Local History Week 2012

Here is advance information about a talk anyone interested in the history of Clydesdale Harriers might want to attend:

CLYDESDALE HARRIERS – THE GOLDEN GENERATION

by Brian McAusland

 An illustrated talk on the history of Scotland’s first open amateur athletics club

from the 1930s and 1940s.

Heritage Centre, Clydebank Library

Thurs. 8^th March, 2pm – 3.30pm

Scottish Rankings

Back to the www.scotstats.com site where there are still no rankings for any age group other than the senior men and women, it now has the rankings for ultras on road and track. As a result Aileen Scott joins Pamela McCrossan as a second club member ranked. She is the top woman on the track but there are three who have raced the 24 hours race on the roads at Keswick. She managed a longer distance than the third of them and was not far behind the first two. Bearing in mind that she almost walked for the last 20 minutes after having made the Commonwealth qualifying distance, they should be catchable. We await the publishing of the Junior age groups rankings which should add a bit to the club representation.

A word about the history section of the same website - there was no entry for Clydesdale Harriers initially so I contacted Arnold Black who immediately copied the bit at Cliff Brown's original club website (www.clydesdaleharriers.org.uk) I have sent him something to add to bring it up to date but he has not yet managed to do so. It is an interesting website but is only in its early days and maybe needs a bit more time to cover all that we would wish - if any website can do that!

Finally and on a different topic: I only have seven copies of the most recent book of Clydesdale Harriers which includes the three amigos, Bobby Boyd, Cyril O'Boyle and even me! If anyone is interested, let me know as soon as poss because they have suddenly for some reason unknown to me become fairly popular with some from outwith the club and in recent weeks I have sold copies to members of Aberdeen, Fife and Maryhill for instance!

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.

A wee quiz

I went on a bit the other day about how club traditions are not passed down from generation to generation as they should be. In an effort to see how much you know about your club, here's ten questions, no prizes, just for interest. As in the 'Weakest Link' the easy ones come first.
1. Who are the Club President, Secretary and Treasurer?
2. Who is the club cross country champion?
3. Who is the club sprints champion?
4. Who is the club field events champion?
5. When was the club founded? ie What year?
6. Do you know what month and day?
7. Where did the club train in its early days?
8. Who was the Scottish 100 yards champion who became manager of Celtic FC?
9. Who donated the Hannah Cup to the club?
10. Who was the Clydesdale Harrier who won the Scottish Senior Men's Cross Country Championship in 2003?
11. Who were in the team when Clydesdale Harriers won the West District Cross Country Relays in 1995?
12. Where did the club train before moving to The Antonine?
Answers to me or have a go at the Comments box below.

Club Memorabilia

Club Memorabilia will go to the Clydebank Library later this month. Pat Maslcolm of the Local History department will come up to Lochearnhead on 18th July and take as much as she can get into her car. Anything left over, I will take down the following week. There are the posters, handbooks, minute books, cash books, letters, etc. I received a lot of stuff from David Bowman's family after he died and then last week after Jim Shields died, his son asked if we would take his father's Harriers mementoes - letters, files, photos, badges, etc. So I agreed and Billy Hislop went down and took them from the house and has them at his house until I can make it down. Then there was another phone call tonight - they have found more - about a bin bag's stuff - including the silver lapel badge and some books with significant information about the club. I haven't told my wife yet that there is more to come - about enough to overfill the boot of a Peugeot 207. If I can get it sorted, it will go to the Library. It is a real shame that the club history will never be seen by current club members without going to the Library and Museum. With the separate venues, traditions are not being passed on orally either and the last remaining method of informing members of their own club is but a shadow of its former self. I speak of course of the Presentation. The current format is one which is a well organised presentation combined with a good social night: a good time is had by all and the seniors at least get to see the younger members. BUT... there is a school of thought that says there should be no speeches. It is not one that I belong to. It is a valuable exercise in passing on club traditions. I mind wan time (as Cyril used to say) when we had a guest of honour at these functions who spoke of our club and its traditions, when the President had a few words to say of the nature of Clydesdale Harriers, and although we moaned at the time we subsequently knew more about Clydesdale Harriers than we did beforehand. That's where club spirit, loyalty and feeling comes from - without it we might as well be Anster Haddies or Arbroath Footers. Clydesdale Harriers is different and we need to work hard to get it back where it wasnine or ten years ago and where it should be.

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.

James P Shields

The sad news is that James P Shields (always Jim but he had his Sunday title to differentiate him from the younger version) died on Saturday night. Jim joined the club in the 1930's and came on to the Committee in 1938 as Assistant Secretary. This was a working position where he was responsible for taking the Minutes, organising the half yearly meeting and organising specific club functions. He became secretary in 1944 and had two spells in that office totalling 12 years and also had 9 years as treasurer. He was a committee member for over 40 years and one of the most respected figures in Scottish Athletics. He was actually Vice President of the SAAA and next in line to be President when his employers - Singers' - sent him to assist in the opening of their Indian factory. As a time and motion man, he was valued by his employers but not always appreciated by his workmates! Jim was one of the key club members setting the club up after the war and also in organising the Singers' Sports which always had international stars as chieftain. June Foulds, Olympic sprinter was one such, and Dorothy Lamour, Hollywood film star, was another albeit with more tenuous connections with the Games Circuit! Jim's funeral will be held next week and in view of all he has done and given to the club, a good club presence would be appropriate. I will add details to the blog when they are known.

'Rangers 1872: the Gallant Pioneers'

When I joined the club and for almost the whole of my membership there were two things that we never talked about - religion and football. We argued about politics, we discussed athletics and criticised television and so on but the abive topics were taboo. However, I am now recommending that you at least have a look at the book 'Rangers 1872: the Gallant Pioneers'. Why? Well because there is a big bit in it about the Clydesdale Harriers. The author, Gary Ralston of the Daily Record, paid several visits to me up here in Lochearnhead, consulted the old club handbooks, accounts, minutes , etc and made his notes. There were also several phone calls and I have had a look at what he has done on the club. The connection was because when the club was founded the main club in Glasgow was the Rangers and we trained at their venues. When Celtic arrived we had many members from there as well and we held sports meetings at both grounds. However we had several founding members in the Rangers club. He also mentions Willie Maley and the Clydesdale Harriers Football Committee (we had a team for a short while.)

The book is worth consulting and if you are interested in club history maybe worth buying! It is due out in August, published by Breedon Books and you can pre order at Amazon. The cost will be £14:99. If you want the link I'll pass it on. Incidentally, these books escalate in value very rapidly. I have one that I bought in the late 1980's, a paper back on Scottish International Footballers, that is now worth over £400.

Ultra Distance

There suddenly seems to be a lot of stuff in the Press and even in 'Athletics Weekly' about ultra distance running. Well, here again the Clydesdale record is a proud one and goes back many years. One club man told me that 100 miles in 24 hours was easy: just run for 15 minutes and walk for 5 and don't stop. That's as may be but without going all the way back to AP Findlay in the 1880's, one of my favourite stories is from the 1930's. A group of Harriers - only four or five of them - decided to meet on the Sunday and go for a walk round the three lochs. There was some doubt in the mind of my informant which the third loch was but Loch Lomond and Loch Long were two of them. The chaps met at the Kilbowie Road/Boulevard Junction early in the morning and set off. On the way back Jock Semple decided that with his blisters he couldn't make the last 12 miles home so took the train from Balloch Station. He was roundly abused for having failed!

In the 50's and 60's the top ultra men were David Bowman and Roy Clark who did the Edinburgh - Glasgow 50 miler. Roy was a Naval Officer who was stationed at Helensburgh and was recommended to join the club by Bill Linton, a former Harrier, and he specialised in ultras such as the London to Brighton but I can assure you that he wasn't all that good in the McAndrew Relay! Two very good club runners.

In the 60's and 70's it was Bobby and Jim Shields. The story is that the straight through Glasgow - Fort William was started as the result of a challenge between Bobby and his friend Duncan Watson in 1987 and is now established on the calendar. One Monday night at Postie's Park in Dumbarton Robert McWatt and George Carlin were running very badly so I waited until the end of the session to ask what the trouble was. Robert explained that they had been feart to tell me but they ran from Glasgow to Fort William at the weekend with Bobby and Jim with Pat Younger providing the back up. "But I'll never ever do it in a group of four again - there's ALWAYS someone wanting the toilet!" Pat himself was no mean athlete but maybe his most impressive endurance feat was in a dinghy! His yacht had engine failure and it was too calm to use the sails. So he lashed the dinghy to the front of the boat and rowed for four hours up Loch Leven towing the yacht behind him.

The Island Peaks race was well supported by Clydesdale in the 80's and 90's with Pat Bonnar, Ian Murphy, Brian Potts, Andy Dytch, Christine Menhennet and company all competing and all doing well. Look it up to see how hard it is. A wee story - one year Pat and Ian were teamed up in a weekend of mist and rain. At the top of the last hill on the way down to the boat Ian took Pat's rucksack and added it to his own to see if he could run downhill with twice the usual weight! You don't have to be mad but it helps.

In recent years John Kennedy and Marjorie Small have tackled and conquered such as the Laraig Ghru run - and they do it the hard way (south to north) in the race. At present Michael Diver is the hardest working hill runner having done the Devil of the Highlands from Tyndrum to Fort William with Aileen Scott and Peter Halpin not far behind him in terms of ultras done in the past few years.

So if you want a new challenge - try running long instead of running fast!

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.

Clydesdale Harriers Are Not Of The Rangers Stamp

In the early years there were many sports journals and newspapers in Glasgow and the one which pursued the Clydesdale cause was 'The Scottish Umpire' - started up by a senior member of the Rangers FC and the one which sniped at the club was 'The Scottish Athletics Journal' who championed another organisation altogether. When Clydesdale held their first fixture at Rangers' Kinning Park ground and then started training there, the Journal was most critical, slating the Rangers support, the ground itself and the area in which it was situated. I quote one small part of the article: "I should strongly advise the Clydesdale Harriers to move their quarters from Kinning Park. Several prominent athletes have told me that so long as these handicaps are run on the Rangers grounds they will not compete. I expect that several names will be missing from the next handicap on account of the language used by the crowd and also because Kinning Park is not well adapted for running purposes. I know Clydesdale Harriers are not of the Rangers stamp and hire Kinnning Park because none other is available."

The remark about none other being available is not strictly true - Partick Thistle had a good pitch at Meadowside but the Harriers/Rangers link was invaluable to the club in it early years as, indeed, was the connection with Glasgow Celtic after it was founded in 1888. But the fact is that the writer was michief making - who ever heard of bad language at football grounds?!

The Bishopbriggs Runner

There used to be a statue on the canopy of the Bishopbriggs Sports Centre of a running man. It often had a traffic cone on its head and at Christmas and New Year a scarf inevitably appeared round its neck. The runner was modelled on a Clydesdale Harrier called Bobby Gray in 1933 and created by John Longden (a Baillie in Clydebank and an employee of Tullis's in Livingston Street). It was unique in that it was cast in a new aluminium alloy called Sindal and only three were ever cast. Two were destroyed and the one at Bishopbriggs was the only one remaining when it was given to Bishopbriggs in 1973. There was a plaster version in the Clydebank Public Library for decades and the last we heard of the Bishopbriggs one was that it was in an office being used as a coat and hat stand. In the 1980's and 1990's the Cowan family were clubv members - Lunn was a coach and Colin a competitor in the Young Athletes League who did the javelin and filled in in the steeplechase!

Has anybody seen it lately?

So now you know!

Some Random Things: Final Selection

1. The Allan Adams of Clydesdale Harriers who won the Junior Boys West District Cross Country title in 1973 was no relation to the Allan Adams who ran 64 minutes for the half marathon in Clydesdale colours. He was however a cousin of former world record holder David Bedford.
2. I know of at least three Willie Howies who ran for the club. There was the young guy who was a member of the team that won the West District Boys title in 1972 and best known was Willie Howie who was a well known road runner and club president and secretary. On a run with a friend in the 1970's I was informed that Willie Howie who had been a Clydesdale Harrier had had his legs amputated. I informed Billy Hislop who phoned Willie's wife to be told that Willie was out for a walk! It was a third Willie Howie.
3. The club has always had good hill runners but in the 1990's they were exceptional with Brian Potts, Ian Murphy and Christine Menhennet all winning Scottish International honours. There was a great squad at the time with women such as Cathie Farrell, Shelagh King and Suzanne Niedrum and many men including the Shields brothers, Brian Edridge and many more.
4. In the club handicap meeting at Ibrox in 1913 there were 11 Heats of the 100 yards, 64 runners in the Half Mile and 63 runners in the One Mile Walk. All members competed in everything.
5. The club's best performance in the National Championships this century was when the men were fifth in 2003 at Linwood.
6. The Men won the West District Championships team race for the Maley Trophy in 1973, 1980 and 1981 with many seconds and thirds between. But they did not win the District Relays until 1995 when Ewan Calvert, Des Roache, Grant Graham and James Austin won at Lenzie. The second team was third after two legs (Shane Daly and Kheredine Idessane) and finished seventh. Kheredine had the fourth fastest time on the day and the team was completed by Derek Halpin and John Hanratty.
7. We have always been an open club with members from around the globe ever since I can remember - for instance we have had Kezban Acar (Turkey), Nadia Hashemi (Egypt) and Kamaya Kapoba, Brian and Claudia Wasige from Africa.
8. Two Irish Champions - Cyril O'Boyle and Hans Noble - have run for the club and won the championship title with Hans running for Ireland in the International in Wales in 1933.

From 'The Clydebank Press'

A novelty in team racing was introduced by the new club, King's Park, last Saturday. The novelty lay in the placing of the team which was according to the position of their last man. Thirteen teams started in severe conditions but only eight finished complete teams. Clydesdale did much better than a number of the 'big shots' and placed fifth team. Our men counted D McDonald 22, T Luke 26, J Robson 36, A Westbury 40, A McLean 46, T Sinclair 47.

From 'The Clydebank Press', 17th December 1937. (The Clydebank Press is now the Clydebank Post.

Seven Random Things about CH

Facebook is apparently encouraging members to list 24 random things about themselves. Taking a leaf from their book, although I'm not a member, here are some random things about Clydesdale Harriers and there may be more!
1. Clydesdale Harriers women won the Scottish Cross Country title three times in succession in 1936,'37,'38 but have only had one individual winner - Jean Tait in 1937.
2. The last Clydesdale Harrier to win the Scottish Men's title was Graeme Reid in 2003.
3. John Mellish was President of CH when he was approached to be president of the Rangers where he was a founder member. He was the only Rangers President who had the honour of being CH President as well.
4. Willie Maley of Celtic won the Scottish 100 yards title in 1886 - Celtic FC was founded in 1888. In 1886 CH trained at Ibrox. So did Willie Maley, the great Celtic manager, train at Ibrox? Only a thought!!!
5. CH members have had some unusual occupations. Declan McCusker, javelin thrower in the late '80's and early 90's was a tenor with Scottish Opera and was on their own Three Tenors CD; staying with singing, Natalie Quinn is a member of the girlband Atlanta; Bobby Bell and his wife Lily were professional ballroom dancers in the 60's and 70's; Kheredine Idessane of course is a sports broadcaster and journalist with articles in such as 'Sports Illustrated' and had a talk show of his own on OnDigital.
6. If you count patrons and honorary members then the most illustrious post held by any CH was Prime Minister when Bonar Law held the position in the 20's. Club Patron, he died when in office or he might have got us a track! Look at what Pitreavie has got. Chief Scout Lord Rowallan was also a club patron
7. The club had four GB Internationalists at Senior or Under 23 level in the 1990's - Jason Allan as a high jumper, Ewan Calvert at 800 metres, Des Roache at 800 and 1500, Grant Graham at 800 and 1500.

Old Friends

People ask on occasion, "Whatever happened to.....?" or "Do you ever hear from....?" Well last week I had a phone call from Bobby Bell who had been an excellent 880 yards and cross country runner in the 1950's and then left the sport for a while to be a professional ballroom dancer with his wife Lily. Returning in the mid 80's he turned into one of Scotland's best coaches and the club's throwers performed superbly well under his guidance. He had a quadruple heart bypass in 1992 and shortly after left the sport for a bit. He is hale and hearty, lives in Ayrshire and mentioned the possibility of coming back to do some coaching for us. It would be good to see him back.

On Friday I had a visit from Steven Doig and his wife Gaby with their three children. Steven was a member of Fife Southern Harriers who came to Glasgow to attend Strathclyde University. He started training with us, then joined the club second claim before travelling to London to work with the Customs & Excise as a VAT man. He kept training and then joined the club first claim and ran in many races for us but mainly the Edinburgh - Glasgow. A Scottish Internationalist on track and over the country he still has the club record for the One Mile of 4:01. At his best he defeated Tim Hutchings (World Cross Silver medallist) in a mile race simply by taking the lead 450 yards from the finish and outkicking the great one! Steven ran for us in the Track League the day after his wedding before going on honeymoon: we were looking for promotuon to Division One of the Track League (5 divisions at the time) and he travelled from Kinghorn with new wife Gaby to run the 5000 metres at Crown Point. Not quite at his sharpest he nevertheless ran better than most would have done.

Two References

This week's "Athletics Weekly" has an interesting article by Glen Grant on endurance running: Glen was a very good middle distance and cross country runner in the 70's and early 80's with times inside 1:50 and 3:40 for the 800 and 1500. He talks about the value of steady running as the most important building block in training for his events and seems a bit doubtful about Seb Coe's reputed maximum training distances of 50 miles a week. He also speaks of the importance of the annual club road relays and National Cross Country Championships for the development of any athlete's year. Certainly Scottish athletics suffered greatly from the murder of the Edinburgh - Glasgow Relay. We still have the National CC Championships and all runners should support the club in these. It is important for the club and is at least as important for the athletes themselves. The course this year is the eminently runnable Callendar Park course. Have a look at the article.

When I was researching the club history in the 1970's and 80's the relevant copies of the 'Scots Umpire' dealing with the founding of the club were missing - the whole 1885 volume was missing - but I recently discovered that it is now available on microfiche. The text of the article is as follows:
"At a meeting held on Monday evening of a number of gentlemen interested in athletic matters it was agreed to form a harriers club for Glasgow and surrounding district, the name of the club to be known as the Clydesdale Harriers. The following members were elected office-bearers - President Allan Kirkwood; Treasurer - AM Campbell; Secretary - Alexander MacNab, 99 Eglinton Street, from whom all information regarding the club may be had. Clubs holding athletic sports kindly send forms to the Secretary."

Since that day, the club has had thousands of members and currently has a good number of young athletes. It has always been the case that the club does not belong only to the current members at any time - it belongs to those who have been members and done their work for the club over the years and also belongs to members of the club in future and we are only temporary custodians. Remember the club motto of 'Excelsior' which means 'the best'.

Football: the Rangers Connection

A few weeks ago a chap who is writing an authorised history of the Rangers Football Club contacted me to see if I had any information about a connection between the two clubs. I think Aileen Scott had been his informant! He has just been along and had a look at what we have and also gave me some information to add to it.

The connection is fairly straightforward. When Clydesdale Harriers were founded in May 1885, there was clearly a need to find somewhere to train and since the Rangers were already in existence, and since several Rangers players and officials were among the founder members, it was natural enough to start training at the Rangers ground at Kinning Park. When the moved to Ibrox, we just went along with it. In addition to holding an annual sports meeting at Ibrox Park (for which there are many references in the minutes and for which we have some programmes plus a poster for the meeting in 1910) we held club championships there until 1922. One of their players was John R Gow who won the SAAA Championship 120 yards hurdles and on one occasion the atmosphere was built up for the confrontation in a series of letters in the local papers - then after the event it was found that JR Gow had written all the letters on both sides himself! He went on to be president of the Rangers as had Tom Vallance (Scottish long jump record holder and a CH member until the end of the century) and John Mellish. There was some jealousy of the club among the people who had been organising racing and handicaps (a betting ring known as the "Co-Partnery Ring" and they ran a campaign against CH with several scurrilous and usually untrue articles published in the local sports papers including one in which they mentioned the 'Rangers clique' inside Clydesdale Harriers! The main point of this is that there was at the start a real connection: two articles that I have say that both clubs were offshoots of the Clydesdale Amateur Rowing Club but the CARC have no knowledge of this although Gary (the man writing the history) says that the rowing club that gave birth to both clubs was in fact the Clyde Rowing Club whose crest was a Star worn on the left breast of the shirt - and sure enough the early pictures of the Rangers show the team with the same insignia.

In one way the link might have been detrimental: the club handbook of 1889 says:" Grounds with cinder track have been repeatedly spoken of but so long as the present friendly relations are maintained with the Rangers FC, the Committee consider that there are no grounds for moving in this matter." We could have had our own track!!! In Glasgow; on ground that would have been worth a fortune!

There was no sectarianism involved - the link was I think purely pragmatic. When Celtic were founded, we had many of their players on board and had Sports meetings at their ground for many years. In addition, Willie Maley and his brother Tom were CH members before Brother Walfrid came along in person to his front door to sign them up! Is there a legal argument that they were poached and are we entitled to compensation????

Remembrance

It seems to me that at this time of year when we are all wearing poppies and observing the one minute silence that we should specially remember members of Clydesdale Harriers who lost their lives fighting for their country in both wars.

In the 1914-1918 war over 200 members of Clydesdale out of a club membership of about 800 died. In the 'Evening Times' of 15th August 1915 70 Clydesdale Harriers who had 'answered the call' were listed and that was only a fraction of those who went to fight in Flanders, at the Somme, etc. The entire Committee with two exceptions were killed, one died on the way home after the fighting was over. The present club vest was designed in 1911 by Ralph Erskine who died during the war. The story that I have, which is unconfirmed in writing, is that he as a platoon commander led his men into an apparently empty farmhouse which was in reality a German machine gun nest. What a way to die for anyone - Ralph's family were all Harriers and his brother Thomas Barrie Erskine, club secretary at the start of the war, also died before 1918; Ralph himself was a world amateur lightweight boxing champion, a title he won in New York.

One of the first casualties in the second world war was Jim Little from Dalmuir who was a sergeant in the RAF. Incidentally, the club established a Wartime Fund to assist the families of members who were serving soldiers. His family was one of the first recipients of support which was donated to the families at the rate of 7/6d (37 pence but a fair bit of money at the time to add to a family budget). Willie Howie's share went to his mother even after he became a prisoner of war having been captured in North Africa. The big surprise to me was that Johnny Morgan, official club starter when I joined the club in 1957, had been in the Chindits. A British Army unit fighting in Burma and often engaged in hand to hand fighting in the jungles against the Japanese.

So when you think of the fallen, remember that Clydesdale Harriers have taken part, and often died in, some of the most dreadful aspects of warfare on behalf of Great Britain

Running Reading

I was a bit surprised - horrified even - to see in the papers (plural) this morning that Catherine O had never heard of Lillian Board and had barely heard of Eric Liddell. After all she had been quoted in 'Athletics Weekly' as saying that she read a lot about her event! I know that any distance runner or track athlete of merit that I ever knew, read about the history of their event and tried to learn from it. Cyril O'Boyle and myself used to argue and discuss the contents of 'AW' and 'Runners World' on a regular basis and when I ran with a very good young (ie U17) runner in the 1980's we read and talked about the latest books on the subject. Biographies by Brendan Foster, Gordon Pirie, Steve Cram, Steve Ovett, Jim Ryun, Jack Foster, Emil Zatopek and many others were grist to the mill. We now have books by Bill Adcocks, Jim Alder and Ron Hill available. If you don't want to buy the stuff, borrow it or go to the Library!

If we try to work everything out in our own wee heads we will seldom improve and even then not by much. We should be better than our predecessors because we are standing on their shoulders and can see much further! What have you read recently about your event? Who is your hero from the past?