Prasad at Dollar

Prasad had a day off on Saturday - unusual in the Trossachs at this time of year - so he ran in the Dollar hill race. With 95 entries, he finished second to old foe Joe Symonds (fourth place for Scotland in the World Championships a couple of years ago)and was closer to him than to the third placed runner who was three minutes back. Symonds ran 1:13:10 and P was forty seconds behind that. The other good news is that only three guys have ever run faster on this course. Prasad is clearly in very good shape again.

Party Games or Sport?

In the 'Sunday Herald' this week there is an excellent article by Claire Fox and I'll quote a wee bit of her article. "In true bean counting fashion whenever government agencies are involved in sport they conflate quantity and quality. Check out SportScotland's website and weep at the graphs and statistics for every geographic area, breaking down every sport by hours, social class, gender, etc. The focus is on 'increasing participation.' But participating in what exactly? The flagship mass participation projects during National School Sports Week included: 55,000 school pupils in Staffordshire attempting to break the world skipping record (skipping continuously for three minutes each); Lancashire's schools staged a basic 'Wake up and Shake Up' aerobics routine, suitable they said for children of all ages and abilities. That's right, remove the barriers to participation - even if those include lack of ability - and rebrand sport as any activity that sets the bar so low that anyone can join in. Indeed the NSSW website encourages schools to choreograph opening and closing ceremonies using dance, music and drama as a helpful way of including more 'non sporty pupils' and even those that wouldn't normally get involved in physical activity. Enjoyable as these glorified party games may be, please don't pretend that skipping, aerobocs or dance have nothing to do with sport."

And there's a lot more. The whole article is well worth a thought provoking look. It is almost certainly on the Sunday Herald website for 5 July 2009 in the Opinion Section. And a wee look at the other websites mentioned - SportScotland and NSSW - might also be illuminating!

Rangers - 1872: The Gallant Pioneers

I mentioned this book that Gary Ralston has written. It is being published in late August this year at £14:99 but I can get you one at £10:00, and a signed copy at that. The thing is that it has a fair bit about Clydesdale and the link with the team as well as a lot of stuff about club members who played for Rangers - Johnny Gow who won the Scottish hurdles, Tom Vallance Scottish Long Jump Record holder, all the McLean brothers, and so on. If you are interested, let me know. And remember that these books usually increase in value over a relatively short period.

Leagues, etc

On Sunday it was the Young Athletes League Match at Wishaw on a glorious afternoon for track athletics. There were several weel kent faces competing such as Tony Dolan and Lewis Wood but there were a number of absentees due to the fact that it was right at the start of the Clydebank Fair. But there was a number of young athletes new to the game who really looked the part - Roisin McShea in the 1200, Connor Ewing looks like one of the best prospects for quite a while, Darren Halpin (Derek's son) looked good in the U13 800 metres with his buddy Michael McCann. It was a good day and no doubt Donald will get the detailed results to Marina for the 'Post' and to Yvonne for the website results page.

Next Sunday it is the turn of the Seniors in the Men's League Match at Meadowbank. I was kind of surprised to find that as in the first two matches we would be short of guys for the 1500 and 5000 metres. What's that all about??? With 25 men taking part in the Winter League and numbers for the summer being similar, how come we are short? Anyone with the attitude that they would rather see the club have no one in an event than do it themselves is not a real Clydesdale Harrier in my opinion. 25 in the winter league - and only seven ran in the national championships. It is a disgrace. It is on a par with the attitude to the club Christmas Handicap a couple of years ago. The Committee agreed that it would be on a Saturday afternoon - it would mean that the children would run in daylight on a course that they knew rather than in the dark on a course that they didn't know and it would mean all the club at the same venue. Even although it was a 'once in a year' event, so many seniors wanted to run in their own wee comfort zone and not be part of the whole club that the children ended up in smaller numbers than usual running round Duntocher at night. The trail was altered the following year but it does not reflect well on those seniors who didn't want to be part of a club event.

Real middle distance runners (like Marina for instance) run on the road, over the country and in the hills. Others run only on road and only over 10K or half marathon.

Press Report week ending 5th July

At the end of last month we had most recently Michael Diver running for Clydesdale Harriers in the Arrochar Hill Race finishing well up on the field in a time of 6.20.38 in this long distance hill event. The night before (Friday 26th) had five of the Harriers travelling to East Kilbride to run in the Calderglen Trail Races. First up was the 5k event where Marina McCallum finished as third lady in a time of 20.03 over the testing course. Next was the 10k where Gerry Montgomery took at least three minutes off his previous year’s time over exactly the same course and bagging 1st veteran over 45 prize in a time of 40.40 – an excellent time for this tough course. Next Harrier in was Bobby Rossborough (43.30), then Kath Scott (46.32) followed by Colin Gray (54.14).

Two days earlier was the Cooperative Jog Scotland 5k which was marred slightly by higher than normal temperatures and strong winds and had Marina McCallum running a slightly below par 21.06, followed a few minutes later by Colin Gray (24.00).

Some of the juniors made the journey to Gothenburg, Sweden for a track and field meet. Adults and children all enjoyed their trip and the competition, which saw all young athletes running well in the high temperatures. Fingers crossed this may become a regular fixture in the calendar.

Marina McCallum
Press Officer

Gothenburg

One of the jobs of the coach is to gradually widen the competition experience of his/hers athletes. If your only experience of athletics is the school sports you will be beaten by those who have run in club championships; likewise if your top experience of the sport is in club champs then you will be well and truly gubbed by those who have competed in District Championships - and so on. I used to take athletes on a monthly basis in summer to the BMC races at Stretford in Manchester and then during the season to Solihull, Cardiff, Watford, etc. Peter Halpin as a coach took Jolene Robert, Daniel and Lawrence to all the GB Cross Country GP races. If all you race are 10K's on the road in Scotland, then that's the standard that you have set for yourself. The three amigos raced all over the UK winning races in Ireland, Wales, England and even Scotland.

With these thoughts in mind Phil Dolan (who himself raced in America, all over Europe, in all the home countries as well as in Scotland) took a small group of runners to Gothenburg which is one of the major European Open Meetings to see how they stood up to the greater challenge. The answer is that they stood up to it very well indeed. By common consent Ryan Nelson did relatively better than the rest when he ran 4:53 for 1500 metres. Maybe the best in real terms was Johnathan Farrell who was third in his heat of the 100 metres in 11.36 and then was 11.49 in the final. Peter Bowman had a very good trip as well running 2:01.7 in the 800 metres to have probably his best ever competitive race. Cameron McLeod made the mistake of sitting out in the sun for a couple of hours before his races Nevertheless he was clocked at 45.0 seconds for the 300 metres hurdles. This is not an uncommon thing for Scotsmen - we see the sun for such a short time each year that when we see it we go crazy! I remember in the early 1990's when we thought that Kheredine Idessane and Ewan Calvert were going to pace each other to a League Record in the 1500 metres, Khere just couldn't hack iot because he had been at the Celtic game the day before, minus any head covering in the full glare of the sun; or when Alistair MacLeod sat out in the sun on the back straight of the Meadowbank Stadium and then wa so sick that he couldn't race the 200 metres - I think that Peter Halpin stood in for him. Meanwhile back in Gothenburg, Lewis Wood gai9ned valuable experience in the throws events - after throwing 7.90 metres in the shot he waited for the hammer throw which wasn't called. Actually it had been called but was outside the main stadium on the training area and he missed it. Why do we take athletes abroad? To learn, and he did. Tony Dolan had a good run in the 800 metres to be clocked at 2:31 and set himself up for this weekend at Wishaw.

The guys stayed in a hostel about 30 minutes away from the track and Coach Phil became Chef Phil who is reputed to boil up a mean pot of pasta!

Jim's Funeral

James P Shields's funeral was this morning and the club was fairly well represented. His son had said on Sunday night that he only wanted people who had known Jim there and also expressed a preference for a small funeral. When I got to Hume Street with Doug Gemmell, Johnny B MacLachlan was waiting for us. John Wright arrived soon after thet and then once we were seated inside, Phil arrived. David Panton was in the row in front. Thereafter we went to Dalnottar Old Cemetery and were joined by Bill Hislop for the short service, It's a pity that it had to be during the Clydebank Fair or other former members would also have been there.

Money and Sport

It is no big secret that the club has suffered greatly from the decision by the late unlamented Strathclyde Council to evict us from the only 400 metre eight lane track in either West Dunbartonshire or East Dunbartonshire at Whitecrook. Recruitment has fallen away in all age groups and that has been compunded for the endurance runners by the following decision to exclude us from the baths at Bruce Street on grounds of health and safety. The result has been different training venues for Senior Road Runners and young athletes whatever their event. The eventual move for the whole club to the new St Peter's HS can only benefit all sections of the club.

The 'Herald' yesterday had an article on the need to adapt to the new economic climate in Britain by deciding where money should be spent and saying that all sports were seeking money - even the dreaded football. To me, football is the curse of sport in Scotland - there are no good players in the country - not a single Scot would make a European team never mind a World side. Swimmers might, cyclists certainly would, boxers could but football players? Never. The article had the sense to say - "Football clubs that have ruined more aspiring youngsters than they have brought on might have difficulty proving that they deserve public cash." Never was a truer word spoken but when it comes to spending money West Dunbartonshire finds it more convenient to give it to ------- football! It's a disgrace.

Recently the local authority published a sports pitches strategy. One of the findings was that there has been what Gordon Brown would call a "Zero percent increase" in participation in athletics. This has surprised no one in the club: no facilities + no encouragement by schools = no increase in take up! We need to recruit. In the early 1990's when the young athletes team was low in numbers (but still in the top three or four in the league) we asked each child to bring along one friend. This would have resulted in a 100% increase in membership - we only got 80% increase. The point of this post is to ask all members to make it a point to encourage friends and relatives to come along to training at the club. This goes for adults as well. WE NEED MEMBERS - it is not someone else's job. All members are responsible for the strength of the club. Do it.