World Championships Team, 1983 – all details below
Like all sports athletics has had its share of genuine talents which have never been properly fulfilled. One of these in distance running in Scotland was John McNeil of Law and District AAC. His length of stay might have been longer had the club been under the influence of Andy Brown as it had been when it was first set up, but although there were still very good runners indeed in the club (Doug Frame springs to mind) none was quite as much a father figure as the founder member. For instance, Andy was heard telling another Motherwell runner not to do his immediately pre-race strides away from the starting line but to do them in the direction the race would go – “They’ll start the race if you’re down there, but they won’t start it if you are 50 yards down the course.” or telling his younger brother at a handicap mile to watch the starter and go when he saw the puff of smoke from the gun – you see that before you hear the report and sometimes get away before those around you. Andy might have prolonged John’s career.
John McNeill, born on 31st August, 1964, had a very short career in which the highlight was undoubtedly the winning of the National Cross-Country 1983 at the Jack Kane Sports Centre in Edinburgh, He had started out in athletics as a Senior Boy (under 15) in season 1979/80 when he finished fourteenth in the West District Cross-Country Championships. This was to be the lowest position he would ever occupy in the event. A year later he was 11th in the Youths section (under 17). The National was usually held in February and there were some cross-country races before the track season proper began and on 3rd April in 1981 he was second in the Arbroath Cross-Country meeting, organised by Tayside AAC, behind C O’Brien of Shettleston Harriers.
Still an under 17, on 5th December 1981 he was third in the Youths race at the Fife Southern meeting where his team mate A Russell was first. Later in the month, 21st December, he represented Lanarkshire in the Inter-Counties fixture at Houston and was first in his age group. He didn’t run in the District or National Championships but in summer 1982 he was clocked at 14:44.0 for the track 5000m to be 26th fastest Scot for the distance. He had a good summer but cross-country was his forte and he headed for 1981/82 with some more speed in his legs than the previous season.
In 1982/83 John was a Junior (Under 20) man and had to race against Senior Men as well as Juniors for the first time. Not all good young athletes respond well to this challenge. John did. On the third weekend in November he ran the first stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow and finished 5th for the team that finished 8th. A very good run on a hard road surface. Then on 3rd December in the Lita Allan Cross-Country races at Beveridge Park, Kirkcaldy he was first Junior. On 9th January in 1983 there was a new race on the calendar. Shettleston Harriers put up a trophy worth £2000 for the Flockhart Memorial race to be held at Coatbridge. John was first Junior here too beating Alan Puckrin, also a Junior, by 11 seconds. He followed this by running in the West District Championships on 22nd January at Lenzie where he was third in the race ahead of virtually all the Senior ‘big guns’. Just 12 seconds behind race victor George Braidwood and 8 behind second placed Lawrie Spence on a very heavy muddy course, it was a race to be proud of. One week later he was in action again running for an SCCU Select team. The opinion of all who had followed the Cross-Country scene in Scotland is seen in the following cutting appraising the team as selected.
XXXXX 29th January 1983: Cumbernauld International Cross Country XXXXX
The SCCU Junior Championships were held on 26th February, 1983, at the Jack Kane Centre in Edinburgh where he won in 28:13, ahead of A Wilson of Glasgow University (28:27), and P Connaghan Ayrshire (28:37). It was a run that earned him selection for the International Championships to be held in New York. The teams, Senior and Junior, are noted below.
In these, the IAAF World Championships, he finished as a Scottish scoring runner in 77th place to finish the cross-country season.
The following summer, he brought his track time down to 14:16.40 for 5000m which was the ninth fastest by any Scot that year and much quicker than the 14:57.8 that won him the SAAA Junior Track Championships.
In November ’83 he ran in his second (and last) Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay. Running on Stage 4 for a weakened Law team, he took over in 19th place which he held to the changeover. His time of 27:26 was only 15th fastest out of the 20 teams contesting the race. The team was 15th, having been 19th right up to the start of stage 7 where Hugh Forgie pulled the, through to 13th place, only to see a drop of two places on the final leg. He ran in the Lita Allan race in Kirkcaldy where he was 15th overall but first Junior Man. He was not running at all well and was nothing like his form of the previous year.
John did not run for any team in 1984 – not the District Championships, not the National Championships, not the Edinburgh to Glasgow. There are many reasons why a talented young runner may leave the sport – career development, educational studies, social reasons, illness and even emigration in several cases – but whatever the reason in John’s case, the sport lost a very talented athlete.