Schools race

Sorry for delay in reporting these results:

Well done to all our medal winners below:

Gold

Ciara Devanney

Roisin McShea

Silver

Conor Ewing

Bronze

Jenny Kerr

Rachel Busby

Well done also to Caitlin Stewart, Stephen Kane, Lewis Hay and Kirsty Alexander who also competed on the day.

How Things Change!

It is always difficult for new members of any club in any sport to realise that things were not always as they are now, or that they can change dramatically in future. In the process of ruthlessly clearing out the back bedroom - athletes training diaries, race programmes, maps of cross country trails, race results sheets, etc - I came across a couple of items that struck me as evidence of this.
Newer members might not even think back to 1998 - which is relatively recent. I have already shown a list of track league teams, but as recently as 1998, the Men's League Structure was as follows:
Division One: Aberdeen, Pitreavie, City of Edinburgh, Falkirk Vics, Fife, Shettleston, Law and - (newly promoted after being demoted to Div Two the previous year) - Clydesdale. Division Two had Scottish Borders, Inverness, Cambuslang, Kilmarnock, Kilbarchan, Perth Strathtay, Incerclyde and Corstorphine. Division Three had Dundee Hawks, East Kilbride, Ayr Seaforth, Irvine, Arbroath, Kirkintilloch, Cumbernauld and Central AC. Then in the Fourth Division were (the newly relegated) Victoria Park, Harmeny, Lochgelly (now DWF), Black Isle, Lasswade, Maryhill, Penicuik, Garscube and Whitemoss.

The other piece of paper comes from 1991 and is a race entry list for a club open Under 13 race. Clydebank HS had entered 9 runners, St Columba's had entered 7 athletes, St Andrew's 4 and Braidfield had 2.

It is as well to remember that the pendulum can swing back in our favour as far as men's and other leagues are concerned - you will note how many clubs are no longer involved in the League and how many are now defunct. Reasons? Partly there are fewer people of any age coming into the sport and this should be a spur to a recruiting campaign rather than an acceptance of a poor situation, lack of a local facility and with a bit of initiative this can be turned around once the track becomes available, hopefully in September this year. While on the subject, the track is at last a venue where all club members can come together with the attendant benefits. The sad tale of the drop in numbers of local schools entering athletes and supporting cross country is depressing. It should be remembered of course that we were in contact with all local schools at the time and I'm not sure when or why this stopped - to be sure it has to start up again. It should also be remembered that we put on the annual races for all younger age groups, first of all on the roads in competition for the John Morgan Trophy and then on the country. If we don't put on the races, we can't ask the schools to support them and we don't have the excuse to go into the schools in the first place.
Times change - they can change dramatically for the better as well as in the other direction!

Scottish Under 20's Championships

The only result that I have so far is Johnathan Farrell's third place in the Under 20 100 metres in 11.5. It was a wet and miserable morning in a deserted Grangemouth Stadium and he was drawn in lane 5 - a change from all the lane 8 and lane 1's that he'd been getting - in the Final. Side by side with the eventual winner for the first 60 metres or so he fell back slghtly and lost a place. With the winner timed at 11:3 and the fourth placed runner at 11.51 he was nearer first than fourth!

One of the topics of discussion on the day was why the Scottish Athletics U20 Championship had to be held on the same weekend as the Scottish Schools AA. The 17 years and over athletes had to choose between school and Scottish championships. Some tried to do both events - and their performances in most cases suffered.
It's not down to the schools - their champioships have been this weekend for as long as I've been in the sport - but the question is directed rather at the national governing body. All sides lost - the schools and the Scottish had diminished fields (eg Scottish Athletics U20 and Under 23 Women's 800 races were straight finals with only 4 runners and 5 runners respectively), the young athletes had to decide which meeting to support and whichever they chose they would lose out on a major championship. It is especially keenly felt by pupils in their last year at school who want to do a last schools competition where the atmosphere is a bit different.

SSAA Championships

Following the last post on this subject I went back to the entry list for the Scottish Secondary Schools Championships where they list the entrants by school.The exact numbers for local schools that have provided club members in the recent past are: Clydebank High School, Dumbarton Academy, Our Lady and St Pat's, the Hermitage and Cleveden - NO entries; St Peter the Apostle High School has entered two boys in three events; Bearsden Academy has entered three athletes; Balfron High has entered five pupils, Douglas Academy eight and Boclair eleven. Given the numbers entered for the County Schools and the number of young athletes in the club there could probably have been more pupils entered. It might be that the schools do not have the man power in terms of teachers to enter more. Derek McGinley used to offer to enter teams from local high schools and the offer was taken up. It might really be a good idea to have a schools liaison officer - a retired committee member, a parent who has the inclination to make the contacts with the school or even someone with flexible working hours would be useful. But the future of the sport is not good with numbers like those quoted above representing local schools in the SSAA Championships.

Scottish Schools Cross Country

The Scottish Schools Cros Country is on this weekend at the Beach Park in Irvine with the frst race at 1:00 pm. We should have several athletes forward starting with Roisin and Rachel and through the age groups to Peter Bowman. There are several differences from normal age group cross country races. The first is that the athletes wear different vests from usual - expect Clydesdale Harriers to be wearing at least three different schools vests for a start and don't be looking for vests with white on them! Second the age groups are different - Cross Country for clubs has the ages graded in 'odd' numbers Under 1, Under 15, Under 17, etc. The schools divide them up into Under 1, Under 14, Under 16 and Over 16. So they are running against different groups of runners as well. Third the fields are usually smaller, at the older age groups at least, because not all schools are affiliated and with it being impossible for an athlete to enter even as an individual if his school hasn't taken this step, then there are inevitably fewer runners in the races.
I once asked a local school situated on the Boulevard to enter a runner who would have done well in the Schools Cross Country and told it wasn't worth it since it would cost the school so much money! First the school would have to register with the SSAA (Scottish Schools Athletic Association), second they would have to pay for the individual entry and if a teacher went with them then that would have cost them as well. For one pupil it wasn't worth it!

I like the schools events - they tend to be very well organised, the courses are clear and well laid out and you can see athletes develop over the years. Some get good results in the U13 and U14's because they are physically very mature when everyone knows that endurance running tends to be for the slighter built among our brethren. As these big people realise that they have to start training if they are to maintain the early dominance then they drift away before they reach the Over 16's. And simultaneously the wee-er ones start training because they realise that here is something that they can be good at. The message for the wee-er ones then is, "Hang in there, little buddy, and keep on workin'!"

When the Primary Schools Championships started up in the 80's, we as a club laid on a bus free of charge and offered to take local schools through, assist the school staff in entering the runners and even walk them round the course. For three years it was a tremendous success and we gained members because of it. It then fell away because schools were not prepared to send even one member of staff with the children. Even earlier than that, Derek McGinley used to look after the pupils from two of the Clydebank Secondary Schools because the schools couldn't spare the staff. Or more often because the teams had to be entered rather early on and Derek would be there, enter the teams, at times distribute the numbers and at other times collect the numbers for the school teachers to collect when they arrived. In both cases we as a club were showing a bit of initiative and working with the schools to our mutual benefit. Finally, my friend Kenny Phillips will be there with his camera and should have some good pictures so, to the athletes, run fast and look good because you never know where he will be!