The Ladies

In my time in the club, results have gone in cycles with great success following periods notable for their lack of competitive success. This has been particularly true of the women who have, when they were good, been far superior to the men in the club. There have also been periods when the women's section has been virtually defunct. In recent years we have had the first woman president in the club - Aileen Scott did a very good job for two years - and the first woman secretary - Yvonne is doing a super job for which she has to be commended: long may it continue! The other thing about the women is that when they have been numerically strong and competitively successful, they tend to want to have their own section with their own committee and their own treasurer handling their own money. That has happened three times in my time in the club. These groups tend to last for three or four years at a time. So where are we now in the period before the Annual General Meeting?

Well, first, the Ladies Section is strong in competitive terms in open races. Second, many of the top positions in the club are held by women - secretary, minute secretary, press officer, social secretary as well as Ladies Captain. Third there is a good group of young female athletes in the club from Under 11 up to Under 17. The ingredients are there for a good women's section on the not too distant horizon. There is a gap however between the two groups - the senior women tend to be road runners training from the Antonine with the younger ones training separately with Donald and/or Phil elsewhere. It may be that when the club moves into the new St Peter the Apostle School the two groups will come together and a proper women's group will be formed. In the meantime, the younger women have a problem at cross country races in that their events tend to be right at the start of the day with the senior women's being up to three hours later. Fiona McCue has been very helpful at many races in taking the girls round the course and helping them warm up for their event but on several occasions there has been no one filling this function. If this gap could be filled and the two groups brought closer together, perhaps by a women's team manager responsible for looking after the junior athletes and organising numbers, etc for the seniors, then the groundwork would really be in place for a strong women's section in a couple of years time.

It would be good to see them working together.

Club Memorabilia

Over the years I have been collecting club memorabilia. It started by accident - when I was writing the club history in the 1970's, folk started coming down to Mountblow or the Baths and giving me handbooks, photographs, even posters and medals. Then when some former members died, their medal collections (none very great in commercial terms)were passed on. Given that I am packing up involvement at some point this year they must be found a new home. The Clydebank Public Library is very keen to have it. It would be better however if a club member had it. There are several queries every year from descendants of former members, from newspapers and from people writing books for information. Getting it from the Lbrary might be difficult and it would be harder to show any of it in public were it stored there. What is there?
* Three Posters for sports meetings at Ibrox, at Parkhead and at Kilbowie;
* Two posters for club dances in 1922
* Club Minute Books from 1892 - 2007 (with only the 1947-55 period missing)
* Club Cash Books from the 1890's to the 1980's
* Club Handbooks from 1886 - 1922 (two mising)
* Photographs
* Some medals (kept in two Laphroiag tins!)
* Two sashes (one red, one green) used by the pace and the whip in the club pack runs in the 1930's.
There are some other items but that is the bulk of it. If anyone has the interest and maybe more important, the space to keep it, then they should get in touch with me.

Catching up!

Did you see Prasad Prasad in the Adventure Show on Sunday? It's still available on the BBC iplayer if you didn't. It covered the Carnethy Hill Race in some detail and there was a lot of film coverage plus an extended interview cut up into bits and shown at odd points in the show. The only disappointment was the lack of a club vest, it's been drawn to his attention but we won't get too upset - it was a quite excellent run!

It's April and the young athletes are getting ready for the track league which starts again soon. Usually Clydesdale provides the Boys' team and it is managed by Donald Macleod and West Dunbarton provides the Girls team managed by Duncan McNeill. Their boys augment ours and our girls augment theirs! The first meeting to sort out the team is this week in the Antonine and Phil and Donald meet Duncan and Bob from WDAAC.

For training purposes our prospective field event coaches are visiting Posties' Park on 20th April for a tour of the facility and to sort out training for the jumps and throws over the summer. It will be a blessing when the track at St Peter the Apostle is available and the entire Club is once again training from the same venue.

Press Report week ending 5th April

As the clocks went one hour forward at the end of last month several Clydesdale Harriers were thankful for running the Jim Dingwall Memorial Race (Round the Houses 10k) at lunchtime instead of the customary Sunday morning starts that a lot of road races seem to have so at least the intrepid bunch just got enough sleep! This is one of the fastest 10ks in the country taking place in Grangemouth but yet again strong winds hampered really fast times. First harrier to finish was Brian Gallagher (36.50) followed by Iain Robertson (38.44), Bobby Rossborough (41.13), Marina McCallum (43.08) and David Mitchell (45.48). A 5k race was run just before the 10k and Pete Cartwright ran a comfortable 19.53 to be first in his over 65 age group.

Last weekend was the Scottish Athletics Road Relay Championships at Livingston and the Edinburgh Half marathon. Results next week.

Next races this weekend for the Harriers are the final race in the Club’s winter league – The Tom Scott Memorial Race (10 mile) - and Richie’s Run (Multi-terrain 5 mile and 9 mile).
Marina McCallum
Press Officer