BUPA Inter District Races in Edinburgh

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Well done to the two young athletes from the club who ran for the West of Scotland in the deep snow in Holyrood Park in Edinburgh on Saturday. Not only was there snow but the temperatures are reliably reported to have fluctuated between minus one and minus three for the occasion. Roisin McShea in her first ever representative appearance was seventeenth in 13:07 and will be a better runner for having done it. Up the age groups a bit, Peter Bowman had a good run to be eleventh of the twenty five finishers in a time of 15:05.
For an armchair watcher from the comfort of the home fireside one of the highlights was to hear Brendan Foster telling me that Tirunesh Dibaba was "literally skating along...." which might have had some bearing on the final result. That will be the same Brendan Foster who reported one athlete in a race last winter to be "literally ploughing his way through the field ...." on a day of serious mud underfoot. My own favourite of all time was when Harry Wilson was a pundit at the Olympics and commenting on a race won by Dick Quax of New Zealand his line was "Quax running second off the bend....... then a quick change of legs and away he goes." A change of legs in the finishing straight would be welcome to most runners I think.

Changing subject - last night I had a phone call from a former Harrier who has been in New Zealand for about 40 years, maybe more. Donald MacKenzie phoned from Auckland just for a blether. He had copies of the last three books and commented at one point that Mike Ryan, ex-Forth Valley AC, who has also been in NZ for about the same time, had snaffled one of the books - he had been quite friendly with Ian Donald and pinched the book with the bit about Ian in it. Mike was a top class athlete who emigrated to North Island and took New Zealand citizenship. He ran marathons very successfully: he won in Fukuoka in Japan, he was second in the Commonwealth Games and third in the Olympics. I remember him coming down to the Baths in Bruce Street with the Forth Valley club for an inter club. Inter clubs were held to fill in blank Saturdays on the calendar with clubs coming together for pack runs with slow, medium and fast packs going out over the same trail at about 10 minute intervals. The slow and medium packs had left when Mike arrived late, we waited for him to get changed and then he ran away and left us at the start of the second lap of the country. Thanks, Mike!

Why not bring back the inter club fixture? They were great fun and got us around the country and providing new trails and varied training throughout the winter. We used to have home and aways with Greenock Glenpark, Springburn, Victoria Park and at times Garscube Harriers. There were also runs at other times with Forth Valley, Dumbarton AAC, Vale of Leven AAC and even Shettleston Harriers.

Anyway, Donald says that if any Harier is in NZ on holiday then to get in touch and he will be glad to meet them and show them around or just have a chat. There are Harriers everywhere but I know of at least four in North Island right now. And then there are the half dozen in Canada.................

The oldest Harrier

There was an email today from Denise Garay in Tampa Bay, Florida about her Dad who is Robert Ross. Robert is the oldest former Harrier that I know of. He was 106 on the 24th December. He had a wee fall in the first week of December and broke a hip but against all the odds, he recovered and is at present in a nursing home until he is well enough to return home. Last year his daughter made contact when he was only 104 asking if we had any information about his membership - I could tell her he had paid his sub in 1919 and in 1921 but not for 1920. I tried on behalf of the club to claim it back with the appropriate interest but they were reluctant to come up with the cash.
The next oldest that I know of is Willie Howie who will be 95 by now and in the Hillview Home in Dalmuir and who was a great club man for many years filling the posts of Secretary and President as well as running in everything including the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay for the club. Willie had been on active service in Egypt during the War when he was captured by the Germans and moved back to a prison in Europe.
And of course Jean McMillan is still well to the fore and still living in Erskine House in Old Kilpatrick. She had an operation recently but is recuperating nicely. She sent her usual Christmas card to the club and keeps in touch.

Bobby Flynn

One of our former members died yesterday (27th December) in Auckland, New Zealand. Bobby Flynn had been an active club member for many years when he emigrated to New Zealand in the 60's. He ran in races, served on the Committee, helped organise social functions and was generally very popular within the club. With his wife Betty, Bobby Young's sister, he was one of the outdoor group led by the likes of Pat Younger and Frank Kielty and climbed all over Scotland with them. They even went on a couple of trips to the Continent - he took his motor bike for himself and Betty while the rest went in Pat's van. He had many, many stories about the Harriers trips abroad and passed several to me last year. Like the trip to Switzerland where they had taken far too much porridge with them and ended the holiday standing on the pavement handing out wee plastic bags of the stuff saying "Vive l'Ecosse" or whatever. Nowadays they would be taken for terrorists at worst, drug dealers at best! Or the occasion when travelling with two other Harriers who didn't speak any foreign languages: the driver ended up shouting at the garage attendants "PETRULL! PETRULL!" AND "ILE! ILE!" He was a great guy and a top class Harrier.

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.

Charlie Spedding

Charlie Spedding was a member of the great Gaateshead team of the 70's which included such as Brendan Foster, Geoff Turnbull and company. Many of them, including Geoff, subsequently left to form Valli but the Gateshead team was superb. Masterminded by Stan Long with Lindsay Dunn also one of the mainstays they carried all before them. Spedding was the last Briton to wn an Olympic medal for the marathon when he was third in 1964. Like almost all of his generation he is quite critical of the present generation of distance runners. He cracks the well worn joke about the last Briton to win the Great North Run being a Kenyon! Steve Kenyon that is of Salford.

He is now 57 and runs a pharmacy in Wallsend and has written his life story in "From First To Last" which is well worth a read. It is priced at a more than reasonable £8:99 and is available from www.charliespedding.com

Assorted Results, Comments and Gossip

One of the best performances of the summer by a club member had to be Prasad Prasad's Sunday run at Keswick last week. It was the weekend of the Commonwealth Hill Running Championships and he had been selected for the uphill only race on the Friday. In the past it had been possible for athletes to run in both races (ie uphill only and up and downhill) and this year some of the women were lucky enough to get both. Prasad ran in his race and finished a disappointing 20th to be only fourth Scot to finish. Like all runners however he likes to make a point to selectors (remember an unselected Phil Dolan in the combined open and international at Bellahouston Park in the 70's? He beat all the Scots plus Brendan Foster!) and turned out in the Open up and down on Sunday. This was over the same course as the international had been the day before. With legs a bit dead from the previoous race he was in the first three on the way up losing ground on the flat and picking up on the climbs. On the last climb he felt that he was out of it but came back strongly and was within 25 seconds of the leader on the descent, caught the leader with half a mile to go and sat in for a 10 second breather before kicking past and finishing fast round the park at the finish. His time was faster than any of the Scottish times from the official international race! Had he been in the team, they might have got bronze instead of nothing at all.

Johnathan Farrell had a goodish summer going round the Games with the Luss meeting being the highspot in terms of number of events, points won and of course, dosh! The official placings are now out and he finds himself in sixth place in the Open up to 200 metres section with 23 points. He can be pleased with that - the only club member taking part in many meetings during the season he did the club proud and represented us with distinction. Whatever happened to the others that were in the same generation - guys like Craig Graham, Anton Russell and David Brown?

It was also good to see Frank McGowan turning out in the race at Knightswood and then again in the George Cummings race at Kilbarchan at the weekend. It is a pity that he had to return to Spain on Monday but he has said that he will try to get back again for the West Districts. If we managed to get Fearless Frank and Peerless Prasad out together it would give us an excellent start to a good team performance. The team was eleventh in the Kilbarchan race and all members contributed to the success of the team.

Where are they now?

I had an email from Kheredine Idessane recently. You'll probably know that he spends his time following Andy Murray around the world - but the first any of us knew of his tennis interests was when we were in Club La Santa in about 1995 for warm weather training. There were some glamour models there at the same time for a photo shoot and one of them turned up at the flat one afternoon and asked if Kheredine was in. When we said he wasn't she asked if he would book a tennis court for the next day "I'm such an airhead about such things!" Who would have thought it would lead to a beat which in the past year has taken him to Rotterdam, Dubai, Palm Springs, Monte Carlo, Rome, Madrid, Paris, Queen's, Wimbledon, Cinncinnati and now New York! As he says it's a change from reporting Scottish football.

Lisa and Ian

Donald McLeod spotted Lisa van Oostrum's picture in last Thursday's 'Evening Times' - it was a kind of lifestyle picture with details of her outfit that day. Lisa was brought along to the club a few years ago by Donna Campbell and she ran for us for a couple of seasons. Living in Bishopbriggs, she found it difficult at a time when school work was building up and we were moving from place to place for training. She stopped running I think two seasons ago when she moved into the Under 17 age group.

I had an email recently from Ian Cameron whose father Alex was a long time club member. Alex seldom raced, the Christmas Handicap was his regular outing, but he served on the Committee in a variety of posts including secretary and he also wrote the club notes in the 'Clydebank Press'. One of the best of club men. Ian helped out as a coach in the 1960's and then went to Glenrothes where he took up a career as a writer and illustrator of historical and children's books.

James and Prasad

I had a phone call from James Austin last night - he's doing five or six runs a week just now as 'maintenance training' but when I asked if he would be running this winter, he said 'probably' then quickly changed that to 'certainly'. He will certainly be running over the country this winter. Don't know about roads - I should've asked him - because he doesn't like them too much, but we'll see. He could be a valuable addition to any team that Gary picks.

The 'Herald' today had Prasad down as being an Ochil Hill Runner but, rest assured, he's not. That's like them saying Eddie Stewart was Eric and Alex Gilmour was Andy; the best misprint was maybe Hamish McHattie being named as Hamish McTattie.
I'm still on Grame Reid's case about the last League Match too.

Welcome back, Gus!

It is good to see Gus Cairney back in action. I wasn't at the Irvine 5 Miles Road Race at the weekend but I was sent some pics and there, large as life, wearing the club vest, was Gus. After being away for so long it was good to see him back. Here's hoping it is the first of many races.

I have two sets of the'Scots Athlete' magazine that ran from 1946 to about 1957. Well I say two sets , it is two sets with the first year's four missing - that year was a kind of tryout to see what the market was and then it went into proper production with coloured covers, several photographs and line drawings as well as detailed reports of all that was going on in Scottish athletics at the time. If anyone wants a set, just let me know. First come first served.

Prasad had a guest run in the Westerlands organised Ben Ledi race at the weekend - Westies, Ochil Hill Runners and the Trotters. Prasad ran in the Ochil colours and won by well over five minutes from a fairly good field which included former British Cross Coun try internationalist and Scottish Track champion Phil Mowbrey.

The Field Events training at Posties is scheduled to start on Monday next week after the holiday break. Parents and athletes should make the note! If there is any change I'll post it here and Donald will tell you at training this week.

3 counties challenge 200km cycle race

Michael Diver competed in this race on Sunday 5th July (passing through Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire) and completed the course in 11hrs14 mins.

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.

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.

Graeme Reid

For those who don't know Graeme Reid, he won many championships for the club - Scottish Junior Cross Country, Senior Cross Country in 2003, indoor 3000 twice, etc - and went to New York for a job. he returned in December last year, well overweight and his wife had a baby in January. Since then he has been working hard with Ernst Young and taking professional exams. However he ran in the Men's Health 10K at the weekend and, bearing in mind that he is still seriously over his running weight, he says that he might be looking for a run in the short relays in September/October. That has to be good news for the club.