John retired from his role as GB Admin Officer after the Atlanta Games in 1996.   His final match was at   Gateshead but there was much more to do in 1996 than just two matches.   His first GB job was in June 1983 at Bislett and thirteen years later he was busier than ever.   Note the letter below from Dave Cropper.

An Olympics, A European Championships, a Super League match plus matches agains three of the strongest countries in the world.   It says a lot for John that the Governing Body had enough confidence after all these years to make the appointments above.   They were not easy jobs either and his work was seriously appreciated by the athletes as well as his fellow administrators and officials.   The cover story is about the end of Linford Christie’s athletics career but it could have applied to other members of the GB team.

The story inside elaborated on the latter.

He referred to the fact that he had worked with no fewer than 73 GB teams (there had also bee several years as Scottish team manager and admin officer since the Commonwealth Games in 1970 when he was windgauge operator), and comments on the tragic death of Les Jones who was respected and liked many who were not athletes or members of the team – note one of the pall bearers in the photograph below.   Given the significance of Les Jones’ contributions to the sport over many years, to be selected as one of the pall bearers was quite an honour for journalist Doug Gillon.   John of course was at the funeral long with many other Scots such as coach Frank Dick.

John had received many letters of thanks and congratulations from athletes, coaches, physios, administrators, politicians and others over the years but there were also short hand-written note like the one below.   It is not known who wrote it or why but it reads:

The note on the back says: 

The point of that inclusion is that it was not only the great and the good who thought well of John or who profited or gained from his efforts.   There were of course letters of thanks from many after the Atlanta Olympics and there are only  a very few of them reproduced below.

 

 

We have a copy of John’s own comments of the end of a remarkable career in athleticsfrom the link at the top of the page.