Category: Uncategorized

The stand at Singer’s Recreation Ground, Clydebank

The Singers Sports was a regular fixture on the SAAA Calendar after the Second World War and was held on the first Saturday in June with some of the very best athletes in the country competing there.   Its history goes back well before the war however and the picture of the stand above, situated on the north side of the track, dates from the 1930’s.   Many factories and manufacturing firms had their own sports sections and, even as recently as the 1960’s, Babcock & Wilcox (Renfrew), Dirrans (Kilwinning) and Singers had their own sports.   Singer was a massive factory: read the following from ‘Glasgow Live’.

“The factory came into being thanks to Scots born George Ross McKenzie, who, while serving as General Manager of The Singer Sewing Machine Company, the first successful American multi-national company in the world.   …   Benefited from a location both next to a railway line and the Forth and Clyde canal, then Vice President McKenzie breaking ground on it in 1882 in a construction that lasted three years and required 20 million bricks before it opened in 1885.   Originally featuring two main buildings 800ft long and 50ft wide and 3 storeys high connected by three wings, it was designed to be fire proof with water sprinklers making it the most modern factory in Europe at that time.   And barely a decade later, the Kilbowie factory would become Singer’s flagship factory, with a workforce of over 5000 strong manufacturing 80% of the world’s sewing machines.   So big was the factory that it had its own train station (still present today), with production levels so high that two-and-a-half miles of railway track were laid to link up assembly lines, foundries, tools hops, storage and distribution centres.   And so productive was the factory that in 1905 the US Singer Company set up the Singer Manufacturing Company Ltd. as a UK registered company, with demand so high that each building in the factory  (then the world’s largest) was extended upwards to 6 storeys high.

With 11,500 workers employed at the plant at its peak, in 1913 Singer shipped 1,301,851 sewing machines from its factory doors to households and businesses around the world.”

The Singer clock was the world’s largest four faced clock, five feet bigger than Big Ben

It was a massive operation and encouraged its employees to take part in all kinds of sports – there was a football team, a cricket team, a bowls club, an athletics club and it also catered for indoor sports.   The bowlers had their own green and clubhouse and the others took place at the recreation ground.   Among the thousands of employees, were many members of Clydesdale Harriers, based in the town, many of whom were in promoted positions.   Therefore when the idea of an annual sports and gala day came up, they helped with the organisation.    

Clydebank and its environs always a sport loving community and there had been several athletics meetings held over the years.   In 1919 there had been a good one held at Old Kilpatrick with many athletes from Clydesdale Harriers as well as repr3sentatives of all the Glasgow clubs.   The first Singers Sports reported in the Glasgow Herald on 6th June 1921.   The report in its entirety is below.

The reference right at the start to ‘their annual sports’ seems to indicate that there had been similar sports previously but there is no indication for how long.   They also seem to have been exclusively for employees and local schools.   Note that the High School w as HG   which was Higher Grade (or Senior Secondary) as opposed to Dalmuir School which was a Junior Secondary School.   George McQuattie was a member of Clydesdale Harriers but the club affiliation was not given.    The Sports were always on the same weekend – the first in June.   This meant a clash with Queen’s Park FC Sports and the Scottish Universities Championships as well as several of the major schools events.   But, given that it was at this point a ‘closed’ meeting with a restricted range of events, this would not have been a factor in their calculations.

The following year, on 3rd June 1922, the events were largely the same with a Ladies Race as well as a ladies relay – women’s athletics were just starting to appear in the country and this was an interesting venture.   There were also boys races and relay.  Away from the track, there was a tennis tournament and a five a side football competition.    This was the pattern for the 20’s – confined races, races for local schools as well as tennis and the almost mandatory 5-a-sides.   The origins of the Sports – or Sports Gala as it was sometimes referred to – were not reported on at the time but the report on the 1927 meeting started by saying: “In showery weather, the twelfth annual sports gala in connection with the Singer works was held at the Recreation Ground, Dalmuir on Saturday.”   So 1915 was the first year.   Names that appeared in the results included A Gailey (later a member and treasurer of Clydesdale Harriers before he emigrated), G McQuattie and in the women’s 75 yards race the winner was Peggy Ellison who was a prominent member of the Clydesdale Harriers Ladies when it started up in 1930.   

They were always trying new ways to entertain the  crowd and in 1929, there was a children’s pageant with historical tableaux, songs and dancing, there were also gymnastics exhibitions by members of the YMCA.   The pageant would develop to the crowning of the Singer Queen with her retinue of the 1950’s.  There were also the usual athletics events and the piping was also a feature although the tennis and 5-a-side seemed to have disappeared by then.

The first sports of the new decade was on 9th June 1930 and the pageant led to the crowning of the Queen of the Fair (Margaret Pattison).   One of the other innovations during the thirties was the introduction of a relay for the school girls as well as the existing one for boys.   This was however the format until the war started in 1939.

During the War, the factory was devoted to making equipment and supplies for the war effort and there was no time or room in the year for such niceties as the Sports Gala.   During this period the factory received over 5000 government contracts, made 303 million artillery shells, shell components, shell fuses, aeroplane parts as well as grenades, rifle parts and 361,000 horseshoes.   The company labour force of 14,000 at the end of the war was 70% women.

After the war the sports started up with a difference or two.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ report read as follows:   “Singer Recreation Club’s Sports were distinguished by the performance of Any Forbes (Victoria Park) who won one of the Mile handicaps from the small allowance of five yards to win in 4 min 24.6 sec over a course of six laps to the mile and against a strong wind.   Other winners:   100 yards  W McDonald (Clydesdale Harriers) (8 1/2) 10.9 sec; 220 yards:  J O’Kane (Garscube) (14)  23 sec; 880 yards: W McCrimmon (Vale of Leven) (44)  2 min 1 sec;  Mile B:  J Stirling (Victoria Park) (105)  4 min 34.9 sec.”   There were several points to take from that report, brief as it is.   First is the fact that there are no results of the confined events although there were still many to be seen on the day.   Second, there was a full programme of open events which were well supported and which, in the eyes of the reporter, took precedence over the confined races.

Not mentioned:  1.   The pageant was still a feature of the sports and would be there until the sports came to an end in the late 60’s.   2.  The tennis had gone altogether from the Gala and 3.  the football was held away from the meeting too.   It had in fact become a genuine open sports meeting albeit on a short grass track.   The Recreation Ground was also used by other community groups – the photograph below is of the invitation half mile race in the mid 1950’s at the Clydebank High School Sports which were held there.

Photograph by Jim Young, leading above

A year later and again, it was a short report but the papers were only 6 or 8 pages long, there was a full sports programme and a local meeting was maybe fortunate to have the results printed at all.   This time the man mentioned first was George McDonald of Victoria Park who was second in both open and confined 100 yards races.   The winners of the sprints were J Wilson of Clydesdale in the 100 yards from a mark of 7 yards in 10.1 sec and the 220 by DT Clark of Garscube, also off 7 yards in 23.2 seconds.   Jim Young of Clydesdale won the 880 in 1:58.6 from 45 yards and Ben Bickerton of Shettleston took the Mile from a mark of 40 yards in 4 min 38.5.   The Junior one lap race was won by R Whitelock of Victoria Park in 36.9 from 17 yards and the Women’s 100 yards was won by I Irving (Clydesdale ) 11.3 sec from a mark of 8 yards.   

The sports were becoming a bit better known and the calibre of athlete was getting higher.  This was helped by the Guest of Honour in 1951.   Like many other local sports meetings and highland gatherings, Singer Sports and Gala Day had a guest of honour – the best known of there was Dorothy Lamour who came along a few years after this but in 1951 it was Olympic sprinter June Foulds from London.   She had come to prominence as a 16 year old and would go on to run in the 1952 and 1956 Olympics.   After opening the Sports she took part in both 100 yards races (open and invitation) with the results seen below.  Scots M Carmichael and Willie Jack were also international athletes.     

Things just continued to progress.   The meeting in 1952 provided a big shock in the women’s events where two British International athletes came face to face.  One was Pat Devine of the Q Club in Dundee who would be the first Scottish woman to compete in the Empire Games, the European Games and the Olympic Games.   She and her clubmate Elspeth Hay were the first Scottish women ever to be selected for a GB team.   Of course, the handicaps had something to do with the final results but the winners in both 100 and 220 yards were off quite short handicaps.    Wotherspoon of the YMCA would go on to become a good, medal winning, member of Shettleston Harriers.

The competition between meeting organisers on the first Saturday in June was fierce, coming as the date did a mere three weeks before the national championships and with the short track and grass surface, Singers Sports were at a disadvantage.   In 1954 for instance, they were competing against the big budget and 440 yards track at Shawfield where the Lanarkshire Police were holding their sports,    The Scottish Universities were big players in the sport in the early 50’s and they had their national championships on the same date, and on this date in 1954 the new cinder track at Caird Park was having its grand opening meeting with home girls Pat Devine and Elspeth Hay taking part and Joe McGhee of Shettleston Harriers taking on local hero Chick Robertson over 13 miles on the road.   There were many schools championships being held too     The draw at Singers however was star long distance runner Ian Binnie who was taking his chances over the half mile distance as a test of how his speed work was coming along in the run-in to the SAAA event.   As it turned out, he won his heat but could only come fourth in the final behind W Gall of Maryhill Harriers off 68 yards in 1:58.6 seconds.   Binnie had won his heat in 2:00.4.   The meeting went as well as usual but Binnie was the only star name that yea.   There is a clip of the meeting which is more of a general interest programme with the emohasois on the pageant and the Gala Queen than on the athletics  at 

   Watch Singer Sports and Gala 1954 online – BFI Player

The 50’s were good for Singers Sports Gala the 60’s were better.   The programme grew – in 1960 there were the events that we know of already – open races, schools races and confined races ,but there were also more field events, more women’s events (there were open relays as well as confined for instance) and Inter-Works competitions against such as John Brown’s shipyard.   And there was the pageant which was something that none of the other meetings of the summer could equal – if a sewing machine factory could not produce elegant dresses, who could?

In 1961 Ronnie Whitelock won his heat of the 100 yards off half a yard and was beaten by that much in the final by Gibbons of Vale of Leven who was running from 6 yards.   Whitelock’s time was 9,8 seconds.  The works relay which was won by Babcock & Wilcox was run over stages of 3 laps, 1 lap, 1 lap and 2 laps on a track that was 6 laps to the mile.   The women’s events were dominated by the Ardeer Recreation AC who won the 100 yards and the relay while Moira Carmichael took the 220 yards.

The 1963 event is summarised in the results above – top quality athletes all through the programme.   Cochrane from Beith was a superb runner who won the South Western District Cross Country championship 7 times and was a Scottish international runner, Bill Purdie who competed in open races, scratch races and invitation events all summer, every summer and the women who took the prizes above were all international or international class.   Note particularly Anne Wilson, Sheila McBeth and Georgena Buchanan.   1964 was even better, see below

And Colin Martin and Jim Brennan were not even mentioned in the report.   

John Maclachlan (4) just beats Pat Younger (2) in the confined half mile.

The 1965 meeting was certainly the one with the biggest celebrity roll call of them all –Ian McCafferty, Graeme Grant, Cyril O’Boyle, Ian Logie, Avril Beattie, Jinty Jameson, Linda Carruthers  were all winners and there were other down the field in many of the events.   Have a look at the report.    

Nearly 40 runners in the Mile on a 6 lap to the mile grass track!   This had previously been the longest race on the programme but by now there was a ‘Round the Factory’ race which was won by Cyril O’Boyle.   The pole vault was relatively new to the sports and was won by Ian Logie who was an SAAA Internationalist and championship medallist.   The entire Western Ladies team was almost certainly all international in make up.    Unfortunately it was probably the last ever.   It is the last one that we have found reports on.   

Any other sports organising committee having the success of this meeting would have been happy to keep it going –  the sport was good and the crowds were coming every year.   It was a successful community event. The factory was starting to have a hard time however – read about it on google and many cuts were being made all the way through the factory and it closed finally in 1980.    It was a pity that a factory which, true to the spirit of the time was interested in and catered for the welfare of its workers and the community in which it found itself.   The Burgh still has the Singer Bowling Green and the Singer Hall, donated by the firm, however to thank the company for in addition to all its great memories.

Were you a sportsman in the 1920’s and 1930’s the name of Ggroe would have been familiar, had you been an athlete, especially a cross country runner in the same period, it would have been very familiar.   It was a time when almost every sports writer  had a pen name – by-lines were pretty well unheard of.   Line drawings to accompany the articles were the norm.   You can see several things from the headline above: the writer’s name was above the headline.   The surrounding drawing was large enough to ensure that it was also more prominent and the drawing was appropriate to the article.   Ggroe however was none other than former international athlete, top class official and administrator George Dallas of Maryhill Harriers, and he wrote in Glasgow’s Daily Record.  

He covered many races, mainly in the West of Scotland and the two illustrations here are from his coverage of the Midlands District Cross-Country Championships.   He also covered the national championship on several occasions.    There is however no doubt that he was at this time entirely a reporter – which is what the sport needs on every Monday morning for 52 weeks of the year.    He wrote well and his race descriptions are detailed, comprehensive and accompanied with as many results as he could get into the paper.      What did a typical Ggroe report look like?   

First there was the headline which had the main information – note the top line above.   Second there was the report.   Third there was the results in depth, and four what was not there was any mention of the writer.   

The report to go with the headline above read:

“Plebeian Harriers had to relinquish their hold of the Ten Miles Midland District Relay Championship at Hamilton on Saturday to Motherwell YMCA who must be heartily congratulated on displaying great form to best the holders by 150 yards in 60 minutes 19 seconds.   WJ Gunn (Plebeian), WS Fisher (West of Scotland) and R Graham (Motherwell YMCA) were the leaders at the end of the first ciruit of two and a half miles of a very trying course in the snow.   SK Tombe, JB Tait and W Gardiner were their respective club colleagues who took over for the second lap.   Before a mile had been traversed, Gardiner for Motherwell, went into the lead, Tombe of Plebeian doing his best to hold him.   AH Blair (Maryhill) was in a favourable position.   Going for the third lap, H Maitland who took over from Gardiner, was in a practically unassailable position.   T Clark, Plebeian, could make no impression, indeed he lost ground.   Dunkey Wright, Maryhill, was given the difficult task of trying to reduce a gap of 90 yards between him and the leader.   In the end JNH Gardiner crowned a brilliant achievement for Motherwell YMCA in gaining the verdict over Plebeian in a decisive fashion.”   

That report took up just 35 lines.   The results which followed took up 66 lines for the team results, and 25 lines for the individuals.   The club results took the form of teams in order with names and times for each of the first 20 teams with places and time for the last six teams.   Reporting of the highest order.   It was of course a different era with different priorities but George had been a runner for many years, he had also been an administrator and official at many races thereafter and he knew what the athletes and their clubs wanted and needed.   His target readership was almost certainly the athletics and cross-country population.   Available space might be bigger but regardless of the space available, 62% of the available space was given over to detailed results.   

It was a typical Ggroe report.   The War ended Ggroe’s career but not George Dallas’s.

.When Walter Ross started’ The Scots Athlete’ magazine in a time when newsprint was rationed in 1946, George was one of those he turned to for support.   Issue number 4 saw a front page article by George which showed what a good writer he was.   The photograph at the head of the article is above.  Part of the item is reprinted here.

“SAAA CHAMPIONSHIPS

Reviewed by George Dallas

First of all let me congratulate the authors of this splendid periodical – a much felt want – in these days when newsprint is so limited and affecting our usual mediums of publicity which undoubtedly helps to liven our movement.   May the Editor and his able assistants succeed in staying the course and weather the uncertainty and arrive at the goal when it can be said that ‘The Scots Athlete’ is now a self-supporting organ maintained by those who have the right to sustain its lifetime.

Noe for the review of the fifty fourth championships for which I was invited to make a modest contribution.   After a lapse of seven trying years in our lifetime, the Scottish Amateur Athletic Association resumed their annual championships at Hampden Park by kind permission of Queen’s Park Football Club .   On the last occasion, in 1939, the youths series of tests were linked to this fixture.   This year, however, it was deemed advisable to separate the classes, and I think it was a wise decision, and in some respects at least, it may be said that the results have justified the steps taken.   Athletically and financially, both the Youths Championship at Edinburgh on June 8th, and the Senior fixture on June 21st and 22nd,  paid handsome dividends that exceeded expectations.   Both efforts have substantially augmented the coffers of the Association, and I would venture to say that moneys accruing therefrom may figure in the region of 70% of the total liquid assets standing in the name of the SAAA – a position never before known in the history of the movement.   

So much for my remarks on the material side of the programme.   What about the athletic analysis of the first post-war venture?   Do results suggest an early return to pre-war standards, and are the prospects bright enough to hope for the day soon when Scotland may be able to play more than an ordinary part in International Athletics?

Certainly we have one or two personalities capable of making their mark in the field of first class competition.   Undoubtedly Alan S Paterson, Victoria Park AAC, H D McD Clark, Greenock Wellpark Harriers, and John B Panton, also of Victoria Park, emerge at once as a trio qualified for the special attention of the experts looking ahead for Olympic possibles.”

Dallas then went on to look at individual events and competitors.   The above is approximately half of the  article but it serves to illustrate the quality of his writing – a bit verbose for the twenty first century perhaps, but well in keeping with the best journalistic standards of the time.

He covered several big events for Walter’s magazine but also wrote for the ‘Glasgow Herald’.   The Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay was re-started in 1949 with two runs over the course and in 1950 the report, although uncredited, was almost certainly the work of Dallas.   At a time of severely rationed newsprint, the report ran to 41 closely printed lines of which 15 were the report.  Simple arithmetic tells us that there were 26 left for the results!   Places, clubs, every individual in the club plus their individual times and the aggregate time was given for the first five clubs.   Thereafter only the sixth team was noted with its aggregate time.   There followed the fastest times on each stage for which the start and finish point of the stage was give, the distance of the stage, the name, club and time of the fastest man on that stage.   It was a pretty comprehensive result when there a serious shortage of available space.   Again, no mention of the writer, no opinions, just straight reportage.   

It is at times easy to dismiss reporting as inferior to ‘journalism’ in some way, but on a Monday morning, especially after a big race or championship, runners need these results and information.   I used to run every Sunday with a good pack and the start of every two hour run (most Sundays) was spent analysing the results from the previous day’s race.   One of our number had a good head for figures and he could recite details that the rest of us had barely noticed, if we noticed them at all.   George was an outstanding reporter at a time when the sport needed one.   Aye, and we could maybe do with one now who prioritised facts over opinion on a Monday morning.

George and Beryl 2019

All successful magazines have a driving spirit whose name is synonymous with the publication – eg “The Scots Athlete”  (1946 – 1958) and “The International Athlete” (November 1958 – 1961) with Walter Ross, and Scotland’s Runner” (1986 – 1993) had three editors in Stewart McIntosh, Allan Campbell and Doug Gillon.   George Sutherland was responsible for “Athletics in Scotland” which appeared from 1973 to 1976.   George is not as well known as the others nor as well-known as he should be.   

This is partly because he is not one for pushing himself forward.  The other magazines mentioned above had photographs, on some occasions with the “Scotland’s Runner there were cartoons, of the editors.   Unlike many producers/editors George’s own picture never appeared in the magazine.    Nor was there a ‘From the Editor’   or ‘The Editor Speaks’ article to give a clue about his own standpoint.   It was all about the sport, unfiltered, with no opinion of his own ever expressed.   

Nor did he seem to have an athletics pedigree that we could relate to – no one ever talked about their rivalry or races with him.   What was the man who was responsible for it like?   

George describes his own involvement in the sport as modest.   A pupil at Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen, he was a member of the athletics team with the high spot possibly when the 15 – 17 years age group 4 x 220 yards relay team of which he was a member was second in the Scottish Schools relay in 1953.  It had been a good day for the College with the 17 – 19 team winning the relay in their age group.   There were also three more golds for them when Bobby Yuill won the 17-19 100 yards, and Bill Ferguson won both shot and discus in the 15-17 age group.    He remembers that on the day he shook the hand of Eric Liddell’s brother .   When he got home to Aberdeen that afternoon, his Father told him the story of Eric Liddell.   

The involvement in the sport continued and after leaving school he joined Aberdeen AAC.   He turned out for the club in the 440 yards and the half mile where he was a sub-2 minutes runner.   It should be noted that this was a good time for a club runner, running on a cinder track in the  1950’s.   Like many a middle distance athlete at the time his heroes included Roger Bannister and Chris Chataway, and like many others probably admired Herb Elliott and Peter Snell.  It was a time when athletics featured on the black and white television screens with races such as Chataway versus Kuts under the floodlights at the White City.   It was an inspirational time.   He was a member of Aberdeen AAC into the early 1960’s.   George was not however fixated completely on athletics, he also played rugby.   Of his involvement there he says: “I continued in athletics until about 1962.   During that period I played mediocre rugby with Gordonians (second XV) and afterwards in Edinburgh with Bruntsfield, which merged to become Murrayfield RFC where I continued at coarse rugby until 1973.”

When George was asked how the magazine came about, why did he produce it, his response was as follows: “My wife Beryl and I started the magazine to encourage as many people as possible to take part in athletics”.   It was produced entirely by George and Beryl, there were no other staff involved.   Beryl did all the typesetting.   It was a very good magazine but to think that it was run by husband and wife with no other paid or employed staff adds to the admiration.   It was packed with information – see the page below from issue number 34 as an example – at a time when such information was not easily available to the ordinary club athlete.

Why did it cease publication?   George says, when asked, that “the reason I had to stop producing the magazine was the fact that I became Managing Director of Ivanhoe Printing Co. Ltd. of Musselburgh (he was a 50% shareholder) and had to concentrate on that.”

For some further comment, we turn to Peter Hoffmann, one of the country’s best 400/800m runners, who was a friend of George’s and sheds some light on these questions when he says:

“George lived at Durham Square Portobello Edinburgh round the corner from me. I seem to recall he printed the magazine in his attic at home. He was a lovely chap, tall, bespectacled and balding.   He lived with his wife and two daughters. I was at their house on a few occasions mainly with EAC stalwart Dougie McLean who was friendly with George.   I helped to distribute and sell a few editions of the magazine. Thinking about why it stopped, I wonder whether his job and therefore home circumstances may have changed which had implications for the demise of the magazine. I mention him once or twice in my diaries.” 

*

Although it posed no threat to the mass circulation press, its success was noted in more than one quarter.   The two major dailies the country at the time were the ‘Glasgow Herald’ and the ‘Scotsman’.   They both noted the existence and success of the periodical though.  On 29th October, 1973, Ron Marshall’s article appeared in the Herald. 

That was from the Glasgow paper, the Scotsman had a much shorter piece in April 1974.   Below a mini-reproduction of the April 1974 cover featuring Ann Cherry and Ian Murray, it simply said:

Athletics in Scotland is one year old and the publisher-editor, George RF Sutherland, is to be congratulated.   The 16 page publication, which in its first year has carried thousands of results, has been run on a shoe-string Budget.   But it is viable, much of the work being done on a voluntary business.   “The purpose of this labour of love,” writes the editor, “is to encourage athletes of all ages to participate and strive for improvement in their sport.”   The venture is a sensible piece of self-help. 

What we have said so far begs the question of whether there was any direct inspiration or model in the beginning.   When asked, George says, “The format of my magazine was copied from a journal that I used to buy at the time.   This was “Athletics World” published and edited by the famous McWhirter twins, Norris and Ross, later much more famous after the huge success of their “Guinness Book of Records”.   “Athletics World” seemed to be type-written, plus bold headlines – a format which suited me.   Also they had a formidable connection with contributors world-wide.   Sadly their lives came to an end far too quickly.   They wrote to me once or twice.”   These illuminating comments add to and complete the story of the magazine

Where is George now?   He still lives in Edinburgh, he and Beryl have two daughters, three grand children and two great grandchildren.  His late brother was Lord Stewart Sutherland of Houndwood and was Principal of both London University and Edinburgh University.   

George says, ““I still take a great interest in athletics.”   We all wish him well and thank him, and his wife Beryl,  for the magazine which was the right magazine at the right time for Scottish athletics.

Bill Melville is a very good journalist indeed who is well respected.   He would have been a good journalist whatever his chosen specialism had been: we are fortunate that he chose sport rather than politics or any other subject.   But within sport he had a wide range of subjects that he wrote knowledgeably about.   

That was the writer but he was more than that. As his friend and colleague Sandy Sutherland says. “Much of what he did was a service for the sport and he was often press officer for events I attended in a professional capacity and rolled his sleeves up and obtained the result sheets for others, unlike the present generation who are solely interested in getting their story out BEFORE the few journos who are left get their turn!”

Not entirely subjectively, it is possible to say that Bill Melville is one of the better writers and one who really loves the world of sport. One of the top three in Scotland in my 60+ years in the sport.  He has never received the credit that is his due.

From page four:

“Running on the track, roads or the country can make you feel good.   Pub philosophers are likely to say that it is all the chemicals in the brain.   The brain produces ‘endorphins’  which, like a number of manmade drugs, make you feel good.   These are people who don’t run; people who feel pain and break sweat if they up the tempo to a fast walk down the boozer, let alone try to run there. …..  Running can hurt, especially at the end of a long outing when the muscles are both running out of energy and are suffering the combined effects of repeated contractions and are absorbing the impact.”

I doubt whether a non-runner could have thought that, never mind have written it.   Or how about this one about the 800 metres:

“The fast staggered start, the jockeying for position at the break, a brief settling of the status quo round the bottom bend before heading for the bell, with half an eye watching out for any breaks or drives from behind.   Then it is into the second lap with the field, sometimes strung out, sometimes bunched, everyone straddling a metaphorical line between perfection and going over the top, with anyone liable to make a telling move down the back straight or going into the final bend before making a final sprint for the line.”

You won’t convince me that that could have been written by a man who has not raced middle distance at some point in his life.   There is no straining for the mot juste, no high flown language, just a man telling it how it is.  Clear, unpretentious, direct, insightful.   But if you need further convincing, how about this:

“finishing with my heart pounding and that unforgettable flavour of “blood” on my laboured breath, breath which grated like rusty files…”

I once coached a runner who often said after a good run “I could taste the blood“, it’s something that only distance runners understand.   And there was often a bit like “I knew he was going to ‘tank’ me!” 

Bill being presented with the East of Scotland Trophy at Glenalmond

by East League Organiser Janet Clark

I have in the course of 60+ years in the sport read many a journalist and reporter on athletics.   First of all there was George Dallas, a former international runner and outstanding athlete over distances from 100 yards to the half mile, who reported on athletics for the “Glasgow Herald” One of the three best journalists and reporters in my time in athletics.   He knew what athletes wanted from the dailies: first a good results service, second a decent report on the race, third as much journalism as they good get – and in that order of importance.   He had started writing in the 1920’s  for the “Daily Record” under the moniker ‘Ggroe’ and after a wee hiatus for the War, took up the pen again, writing for “The Scots Athlete” and the Herald.   He was an out and out reporter.   He was followed at the “Glasgow Herald” by Ron Marshall who saw himself primarily as a journalist and he moved on to work on Scottish Television.    Doug Gillon is the name that will resonate most with those who were runners in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and up to 2010.   He wrote for the “Glasgow Herald” and covered many championships – read his profile by clicking on his name above.   Doug had a good results service and was also a journalist of quality – he wouldn’t have lasted as long otherwise.   Sandy Sutherland was based in the East of Scotland but wrote for a multitude of papers and also covered a wide range of sporting activity, mainly athletics and Basketball.   I would put Bill up with George, Sandy and Doug as a reporter and with the latter two as a journalist.   Bill was up there with the best who have dealt with athletics in the Press.

When you have been involved in athletics for as long as Sandy has, competed in, broadcast and written about and reported on as many meetings as he has, then you have invariably made many very good friends and acquaintances.   In his chosen profession, there are many who do not register with the sportsmen they write about and many who are not very popular.   We all have our own favourites.   I have never ever heard any criticism of anything he has written and what follows are some remarks by his friends.   Strangely enough for a former shot putter and basketball man, the first comments are from marathon champion Colin Youngson from Aberdeen

Sandy Sutherland has been the main athletics journalist in the East of Scotland for many decades, (while Fraser Clyne in Aberdeen. has concentrated successfully on the North-East).   I must have met Sandy in the early 1970s and certainly by my peak year of 1975, when I was running for Edinburgh Southern Harriers, his articles in ‘The Scotsman’ were essential reading for anyone interested in every branch of Athletics: Track, Field, Road and Country.

Sandy’s journalism was carefully researched, clearly written, encouraging and thoughtful.   He commented in considerable detail on good quality performances and a ‘name check’ was always appreciated.

His enthusiasm, respect and good humour are evident in the first two paragraphs of his report on ESH demolishing the race record in the 1975 Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay.

ESH RUNNERS SWINGING IN THE RAIN

“The next time you look out of your window at the rain teeming down on a Saturday and think what a terrible day outdoor sportsmen are having, think again, for one – and perhaps slightly eccentric – sporting group appear to revel in the rain.

The best road runners in Scotland made a mockery of the weather – and the record book – in the annual Edinburgh to Glasgow 45 mile relay on Saturday with the winners, Edinburgh Southern, improving the record by two minutes 40 seconds and, for good measure, setting new record figures for four of the eight stages. It was Southern’s third victory on the trot or, should one say, gallop.”

Sandy is a gentle, polite, talkative and cheerful man – not a towering, threatening ex-heavy events fellow!    His fascination with the sport is impressively wide-ranging.

In the late 1970s, he and his wife Liz (an excellent athlete herself) formed the Scottish International Athletes Club. As athletics moved hesitantly towards professionalism, they thought that we needed a voice in important discussions, rather than leaving it all to officials in the Scottish Amateur Athletic Association.

By 1980 the list of members was impressive, including most of the finest Scottish athletes. Olympian Don Macgregor was chairman, Liz Sutherland secretary, multi-eventer Stewart McCallum vice-chairman, and the committee included Adrian Weatherhead, Meg Ritchie and Allan Wells. Others included Cameron Sharp, John Robson, Nat Muir, John Graham, Allister Hutton, Jim Brown, Jim Dingwall and several field event stars like Chris Black and Gus MacKenzie. This organisation may not have lasted too long but the fact that it was formed at all emphasises how much the energetic and dedicated Sandy cared for the wellbeing of his beloved athletics and the competitors themselves.

Sandy Robertson (left) with Jim Craig at the 50th anniversary reunion of 1961

Sandy Robertson was a member of the 1961 Schools team who went on, after his own very good career as an athlete, to become a top class coach, and was awarded the status of mastercoach in recognition of his abilities and successes in that field.  Sandy writes:

1958 was a year of intense memories for me at the Scottish Schoolboys Championships at Goldenacre in Edinburgh.   Competing for Wishaw High School, I ran the U15 220 yards, beating the championship best performances in heat [24.3], semi-final [24.2] and final [24.0] on the grass, only to be beaten in the final stride by the great Roger Hallett of Bo’ness Academy in 23.8 in a new Championship Best Performance – he also set a CBP in the long jump – in what was considered the race of the day.  

 But it wasn’t the performance of the day!   I had been looking forward to seeing if my second cousin, William Cowan of Newmains J.S., could win the U15 Shot, since he had a 44 feet throw to his credit going into the championships, beyond the Schools’ record.

When the Shot warm-up throws began, there appeared to be a dispute.        The thrower from Golspie HS was claiming that the shot circle, in those days a grass circle painted out in lime, was in too close proximity to the running track.                                                                    

 Having checked the distance from the circuit and compared it to the CBP, the officials dismissed the complaint.   After a careful look around, the Golspie athlete lined up for his address, shifted across the circle with great speed, and promptly threw the shot high and long onto the middle lane of the grass track, a distance of 60 feet! We gasped!

The athlete with the prodigious throw was one Sandy Sutherland, coached at Golspie by Alex Dalrymple, in whose honour a SSAA trophy for best thrower is awarded annually, and no wonder.

Sandy was compact, broad shouldered and fast, and quite definitely the best technician on show, beating the CBP that day by a huge margin.

Closer inspection afterwards found him in a tracksuit with a strange motif on the front, a huge wildcat, and the words ‘Touch not the cat but a glove’, a clan motto.

With this throw and this accompanying narrative, he moved not only into the record books, but into a kind of legend.

Three years later, 1961, he and I were both selected to represent Scottish Schoolboys at Maindy Stadium in Cardiff in the first full schools international, he in Shot & Discus, and I in the 200 yards hurdles, my new event.   We all met up in Edinburgh at the Rosehall Hotel in Dalkeith Road the day before travel.                                                  

Four of us shared a room, Sandy & I, and Roy McIntosh of Coatbridge H.S. [220 yards] and Norrie Foster of Uddingston G.S. [Pole Vault].

Cardiff was quite an experience for a first international, with the usual far too much standing around and walking to tire us out, hardly ideal preparation, but the visit to Epstein’s Majestas at Llandaff Cathedral was mainly worth it.

We trained lightly on the track on that Friday afternoon until it was announced that there would be a trial for the 4 x 110 yards relay, surprising, in that we had two sprinters in the 100 & 220 yards.   However, we dutifully went to our marks to win a place in the relay [I won the Ibrox Senior 100 yards a month later], and set off on the gun. The result for the first two was predictable, Roger Hallett [who won next day in 9.5, equalling the performance of the Olympic 100m bronze medallist and world 200m record holder at 20.5, Peter Radford, five minutes earlier in a demonstration race], and Hamish Robertson. I was third; Andy Leach, the other 200 yard hurdler was fourth, followed by Roy McIntosh, then Sandy Sutherland!                                                          More surprisingly, the trial stood for nothing, the four sprinters being eventually selected to run anyway!

Surprised as I was that a thrower could sprint [yes, innocence on my part], I never forgot it, and have ever since appreciated the athleticism and speed of throwers, coaching my West Calder H.S. pupil, Commonwealth athlete and World & European Junior Alison Grey to British and Scottish titles in Shot, Discus, and, unsurprisingly by then, a SSAA 80m Hurdle win, in which she defeated the outstanding Catherine Murphy, the World Schools silver medallist.

One of the abiding memories of Cardiff in 1961, apart from my 200H,  Radford’s demonstration run, Roger Hallett’s astonishing response to it on the Maindy ash, and Epstein’s sculpture, was a simple incident in a Cardiff street.

The four roommates, Sandy, Norrie, Roy and I were walking down a sloping street towards a busy intersection when we heard a woman scream from further up the hill. Hurtling towards us was a baby buggy with a child strapped in, heading for the main thoroughfare: the distraught mother had parked the buggy with the brake off outside a shop and had suddenly realised it was on the move; she had absolutely no chance of catching it – but we had.

Lightning was our middle names as we sprint-started after it and retrieved it just before the deadly junction; the upset mother could hardly thank us for fright and shock, but, being teenagers, we just shrugged it off, muttering   ‘You’re welcome’. Nevertheless, we got the shock of our lives as well, and it sticks indelibly in the memory.

Yes, Sandy was as fast and agile as any sprinter, and was a regular Shot & Discus rep in Scottish teams in the sixties.

Fifty years on, he was a sentimental prime mover in marking the fiftieth anniversary of our Cardiff international debut with a reunion lunch which he organised in Edinburgh’s Old Town in 2011.

What memories!   Hugh Barrow [Mile] was there, Cochrane Stewart [440yards] and Jim Craig, the Celtic Lisbon Lion [Long Jump] and as many others as could attend: the chat was non-stop.

They were all delighted to hear that the 1961 match had been remembered in 2011, and that as a competitor in 1961, and as a SSAA team manager in 2011, I had been called out, and honoured, to present the hurdles medals.

Sandy keeps in touch with that 1961 team, and is always passionate about locating, meeting and talking to the annual winner of the SSAA’s Bob Dalrymple Trophy.

Sandy and I featured in Scottish internationals and in the great Edinburgh Southern Harriers team of the late sixties & early seventies when the club joined the British League and rocketed from Division IV to Division I in three seasons. His throwing team mates were Stuart Togher [HT], who became the U.S. Olympic Hammer Coach, his protégé, Chris Black, Olympic Hammer finalist, and Chris’ brother Alex [JT/ DT].Stuart’s brother, Justin Togher, sprinted with Dave Combe, David Farrer & John Derrick in a formidable 4 x 100m team: the 4 x 400m set a Scottish club record in Manchester and won 3 Scottish titles in a row, usually Sandy Robertson, Allan Murray, David Walker and Ray Gordon; Ray was national 400m champion, David the national long jump record holder, Allan the national 400H champion, I was a 400mH internationalist and Decathlon Club winner. Apart from David, the jumps squad featured Duncan McKechnie, Scottish TJ champion, Alan Lorimer [Eric Liddell’s double in ‘Chariots of Fire’] and David Stevenson, Scottish PV record holder. On the track we had Craig Douglas, Scottish 800m champion, Ken Ballantyne, the Sward Mile winner, Gareth Bryan- Jones, Olympic steeplechaser, and Don McGregor & Fergus Murray, Olympic marathoners. Close on our heels were my protégé, Angus McKenzie [Britain’s first 7 foot high jumper, GB 7.65m LJ, 110H European Junior bronze, 7202 Decathlete, Olympic Bobsleigh; Allister Hutton, London Marathon winner, Stewart McCallum, GB 400H and Decathlon, and Allan Wells, Olympic100m Champion, so when I left in 1972 for a three-year stint as Malawi National Athletics Coach, the club was in good hands. No wonder ESH stayed up top!                                                  You can follow Sandy online: he’s passionate about a number of causes – the Art Gallery at the Botanic Gardens, Wild Life Preservation, continuation of the Mountain Weather Information Service, criticism of Russia’s role in Syria and the security of child refugees, amongst many others. On reflection, he’s always cared in general – and not just about his beloved athletics – because he’s that kind of guy.

Sandy Robertson

Jack Davidson at one time shared a flat with Sandy and they became good friends.  A very good hammer thrower (45 metres), shot putter (3rd in the SAAA championships) and discus thrower himself, he also has warm words for his long-time friend.

‘Sandy is a very likeable, approachable and helpful individual. As a young ‘wannabe’ shot putter in the late 60’s/early ’70’s he was generous to me with his time and advice which I appreciated a lot. He knew the event inside out and had considerable patience putting his point across. In my opinion Sandy has to be one of the best pound for pound Scottish putters and discus throwers. To have flirted with 50′ and 150′ at the time he did ,while I would guess weighing no more than 15 stones maximum, was a considerable achievement. It has also to be kept in mind that Sandy was ‘as clean as a whistle’,no question of ingestion of inappropriate substances. It has to be acknowledged,as am sure Sandy himself does, that it may be thought he he did not fulfil his exceptional youthful potential.That in large part is probably because he never ‘bulked up’ proportionately as an adult having in mind his build as a young athlete when he was probably more physically mature than some rivals. Another factor may have been his lifestyle not facilitating training and competing by which I mean his travelling in South Africa and thereafter on his return here working ‘anti social’ hours [from a training perspective] in newspapers etc.I also remember him saying that he felt his hand was a bit small to be totally comfortable in accomodating the 16 lb senior shot compared to the junior implement. Weights were part of his training routine but again I seem to remember he may have had a concern over his back which may have acted as a brake on his ambitions in the gym. As a competitor in my opinion he ‘played to win’ and always gave of his best. In brief a highly accomplished thrower and a credit to the sport.’

Laurie Bryce, member of the class of 61, SAAA champion 5 times in succession,  took part in three Commonwealth Games and medalled in the AAA championships,  remembers Sandy well and recalls a particularly interesting story.  He says, “ Sandy was at a special junior shot competition at Cowal Highland Games in 1960.   Sandy beat my brother Hamish & me,  even though he was ‘officially’ still in a lower age group (under 17).”    He goes on to say that m”The last time I saw Sandy was at the 1961 Scottish Schools Team Reunion on 26th July 2011.  As I remember, Sandy arranged this with Hugh Barrow – and we had a very good attendance.    I have to add that Sandy was always a ‘good sport’ – whether beating his fellow Scots or finishing behind Alan Carter of England, who was the outstanding English junior shot putter of our time.   As a journalist, I particularly appreciated his report on my own two sons’ schoolboy performances – comparing Andrew to his uncle Hamish in the shot and Colin to his dad in the hammer.” 

Another of the class of 61 to comment on Sandy is his friend Hugh Barrow, a wonderful miler who ran many times for Scotland, won Scottish and Scottish schools titles and was unlucky not to be the first Scot to break 4 minutes.   He says of  Sandy:

Running in the Portobello Promethon which he helped organise in the mif-eighties.

The story of how Sandy came under the wing of Alex Dalrymple is told already in this profile but it should be noted that Alex had a squad of good athletes already.   One of the best of those was Ian McPherson, four years older than Sandy, who went on to become Scottish Senior Shot Putt Champion two years in succession.   Ian has given this outline of Alex and his influence on the Golspie community.

“I travelled by bus every (secondary) school day the 18 miles from Lairg to Golspie – a school with about 200 pupils including primary.  When I first arrived the gym teacher clearly was not interested in athletics – every gym session involved picking teams and playing football, at which I was pretty crap.   Not surprisingly, at the Sutherland schools annual athletics championships we regularly got tanked by Dornoch, the only other secondary school in the county.   Approximately 3 years later we got a new PE man, a tough cookie called Alex Dalrymple, who soon upbraided us for this annual disgrace/embarrassment/humbling, and then set to with proper PE sessions and lots of training in all branches of athletics, including, of course, events we had never even seen, e.g. shot putt, discus, pole vault, hurdles etc and even involving staying behind and training after school hours!  

Mr Dalrymple’s approach soon showed dividends – after a couple of years we started tanking Dornoch, winning events at the North of Scotland Schools Athletics Championships in Inverness (where the opposition was quite stiff, since it included the Inverness schools, Gordonstoun etc).  The first really big success was a gold medal in the 12 lb shot putt at the Scottish Schools Championship won by one Forbes Munro – a naturally talented  and muscular athlete. Forbes later won the 16 lb event at the Scottish University Championships but did not maintain his interest.  Maybe 2 years later I became obsessed with the shot and discus, taking the implements home and making considerable progress over the summer hols.  After a memorable  Dalrymple car-trip to the Scottish Schools Championship at George Heriots School in Edinburgh, I was well below my best but managed to win the shot and discus, even beating the massively muscled  R Ross from Boroughmuir, the previous years shot winner.  The exact dates are a bit vague for me now, but I think  that Sandy won the shot and discus at all three age groups over the next few years, then proceeded to come second in the shot at the AAA junior champs, but also  featuring in the Scottish Seniors.    I believe Alex D saw an opportunity and successfully exploited an underdeveloped area, working out how to do it all by himself.  He later left teaching and became, surprisingly,  the Warden at Glenmore Lodge, the outdoor centre near Aviemore, where he later became ill and passed away.  A trophy in his name is presented to the outstanding athlete at the Scottish Schools event every year.

Ian goes on to say

“On further reflection,  I guess Alex D had quite an effect on the lives of me and Sandy,  transforming me from a bit of a swot (as I was called!) who sat about on the radiators while all else played football in the breaks, into the top Scottish shot putter over a period of some years.  Likewise, I presume Sandy would not have become a sports reporter without his athletics background.

I regret that I have no photos of Alex, tho I do remember that the last time I was at Glenmore Lodge (when I was a hill- walker) they had photos of all previous wardens up on one of the walls.  Incidentally I hear from my friend big Doug Edmunds that Sandy has acquired a house in his home town of Golspie.  You may be interested to know that former members of staff at Golspie included David Whyte (Head) , former British long jump champion and rugby internationalist, and Norrie Brown (PE) former Scottish pole-vault champ and very successful athletics coach.  In honour of his son, who sadly died young, Norrie had a brass plate mounted in the new school building, with the names of all Golspie pupils who had won golds at the Scottish Schools. Next time I pass through I must look in and see if it is still there!”

Sandy at ‘The World’ in Johannesburg in 1967

 On leaving University, Sandy worked for the UAU for a year and during that time he joined Wimbledon AC and then went out to South Africa in December 1966 to work for The World Publications from  March 1967 to June 1968.  While he was there he travelled round competing for various clubs until he competed for the Wanderers club in Johannesburg.  Why South Africa?  “I had an uncle in South Africa (my mother’s brother) who had gone there in 1935 and had only once been back, and also cousins on my father’s side one of whom,  Heather,  I still go out to stay with in Durban.   When she said “when are you coming out to see us?”   I was off – travelling in an old British Caledonian Airways charter which had to avoid many of the African countries because of the boycott – we landed in Angola  at an old tin shed with only whisky and coke for drinks and then on to Mozambique where I had to phone my cousin’s Mum to get her to pay an extra ticket for me as the connecting flight to Durban didn’t exist!

Six months later, having hitch-hiked round most of SA I found a job in Jo’burg as a sub-editor on The World a tabloid owned by the Argos group with an almost exclusively African or Black readership! Racy stuff, mostly non-political to avoid being accused of subversion by the Apartheid Govt – this was Dec 1966.”

Coming back home he worked as a sports sub-editor with  Scotsman Publications from August 1968 to September 1970, a period of just over two years.   This was just in time to edit the reports coming in from the journalists at the Mexico Olympics – all done at the end of a wire.   In the course of his career however he would go on to cover Olympics at Montreal in 1976, then Moscow and Los Angeles.   The run was broken when he missed out on Seoul but then there was Barcelona and (after missing Atlanta) Sydney, Athens and London.   Seven in all.   However he has covered every single Commonwealth Games from the marvellous Edinburgh Games in 1970 right through to Glasgow in 2014: ten in all.    

That’s the outline, which alone is impressive enough, but when Sandy was asked how he got into journalism in the first place and what happened  between September 1970 when he left Scotsman piblications and January, 2000, when he started with The Sports Basket, he gave us an amazing story.

Sandy with Jody Williams

“To be honest I’m not really sure why or when I decided to take up journalism! Seemed like a good idea at the time? School magazine, an article in the GU Gilmorehill Guardian which got me in trouble with the powers-that-be? Not sure but when I decided to go travelling and head for South Africa in Dec 1966 after a penniless 18months in London I saw an advert in the Johannesburg Star for a sub-editor with The World, a tabloid owned by the Argos Group and based in Industria, an industrial estate in Joburg.

It turned out to be a wonderful, privileged opportunity. Only a handful of Whites, most of the reporters, machine operators etc were African. I lived in the YMCA in central Joburg and travelled to work on the train, white carriage portion of course! Nie blankes in a different part though we did get out on the same platform and worked together under the one roof!

My favourite headline from my time there was: “Fist feast forecast for Fight fans” – boxing, football and funerals were the big stories, the Morocco Swallows, the Orlando Pirates (BUCS) etc as directly attacking the apartheid government was unwise and would have got us closed down! After a while I stayed with cousins out in Krugersdorp and travelled in by train – they told me that they once had a call from the SA Police asking what I was doing there etc! 

Just a reminder but an unsettling one.

My main memories? A trip to Lesotho with a black reporter and black cameraman and a white news editor: we crossed the border and stopped at a roadside cafe, sitting together at table – whereupon the reporter said to me: “Do you not mind sitting beside me”? If a hole had opened in the ground I think I would have crawled into it – until then I don’t think I had appreciated what the apartheid regime really did to people.

I also went to Welkom gold mine in the Orange Free State to watch an African hero Humphrey Khosi run an 800 metres in front of a crowd of 40,000 – 39,950 Africans and a handful of Whites including myself. He should have gone to the 1968 Mexico Olympics and was a potential finalist if not better but SA were banned and all races suffered in a sporting context, 10.00 100 metres sprinter Paul Nash being one of the Whites excluded.

To his credit Nash did not do a Zola Budd and head for Britain for whom he had some qualifications.

While the “World Owed Me A Living” (yes it really did!) I started writing some columns for the Sunday Tribune in Durban, under the name of David Wightman, the chief sub-editor of the World who now lives in Durban and edits a glossy coffee table business magazine in Umslanga.

(I have met him on Durban beach for a walk and breakfast the last twice I visited while staying with my second cousin Heather on the Berea!)

He soon decided that I should write the columns under my own name and my athletics writing career had begun! 

Humphrey Khosi and Paul Nash were just two of the athletes I reported on!

Returning to the UK in June 1968 I was interviewed for a sports desk job on the Daily Sketch which fortunately I turned down as it was to close three months later!

I then travelled to Edinburgh for a job interview with The Scotsman right in the middle of the Festival! The weather was good, the city was abuzz and I had no hesitation in accepting the job offer from Sports Editor Willie Kemp.

I was there just in time to start editing the copy coming in from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City!

Though long jumper Bob Beamon was the sensation of the meeting, my personal favourite was David Hemery, an athlete I came to know well and respect in years to come.

Working most evenings, sometimes until 1am or even 2am, had its drawbacks and when Liz and I married in 1969, having first met at Fernieside at ESH training, it became even more trying; so when a chance came to move “downstairs” to work as a news sub with the Evening News I took it. That was good experience as the ability to write headlines and condense stories to fit available space was something I took into later life.

I had wanted to cover the track and field athletics for The Scotsman at the 1970 Commonwealth Games but my move off the sports desk certainly did not help that ambition.

I did end up covering the badminton events and had a press ticket for the athletics including the memorable 10,000 metres victory by Lachie Stewart on the opening day (I was sitting near Chris Brasher as he bellowed: “No you mustn’t” when Lachie nipped past the great Ron Clark in the home straight to “steal” the gold medal that was supposed to go to the Australian.

I was also in the throbbing terracing crowd on the final day of athletics to see Ian Stewart hold off Ian McCafferty in the 5000 metres final. Truly earsplitting!

So I moved on, leaving the Evening News to join the Church of Scotland as a Publicity Liaison Officer, a vague title and an ill-defined job perhaps, but it did give me free weekends to develop my freelance sportswriting and soon I had regular by-lines in the Sunday Times, where the late sports editor John Lovesey greatly helped me, and Sunday Telegraph where Claude Neil (an anagram of my first two names Alec Lundie) had a free rein of subjects involving athletics and other Olympic sports!

The Scotsman, Glasgow Herald (as then!) , BBC Scotland for voice reports became regular gigs for championships and international matches and I took on for six months the job of press officer for the 1973 Europa Cup Finals to be held at Meadowbank where World records were set on the very first night.

By the time of the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, NZ I had sufficient contacts and outlets to finance a freelance trip which included assisting David Coleman and Ron Pickering in the BBC commentary box.

Ironically Liz instead of competing in the hurdles for which she was selected was back home expecting our first child Joanna!

A more experienced journalist on a return visit to South Africa

Montreal 1976 Olympics came and went including my first Olympic basketball final and a triumphant swimming gold for David Wilkie in the 200m breast stroke. I shared the moment with long-time friend and colleague Doug Gillon and “Chiefie”, the late Alex Cameron of Daily Record and STV fame with whom I was to share a room in LA at the 1984 Games! 

I shall never forget Alex burying his head in his hands as Wilkie trailed at the end of the first two lengths and sighing: “He’s blown it”, only for Doug to nudge his attention back to the pool where the intrepid Scot was powering through to victory!

Round about 1978 I had another piece of good fortune as after the death of Councillor Magnus Wiilliamson I fell heir to much of the work of his sports agency.

As a result Edinburgh Sports Reporting Services was formed to supply results and reports of anything that moved in a sporting fashion from athletics to tiddly winks.

As well as employing as many as a dozen stringers every weekend it was to provide a useful training ground for several now well-known journos including Scottish Sports Aid CEO Roddy MacKenzie. And Liz was IC of a team of results gatherers winkling out cricket score cards from obscure pubs such as the hole in the Wall and becoming an expert in the spelling of the names of Sri Lankan cricketers!

Returning to my personal career path:  Barcelona 1992, Sydney 2000 where I fell out off a plane into a taxi severely jet-lagged to catch Chris Hoy winning his first cycling gold in the Team Sprint then fell asleep in his press conference, and Athens 2004 all had their magic moments. But London 2012, where my daughter Joanna was the basketball tournament director, surpassed them all.

The stadium noise on Super Saturday when GB won three golds in quick succession surpassed anything I had experienced before.

Sandy with Adam Gemili in2012

One thing that he didn’t mention above was his post of PRO for the 1986 Commonwealth Games.   If ever there was a poisoned chalice …..  Take your pick of the problems:

*African nations boycott because of the cricket tour to South Africa,

*Margaret Thatcher on the advice of Malcolm Rifkind refusing to give any guarantees to the Games,

*the whole Robert Maxwell shenanigans that followed from that decision and of course as well as the political wranglings and headlines,

* there were problems with some of the athletes, notably the Daley Thomson/Colin Shields contretemps.

The Public Relations Officer did not have his problems to seek.

Sandy joined the National Union of Journalists when he started with The Scotsman in 1968 and is now a Life Member.   He still attends meetings of the Edinburgh Freelance Branch (he was formerly secretary and chairman).   He is also a member of the British Athletic Writers Association and was chairman for the period 2011 – 2013.   The presentation photographs on this page were made at the prestigious annual award ceremony at the Tower of London Restaurant in December 2012.

Sandy with fellow journalist Doug Gillon at the Kremlin in 1980

In the course of his career, he has covered seven Olympic Games and twelve Commonwealth Games.  In 2014 he and Doug Gillon notched up a Triple Scotch when they covered their third Commonwealth Games in Scotland.   When you add in his coverage of World and European Athletics, cross-country internationals and  championships.   In addition to his athletics, he has a major interest in basketball and has held senior positions on committees and with teams for many years.   In addition there are all the other sports – orienteering, hockey, etc – that he writes about less frequently but with no less authority.    From all these, an influenced in no small way by his own competitive experiences,  there is a wealth of experience that adds colour and insight to his coverage.

Sandy Sutherland (right) with Hugh Barrow in 1961

There have been many journalists covering athletics in Scotland – most only cover one sport and that a domestic one.   Fans with typewriters is the faintly pejorative description.   Some names are well known – George Dallas was a first class reporter for the Glasgow Herald with a couple of decades in which no event went uncovered.   Bill Melville is a good writer and genuine enthusiast and Ron Marshall held down the post at the Glasgow Herald for a while.   But the two best known are Doug Gillon and Sandy Sutherland.   Doug was a good class runner while Sandy was an international class shot and discus competitor.

AL ‘Sandy’ Sutherland would have been a remarkable athlete at any time.   The best of his generation as a shot putter, he won national titles every year from 1959 as an Under 17 athlete through to 1963 inclusive and his versatility was such that he was highly ranked every year from 1959 through to 1982 over a range of events including Pole Vault.   His background could not have been bettered as a cradle for athletic success.

First of all, Sandy Sutherland comes from a sporting family – his father was AJ, known as Alex James, Sutherland of Glynwood, Golspie, who was a former Ross County, Wick Academy and Brora Rangers footballer and his mother was Ella Sutherland (nee Coghill) who was twice Golspie Golf Club ladies champion.    Sandy says: “My father was a footballer, played for Brora Rangers, Wick Academy and Ross County and was offered a trial for Aberdeen but turned it down as it was too far away from Golspie where he worked for the Sutherland County Council and he would have to be away from my mother!   When I played football at Golspie Senior Secondary School,  I can still hear the locals saying “oh you’re not as good a footballer as your father!!” But I could run faster – they stuck me on the wing.”

Sandy’s Dad – extreme right, back row

But the family sporting tradition goes further back yet.   The Reverend David Lundie, minister in Tongue, was Sandy’s great grandfather and in 1871 he won the Scottish Universities’ shot putt title – exactly 100 years before Sandy won his second SAAA Shot Putt championship.   An interesting sidelight – his best shot of 41 feet would have won the first Olympic shot putt in 1896 by which time he had unfortunately retired.

Second, he lived in a community where sport was important and regarded highly.   He says: “I ran at the Sutherland Sheepdog Trials, the Sutherland Agricultural Show, The Lairg Crofters Show AND the Dornoch Games!! All had races for youngsters with CASH prizes and a great boost for pocket-money!   I once dead-heated with a boy two years older than me in the under-12 100 yards at Dornoch and we won 6s 3p each! I could have been banned for life!! Didn’t know about that of course!   I then went on to run in the Sutherland County Sports at Dornoch against 1st year boys though I was still in Primary 7 and beat them. Alex Dalrymple was responsible for my promotion!! He had just come to the county then from Glasgow after seeing war service with Bomber Command as a navigator.   But I lost a big sprint challenge that same year when I was dragged somewhat reluctantly by the other kids to run in the playground against a GIRL.. one Anne McKenzie by name to prove who was the fastest sprinter in the Golspie Primary School! And she won!!”   Sandy also won the North of Scotland 100 yards title at Bucht Park in Inverness as well as the 120 yards hurdles and set a North schools long jump record of 6.43m.   And of course there were several shot putt records.

Third, there was the aforementioned Alex Dalrymple and his time at Golspie High School.    “It was only when Alex started teaching me in secondary school that he turned my thoughts to the throws!   “Every one wants to be a sprinter – let’s start a tradition in something else”!

He had several older boys learning to putt the shot, including Ian McPherson who went on to win the Scottish Senior Shot and Discus titles in 1963, ..and my first efforts weren’t great but when I reached 30ft in June 1956 Alex said to me: “I’ll start coaching you seriously if you can reach 35ft by the end of the summer holidays”!

Sandy at Goldenacre, 1961: his last competition there

Almost every day of that entire 6 weeks plus holiday I cycled on an old bike out to a grass bunker beside the shore on Golspie Golf Course and week by week I got better..actually getting over 35ft the day before we went back to school!

“I don’t believe it” was his comment on the first day back and not only was I able to prove I could do this but I reached 36ft during the first PE class!

All through that winter I toiled in all weathers with Dalrymple supervising and when the snow came we took a pail of hot water out and two shots, one to use and the other to keep in the hot water, changing them round during the session. I can still see him with a towel round his head! The following June I was runner-up to Grigor Purvis (Duns HS) for the under-15 Scottish Schools title, reaching 43ft 11.5 ins! Had I reached 2 ins further I would have won and set a new age group record.

I was due to move up to the 15-17 age group in 1958 and trained with the 10lb shot that winter but in the Spring we heard that the SSAA had changed the age group dates back a month and so my birthday on 21/4/43 made me just eligible again for under-15.    The 4k shot seemed so light by then and I broke the record … by 10 feet!  (54 feet 1.5 if I remember correctly.   The rest as they say is history.   I broke the 15-17 record in two successive years, the second time also breaking the discus record and in my final year in school broke the over-17 record at Goldenacre for the 12lb shot with 55 feet.   

I was awarded the Eric Liddell Memorial Trophy two years in a row, the second time sharing it with 440 yards runner Lenny Ross from Hyndland Secondary in Glasgow.”

With the Eric Liddell Memorial Trophy in 1961

Also in picture: David Paterson Golspie HS, double hurdles winner,  and Karlyn Ross of Paisley GS, HJ champion

Sandy is lavish in his praise of Alex Dalrymple whose trophy is still competed for at the Scottish Schools Champs for the best throwing performance – this was the 50th year of its presentation which was down to Sandy as he raised the money from former athletes, friends, colleagues and admirers when Alex, by then Warden of Glenmore Lodge, died of cancer at the far too early age of 39.

Leaving Golspie High School, he went on to study economics and psychology at Glasgow University and thereby hangs another tale.   He had applied for both Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities.   The Scottish Schools Championships were held in Glasgow in 1961 and while there he met Sir Hector Hetherington, Principal of Glasgow University.   In the course of a brief conversation he said that he was going to Edinburgh University because they had accepted his application.  “We’ll have to see about that!” Next week he had his acceptance from Glasgow.    It paid off handsomely for the University: Sandy won the Scottish Universities shot putt in 1962, 1963 and 1965, and the discus in in 1963.    In 1962 he not only won the Universities shot, but also (at the same meeting) the Scottish Junior and Senior titles at the same meeting.

Weight training at Glasgow University’s Stevenson Building

There were also international fixtures and invitation meetings.   One of the pioneering events was an indoor fixture at Wembley:

“In March 1963, Scottish athletes took part in a never-to-be-repeated event at the Empire Pool & Sports Arena, Wembley, London where there was an international indoor event incorporating a match between England and a combined team of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Among those in the combined team were George Wenk & Hugh Barrow (880y), Alan Black (1M), Alex Kilpatrick & Pat Mackenzie (HJ), David Stevenson & Norrie Foster (PV), Sandy Sutherland (SP), Georgena Buchanan (440y) & Helen Caldwell in the high jump. This combined might went down 51-93 in the men’s events and 15-40 in the women’s match, the scores perhaps a clue as to why the event did not become a regular fixture. Scotland’s first indoor match in their own right came 6 years later, at Cosford in March 1969.”

As well as excelling in athletics, he won the Scottish Universities mid-heavy and Scottish Junior mid-heavy titles in weight lifting.  The University’s registrar when his application was accepted was an athletics supporter and enthusiast called George Richardson, a man who possibly never did the University athletics constituency a bigger favour.    After graduation Sandy went back for a post-grad certificate in social studies which enabled him to become President of GUAC: that same year Ming Campbell was President of the University Union.

On leaving the University, he went to London to work for the Universities Athletic Union in London – assistant secretary for a salary of £950 pa – and joined the Anglo-Scots club which was a good club at the time and was well-represented at SAAA Championships.   Influenced by his friend Tommy Robertson, he also joined Wimbledon AC.   Sandy has also had a massive involvement with basketball – he tells us that he got involved with the sport when he was in London with the UAU: the office was in Woburn Square and above the British Universities Sports Federation HQ and his interest in the sport dates from that.

Signed Programme for Schools International in Cardiff in  1961

It is easy to get carried away with admiration of the man’s achievements, but it is instructive to see just what they were.

Sandy’s competitive record reads as follows:

1959:   Youth.   SAAA Shot 1st; SSAA (Group B) Shot 1st; Discus 1st.

1960:   Youth:   SAAA Shot 1st;   SSAA (B) Shot 1st; Discus 1st.

1961:  Junior:   SAAA Shot 1st; Discus 1st;  Senior SAAA Shot 2nd;   SSAA Shot 1st.

1962:   Senior SAAA Shot 1st; Junior SAAA 1st.    Scottish Universities Shot  1st;   West District Championship: Shot 1st;  Discus 1st.

1963:   Senior SAAA Shot 2nd.   Scottish Universities Shot 1st; Discus 1st; West District Shot 1st;   Discus  1st; SAAA Decathlon 2nd..

1965:  SAAA Shot 2nd;  Scottish Universities Shot  1st;   SAAA Decathlon 2nd.

1966:   SAAA Shot Putt 2nd; West District Championships  Discus 1st (Competing for Ayr Seaforth).

1968:   SAAA Shot 2nd; SAAA Discus 3rd.

1969:   Senior SAAA Shot 2nd;  Senior SAAA Discus  2nd; East District Championships Shot 1st  (Competing for Edinburgh Southern Harriers);

1970   East District Championships Shot 1st.

1971:   Senior SAAA Shot  1st.

For performance statistics, in the national rankings, Sandy was ranked nationally every year from 1959 to 1982 including such events as Long Jump,  Javelin and Hammer as well as Shot and Discus.   So versatile was he that he was also ranked in the decathlon in 1965, 1966, 1968, 1971 and 1972 with a best score of 5217 points in 1966 and a best place of 6th in 1965.   His best performances were as follows:

Shot:   15.16m   1970

Discus:   45.56m  1970

Hammer:   43.32m  1879

Long Jump:  6.48m  1960

Decathlon:   5217 pts   1966

Sandy’s contemporaries as an athlete included such well-known names as Hugh Barrow, Fergus Murray, Jim Craig, Sandy Robertson and others.   Those who competed in the Schools International of 1961 have kept in touch and their most recent get-together was in 2011.   They were a good and gregarious group, and Sandy invited them up to Golspie for a game of golf – and the photograph at the top of the page was taken then.   Among the throwers, Laurie Bryce, Doug Edmunds, Mike Lindsay, Chris Black, Alex Black – all top class in their events – were his rivals.

1961 SSAA team: Sandy five from the right in the back row.

As well as being selected for international matches, Sandy competed for the Atalanta Club.   Atalanta was a kind of Scottish equivalent of the Achilles Club in England and was made up of the best athletes from the four ancient Scottish universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews.   Established in the 1920’s  it took part in challenge matches until its demise in the early 1970s.   Sandy competed with distinction for them   For instance in July 1962  against SAAA he won the shot (45′ 8″) and at Iffley Road in 1963 against Oxford and Loughborough Colleges, he won the shot with  47.0,

However, he went to South Africa at the invitation of a relative, about which more later) and while there continued to compete.  He says:

“To begin with I competed as I went along before ending in Jo’burg and won provincial titles in shot and discus in Natal, Border, Eastern Cape and Southern Transvaal but then encountered the mighty Booysen brothers David (60ft + shot) and Hannes (55ft+) and the huge discus-thrower John Van Reenen (6ft 7ins) and way over 60 metres, 200 ft in the discus!

I went over 49ft for the first time with the shot and eventually reached a PB of 49ft 8ins, which I never really bettered when I came back in June 1968. Frustrated with my lack of progress I also flirted with the decathlon and competed in the SA Champs in Bloemfontein but did not improve on the total I managed at Westerlands when I had finished 2nd to Norrie Foster when he set a British record there (in 1965) of 6,701 pts.

I had a great 1st 3 events of including 47ft + in shot and even managed a 55.3 secs 400 in my first serious 400m going from side to side of my lane coming up the straight after going through 300m level with Norrie!   Never again I vowed..and I didn’t..run as fast!

So journalism took precedence on coming back to Blighty and I turned down a job with the Daily Sketch whose sports editor Bob Findlay was a Scot (of course!) to take one at the Scotsman where Willie Kemp was the sports ed.

It was the time of Mexico Olympics as I think I’ve said! About the same time I met up with a hurdler, sprinter, pentathlete at Edinburgh Southern Harriers who went on to become my wife in September 1969. (6/9/69) Liz Toulalan won the Scotsman Trophy for the Scottish pentathlon Champ that year and the following, thanks to coach John Anderson, reached the final of the CG 100 metres..the rest of that is history …she can claim to have represented GB in more events than any other female athlete..100, 200, 4 x 100, 4 x 400, 60m hurdles, 100 hurdles, 400 hurdles and setting a Commonwealth record in the latter at Meadowbank in 1977 in beating the Russians!”

Arnold Black, statistician, reckons that as well as representing GB in six events, Liz competed for Scotland in eight events: the six listed above plus the 400m flat and 80m hurdles!

 If you ask Sandy what, out of all those hundreds of performances, what were his best, he will tell you that the two performances he was most proud of were taking second behind Alan Carter in the AAA Junior shot in London in 1961 with his last round throw,   and   beating Doug Edmunds for the Scottish Universities title in St Andrews, in 1965, also with his last throw! He adds, “by that time Doug was consistently better than me!”

Over a decade later than either of these performances, in 1979, Sandy was a good bet for the Scottish shot putt championships but because he wanted to cover the meeting for BBC radio and the rules then forbade anyone competing in and reporting on the same meeting, he withdrew his entry.  The championship was won by George Loney, a worthy winner it has to be said, to take his only title.

As A Journalist         Alex Dalrymple          Some of his friends say

Gillon ~ or Rasputin?

Doug in the course of his journalistic career covered 34 years of the history of Scottish athletics and it would be a foolish and negligent historian of Scottish athletics who did not make use of this treasure trove of information.    It should not however be assumed that this did not happen without a lot of hard work and sleepless nights.   Sure, it was fun and he enjoyed doing it, easy it was not.   The information below had to be specifically requested and it tells tales that we would not otherwise hear.

How long before the event do you know that you are going?   One has to accredit with organisations like the British Olympic Association, IAAF, Commonwealth Games Federation/CGS Scotland months in advance (a process of around 18 in the case of the British Olympic Association for Olympics)

The first step in this process is the sports ed/editor convincing management the paper can afford it.  They often baulked at  it, and it was almost invariably a fight, but usually not involving me, rather others going in to bat for me.  So when it was agreed I should go, it was always on very tight budgets – can we do this on the cheap?   And despite agreements with NUJ chapel, re upgrades for flights lasting more than four hours, I have yet to experience one!

They always attempted to get hotels on the cheap, but were obliged to use media hotels at events, because the transport system is linked to them. There were constant rows about this: “You can get a cheaper hotel in Sydney.”

Despite it apparently being a doddle, there were huge financial and time pressures. The sports desk secy and I would spend hours finding the cheapest options before a package was agreed. Meanwhile trying to do the normal day’s work.

What sort of preparation did you need to do beforehand?   One builds up dossiers and background on competitors as part of one’s normal daily routine, but that would broaden and intensify before major events – particularly multi-sport events, eg I would not spend too much time normally on judo or fencing, for example, but pre OG or CG, that would change. The work-load became silly, but I knew I’d need all the facts at my fingertips when deadlines loomed, and some unknown (not necessarily British) had won Olympic gold.

I can imagine there were problems with communications?    The advent of computers reduced costs (by removing hours spent dictating copy and replacing it with a one-second call to transmit data).  In Moscow, for example, one would queue to use a phone for up to an hour. An apparatchik would call your name and a phone box number, and you would be connected.  It might take 30 mins to dictate 1000 words, longer if foreign names were involved. People monitored your calls. You could tell from the hollow echo on lines, and more pertinently that if one dictated something contentious or regime-critical, they would censor you by pulling the plug, and you’d have to start the queuing process again. On one occasion, when I was trying to send a report on a gay rights demo in Red Square, the line was disconnected five or six times. I placed a call to our communications people and got instructions on how to use a teleprinter. There was a battery of them lying unused. You had to hand your copy to the telex operator, and they could then vet it, but they were mostly unused because everyone wanted to phone, discus things with the sports ed, etc. I was able to commandeer one printer and batter out the rest of the story before they knew what I was doing. It may have helped that I had a bushy black beard then, and looked like Rasputin. One security guard look at my accreditation photo and burst out laughing, bellowing: “Rasputin! Rasputin!”

Post lap tops, it became easier, although initially the weight of kit to be carried was incredible. And still fraught, even though less time was spent on the phone. The kit included  a big pair of acoustic muffs into which you attached around the earpiece and mouthpiece of the phone. This transmitted fine from one’s hotel room, but in a stadium with 80,000 to 100,000 people, the noise corrupted the signal. So we learned to snaffle two bath towels from the hotel, and wrap them round the muffs and phone, to deaden the noise. Then we discovered that if you went into the phone wiring, and connected the cables, perhaps using crocodile clips, you could eliminate the muffs.

Comms links got steadily better, so that the likes of Sydney, Bejing, Delhi, Melbourne, London etc, were relatively simple, and the advent of the Internet speeded research. But beware the curse of unreliable Wiki.

The problem with Sydney is that it’s UK plus 10 hours ie 10pm in Sydney is noon the same day in Glasgow.

I’d go around all day in Sydney from event to event, swimming in the morning (expecting Brits to be eliminated) and track at night. You would shoe-horn in other events wherever a Scot or Brit was in action – lots of home-work to check who was on where and when, and the travel logistics. I’d go around all day watching events and hoovering up interviews (ie in the mixed zone where competitors leave the poolside or track, or in the judo hall or boxing, etc, and batter quotes into my laptop, transcribing in transit (buses, trains, taxis). When the live action finished, around 10pm, I’d phone the desk, tell them what the headline Scottish/UK stories were, and we’d agree a schedule of reports with word counts. Because I could file until almost 8am (Sydney) the following morning (10pm UK), there were days when I would write and file 6000-ish words of considered writing. That’s the equivalent of six page leads (c800 each) and 3-5 sidebars of 250-400 words. (In Beijing it was more, because blogs had arrived). This means that some days the only sleep I got was at my work station between filing by 8am and being in my press seat at whatever was first venue of the day, usually by 10am.

What actual reporting problems were associated with the different time zones? It’s no use reporting from Beijing that Usain Bolt broke the world 100m record here tonight to take the Olympic title in a  time of 9.69 seconds. By the time the Herald is on the breakfast table perhaps 10 hours after the race, everyone has seen the race several times, and heard the factual news. It’s no use talking about the margin and manner of his win, arms up 20 metres out, and easing off, etc

The report has to be analytical, eg:   

“Usain Bolt’s remarkable Olympic 100m title last night in Beijing, shaving 0.3 sec from his own world record with 9.69sec, cements his place in the pantheon of global sprinting. Of the 10 fastest times in history four are his, yet he has run the distance only 13 times. Five of the quickest 10 belong to his Jamaican compatriot, former world record-holder Asafa Powell, but Bolt, with his classic lightning pose, heralds a new era. Few would bet against the 200m world best, and the 4 x 100m record, falling to him in the coming days.

Yet Bolt, with his long levers, was second slowest out of the blocks (0.165).

Three men broke 10.00 in the quarters, seven in the semis, and six in the final where 10.01 and 10.03 were the fastest times ever recorded for the last two places.

Powell was eclipsed with 9.95 in fifth, again buckling under pressure. Yet Bolt dropped his arms at 80 metres, appearing to ease off before raising them at the line”.

Text book, it was not.

… Then proceed to analyse him, and take in the quotes from his coach and team management which would not be available until later in the evening, and consequently missing from immediate live reports.

So there’s a lot of research which has to be teed up in advance. And with the volume of copy required, even with the extra time available, there’s no time to relax. Most meals are snatched sandwiches and constant coffees, and plenty water.

With perhaps 12 first-round heats in the 100, and all the Brits and potential finalists to be covered, I’d be up and down six or eight flights from high in the stand to the mixed zone just for the opening day of the 100. And all the time one is trying to keep tabs on the Scot in the modern pentathlon, or the two Scots in the coxless pairs, or whatever.

You need to know exactly who is in action, where, and when, and what their chances are. Can you afford not to be there? What are the priorities?

Still with time differences: The problems are very different West of the UK, eg LA, Atlanta, Victoria, Montreal, Edmonton.

In Los Angeles, the 3000m started at 2.50 UK time. I had to dictate a run of the race piece on Decker v Budd as it happened (in the same way as one would do a Saturday evening paper football report) and then add a paragraph of intro saying who had won, and their time (from the finish clock), and be off the line by 3.00 – my ultimate deadline, or it would not make the paper. Given it was won in 8.35, that gave 125 seconds to dictate the intro on top, that Puica had won from Wendy Sly, and stitch in that Decker had been carried off in tears by her fiance, and that Budd had placed seventh. And hopefully make it all read seamlessly.

We were, I believe the only UK morning paper with a live report on the race. As much adrenaline as one wants for a day at the office, but hugely rewarding and professionally satisfying!

In London or Glasgow, one is in real time, so the amount of copy one can file daily is reduced – no more than 2500-3000 per day, and some of that might be a preview feature party composed in advance.   [In overseas locations you also try to have features part researched and written in advance.]

Accommodation, facilities, contacts – what difficulties could  be encountered when you arrived?    Accommodation was just standard and often very spartan but over-priced hotel rooms.   The Kuala Lumpur press hotel rented rooms by the hour until shortly before our arrival!   At least the sheets had been changed, and the walls painted.

Food was generally OK, but often snatched on the hoof.  One had an advance and reclaimed costs against receipts on return. There was a modest per diem for taxis, phone charges, food, occasional translation costs, but all had to be receipted and accounted for.

One is very much reliant on personal contacts, and building trust.   In the mixed zone, one is separated from athletes by a chest -high barrier, and  the athlete naturally will  immediately go to a known face.    It’s an ill-disciplined scrum, and  the noise is intense. If you are not close enough to get your recorder under his/her nose, you will have nothing, and though one can pick up on quotes from colleagues later, if the deadline is tight you have missed it. (one would not share quotes from an exclusive interview).

After the Games start, what are the problems with access to individuals, work space, etc?   The BOA and CGS increasingly want to control the media. Unless you have a relationship with a competitor, coach, or official, you can’t get past that. I prided myself on having an unrivaled contacts book (ie phone numbers and addresses), and a decent memory. Knowing the names of wives, children, parents (and their phone numbers), coaches & even family pets, is a huge asset. Likewise the background of injuries, allergies, previous competitive history – highs and lows. Often, not always, one would keep little electronic files on athletes. In the old days you’d have an envelope full of press cuttings on the bigger celebs, so that if asked for an 800-word feature on somebody, you could deliver.

Knowing team managers and coaches was also important.

Building trust and confidence is vital, and sometimes that is obtained by not publishing. To me, it was worth sacrificing one racey story (not necessarily in the public interest) because it would gain you much more in the future. But I would never be party to covering up doping, cheating, etc.

Press work rooms were generally large, well equipped, with conference rooms for big interviews which might have 300 journalists, 30+ TV stations, and several dozen radio ones.

As stated above, occasionally (eg Beijing and Sydney) I sometimes did not get to bed.

I was fortunate that my desk would tell me “You’re the expert.   Just go where you think the story is.” In my early career, they’d perhaps ask me for a feature on Olga Korbut, or Ron Clarke.

How do local conditions affect you?  Humidity and heat in Atlanta, etc?   You just have to get on with the job, whatever the heat or humidity, make sure you drink plenty fluids. I usually kept my watch on UK time, to remind me of deadlines. There’s never time to acquire a hangover, which would in any event have been a very dangerous indulgence. The ultimate sin for a journalist is failing to hit deadline.

Bureaucracy could drive you mad: queuing three time for a sandwich or bottle of water in the likes of Moscow of Delhi.

Often I would be asked to pass on a message to athletes by their family or coaches, especially pre-mobile. I’d often let them use my phone in the stadium to call home in the days before mobiles.

What particular memories do you have of  separate Games?  Every major Games is memorable in its own way.    For many athletes (most of whom only do one OG or CG) it is often the defining experience of their lives. I count myself exceptionally privileged to have been part of that. I guess they are defining moments of mine. Curiously, like competitors, hacks also appear to rise to the championship challenge.   Almost all of the awards I have been lucky enough to win, and many of the winning works of others, have been filed from major events, or linked to them.   It was once pointed out to me that there were fewer Scottish journalists at the Olympics than there were Scottish athletes, and more GB Olympic competitors than there were GB journos. It was very competitive in journalism to get to the OG.

Are the Commonwealth Games really different from the others – ie ‘The Friendly Games’?The 1970 CG stand out, not just because they were my first, but because we did so well, and with athletes I knew or had competed with (Alder, Lachie, McCafferty, Ian Stewart, etc). It was a unique experience, wonderfully well-organised, even by today’s standards. ’86 was desperate by comparison, due to the boycott.    Melbourne and KL were outstanding, and Glasgow 2014 is right up there. There is a different, less frantic, gentler, attitude to the CG. They are friendlier, I guess.

Every Olympics has had something special, highlight moments, the bleak and the brilliant, from the 1972 Munich massacre and ’96 Centennial  Park bombing (Atlanta was my least favourite Olympics, and very badly organised) to watching Wells and Hoy, both of whom I knew well, win gold. The contrast between Moscow and LA, ideologically and indeed in every respect, made both magically fascinating. Barcelona, more for the Spanish culture than our results, I really enjoyed. Seoul for similar reasons. Sydney was the best, until matched by the GB success of London.

I actually enjoyed the World and Euro Athletics Champs more than almost OG and CG – able to focus without distraction on the sport that meant most to me.

I twice served as an assistant to the Press Liaison chap at Meadowbank, taking messages from the Press box to the control room and vice versa.   It was most revealing and altered my opinion of some of the gentlemen of the Press.   I would in all good faith take a Press release up to them in the box and among the generally civil greetings there would almost always be someone who would say something like “This is no good to me!   What I want to know is …. ”    Apart from the content it was at times said in a most unfriendly, condescending fashion.   Guys like Doug, Sandy Sutherland and Bill Melville have always been a pleasure to deal with.   It is easy to believe Doug when he says: