West District Relays

The West District Relays are this weekend at Stepps on a good trail that has been used in the recent past and where club runners have done well. In the past they have been run locally at Strathleven in the Renton, at Braidfield Farm in Clydebank, in Bearsden and in Milngavie. Stories abound about the club in these relays - eg at Stirling in the mid 60's Johnny B Maclachlan on the first stage was running third along the Gargunnoch straight when just before going up into a farmyard, he leapt a barbed wire fence tearing his undercarriage! As Albert Smith of Vicky Park put it afterwards, "You should have heard his language - and he's a BB officer as well!"

Despite many good individual performances in the event (Bobby Boyd was fastest individual in 1947 or thereabouts against many of the very best Scots of all time such as Emmett Farrell, Ian Murphy, James Austin and others have done well) we have only won it once and that was in 1995 at Lenzie where Ewan Calvert gave us a first stage lead, Des Roache held on to it, Grant Graham increased it before James Austin took the final stage and brought the club home first well clear of Graham Wight of Shettleston. And just as good, we were third on the first stage with Irishman Shane Daly and Kheredine Idessane maintained third on the second. Derek Halpin and John Hanratty completed the quartet which finished in seventh. That in itself was an excellent result and all four could be pleased with their run.

The following year was our second best ever. On a very wet day at Kirkintilloch Allan Adams, who had just joined the club ran the first stage and finished eleventh - it was only after he had started that Lynn told us he had had a bad cold all week and had actually blacked out at one point! Kheredine (who had been fourth fastest in the whole race the previous year) took second stage and brought the club up to fourth, then James Austin took the club up to third before Des Roache ran a superb last leg to just fail to get first place despite third fastest time of the day. The second team of Derek Halpin, Graeme Reid, John McArthur and Mark Govan also ran well and as in the previous year the club had four teams out.

Happy days - roll on Stepps!