleton, Harry Gorman and Ian Young.  Knox won the International Cross-Country Championship, Middleton was one of the best 880 yards runners in the United Kingdom, Gorman was a very good middle distance runner  who was unfortunate not to get a SAAA title and after leaving school, Ian Young was a member of the really great Edinburgh University team.    Knox confirmed all that Graham Crawford said above about Eddie’s passion and determination but added that ‘you didn’t question his sessions’, you did what he said to the letter or you moved out of the squad.  He was quick to add, however, that Eddie did a lot for him personally.  However this first group that he worked with all achieved wonderful things in their career and one of them, Harry Gorman, went on to coach new generations of Springburn Harriers to success himself.  

From Eddie Knox, the first of his international runners to the man who was probably his last: Steven Begen.   Steven says

Steven Begen winning the Junior National

Was there any single thing that marked out Eddie’s runners from the rest of the scene, that accounted for the tremendous success of his runners?   Yes, there was, and it reflected the coach’s values in a very practical way.   Eddie’s runners always gave 100% effort.   They never eased up. This was, to me, most easily seen in the Under 17 age group  probably because I was coaching some runners in that age group at the time.   Races for Under 17’s generally started with a bit of a rush and went pretty hard for the first third of the distance, then eased up for the middle third before starting to race properly again for the last third of the race.   The Springburn youngsters just didn’t run that way: there was no steadying up in the middle of the race, there was no wee ‘sleep’ anywhere after the gun went.   They started hard and kept going hard all the way to the finish.   Others learned from that and soon everyone was trying to get their athletes to go from gun to tape.   But  they had a job on their hands. 

Eddie, second from the left with some of his runners in the early 60’s – Ian Young is fourth from the left 

Ian Young was one of his best athletes in the 1960’s who went on to become one of the Edinburgh University team that is generally recognised as being the best University distance running squad ever.   Ian has this to say about training with Eddie.

 “I joined Springburn Harriers as a 15 year old in 1960 because I was beating fellow pupils at Lenzie Academy in cross country and track and wanted to progress.  There was no athletics club in Kirkintilloch at that time and local boys tended to go to Springburn as their nearest athletic club.  At that time. Springburn had 2 significant figures in Scottish athletics in Tommy O’Reilly, 2-time Scottish 3000 metres Steeplechase champion and National Record Holder and Eddie Sinclair, Scottish 3 Mile champion in 1960.  The club also had a wider spread of athletes in those days with sprinters, notably John Young, a 10 sec 100 yards performer and field eventers like David Cairns, Scottish champion high jumper and GB internationalist behind Crawford Fairbrother.

I have no great memory of when Eddie specifically started coaching me, but he trained every day and because we lived fairly close to one another in Kirkintilloch, I tended to go to his house in Eastside after school and we would go out for a run from there.  In the summer we would do interval training, firstly at St Augustine’s School in Possilpark where Springburn Harriers met in the summer months and later at Huntershill when the local authority took over land which the Harriers owned and laid out a track with changing facilities.  Eddie tended to work us on 220 or 440 yard repetitions with a jogged recovery in between as per the Franz Stampfl regime.  Such success as I had, winner of many Dunbartonshire schools half-mile and mile races, culminating in the Scottish Schools mile championship in 1963 was as a result of his coaching these sessions, stop watch in hand and keeping his own meticulous notes of progress or lack of it, throughout the season.

It was during the winter season of cross-country and road races that Eddie came into his own.  He had a number of measured road runs around Bishopbriggs and Auchinairn which he led out, initially as a group run but then at an appointed spot as a ‘may the best man win’ race to the finishing point, then a jog back to the club house.

He had a favourite route in Kirkintilloch of 5 miles called the ‘Milton – Auchenreoch’ starting and finishing at the corner of Milton Road and Kilsyth Road, ironically outside the cottage where Johnny Stirling, the renowned Victoria Park and Hugh Barrow coach lived.  This was used mainly to check progress and improvement amongst his runners.  He would start us off at staged interval, all handicapped according to current performance so that the weaker runners could have a chance of beating the backmarkers who were always champing at the bit to get off in pursuit.

Another favourite training ground of Eddies was a hill called ‘Skimmers Brae’ at Birdston farm near Kirkintilloch.  This could be ploughed field or heavy grassland depending on season and he judged individual fitness by whether or not you could run from bottom to top without stopping.  This trial was only slightly less of a hardship than the Sunday training runs from Eddies house which involved 10-12 miles on the foot of the Campsie Hills.  Outwith the stamina building and speed building training methods which Eddie used, he also adopted a number of practices from the methods used by the professional or ‘pedestrian’ athletes of th time who were banned from amateur athletics, but where the town of Kirkintilloch had a good few exponents, including latterly, Eddie himself.

He used to have me train with lead sheet cut like an insole inside my trainers to strengthen my legs and make me feel like I was ‘flying’ when I took them out to race.  He would have us do 50 -100 yard sprints along the canal bank wearing lead insoles or carrying a 5lb dumbbell in each hand (my father’s foundry was useful for making these) to build up the ability to put in a sudden break in a race to demoralise the opposition.  Other tactics which he taught his runners were to make your break during road or cross country races as you neared the top of a hill, no matter how you were feeling, because you would demoralise the opposition and be gaining ground by racing down the other side while they were struggling to the top and then saw the gap you had opened up!  Another simple instruction was to run close to a wall if there was one bordering the route in a road race because you got a psychological lift from the feeling of speed that that gave you.  Again, recognising that his training built strength rather than speed, Eddie always encouraged us to break in the 3rd lap of a mile race or the second last lap in 2 or 3 mile races and make it a long run for home to kill off the ‘speed merchants’.

Eddie was passionate about the sport and gave his time and knowledge unstintingly to those who would take it on board and work to improve.  He did not limit himself to one age group, tending to use the same methods for all ages but limiting the distances run in training or repetitions or speeds on the track depending on age group, so in this way he could be coaching runners at different stages.  No one wanted a rollicking from Eddie which came if he felt you were not putting in the work or trying hard enough.  Much has been said about Eddie’s methods ‘burning out’ young athletes at an early age or causing them to have injuries which ended their running careers.  I tend to view such examples as guys that had achieved what they wanted to do then moved on to other things or physically had got to the point at which they were not going to develop further and gave up with at least some notable achievements behind them which they would not have had without Eddie’s support, encouragement and training methods. 

Eddie’s skill was in enthusing and bringing on young athletes to develop their talents.  When we reached senior level, for example when I went off to Edinburgh University, we tended to know what we needed to do to run at a high level and had the maturity to know what had to be done to maintain this – hence the significant number of Springburn Harriers who went on to achieve honours as seniors because of the knowledge which Eddie had generously imparted to every one of his protégées, not least of which was the inherent belief that, on the day, you could beat anyone.  A generous person and a great motivator.”

Eddie Sinclair’s contribution to coaching, to Springburn Harriers and to Scottish athletics deserves to be better remembered than it is.

..

As we said, Iain knew when to stop: too many athletes and coaches would be ‘lost’ if they left the sport.   Indeed there are courses for the ‘de-training’ of athletes when they retire and the same could be true of coaches.   Iain is proof that there is a good life to be had after athletics.   But what he did  in the sport and for the sport has not been forgotten and below some of the people who worked for him and with him look back at Iain as a coach as well as a friend.

Val Smith winning the WAAA Junior 100m in 1973

I first joined Maryhill Ladies Athletic Club as as twelve year old in 1972. Coached by Ian Robertson (Rab), the next year I gained success in winning most domestic titles for my age group, culminating in the British Junior 100 metres title at Kirby in 1973.

Training was always enjoyable and varied – club sessions at Scotstoun on Monday and Wednesday nights, all day sessions at Bellahouston on a Sunday, starting with weight training, then a track session, finishing with hill runs-both uphill for strength and stamina and downhill for leg speed and acceleration.   Winter training included Friday nights in the gym at Westbourne, with circuit training and gym work, followed by hill runs on the pavements outside!   The club regularly had a day out to Prestwick, where I remember running along the beach dragging a tyre behind my back for resistance training, and also running up hill dunes.   Co-ordination drills, hopping, bounding up sets of stairs were also common in training, along with running with weighted jackets.

Training was meticulously planned by Iain well in advance, and we all kept training diaries which were regularly discussed.

Iain was highly intelligent and extremely knowledgeable about the latest training techniques, and was very innovative for his time.

I remember competing at Cosford in the British Indoor Championships 60 metres in 1975, where I was using a one-handed start, pioneered by my namesake, the Olympic 100 metre Champion, Valery Borzov. I won my heat, and there was a rumour afterwards that I may be disqualified, as the officials were not sure if this start was legal, as they had not seen it used before in this country.   Luckily I was allowed to progress, and I won a silver medal!   Eventually the one-handed start became quite popular, before the current IAAF ruling of a down start with both hands in contact with the track!

It was not long before Iain was coaching a very talented squad of athletes.  He turned up at training one night wearing a red hooded sweatshirt with the words ‘Rab’s Rockets’ printed on the back, so from then on, the squad was known as Rab’s Rockets!

His commitment and contribution to his athletes was second to none, and he was always well respected by his peers. He encouraged the best from his athletes, and was an extremely dynamic and motivational coach.   It was an absolute privilege to be coached by him.

Angela Bridgeman Baxter

 I first joined Rab’s training group when I was about 13  years old. I came to Glasgow AC when Western AC joined with the women who trained with Maryhill and we all started training at Scotstoun. Up until that point athletics was a fun hobby for me and I didn’t know another level existed really. I am not sure how it happened but I ended up in Rab’s group and soon realized that this was serious business and that he was a very knowledgeable coach. We did drills and technique runs and he explained how to do them and more importantly why. He kept detailed records and had a yearly periodized plan and he was very interested in the whole person. He was meticulous and organized. He had us monitor all of our vitals like sleep/food we ate and daily pulse rate while recommending vitamins for us to take.  I coached for several years and this knowledge and approach served me well.

     Val Smith and others were the older athletes in the group were all successful and I soon found out why. We trained very hard. Rab had a no nonsense approach at the club although we did have fun.  He would also meet us on other days once we reached the level where we needed to train more which came with more sacrifice of his time. There was no elitism in that anyone who came to the group was welcomed. Most did not stay long as the hard training weeded people out. I believe he came from a soccer background which a lot of the coaches did. He would always come with a sheet of notepaper with the session on it and there was many butterflies in the stomach as we waited to hear what we would be running that night. He rarely told us ahead of time what we would be doing. Then as we tired he would urge us to “get the finger out”(laughs) His dedication to the sport and his athletes was amazing. When we would go to meetings he would mostly be found in the press box announcing! He travelled to Brisbane in 1982 to support the Scottish team and myself and Sandra Whittaker who were competing. He arranged for us to run around Celtic park before a big game so we could get used to big crowds before going to Brisbane! He thought of it all. I probably did not have the intense competitive drive that matched his expertise and coaching and I was somewhat injury prone which limited my progression.

I have read the bios of some of the other Scottish coaches on this site and I think Iain  walks alongside all of the great ones- Frank Dick, John Anderson and others. He was more than a “just a coach” he was a mentor and good friend. I basically grew up under his influence. I learned many lessons from him that have helped me be successful in my life.

Angela is academic advisor for men’s and women’s cross country and men’s and women’s track and field

Brigham Young University Utah

Sandra Whittaker was a quite superb athlete whose running, especially in the 1983 world championships in Helsinki, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the 1986 Commonwealth Games, was right up there with the best in the wold.   She has this to say about Iain.

When I joined Glasgow Athletic Club I was fortunate enough to be placed in the sprints training group which Iain Robertson coached.

Within the first year Iain had quickly recognised my potential and approached my parents to ask if they could bring me to training more than once a week as he said he felt he could really make something of me.  After discussion, my parents committed to taking me out to Scotstoun 3 times a week and Bellahouston 1 day a week.  This was the start of great things to come.

Iain was the most committed coach I had the pleasure of training with.  He put everything into every single person who was in our training group regardless of ability.

His training methods, I feel, were well advanced of the time and many other coaches from other clubs followed his training schedules with their athletes.

Our training programmes were very challenging, but with Iain’s support and encouragement we got through them, sometimes on our knees by the end of a session.  Iain also travelled the country and beyond to competitions abroad, paying his own way, to make sure he provided the support I needed, one of these being the Olympic Games where I needed all the support I could get.  Always a man to go above and beyond. It was here that I broke the Scottish Record and ran 22.98 seconds which stood for 34 years until 2 years ago. He was the proudest coach at that time.

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Alastair Shaw adds to what he says in the profile: “Although quick with the quips, and not always suffering fools gladly, Iain had a great moral sense and an understanding that coaches don’t just work on physical improvements with athletes but, wittingly or unwittingly, also set a role model for them. In that regard you might want to speak to Leslie Roy. Partly for stories from the many club trips down south when Ian was club Team Manager and she still an active athlete, and partly as I suspect she may have learnt quite a bit from him about how to go about team management.”

Lynne MacDougall

Lynne MacDougall has this to add:

“Three things I remember vividly about Rab: One was his passion and dedication to the club. He was at every UK league match. He would distribute a small piece of paper with the time of your event to each girl in the bus before the match started. This would be followed by a motivational speech to entreat you to perform your best. The bus was silent as we all listened intently. I am sure that most of us did get PBs in these matches!

The second was his approach to his training group. At the time I was in the club he had a really talented group, including Sandra Whittaker, Yvonne Anderson and Angela Bridgeman. They all worked very hard on that Scotstoun track which was just ash at the time, but also seemed to have a lot of fun.

The third was his sense of fun and humour. He was very serious and professional in his approach to coaching but also loved to kid on the athletes and of course we enjoyed the banter as well. “

 Iain’s picture of Sandra and Angela in Brisbane, 1982

Back to the profile

..Iain, front right, with City of Glasgow AC group at Grangemouth

Like all coaches at the time, no matter how good or how much involved in athletics, Iain had a day job and had to work hard at it.   Nevertheless his time spent track side was considerable and it did not diminish as his responsibilities to coach education or his international duties increased.   Very few, if any, coaches in the 21st century realise how much time and effort was put in by their predecessors.   Some of the very best Russian coaches on a visit to the country were astonished at how much a Senior coach in the 1980’s was supposed to know and that they were all holding down ‘day-jobs’.     Iain’s load was much more than most coaches even then had to carry but it is worthwhile looking at just how much quality work he crammed in.

First on the Athletics Coaching front (remember he only started coaching in 1970):-

1973 – ’76: Scottish Schoolgirls Residential Course at Dunfermline College of Education.

1974:  As a delegate to the UK Sprints Conference: Iain was the Group Leader in a group researching into “increased leg speed” which involved the introductory talk and then leading the discussion involving some of the country’s very best sprints coaches.

Then at the International Coaching Convention in Edinburgh:-

1973: ‘Coaching the young girl athlete’;

1974: ‘Teaching and learning the skills of sprinting’;

1976/’82/’83: Group Seminar leader and Chairman of discussion on all Group feedbacks;

 1986: ‘Development of a Sprinter’. This paper was picked up by and published in ‘Track Technique’ the official technical journal of the Athletic Congress (TAC) of the USA, in the Fall 1987 issue.

On National Coaching:-

1983: At the National Athletic Coaches and National Event Coaches Conference at Crystal Palace, his presentation was on ‘The Work, Duties and Complexities of National Coaching’.

On Sponsorship:-

1988: He presented a paper entitled ‘A Case Study – Lessons for others’ dealing with club sponsorship.   This was at the Glasgow Sports Council’s Forum day at the Kelvin Hall .   (It was the result of his work with Glasgow AC where he had been instrumental in gaining sponsorship of £24,000 over three years from the McLaren Group.  This was not the only sponsorship activity undertaken by Iain – for instance, the photograph below was taken after a successful trip to the WAAA’s championship where as a result of his activities the group could fly to London, stay in the tower at the venue, have a night after the championships were over before flying back home.)

On International Events:-

1990:  He was the Director and Co-ordinator of the Third Workshop of  the European Coaches Association which was held in the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow in association with the European Indoor Championships.

As an organiser:-

1984 – ’93: Iain was a member of the Executive Organising Committee of the Glasgow Marathon, which became the Great Scottish Run,

Also for the same period of 11 years he was the Chairman of the Technical Committee and Primary Finish Controller of the Marathon/Great Scottish Run

1993 – ’98: Member of the Glasgow Marathon Board.

1988 – Manager of the Glasgow team to the Nuremberg Marathon, which won the team prize.   

1986 – ’98: Chairman of the Kelvin Hall Sports Arena Trust

1986 – 2007: Chairman of the Kelvin Hall Sports Education Trust (1986 – ’98), and after stepping down as Chairman of the Trust, he remained as a Trustee until 2007.

 Some other activities which impacted on athletics (and other sports).   

In 1993 Iain went to work at the Scottish Sports Council, which later rebranded to sportscotland, where his role as Director of Finance and Support Services gave him the opportunity to further impact across the broad spectrum of sport.

1993 – 2009: as director and Company Secretary of the Scottsh Sports Council Trust Company he contributed to the operations of the three National Sports Centres – Glenmore Lodge, Inverclyde and Cumbrae. 

1998 – 2009:  As Director of Finance and Support Services at sportscotland he was involved in creating and responsible for setting up the company structure for the Scottish Institute of Sport and acting as Company Secretary to the S.I.S. 

1993 – 2009:  Iain was Trustee and Treasurer of the Scottish Physical Recreation Fund which awarded grant assistance to sports participants, clubs and bodies.

1995 – 2009:  As Director of Finance and Support Services he was involved in the structuring of a new division, with separated accounting functions, when sportscotland was appointed the distributor of the Lottery Sports Fund in Scotland to the benefit of all sports bodies, facility providers and participants.

 2002:  Involved with the creation of the Scottish Sport Hall of Fame and at the inaugural induction ceremony Iain was liaison and host for the family of Eric Liddell, and for Allan Wells and Ian Stewart looking after them on the day of the ceremony.

Much of that might not have happened though.   We came close to losing his services on at least two occasions.   First of all, he applied in 1979-’80 for the post of Director of Coaching for New South Wales. He had family in Australia – his sister was living in the country.   He was interviewed in London for the post by the Executive Director of the New South Wales AAA.  Iain did not get the job but there was a follow up.   He was going to Australia in late 1980 and was asked to go and see the Executive Director again.   It was explained that the person who had been appointed had the same qualifications as Iain but he was Australian working in the country in education so had something to fall back on if the job didn’t go as planned.   However there was an immediate job for Iain – the Armed Forces Championships were being held the following day in Sydney.  Could Iain help?   He could and did and at the meeting he was Chief Track Judge on a searing hot day (he reckons that it was so hot that his leather belt absorbed so much sweat that he could have wrung it out at the end of the afternoon!)   The starter at that meeting had been appointed the chief starter for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Brisbane’s QE11 Stadium in 1982. Iain drank in all the information he could about the starter and his command timings and the challenges athletes faced in the Australian conditions.   He then travelled with his sister to see the facilities in Brisbane and photographed the stadium, the warm up track, alternative preparation areas, the living accommodation, the training facilities and as much detail as he could.   It all came in very useful in the lead-in to the Games, briefing this own and the Scottish Squad on what to expect and therefore prepare for before even leaving Scotland and for the team to use during the Games themselves.   The QE II Stadium is pictured below.  

The second time was in 1981 when Iain was interviewed for the post of BAAB Coach for the North of England West of the Pennines.   He was chosen to fill the post but after he had carefully weighed up the situation, he decided not to take up the offer.

It was a happy ending but his services could have been lost to Scottish athletics altogether.   

After 20+ years of coaching, Iain retired from the sport and is now living in Kirkcaldy.   He says retired – but he still acts as a consultant to  other coaches and gives advice when he is asked for it.   Coaches come from a variety of backgrounds – some are ex-athletes, some start as a parent who is dragged along by a child and ends up supervising then coaching, and some come from other sports.    Iain is in the latter category.

He started after being a good standard amateur football player.   He had been at school with Brian Scobie and they both played for the school team.   Brian found his way into athletics but Iain was mainly a footballer.   Like other young players of a good standard, there were times that he was playing three games at the weekend – for the school,  for the scouts, for a local amateur team and so on.   He joined the local Killermont Amateur Football Club for whom he played in most positions over the years.   When the team coach moved away to another club, Iain started taking training sessions, and became a player coach.   The high spot was probably when the team won the West of Scotland Amateur League Division One championship in 1963-64.   He was interested in coaching but was coming into it as a player with no real knowledge of training other than from his own experiences.   

In 1963 two Scottish football team managers, Jock Stein of Dunfermline and Willie Waddell of Kilmarnock, went to see how the great Helenio Herrera of Inter Milan went about training his squads.   Ahead of their time, they would probably be ahead of their time were they to do so today.   They came back and talked about what they had learned.   Iain was interested in their findings.   Herrera looked at training, saw how different players reacted to the same training, and understood them as individuals.   Iain took on board the lessons about working with individuals as well as groups and teams and this affected how he worked with the football players he was training.

But he then wanted to take things a bit further and this led him into athletics.   How did he get into athletics?   He had friends participating in the sport, he had done some sprinting at school and he had also been friends at school with Brian Scobie who went on to do great things in athletics.  So the contacts were there.  At that time, with the publicity being given to the upcoming 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh with all the pre-Games hype, he decided to give up football and took up athletics.   Friends encouraged him to  join Maryhill Ladies AC where he met Jimmy Campbell and started out with a few athletes and started on the coaching ladder.

If we stay with the facts we see that his coaching career started like many others but then as his abilities and attitude were recognised, progressed further and maybe faster than most.   At the time there were three grades of coach – Assistant Club Coach, Club Coach and Senior Coach.   He came into coaching in 1970 and in 1974 he took his Senior Coach examination and qualified with the highest mark ever awarded by Great Britain Chief Coach Bill Marlow.   

 It was a rapid rise through the various stages.   At that early point in his career he was already working with people in the club who were running in international fixtures.   There were not many internationals at that time but through the mid 70’s he was asked by Frank Dick to go with some Scottish teams to small international fixtures in Norway and other countries.   He was also working on the educational side of athletics with Frank and that also helped him to progress his coaching skills.    

The Coaching structure in Scotland at the time was a simple but effective pyramid system with the National coach at the top and Group Coaches for the event groups (sprints, endurance, throws and jumps) below and answerable to him.   Each group coach had Event Coaches for whom they were responsible.   Iain became Group Coach for the Sprints in 1981 and Staff Coach for all sprint events.   He held these posts until 1987.   There was a considerable responsibility in both these posts.

His worth was quickly recognised and from 1982 – 84 he was the UK National Event Coach for both Men and Women 400m and the 4 x 400m relay.   This was followed immediately by appointment as UK National Event Coach for Women’s 100m and 200m from 1984 to 1990.   It had been a meteoric rise and was rewarded when at the  National Coaches Conference in 1990 he was awarded the status of Master Coach.   

 With the GB Men’s and Women’s Sprint Squad: Iain is standing beside Linford Christie and in front of John Regis.

Having looked at the outline of his career as a coach, we should maybe look at his philosophy of coaching and what made him so successful.   

The coaching structure that he operated within, as outlined above, has changed irrevocably now but he has no doubts about its efficacy.   In his opinion, one of its main virtues was that good coaches came together and worked together.   They spoke to each other as coaches and learned from each other.   They read about their events, they attended courses and conventions and brought the information back.  It was a way of bringing all the knowledge together, assessing it and sharing it.    Iain is adamant that you have to listen to people all the way through, you don’t have to agree with them but you have to listen to them and the structure was good at ensuring a two way flow of information.   

The information exchange with everybody at all levels he sees as vital but who were the main influences on him?    Undoubtedly some seeds were sown by what he read of Helenio Herrera (above) and his thoughts on the sports person as an individual.    Given how early in Iain’s coaching career Herrera came along, we can have a quick look at what Wikipedia has to say about him.   It says:

“Herrera pioneered the use of psychological motivating skills – his pep-talk phrases are still quoted today, e.g. “he who doesn’t give it all, gives nothing”, and “Class + Preparation + Intelligence + Athleticism = Championships”. These slogans were often plastered on billboards around the ground and chanted by players during training sessions.

He also enforced a strict discipline code, for the first time forbidding players to drink or smoke and controlling their diet – once at Inter he suspended a player after telling the press “we came to play in Rome” instead of “we came to win in Rome”.   

It was about working with individuals – each individual reacts differently to the same training – and to do with motivation.   If you look at some of the comments on   this page   you will see how much of a motivator Iain was when working with Glasgow AC some decades later.

 When he joined up with Maryhill Ladies AC there was the influence of the livewire Jimmy Campbell – a wonderful coach with a lifetime of involvement in sport (football as well as athletics) and experience of working with athletes at all levels.   As a mentor, Jimmy (on the right above) was in the very top class.   A Scottish and British international coach he was always on the go, always keen to help other coaches – and always interested in the individual athlete or coach to whom he was talking or with whom he was working.   

When Iain was working through in Edinburgh he travelled through to Glasgow three and four times a week – but he also did some work with George Sinclair and his athletes – another source of information and ideas.   Add in Bill Walker at Meadowbank too.   But from the mid 70’s he was influenced by National Coach Frank Dick (above) whom he thinks was outstanding at bringing to Scotland what was happening in the whole world of athletics.   Iain found himself thrown into situations by Frank that challenged him and assisted him to develop even further.   When one of his athletes (Val Smith) won the WAAA’s Junior 100m, Iain was invited to make a presentation at the International Coaches Convention presenting immediately after David Hemery – pretty daunting as a young coach, facing an audience of hundreds of experienced coaches in a packed hall who had just heard from an Olympic champion.     

Then there was the trip to Bad Blankenberg in East Germany in 1989 as a member of the UK delegation to the XV Congress of the European Athletic Coaches Association in the middle of the cold war.   Even the journey to get there was educational in many ways – through the infamous Checkpoint Charlie, travelling thereafter in a coach with blacked out windows and so on.   Travelling with the top coaches, sharing information, techniques and knowledge was a tremendous experience for Iain and the information which he gained was shared with others back home in Scotland because he was not selfish with the knowledge.    Frank had him involved in coach education from early on and he was a regular speaker at the SAAA/SWAAA courses at Inverclyde.  

When  we look at the many successes Iain had with many athletes at international, Commonwealth, European, World Championships and Olympic Games, we really want to see how he went about his work, what his guiding principals were in practical terms..   

The attention to the individual athlete is always in any conversation with Iain about coaching.   He also says that it is not always the international standard athlete who is the highlight for the coach at any given time.   You succeed best when you help each individual performer to maximise what they can achieve with their own ability whatever their level.   Certainly those who have seen him coaching at club level know that the range of talents with which he worked was wide – he was not a coach who only operated in the upper echelons of athletics.   

As far as dealing with athletes is concerned, it is vital that the athlete understands what the session is seeking, what the session is teaching and/or what the activity is working to achieve.  The coach can see the movement patterns but only the athlete can sense/feel the kinaesthetic cues ie the feelings/sensations in their neuromuscular system.  Learning to ‘feel’ the movement patterns and report appropriately is where the athlete helps the coach.  This effective interaction is vital in getting technique precise, for that athlete, allowing the athlete to ‘feel’ the performance, and continually seek to replicate optimal sensation to underpin optimal performance outcomes. The old adage ‘if you can’t do it right slowly you won’t do it right at speed’ should advise the journey to optimal technique supporting optimal performance.

Coaches have athletes come to them at varying stages of their career and when you have been as successful a coach as Iain, sprinters of a high standard come looking for  whatever will give them a bit extra, lift them up to a higher level of competition.   In that case, the coach fulfils a different function.   He becomes an advisor or a consultant.   After all, he says, the coach does not necessarily know what it is like to step on to the track, in front of 1000’s of spectators at an Olympic Games – the athlete learns.   The coach wants the athlete to fulfil his ambition and they work together to do that.   Of course, that depends on the coach having the knowledge in the first place.   

That Iain had the skill and pedigree to assist any athlete in the country is shown in many ways but probably best by Sandra Whittaker’s career.    An extract from her own account of training with Iain (seen in its entirety at the link above) reads

“When I joined Glasgow Athletic Club I was fortunate enough to be placed in the sprints training group which Iain Robertson coached.   Within the first year Iain had quickly recognised my potential and approached my parents to ask if they could bring me to training more than once a week as he said he felt he could really make something of me.  After discussion, my parents committed to taking me out to Scotstoun three times a week and Bellahouston one day a week.  This was the start of great things to come.”    “Our training programmes were very challenging, but with Iain’s support and encouragement we got through them, sometimes on our knees by the end of a session.”

Early recognition, get the parents not just on-side but prepared to help in an active fashion, and being able to make the athlete work hard.   From these beginnings Sandra went on to perform at the very highest level.   Maybe her best performances were

(a)  in the World Championships in Helsinki in 1983 when she was eliminated in her Heat of the 200m by just one one-thousandth of a second in a talent packed race with Merlene Ottey, Florence Griffith, Angela Bailey and Marisa Masullo in front of her.   It was four to qualify regardless of times and she ran faster than 12 (twelve) of the 16 who qualified for the semi-finals.     It should also be noted that Sandra’s quarter-final was run into a -0.3 m/s headwind while the other three races benefited from wind assistance that was never less than +1.0 m/s.

and 

(b) in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984.   She was third in her Heat in 23.22, fifth in the quarter final in 22.98 and failed to qualify for the semi-finals.   Runners in front of her were Bacoul (France) in 22.57, Brisco Hooks (USA and the ultimate winner) in 22.78, Bailey (Canada) and Davis (Bahamas) both in 22.97.    Another ferocious Heat, less than 2 tenths behind second and only 1 one hundredth behind third and fourth.   Faster than 7 of the sixteen who qualified for the semi-final. she was most unfortunate.   

She had been very carefully prepared, racing against the very best in the world there was no one better prepared physically and she certainly did not ‘blow it’ mentally.   It says a lot for her and for Iain’s preparation.   

It was a time of course when athletes from many countries were involved in drug abuse and the athletes from the Soviet bloc countries were particularly understood to be experimenting with various substances and combinations of substances.   When Sandra twice missed out on progressing by the narrowest of margins one has to wonder.   Iain is quite philosophical about it and none of his athletes were using anything illegal.   There was one regret though.    The Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986 saw Sandra come away with a bronze medal in the 200m behind Angela Issajenko of Canada and Kathy Cook of England.    After the Ben Johnson doping scandal and the Canadian Dubin inquiry in Canada, Issajenko confessed under oath to doping offences and gave chapter and verse on what she had been taking and when.   The period encompassed the ’86 Games.   Iain wrote to the governing body requesting that  the result of the Women’s 200m be looked at again in view of what had been admitted at the Dubin investigation but nothing was done about it.   In view of the fact that several such cases have resulted in athletes places in championship races being upgraded after doping offences were discovered, there is a clear case for the situation to be reviewed.  

None of this of course takes away from the remarkable coaching career of a remarkable man – or of the wonderful running of his athletes who all worked hard for him as well as for themselves.

Back to Iain Robertson

Iain with his wife, Linda, in March 1996

Sandra Whittaker

Iain’s best ever squad was probably that of the early/mid 1980’s where the remembered names are Sandra Whittaker and Angela Bridgeman.

*   Sandra‘s  career is summed up by statistician Arnold Black who says:  “she ran sub-23.65 seconds (legally) for 200 metres on 21 occasions.    So far (up to October 2016), 12 Scots in total (including Sandra) have run legal sub-23.65 on 58 occasions.   Or to put another way, Sandra bettered 23.65 on 21 occasions – in the 29 years since, sub-23.65 second runs have been achieved by Scottish athletes on 22 occasions.”

Statistically her progress over 200m between 1979 at the age of 16 to Olympic year in 1984 was relentless.   She went from 25.7 seconds in 1979,  to 25.02 in 1980,  to 23.7 in 1981,  to 23.24 in 1982,   to 23.13 in 1983,  and  22.98 in 1984.   No sudden jumps followed by stasis:  regular annual incremental improvement.   Over 100m the record was similar: 12.5 in 1979,  to 12.2 in 1980,  to 12.05 in 1981,  11.81 in  1982, 11.63 in 1983  and 11.6 in Olympic year.     Again we have year-on-year improvement.

Competitively, she won the SWAAA 100m in 1982, 1984, 1986 and 1987; the 200 in 1982, 1984 and 1987.    Although there were no GB titles there were medals – second in the UK 200m in 1986 and 1987, third in the UK 100m in 1986.    In the Commonwealth Games in 1986  she was fifth in the 100m, third in the 200m and a member of the 4 x 400m relay team that was fourth; in 1982 where she reached the semi-final of the 200m and was in the relay team that finished third.   She also represented GB in the European Games in 1986 where she reached the final of the 100m and also 200m.

The really big one was the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 where she reached round two of the 200m and the world championships in 1983 where she reached the quarter-finals of the same event.    In the quarter finals she was faced with the eventual winner, Valerie Briscoe-Hooks.   By the end of the race she was one hundredth of a second behind third and fourth who were both clocked at 22.97 and she was eliminated.   There were no places for fastest losers at these Games – the other two British women were slower than Sandra but qualified for the semis.    In Edinburgh in 1986 she was third behind Angela Issajenko of Canada and Kathy Cook of GB.   Issajenko subsequently admitted to using drugs and testified to the Dubin Inquiry where she gave detailed evidence of her drug regime.   Two very hard decisions for coach and athlete to take.    Many coaches might have walked away from the sport at that point but Iain stayed.

*   Angela‘s progress over the same period also showed regular annual improvement.  At 400m, her specialist event, it was 56.5 in ’79, then 54.01, 53.83, 53.03 then a jump up in ’84 to 54.35.    Her progress at 100 (12.5/12.2/11.8/11.7/11.7) and 200m (25.2/23.9/23.7/23.5/23.58) follow the same pattern.

Angela  is a very interesting athlete who was first ranked as a Junior (Under 15) in 1978 for the 100m (15th with 12.9w) and 200m (15th, 27.0w), by 1981 she was number five in the senior 100 rankings, number two in the 200m lists with two of the top six times, and number three in the 400m with eight of the top 20 performances.   The standard was high – the top two in the 400m were Linsey McDonald and Anne Clarkson, and only Sandra was higher in the 200m.    She also had a share of the second fastest 4 x 100m relay and had an eighth place in the long jump.   Quite remarkable for a first year senior.

Glasgow’s Sportsperson of the Year in 1981 when studying bio-chemistry at the University,  in 1982 she won the 100m and 200m at the British Universities Championships.   Approached by David Hemery at her home in Drumchapel with an offer of a sports scholarship to Boston University, she turned it down since she felt that she was too young.   In 1984 she accepted a scholarship to Brigham Young University where she had a successful sports career between 1984 and 1986.   She was an All American indoors in 1986 and set a College record of 23.47 seconds for 200m on 10th May, 1986′ which stood until 2010.

All-Time Rankings (as at November 2016):   Both women are highly ranked in the latest (November 2016) all time ranking lists for Scotland 30 years after they ran the times specified.   At 100m, Sandra is ranked second 10th with 11.5, one tenth behind Helen Golden, and Angela is 18th with 11.77 seconds; at 200m, Sandra is top with 22.98 with Helen second on 23.14, and Angela is eighth with 23.47 seconds; Angela is fourth in the 300m with 37.33 and in the 400 Angela is twelfth with 52.99 seconds.   These are all legal times, wind assisted, downhill, etc are listed separately.

A coincidence that two girls from the same training group are ranked so highly with times so close?   I don’t think so.

Angela Bridgeman (right) in an international at Meadowbank

*   Melanie Neef, one of Scotland’s best ever 400m runners, trained with Iain for several successful years at the start of her career in the early 90’s as a short sprinter (eg British Universities 200m champion in 1991).

The figures have been laboured a bit but any one athlete’s progress is just that – one athlete’s progress.   There are many ‘one-athlete’ coaches, and often enough one top class athlete makes a coach’s reputation.   When you get it happening with several athletes working with the same coach over 20 years or so, you know that the coach is at the very least in touch with both the event and his charges.   Rab was that and more.   Further, many athletes have a sudden big jump in their performance level in one year and then progress no further.   Iain’s athletes tended to improve incrementally year on year with seldom a step back unless  by injury.

Another measure of success is the esteem of his peers and the level of athletics that the coach reaches.   Frank Dick tells us that Iain worked with British squads at least twice:   indoors v Russia/USSR and also at European Indoors in Madrid.    He was also a key staff member at Point Lima College, San Diego when GB Athletics held its first pre-Olympic Holding Camp in 1984  which was actually a first for any GB Sport!

Whatever your measure of a coach’s calibre and the quality of his work you choose, Iain met the standard and even exceeded it.

*  Meticulous and detailed in his planning, he has been described as a perfectionist who  paid attention to the planning of the season, to the detail of individual sessions and to the entirety of competitive demands that the athletes could expect to meet.  Everything was planned out to the smallest detail.   Val Smith says that he worked in four year cycles, not just yearly ones.

* Time spent trackside was important to Iain: at one time when he was working in Edinburgh, he made the 90 miles round trip to Glasgow three times a week to work with his girls at Scotstoun or Bellahouston tracks.   An hour each way in the car for each session.    As a contrast, one international coach is quoted as saying “If you see your athlete once a week, that’s good; if you see them twice a week, that’s better; if you see them three times a week you’re not coaching them, you’re nursing them.”   I don’t think it’s a philosophy Iain would have accepted.

*   Sessions and content:   The girls usually trained at Scotstoun on Mondays and Wednesdays; at Westbourne School gym on Fridays in winter and at Bellahouston Park on Sundays.  Angela tells us that he would come to training with a sheet of paper in his hand and the session written on it.  The Sunday sessions could, and usually did, involve weight training then running on the track (then the only all-weather running track in Scotland)  and/or hill running and/or hopping on the steps up to the monument.

*   His attention to detail was legendary: before the Brisbane Games in 1982 he obtained a tape of the Australian starter.    Then   he arranged a race for the women at half time in a big match with the starter’s commands.   Not just a big match but a European Cup game: the Celtic v Ajax tie on 15 September 1982 which had a reported crowd of 57,000 (European Cup, First Round, First Leg which finished 2-2).    There had been such events for men in the 1950’s and 1960’s with races held at half time at Rangers v Celtic at New Year and at Scottish Cup Finals in April.   It was maybe no coincidence that David Hay’s daughter was a member of the club at the time.  The Press  said that Iain had persuaded Jock Stein to put the race on, but whatever the mechanics, the race went on only because the coach decided that the girls needed to the experience of running before big crowds.

*   Nor was he afraid to try new ideas.   For instance, when Val Smith ran at Cosford in 1975, the big name in sprinting was her near-namesake Valeriy Borzov who was experimenting with three point starts.   He encouraged her to experiment with the method and she finished second in the event.

* He travelled all over the country with  his athletes including to all the UK League venues as well as to the championship meetings at London and Cosford.    The gym at Westbourne School was very useful but more was needed for winter training, and Iain tried hard to get an indoor running track in Glasgow with the assistance of Councillor Connie Methven.

Of course this level of input and support does not come without a cost.   Like all coaches at the time, he had to cover almost all of his own costs.  This was pointed up in a paragraph by Doug Gillon when Sandra qualified for the Olympics.   He wrote in June 1984:  “Ian Robertson, the UK 400 metres staff coach from Bearsden who is Sandra’s mentor, is now looking for a sponsor to help him get to Los Angeles as well.   Robertson calculates that he will have spent £8000 in the past two years helping Sandra and his other proteges in Portugal, Holland, Finland, Australia and the USA.”     And we are talking here about a British Staff Coach, not a Scottish one, accompanying an athlete that he was coaching to a major Games where his assistance to other members of the team would have been invaluable.

Great as his contribution to coaching  was, there was more to Iain than that.  A member of the Glasgow AC Committee he was chief coach for a number of years and worked as team manager too, travelling to all the UK League venues with the girls.

Alastair Shaw comments:

“Like me he got easily bored actually attending athletics meetings and took on tasks rather than sit about watching. Not only that but once he had the measure of a task he often took on extra duties at many meetings, mostly to satisfy his desire to be stretched. This I remember occasions when he was both stadium manager and announcer at fairly big events where two incumbents would have been the norm.”

 He was also well known for having a ‘fantastic sense of humour’ and made sure that in amongst all the serious stuff everyone enjoyed what they were doing.   He also played the clarinet: often on bus trips south he would take it with him and play it with a couple of others who took their instruments as well.    Described as “a very good team manager – he would have made a good football team manager for the quality of the team talks he gave before events.   Very inspirational”    

Evelyn Smith, Val’s mother, became a top ranked administrator and also became club president and vice-president of the UK women’s league.   Iain accompanied her to most league committee meetings and she even hosted the monthly club coaching committee meetings.   She puts this all down to Iain’s influence.

He worked as an accountant at Tarmac in Pollokshields in Glasgow and then at Cobban & Lironi, a Glasgow firm of architects. He left them to work for sportscotland and, being married with family responsibilities, he just did not have the time to continue.   Given the time he spent on coaching and on his athletes that is understandable.

*

Leslie Roy discovered an article in the Glasgow ‘Evening Times dated 22nd February, 1983 which, under a headline of “ROBERTSON’S RHYTHM OF LIFE: I’m devoted to athletics says Britain’s unsung hero”, reads:

“Iain Robertson is a member of the Syd Lawrence Appreciation Society.   So, if anyone is in the mood to maintain the exhilarating momentum in British athletics, it has to be the Glasgow computer operations manager.   Football was the main young enjoyment for Iain who now confesses, “all my time outside business interests is devoted to athletics.”   

He broke his leg and elbow playing for Killermont Amateurs, and although he started coaching with the club, ” I had an urge for athletics.”   The former Bearsden Academy student went back to the sport “where I’d been a sprinter of sorts” and joined the coaching staff of Maryhill Ladies AC in 1979.   It was the year of the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games and now Iain prepares for the greatest festival of all – the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

As the British Board events coach for the 400 metres, he is one of those men who take the fanfare-seekers through their all important rehearsals.   “I try to do a professional job in an amateur sport,” says the man who gathered most of his knowledge from working with Frank Dick (now Britain’s director of coaching) and Glasgow’s able Jimmy Campbell – “my motivating forces.”   

Iain became Maryhill’s chief coach nine years ago and continued his role after the club became Glasgow AC.   At last season’s Scottish Championships he pulled off a memorable hat trick of successes when Sandra Whittaker (100m and 2oom) and Angela Bridgman (400m) collected national titles.   And his expertise came in useful for Scotland at Brisbane’s Commonwealth Games.   It was two years ago when Iain realised that athletics had taken over the rhythm and the swing of his life.   He missed a Syd Lawrence concert in Lochgelly to lead a coaching session.   Now he’s entitled to blow his own trumpet.”

Coach, committee man, team manager, official and administrator, Iain Robertson contributed mightily to Scottish athletics.   But the last word should go to his athletes.

Val: “His commitment and contribution to his athletes was second to none.   He encouraged the best from his athletes, and was an extremely dynamic and motivational coach.   It was an absolute privilege to be coached by him.”

Angela:   “He was more than a “just a coach” he was a mentor and good friend. I basically grew up under his influence. I learned many lessons from him that have helped me be successful in my life.”

Sandra:

“Natural ability is a factor, but Rab’s training.   I was so fortunate to be in his group.   He was into all the intricacies, and I was so lucky to be in his group.   His expertise took me to the top” 

For the complete comments, go  here

When we caught up with Iain and spoke to him he was very direct and honest about his approach to coaching and training and to read what he had to say just go to The Iain Robertson Interview and for an overview of all the other athletics (and sporting) involvement have a wee look at The Iain Robertson File  .

After Club Championships at Scotstoun:

L to R: Yvonne Anderson, Sandra Whittaker, Iain, Catriona Gardiner (intermediate champion) and Angela Bridgeman (Senior Champion) 

I had been a member of the British Milers Club for about a year when I first met Derek.    He had taken over as Scottish Secretary but resigned after a couple of races that he had organised did not take off.   I was his successor but it was several years before I managed to get the club working as it should.   Derek was a member of the British Milers club until his death on 27th May 2014 and wore the club badge on his tracksuit alongside his BAAB Senior Coach badge.   He wrote many, many articles on the subject of coaching: I read them in Athletics Weekly, Scotland’s Runner (pretty well for the duration  of its existence – from 1986 to 1993), Athletics Coach (published for many years by the AAA’s as the oifficial coaching magazine with a large circulation), the BMC News in its various forms, and many others.   The articles could be academic when dealing with the physiologyof the events he was discussing or intensely practical, such as when he spoke of working with very young athletes and using various kinds of ‘tig’.   There were some aspects of his coaching that he kept private and I was surprised several years ago when he wrote a letter to Athletics Weekly complaining that other coaches had stolen some of his sessions.   Surprised because he was always forthcoming when we spoke and because coaches share information readily.

Derek was always easy to get on with – he was always the same as far as I was concerned.   Of his range of coaching knowledge there could be no doubt.   He was a good coach and he knew he was a good coach.   But the difference with him was that his knowledge came from reading and experience.   I never, ever, saw him at a coaching conference or gathering.  When I asked him – not once but several times – to come and speak to BMC coaches at annual meetings in the 1980’s he always gave the same reply, that he preferred to stay in Kilbarchan or Linwood working with his own athletes.    He was devoted to them and spent a lot of time with them individually.   But maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit.

Like almost all coaches, Derek was not a full-time coach – he had to earn a living as well.   he had a degree in Divinity and he wrote the occasional letter to the ‘Glasgow Herald’ on topics connected with religion.   He wrote for the local newspaper, the Gazette, and was interested in and an authority on local history.   Indeed he was also a member of the Johnstone History Society.   Latterly he was a park ranger and this fitted in well with his love of nature on which subject he also had an encyclopaedic knowledge.   Nor did he compartmentalise his various areas of interest – for instance he often wrote about the need for runners to get away from the artificial restrictions of track running and had a wonderful article in”Scotland’s Runner” about the Australian coach Percy Cerutty: possibly one of the best I’ve read on the man.

He spoke of his coaching on the Kilbarchan AAC website and I reproduce much of it below since it is a good, fairly detailed account of his career and practices.

Coaching Background:- I began coaching in my early 30s and was at one time the youngest senior sprints coach in Scotland and also the youngest coach to hold the senior awards in sprints and middle-distance simultaneously. Since then, I have coached on a regular basis i.e. several days per week on an uninterrupted basis for nearly 40 years. I have extensive experience of coaching male and female athletes of all ages and abilities from nine to 70. Up until recently, I coached senior athletes at international level in sprints, hurdles, steeplechase, middle-and long-distance, cross-country, half-marathon and marathon. From now onwards (in the meantime, at least), I plan to concentrate my coaching efforts on the long distance seniors group (men and women), including 2014 Commonwealth Games aspirants Hayley Haining and Gemma Rankin. I pride myself on the fact that my group includes club and elite standard athletes, all of whom get MY close personal attention.

Further Information:-  I have coached athletes to Olympic, World, European, Commonwealth Games and UK elite standard level. The Olympic level athlete was Hayley Haining who achieved the Olympic standard marathon qualifying time TWICE in 2007-2008 but was controversially not selelcted for the Beijing Olympics. However, representing GB & NI, Hayley won a bronze medal in the team event (along with Paula Radcliffe and Liz Yelling) at the World marathon championships in Helsinki, Finland, in 2006. She also represented GB & NI at the World half-marathon championships in Edmonton, Canada, in 2006.I have coached two Commonwealth Games athletes (Hayley Haining in the 2006 marathon at Melbourne, Australia, and Claire Gibson in the 800  metres at Delhi, India, in 2010).I was also triathlete Kerry Lang’s 10K coach for the Commonwealth Games triathlon in Melbourne, 2006. I have coached three senior Great Britian and Northern Ireland full internationals (Hayley Haining – marathon/half-marathon; Robert Quinn – track, cross-country, roads and hills).

I have also coached three UK age group champions (Ross Toole – indoor 3000 metres; Andrew Gibson – indoor 1500 metres; and William Docherty – 1500 metres steeplechase. Coaching experience outwith Kilbarchan AAC includes advising England international marathon runner Kim Fawke and Joe Gough (Kilkenny, Ireland) who won several European 800 and 1500 indoor and outdoor titles at veterans championships and a silver medal at one world championship.

On the basis of my work with Hayley Haining and Claire Gibson, I won the prestigious Scottish Athletics Performance Coach of the Year Award in 2005 and 2009.

I have also written hundreds (literally!!) of coaching articles in leading athletics journals for many years, including Athletics Weekly, Athletics in Scotland, Running Fitness, The Coach, Scotland’s Runner and other publications.

And that is his own account of his career as a coach.    Like all really good coaches he was approachable and any athlete, whether in his own club or not, could go to him for advice and get individual, tailored advice based on what he had told Derek and what Derek had seen when the athlete was running.     

Derek was totally unique.   Only 71 when he died, I feel every sympathy for his family and for his athletes and friends at the club.   The ‘Herald’ obituary appeared on 31st July, 2014, and can be found at http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/obituaries/derek-parker.24904241