Sprinters in Clydesdale Harriers

The club has from the earliest days produced very good sprinters. Like any other discipline there have been good years and bad years for the fast men but they have often produced the goods or picked up the dark blue vest of Scotland. Everybody knows of Willie Maley before 1914 who was one of the club men to win a Scottish title before the War. Between the Wars Harold Wright was one of the top men - he used to train running against a greyhound! When I joined the club there were several top sprinters with George Rodger probably the best and getting invitations to many races against the likes of Les Piggott (the only Briton in the 1970 Commonwealth Games final). When we were doing so well in the track leagues (men's league and young athletes for the men, and women's league for all ages of club female athletes) there were lots of sprinters - Craig McDaid, Alistair McLeod, David McColm, Donald Govan, Phil McCall and others among the men and Julie Bain, Kezban Acar, Lynn Hardware and Ann Murray among the girls. The Senior Men won the 4 x 100 Scottish Championship just two years after finishing second to Edinburgh Southern Harriers and the teams which won the Scottish Medley Relay three times could not have done so without the two sprinters in the teams
Since the turn of the century in 2000, we have had international sprinters in Mark Anderson, Derrick Speirs, Alex Fisher, Natalie Quinn and Johnathan Farrell at either school or age group level and the Junior Men's team of Richard Blair, Marc Sherwood, Mark Anderson and Derrick Speirs won the SAAA Junior 4 x 100 metres in a sub 43.0 seconds time. In addition the Under 15 and Under 17 teams have a proud record in the 4 x 200 indoor relay too, winning championships and setting a Scottish record using the athletes mentioned above plus David McLeod and Mark Doris. So although the impression given at times that we are only a Harrier club, we have had a very good tradition in the fastest event on the track as well!
With David, Andrew, Lewis and company the future looks bright in this department.