Club memorabilia

Pat Malcolm of the Clydebank Library came up to Lochearnhead today to collect the club memorabilia which is going to the Library for safe keeping. There are the posters for sports meetings in the early 1900's at Ibrox, Kilbowie and Parkhead, posters for dances and presentations in the 1920's, track and field programmes for the period up to the mid 1920's, photographs from all parts of the club history, minute books, cash books, etc, etc, etc. She has a notion of having a wee exhibition of the stuff at some point but the items will have to be catalogued first. There was such a lot of stuff - it isn't apparent how much stuff is there because it has been collected so slowly over almost 40 years but when you see the front wheels of the car slowly lifting as te back end is filled, it dawns on you.

What I was reminded of by Jim Shields's papers was just hpow much the club in terms of promoting and helping promote major meetings in Clydebank in the late 60's early 70's. eg in 1969 we had the Scottish Women's Cross Country Championships, in 1969 we also had the World Cross Country Championships at Dalmir Golf Course: no Africans at that point but USA, New Zealand, Australia, all the European countries and of course all the four home countries. In 1972 we had the Scottish Vets and the Schools International in Clydebank. We didn't do all the organising - we lobbied for the events, sorted out trails, maps and so on and the organising body provided most of the officials and technical back up and they went off superbly well. We could still bring events to the burgh were we so minded. We could start with the DAAA Championships - after all they provide most of the officials, we would just need to put up the trail, organise changing accommodation and maybe some stewards; we could even offer to host the West Districts - they would provide even more officials, etc. It a bit of hassle, but minor hassle and if we can do the Dunky Wright and Polaroids, then surely we could do the cross country events? It would probably do no harm to recruiting with a new club facility including track in the offing!