Two points about the West District

There were several interesting points about the West Districts such as the mix of older and younger members in the team and Michael's excellent performance but I want to draw attention to two in particular. The first Harrier to beat an Eritrean racing for Shettleston Harriers was on Saturday. Step forward Marina! Amleset Tewelde is a class athlete who performed well for most of last winter. Now it's up to the men to follow suit.
Second the men's teams were the first local club to finish in the men's races being 63 points ahead of Garscube and with no VP team out the question has to be "what happened to us the week before?" The Men's Vets were also first County team to finish - they were fifth with 199 points while Westerlands were seventh with 267. Helensburgh ninth with 288, Garscube eleventh with 326 and again no VP team out. so how come we were so far back the week before?

Finally I have had an email from Frank McGowan in Spain where he has set up a training camp with John Graham (the Olympic and Commonwealth marathon runner) and they have started on a website of their own at www.jfpacemakers.com where you can get some of the details of the area and their abbreviated life stories. One of the stories is that John Graham wants to join the club. John was a notoriously hard trainer and at one time he took his dog with him on training runs to give it some exercise but it had a heart attack and had to be restricted to less demanding walkies! Watch this space!

News Report week-ending 6th December

Last weekend was the West District Cross Country Championships for the Clydesdale Harriers which took place at Irvine. Results next week.

The last weekend of November had Clydesdale Harriers young and old taking part in the Dunbartonshire Cross Country Championships at Maryhill Park.
All runners experienced muddy conditions but everyone faired well. First off was the Under 11 Girls and Boys running approximately 1 mile.
Fastest Clydesdale girl was Ciara Devaney (7.41), followed by Rachel Campbell (8.29) and Caitlin Stuart (8.30). Fastest boy was James Grant (7.23), followed by Lewis Hay (7.44) and Stephen Kane.
The Under 13 Girls and Boys were off next running approximately 2 miles. Fastest girl for the club was 7^th placed Roisin McShea (13.58), closely followed by an increasingly improving Rachel Busby (14.21).
The boys had David Campbell placing an excellent 5^th to finish in 13.34. The Under 15 Girls and Boys ran over approx 3 miles with Claire Reid being the only club female running finishing 4th in a solid 23.28. The boys had Tony Dolan finishing 9^th in 20.09, followed by David Newton (22.40) and Lewis Wood (27.22). Under 17 Men had Peter Bowman finishing 2^nd over the 3 Mile course (17.14). Lastly off were the Senior Men and Women running.
Fastest man for the 6 mile course was 13^th placed Paul Carroll (39.07), closely followed by Michael Diver (39.53), Gary Dick (40.06), John Foley (43.29) and Bobby Young (45.39).
Marina McCallum represented the women running 30.38 for the 4 mile course and securing 7^th place.
Also that day was the Hugh Wilson Memorial 10k at East Kilbride.
Fastest finisher for the Club was Gerry Montgomery (36.34), followed by Pamela McCrossan (43.17 and 2^nd vet over 45), Yvonne Green (48.46) and Marie Rippon (51.59).

This weekend coming (12^th) is the Hannah Cup which is the senior clubs own cross country handicapped race. It takes place on Dalmuir Golf Course with a 2pm start time. Distance approximately 5.5 miles. All Harriers please show your support to the Club by taking part.

Marina McCallum
Press Officer

West District Championship

It was a good day for the club and indeed for all competitors and supporters at Irvine for the District Championships. I was a bit late getting there partly because it was an 80 mile journey, partly because of the traffic but mainly because I only allowed two hours for the journey. The result was that I missed both Under 13 races but I did speak to the runners and their parents as well as other club members. The girls did well - Roisin McShea had a first class run to be twelfth, Rachel Busby was not far behind in distance and Kirsty Alexander had a much better run than last week at Maryhill. She said she felt better and reports were that she had a good run. David Campbell in the Under 13's race finished with a flourish but one of the club members I spoke to, and his mother agreed, said that he had started a bit too slow and had a bit too much in hand at the finish. It is probably just inexperience and it is likely that the more he races the better he will get. In the Under 15 Girls race Claire Reid ran well to be well up in the first third of the field and for a while there was a wee duel between Diane Nicholson and Kirsty Alexander before Diane moved off to finish clearly ahead of her club rival. In the Under 15 Boys race Tony Dolan ran well with David Newton having a solid enough run behind him. The Senior Ladies race had twice as many runners as any championship race this year: Marina had a first class run (she really is getting better with every outing) looking strong and aggressive right to the end. Kath Scott also ran well but the lack of cross country races this year so far showed and although at one point within catching distance of Marina fell away towards the end. The cure is more of the same! If Kath gets a run in the Hannah Cup and the club championships she will be a lot closer in the Nationals. The bad news is that the rest of the women chose not to run and the girls had no team.
The Senior Men looked better than for some time. The mix of hard racing Seniors and promising Under 20's was really encouraging. Michael Diver led the team home with the best run I have seen from him for some time - he looked like a real athlete, strong and fast and relazed all the way. Behind him was Paul Carroll working hard as usual and giving nothing away to the opposition with Gerry Montgomery chasing hard behind - had Paul eased up anywhere, Gery would have had him. Gary Dick worked hard and although he injured his leg on the last lap held on to be the club's fourth counter. Ryan Savage was the club's first Under 20 to finish with David Brown not far behind. Peter Rudzinski running his twenty sixth District Championships provided the back up in case any of the others dropped out. Phil's ambition of having four Under 20's running for the club next winter looks near fruition - the two who ran here plus Ryan Nelson plus........................
Peter Bowman who ran a very well judged race in the Under 17 Men's race to be tenth at the finish of a very competitive event. I was out in the middle of nowhere but where I could see the runners four times in every lap and Peter really worked hard out there where he thought no one could see him. At first he was running with a boy from Kilbarchan, he got away from him and caught the next group; he got away from them and headed for a VP runner and caught him too. All the way he was chasing the guy in front and not worrying about runners behind him. It was a quite excellent race and in a couple of years time he will be really hard to beat. It was a good day!

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Presentation

I'm sorry that I won't be at the Presentation - I was there last year and enjoyed it. My experience of club presentations is fairly lengthy. I never went before the War at all when they held it one year in the Red Cross Halls in Cart Street but the major anniversaries, even in the austerity years before and just after the war had ALL the men in Dinner Suits. Even when I started going in the late 1950's they were fairly formal events - the trophies on full display with name tags on card before them and all the medals laid out for all to see, the men in proper lounge suits and ties, many of the women wore long or three quarter length frocks and there were menus on the tables. (One year in the mid 60's when we were at the Esquire which had just opened at Anniesland, the wiatresses all stood at the side until given the signal when they all swooped on the tables and cleared them with military precision. The tables all had large numbers on them and after one impressive clearance, Ian Leggett grabbed two numbers and held up the figure 9.8 for the efforts of the staff!). The Presentation was the high spot of the evening and everything was centred on that event. Jim and Ishbel make a marvellous job of polishing up and setting out the trophies every year and deserve our congratulations and thanks for that but there have been times in recent years when I felt that many of the Seniors were putting up with the Presentation rather than celebrating the year's achievements.
Speeches matter. This is particularly true just now when the club is split in terms of training venues. These are where the club traditions are passed on, when the newer and younger members learn something of the club in which they find themselves. The content is reinforced if we have guests who speak well of the club
Guests? Aye................. we used to always have invited guests to these functions. Some were top class athletes such as Andy Forbes of Vicky Park or Lachie Stewart, others were local politicians such as Jimmy malcolm, Malcolm Turner, Tony Worthington and so on, some were local school teachers who were good friends of the club. They were all impressed by the display, by the company and by the evening. Many clubs still follow this procedure for their Dinners and maybe we should go back to it. It was always a showpiece and we all rejoiced in it - there have been times recently when I felt that the Committee was looking for the cheapest and most economical way of doing things. Let's go back to the glittering balls!
Then there has always been the question of young athletes coming along. When I joined the club it was strictly Seniors plus young athletes (under 15 and under 17) who came and there was serious discussion whether to reduce the price for them. Some years it was half price for those who had won prizes in these age groups and full price for any others. Then it was felt that there should be separate functions for the young members - the Seniors and Under 20's had their proper Dinner Dance format and the younger ones had theirs in the Committee Room in the Baths with a film and free crisps, cakes and fruit juice, etc for all who attended, prize winners or not. The format last year was to me unfortunate in that there were several very young children there, some seemed below school age. Their behaviour was not bad behaviour but it was age appropriate behaviour. They were just out of place there.
Anyway the debate will continue as long as there are presentations. I would like to see it back to a semi formal format with a proper sit down meal and invited guests: we do not have many chances to impress new friends or to thank teachers, politicians or others and the presentation is about the only chance we have to do that. I also think that a separate presentation for the Under 15, Under 13, Under 11's would be a welcome step back in time. Meanwhile, enjoy tomorrow night!

Last word on Struan

Struan wrote the 'Harriers' notes for the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald. Intending to make a career in journalism, he went down to the 'Herald' offices after he had done a couple of notes and managed to talk them into giving him a byline! The headline was followed by 'by Struan Marshall'! So come on Marina, get your name up there.

Struan Marshall

Yesterday's Guardian (Wednesday's) has an article in the Sports Section about football agents and how much money they were taking from the sport. There were five big pictures of particularly influential agents and the one in the middle was Struan Marshall. Apparently the 20 Premier League clubs in England have paid agents £70.7 million in fees. They work for clubs as well as for players but, in theory at least, not for both sides in the same transaction although there is some doubt about this. However, Struan was the son of Ron Marshall who was a sprinter for Garscube Harriers in the Ming Campbell and Les Piggott days. He himself started with Garscube and was third in the Scottish Under 15 Steeplechase and was at that time approached to join Clydebank AAC. Because he was training with our group at the time (Peter and Derek Halpin, Charlie McIntosh and company as well as one of his particular friends Sam Wallace of Cambuslang) he decided to join us instead. A 51 second 400 runner and a 1:56 800 man his particular friends in the club were Peter and Derek Halpin and Gary Higgins who is now living in Atlanta, Georgia. He started as an agent early on doing boot deals for some of his friends from Douglas Academy and some of their friends (three Rangers and three Aberdeen players) to start with. He then moved to an established firm and was the chief European football agent for the very successful SFX Agency. When it was taken over by the WMG (Wasserman Media Group) he went with it and it has been pretty well success all the way for the guy who used to wear the big C! The Guardian mentions the following among his clients - Jamie Carragher, Robbie Keane, Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen, Joleon Lescott and Simon Bayliff. Chances are that he was seriously involved in the transfers last summer of Owen to Man U and Lescott to Man City. According to the Guardian the percentage that agents are usually paid for these deals is 5%of the transfer fee or the player's salary depending on whom they represent. Well done Struan - he must be in the running for the most successful in financial terms of all Clydesdale Harriers in the twentieth Century. The message is - if you're only quite a good footballer, give up playing it, polish up your gift of the gab skills, practise selling things a couple of hours a day and start a wee agency! There's more money in it. Why would Tony Blair's second son, Nicky, take it up otherwise? It's always good to hear of a Harrier doing well.

Here come two runners.............

On our way into Callander we stopped at Kilmahog to give the dog a 'comfort stop' and after a couple of minutes walking along the old railway line, we spotted two guys heading towards us and then they were recognised to be moving quite smartly and my wife said "Here come two runners!" Runners? It was Bobby Young and Pete Cartwright. They had come from Pete's house and gone up and round Ben Ledi in the snow. Bobby was complaining that he was going to ask Santa for a satnav - Pete had said the run was only five and a half miles but Bobby wasn't convinced that they had been doing twelve minute miles. He even showed me his watch which told me the time of day (which I knew already) but that didn't tell me when he had started. They both looked very fresh for guys who had been going at twelve minute miles! Pete reckons that he will be running at the West Districts on Saturday in Irvine - another vet, guys. Five veterans representing the club last week, where are all the Seniors? The same five plus Pete will give us six runners and with six to count we should at least have a team.
Prasad was ill all last week and he hasn't been seen since Monday this week when he was said to be looking very rough.
At the IFAC conferece at the end of October Frank Dick pointed out that the effects of training while suffering from swine 'flu are not yet known and that we should all be careful. He even recommended that we follow the habit of our 'Transatlantic Cousins' by sneezing into our armpits or into our elbow if we have no time to get any handkerchief out. We all get wee colds and chills at this time of year and we all have different ways of dealing with them. Any suggestions for general use can be put in the comments slot under the blog or even just discussed on the hoof at training nights.

Brampton - Carlisle Photographs

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