Recruitment

There has been a lot of talk recently in the club about recruitment, so I felt I could make a useful contribution to the debate. First of all, we need to know what we are recruiting for and I would make three categories to start with: Senior Track and Field Team, Senior road and cross country runners and Young Athletes. Young athletes can be sub-divided but I'll come to them. When we started the senior track and field team proper in the early/mid 1980's we had problems with numbers and with coaching. Bill Hislop took charge of the sprinters and jumpers (who are often the same people: I can't think of a team which doesn't include its top jumpers in the relay squads for instance); and I took charge of the 800m and up events plus the throwers. And that's the first hint - make a single person accountable for the events and he/she HAS to get some progress.

To get the raedy made senior athletes, we approached amateur football clubs but especially rugby clubs. From the rugby side we got top class throwers Alan Watt, Ian Busby, Brian Richmond and others, on the sprinting side we got Rory and Jamie Kerr. Billy went further and approached the 'Clydebank Post' editor Paul Jain and asked if he would sponsor a Search for a Sprinter. Paul went further and put up a trophy for the competition, wrote it up in the paper and printed entry coupons for entries to be handed in to the Post office. And they did - the first year Paul Begley from Kirkintilloch won it from 12 entries, and the best of the winners turned out to be David McColm who ran in several gold medal winning relay teams. That's the second hint:

The distance runners were largely club cross-country runners who took a couple of years to become specialist but we had John Hanratty and Brian Potts and Michael Diver all steeplechasing for us. Throwers were harder to get and we used anybody big - Calum Morrison and Kevin Monaghan for instance, but then George Carlin said his wee brother was a good javelin thrower and brought Tom along - never less than 40 metres and very very close to 50 metres. The teams were developing.

Billy asked Bobby Bell, a former club 880 yards runner, to help with the throws and he turned out to be a natural throws coach and he 'threw' himself into the role. I asked my friend Scott Govan to help out, he chose high jump and hurdling and that was soon looking after itself. Eddie Poole asked how he could help and volunteered to do any event where we had no athlete and asked if there were ever any blank spaces in the same event. So he volunteered to coach Pole Vault with his friend David Gibson. David became National Pole Vault coach for Scotland.

You have to look for people and talk to people. Coaches don't happen by accident. How about talking seriously to Colin Gray who would make an exccellent throws coach? How about asking David Ross if he would come back and coach the sprinters? That would be a start.

Recruiting distance runners is quite straightforward. We put the club's name out in the community - posters in libraries, posters in sports centres, plug the club as loudly as possible at all open races in the vicinity, contact the unattached runners in the first 50 of any local race. Their details are on the entry form, send them a club application form plus an invitation to join the club, and do it on official club-headed notepaper. Billy Hislop used to believe in the value of offering such new members a year's free membership: sports clubs and fitness centres do it, why shouldn't Clydesdale Harriers?

That's just for the seniors - note too that coaches of Over 17's don't need to be SCRO checked and also that the coaches do not need to be Scottish Athletics quaified - many clubs use ex-professional athletes who are not so qualified.

This is intended to start a wee debate club wide - all comments welcome. It's not criticising anyone else's ideas, just putting forward some suggestions. I'll have some words about the younger athletes next time.