Author: The Author

Steve Taylor and Fergus Murray share the lead, 1961

Given that our running days overlapped for quite a number of years, I should really have known more about this remarkable runner than I do.    There are some moments that spring to mind such as the time several of us went in Jimmy Scott’s minibus to run in the Brechin Rights of Way race and on the way up sorted out in our own wee heads who the first three or four would be.   Then into the room where the entries were being taken strode Steve Taylor, Dennis Whiting and another AAAC runner and the ball was up on the slates.   First three places gone with the wind!   Anyway the following account of – and tribute to – Steve’s running career has been written by his friend and team-mate Colin Youngson.

Stephen Taylor (universally known as Steve) is an Aberdeen AAC legend.   Perhaps he is best known as Alastair Wood’s most important training partner and friend; but there is a lot more to Steve’s impressive athletics career than that.   As well as being a very talented elegant runner, he had considerable success over many years at distances ranging from one mile to thirty!   In addition he was fantastically strong in training: and a captain who truly led by example when his beloved distance-running club proved to everyone that it was one of Britain’s very best.

Steve (born 17/3/1938) started running while with the RAF in the 1950’s.   Steve writes that “Frank Seal was hugely influential and a hard task-master to boot.   On not a few occasions in the summer he would drag me off to Sports Day to do 4 x 880 yards in about 2 minutes – and on a grass track.   Testament to these efforts was a dramatic reduction in my mile time.   At the start of my first RAF Track Championships, between the heats and the final I reduced my mile time from around 4:27 to 4:15, not far off the best performances in the Junior rankings at that time.”

During his time in the RAF Steve was also guided by Ian Boyd (Oxford University Blue half-miler, miler and cross-country runner and a 1954 Empire Games bronze medallist (880 yards), as well as GB athletics Team Captain at the Melbourne Olympics and later President of the New Zealand AAA).   Steve remembers training at Henslow in cold weather with “this frail RAF officer and not being particularly impressed.   Then as spring approached he stripped off his top layer to reveal a British tracksuit bearing the legend ‘GB & NI Olympic Games Melbourne.’   A more modest and unassuming person I have never met, as never once did he mention what he had achieved.”

During his best racing years, Steve was advised by his long-term coach, the great Gordon Pirie (world record-holder for 3000m and 5000m and Olympic silver medallist at Melbourne).   He also met Alastair Wood, born in Elgin, an Aberdeen University and later Oxford University Blue at both athletics and cross-country, a GB International runner and one of the most charismatic and outspoken characters anyone could hope to meet.   During his RAF career, Steve represented the Services in most of their major cross-country races, most notably the annual fixture against the Midland Counties and the Universities Athletic Union which featured several English CC Internationalists, including Ron Hill and Bruce Tulloh (who also ran once for Scotland).

After leaving the RAF, Steve returned to Aberdeen and became a member if the fledgling Aberdeen AAC.    As he states in his book: “We Have To Catch The Ferry”, which is a personal reminiscence about AAAC mainly in the 1960’s, their first notable win was in 1959 when they won the East of Scotland Cross-Country Relay Championships, pipping holders Edinburgh Southern Harriers.   That summer in the SAAA Championships, Steve Taylor won a bronze medal in the One Mile,  behind Scotland’s finest miler Graham Everett.   A somewhat unusual but very popular competition at the time, sponsored by the ‘Athletics Weekly’ was the two-man, ten-mile track relay or paarlauf (which entailed each runner completing 40 x 220 yards with a minimum of rest, often just a jog across the middle of the track).   John Gray and Steve Taylor finished second in the British rankings, beaten only by the Portsmouth duo of Bruce Tulloh and Martin Hyman, both of whom became very important and very successful athletes.   Remote the city might be, but Aberdeen runners refused to be undervalued.

Despite being best known initially as a middle-distance runner, Steve Taylor made quite a mark in Scottish cross-country circles.   Aberdeen AAC usually managed to win the North-East Cross-Country League (with Steve himself being a frequent victor).   In 1961 Steve Taylor, the race winner, led his team to success in the annual Carry Trophy event between the selects from the cities of Aberdeen and Dundee.   That was the year when Steve finished second to Adrian Jackson in the East Districts Cross-Country Championships; and in 1962 he was second once more behind his new team-mate Alastair Wood, who had switched from Shettleston Harriers.   Eventually in 1967 Aberdeen AAC  succeeded in winning the East District team contest and Steve was fourth counter.

Wood and Taylor had actually had been training together since summer 1960, when the former moved to Aberdeen and took up a teaching post.   Their running partnership not only led to great success for both individuals, but also inspired many Aberdeen runners for considerably more than 20 years.

In the National, contested over nine exhausting miles at Hamilton Racecourse, he had a succession of good placings:   1960: 7th in his first season as a senior; 1961 – 4th; 1962 – 4th; 1963 – 6th; 1964 – 7th; 1965 – 9th.   Aberdeen AAC’s best team placing  was second, not only in 1962 but also in 1964 and 1965 – a remarkable feat for a club with only a handful of dedicated athletes.   Steve himself represented Scotland in the International Cross-Country Championships three times in a row (1960-62) at Hamilton, Nantes and Sheffield, respectively; and only a bout of ‘flu in 1963 stopped him participating once more.   Steve’s best run in the International was 35th (3rd Scot) in 1962.   In 1968 he was 18th in the National, and fifth counter in a valiant  AAAC team which only lost by one frustrating point in a classic encounter with the brilliant Edinburgh University outfit which was completing a third successive National triumph.

                                                           Steve Taylor’s three ICCU memento badges: left to right 1960, 1961 and 1962

                                                                               Steve’s Scottish International Cross-Country vest badge

In the 1960 Edinburgh – Glasgow Relay, Steve ran particularly well to move AAAC up six places on the long Sixth Stage (achieving a fastest time only 24 seconds slower than Scottish distance running legend Ian Binnie’s record).   Steve’s club held on to that position, finished sixth and were awarded the medals for the most meritorious performance in the race.   Steve Taylor’s longevity and consistency is evident from the fact that he took part in this wonderful event every year  from 1960 to 75 apart from 1973.   He ran for Aberdeen University in 1974; but AAAC on every other occasion.    Another fine individual performance was fastest time on the Fifth Stage in 1967.   Aberdeen AAC’s best positions were: 3rd in 1963; 2nd= in 1967 and 2nd in 1968 and 1972.   The club finally won three times in the 1980’s but Steve’s team mates included luminaries such as Alastair Wood, Mel Edwards, Bill Ewing, Sandy Keith, Rab Heron, Don Ritchie and Graham Laing, not to mention Peter and his even-more-famous brother Ian Stewart (from that little known suburb of Aberdeen called Birmingham) whose untouchable 1972 record in an Aberdeen vest on the second Stage must have been the most marvellous performance in the illustrious history of the event!

Steve Taylor’s best performances were frequently on the track.   In 1960 he won the East District mile title, as well as the subsequent Inter-District mile in Glasgow.   In that year’s SAAA championship he improved to second in 4:10.4, one of the fastest times recorded by a Scot at that time.   In the Invitation International Mile at the prestigious Rangers Sports at Ibrox Stadium , Steve represented Scotland, along with Graham Everett.   They faced an elite field of Olympic contenders including former world mile record holder Derek Ibbotson and Laszlo Tabori of Hungary.   Steve agreed to make the pace and there is a colour photograph of him doing so.   He took the field through 880 yards on schedule.   Tabori won in 4:01.1 with Steve eventually finishing in 4:10 once more.

Dennis Whiting to Steve Taylor in the North Inch Relays, 1961.   Graham Everett of Shettleston is in the background

In 1961, having won both the mile and three miles in the East of Scotland Championships, establishing a championship record in the longer event, Steve Taylor went on to defeat his team-mate Alastair Wood to win the SAAA Three Miles title – his first National gold medal.   Aberdeen AAC’s four-man team was a very good fourth from the twenty clubs invited to the Inter-Club Three Miles event at the Vaux International meeting at Gateshead.   This was enhanced by the presence of the famous coach Arthur Lydiard and his Olympic champions Peter Snell and Murray Halberg.   Steve enjoyed the thrill of an early Sunday morning run with the 5000 metres champion Halberg, a most self-effacing man who overcame the effects of polio as a child to become truly a legend in his lifetime.   Then Steve Taylor ran for Scotland against Ireland and Wales in the Triangular International in Cardiff.   He finished a close second to Welshman Dave Richards, who set a Native record of 13:48 in front of Steve’s personal best 13:51.   In the Edinburgh Highland Games at Murrayfield Stadium, in the Two Miles, the Aberdeen pairing of Wood and Taylor finished 1-2 for a Scotland  Select versus a West German Select.

Having retained his East District Three Mile title, edging out Alastair Wood and setting another Championship record in the 1962 SAAA Championships   Steve Taylor not only improved his personal best to 4:09.5 for the Mile but also retained his Three Miles Scottish title, winning by over 100 yards.   He was very unlucky not to be selected for the Empire Games in Perth, Australia.   However Steve did run the Three Miles for Scotland against Ireland in Belfast, the Two Miles against Holland, where Steve and John Linaker finished 1-2, and representing ‘Edinburgh’, the Two Miles against ‘Munich’ at the Edinburgh Highland Games where Steve and John achieved another 1-2.

In 1964 Steve Taylor won bronze in the SAAA Six Miles won by that year’s Olympic 10000 metres runner Fergus Murray.   Then in 1965 it was silver in the SAAA Three Mile for Steve behind future Commonwealth 10000 metres gold medallist Lachie Stewart.

I must have met Steve in 1966 and until the early 1970’s as well as being very impressed by his training speed on Sundays, I trailed in behind him in many cross-country events and several track races, not only in championships but also on the grass at King’s College and the Huntly Highland Games.   In 1969 at the Forres Highland Games, Steve (who was brought up at Kintessack only three miles away) was retaining his North of Scotland 3000 metres title while I was plodding through my debut marathon in 2:41:13 to finish third about 14 minutes behind AJ Wood.   However Steve’s focus was beginning to switch to really long-distance racing.

The infamous Sunday Run – undoubtedly the key session in the ‘Aberdeen Training School’ began in the early 1960’s.  In his book, Steve asserts that these were not as lightning fast as legend insists.   However I would disagree, having first tried them out when I could barely handle six miles, as a callow and probably hung-over ‘Fresher’ at Aberdeen University.   The group met at Ally Wood’s house in Cairnaquheen Gardens.   Just round the corner was King’s Gate, a very steep hill followed by a roundabout and a slight rise to the gates of Hazlehead Park, then along to the bus terminus, followed by a half circuit of the pony track, a long stretch of rustic road, fun and games in the forest trails and an arduous bash on the roads back to the city, finishing with a two-mile sprint in from Cults, plus another mile or two warming down, pretending not to be knackered.   13 to 15 miles – and quite far enough.   In the early days, I could be off the back by the roundabout!   It really was a de’il-tak-the-hinmost!   The fitter you got the longer you could hang on.   Ally tended to motivate by ignoring you, then insulting you and finally by saying nothing.   Steve by contrast was always encouraging, but seemed to reserve Sundays for a demonstration of astonishingly relaxed speed and stamina, despite insisting that he had retired from serious running in 1966!   He made even Mr Wood suffer more often than that gentleman cared to admit.   Even in the 1970’s when I could often beat Steve and Ally in races, they could run away from me if I dared to visit my home city on Sunday mornings!

As early as New Year’s Eve 1960, Steve Taylor showed real potential in a long road race – the famous Morpeth to Newcastle.   Having arrived late and started at the back of the 120 strong field, in the closing stages he was ten yards in the lead before losing valuable seconds due to his unfamiliarity with a ‘quirky’ finish to end up in a still very good fourth place, behind the winner Laurie Sykes and   Olympic marathon runners Arthur Keily and Brian Kilby.   Then in 1964 he was a close third behind Alastair Wood in the 13.5 mile road race at the Athol and Breadalbane Agricultural Show when the course record was smashed by two and a half minutes.

One of the finest performances by Alastair Wood and Steve Taylor took place on 13th December 1969: an attack on the World 40 Mile track record held by New Zealand’s Jeff Julian.   In Steve’s book he says that it was very appropriate that it should be Alastair and himself, “whose friendship and rivalry had up until then extended over a period of some 15 years who were to be the main players in bringing success to Aberdeen AAC in the sport of ultra-distance racing.   Alastair was buoyed up by his record breaking win in the 36 Miles Two Bridges race in August.   On a bitterly cold  mid-December day with a strong cross-wind blowing, the conditions at Pitreavie, Dunfermline were far from ideal.   Delayed for an hour because of the frozen state of the track, the race finally got under way at 12 noon.”   There were only two other competitors: Phil Hampton, a well-known English ultra specialist who later broke the World 50 Mile record; and Shettleston’s Willie Russell who had several good runs in the Two Bridges.   “With the quality of the opposition unknown, the two Aberdeen athletes had decided on  a ‘fall back’ strategy should the pace fall away in the early stages.   Steve Taylor would make the pace for as long as his less-than-ideal preparation of 40 miles per week schedule would permit.   The two had also agreed that in the likely event of Scottish records falling during the run, these would be shared.   By around 15 miles the Aberdeen pair were clear of the other runners and Steve Taylor took on the task of shielding his club-mate from the troublesome wind which he did up to the 30.25 mile mark, before retiring from the race as he was no longer capable of maintaining world record schedule.   (The marathon distance was passed in 2:29:21).   Despite running solo over the remaining 9.75 miles Alastair Wood brought the club its first World Record in the gathering gloom with a time of 3:49:49, some three minutes forty five seconds inside the New Zealander’s previous record.    At 30 Kilometres, 20 miles and two hours both Scottish and All-Comers Records had been broken, the latter having stood for 36 years.  These achievements placed them in the World All-Time Rankings ahead of, among others, running legends Emil Zatopek and Gordon Pirie, Steve’s long-time coach and thus completed a memorable day for the club.”

Steve Taylor and Alastair Wood in the early stages of the 40 miles track race – Phil Hampton in front and Willie Russell at the back

The ‘Press and Journal’ article asserts that this was the greatest run of Alastair Wood’s career (although there are several other candidates!) and that he “got plenty of assistance from Aberdeen AAC club-mate Steve Taylor, who did the brunt of the pacemaking and sheltered Wood from the gusty wind for 30 miles.”   A footnote adds “despite his experience on Saturday, Taylor was out on the road training the next day as usual.   Wood however was troubled by a bruised foot.”

In 1970 Steve Taylor won his third Scottish track title: this time the 10 Miles event on the cinder track at Scotstoun, Glasgow.   His time was a good 49:53 with his team-mate Donald Ritchie a minute behind in second place.   Then in 1971 Steve at long last investigated his ability to run a marathon.   On 8th May he won his first one, the Shettleston Marathon in 2:23:25, just six seconds in front of Donald Ritchie again.   On 13th June in the European Championships trial – Manchester’s Maxol Marathon (the ‘London’ of its day in terms of sheer quality at the front) he broke the 2:20 barrier to record 2:19:28 for 17th place, one in front of the following year’s Olympian Donald Macgregor.   If only Steve had tried this distance a few years earlier who knows what he might have done!   Steve also came 5th in the SAAA 10000 metres and fifth in the SAAA 10000 metres, and fifth (11 miles 1603 yards with Alastair 22 yards in front  and Donald Ritchie another 57 yards in front of him!) in a one hour event at Meadowbank which was won in a Scottish National and Native Record (12 miles 616 yards) by Jim Alder from Pat Maclagan (12 miles 400 yards).    However Steve did beat Jim Wight  and Bill Stoddart, the 1970 Scottish marathon champion.

In 1972 Steve took part in another long-distance track race at Walton in Surrey.   This was a 20 miles event won by Jim Alder in 1:40:50 ( a Scottish National Record) with Steve being timed at 1:45:40 some distance in front of Donald Ritchie.   A good result in 1973 was second (2:23:17) to his flying club-mate Rab Heron (2:17:07) in the Edinburgh to North Berwick Marathon.   However Steve badly injured a heel in this race and consequently retired from long-distance road running.

Steve remains a good friend of mine, a sensitive, enthusiastic man with wide interests.   My memories of him include youthful ones of sheer awe at his talent and dedication.   In addition I was horribly impressed with him in the 1973 John O’Groats to Land’s End Relaywhen he was team captain.   This was Aberdeen AAC’s second attempt.   We had missed the record by half a frustrating hour the previous year; but this year despite having a weaker team we made no mistake and beat it by half an hour.   The whole idea had been Steve’s and he had driven both events, arranging sponsors, organising , and – that word again – encouraging us all.   I was lucky/unlucky to be paired with him.   At the time I could usually beat him in races.   However before we were halfway to the finish, I was struggling to match him for stamina, and often uncomplaining he did more than his share of our two-hour stints.   His quiet steely example motivated us all to succeed.

Steve Taylor continued to train, and occasionally race, for many years thereafter.   As I explained he was always a hard man to keep up with on Sundays!   Eventually he retired to Aberlour in Speyside and particularly enjoys striding out on long-distance walking trails.   His usual companion these days is another sporting former pupil of Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon’s College, the ex-European champion swimmer Ian Black.

It really is some story of a man too little known in Scottish athletics with championships and international vests littered all the way through it and we owe a debt to Colin for bringing this remarkable man’s achievements to the wider athletics community.    All pictures here are from Steve’s book – “We Have to Catch the Ferry.”

Steve had a wonderful career with success on many surfaces and at many distances.   His success can to an extent by having a look at his Trophies and medals.   We are indeed fortunate to be able to show them to you.   Just click on this link:   Steve Taylor’s Trophies and Medals.

Steve training was also influenced by Gordon Pirie and he has kept the correspondence from which he has allowed us to publish some of the letters.   Colin Youngson wrote it up and it can be found here.   Steve has let us show some of his own photographs and programmes on the website and you can see them at this link

A tribute to Steve by Fraser Clyne can be found by clicking on his name.

Ian Stewart wins the Commonwealth Games 5000m in 1970 from Ian McCafferty

The tale is told of a young Ian Stewart being defeated by the experienced German Harald Norpoth after a really hard battle after which they were both totally drained; Lying on the ground Ian saw a TV cameraman passing and called him across.   Looking into the camera he is quoted as saying something like “That was bloody hard Harald and you won this time but I’m telling you now, you can expect more of the same every time you come up against me!”   This  illustrates his reputation a a hard opponent – the word ‘gritty’ is used (mainly by the London Press it has to be said), the tabloids called him ‘The Sandpaper Kid’ at one time but the title was too long to stick, but he was surely one of the toughest endurance runners that Britain ever produced.

Ian Stewart was born in Birmingham of Scottish parents on 15th January 1949.   He became involved in athletics as a teenager and joined Birchfield Harriers where he was coached by Geoff Warr.   He was a famously hard worker and early on he won the English Midlands Youth cross-country title in 1966 and both Midlands and National titles as a Junior in 1968.   At the age of 16 he set a UK age-best for 2 Miles of 9:12.8.   In 1968, his final year as a Junior, he set European Junior records of 8:01.2 for 3000m, 8:35.32 for 2 Miles, 13:28.4 for 3 Miles and 13:53.32 for 5000m.    Clearly he was an athlete of talent and as a Senior in 1969 he won not one but two European Championships:   indoors in Belgrade he won the 3000m in 7:55.4 and in Athens later in the year he won the 5000m in 13:44.8 where his last lap was 56.6 to destroy the field.   He also had his first real head-to-head with a man who would be a regular opponent over the years to come – Ian McCafferty of Motherwell.   They met in the Invitation Mile at Reading on 11th June.   The pace-maker took them through the lap in 58.1 and the half mile in 1:58.9.   McCafferty went in front at that point and a mere 220 yards further on Stewart went to the front.   With 220 to go, McCafferty took the pace again and held on to win in 3:56.8 and Ian Stewart was second in 3:57.3 with brother Peter third 3:58.7.  

      The famous Sub-4 mile at Reading in 1968: Ian Stewart (1) with Peter’s face showing behind, Ian McCafferty (5), Hugh Barrow (26)

Later in 1968, on 1st September, Ian Stewart ran 3:39.0 in a GB v France at Reading – the time was a British record.  In 1970 he declared that he would henceforth compete for Scotland, his parents’ country – it is interesting to note that his brother Peter who is better remembered as a 1500.Mile runner was actually born in their parents’ home town of Musselburgh.   Doubt has been expressed about Ian’s Scottish qualifications but Colin Youngson from Aberdeen explains it as follows.   The father of Carol, Ian, Peter and Mary Stewart was a Scot from Musselburgh and Peter was actually born there.   This was the reason that Ian chose to run for Scotland although Peter and Mary ran for England despite Mary winning the Scottish Under 17 cross-country title.   Peter chose to run for Scotland after Ian did and both ran for Scotland at the 1970 Games.   A friend of the Stewarts at Birchfield Harriers in Birmingham was Tom McCook who later married Carol Stewart.   Tom came from Inverness and had been a promising runner for Inverness Harriers at cross-country.   Tom had been a second-claim member of Aberdeen AAC.   When Ian was looking for a Scottish club in 1970, Tom recommended Aberdeen AAC.   Peter ran for them in the Scottish National Cross-Country Championship in 1968 when they finished second team to Edinburgh University by a single point.   Then in that year’s prestigious Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay, both Peter and Ian ran for the AAAC which again finished second.   In 1972, Ian took part again setting a fantastic new record on the classy second stage which still exists.   Finally Ian ran in the 1973 Aberdeen team that finished third in the E-G and so did Tom McCook.   Nowadays Tom McCook is President of Birchfield Harriers, one of England’s most famous athletic clubs.   Since 2008, Ian has been the successful European coach for such runners as Mo Farah”. 

 Both were to take part with distinction in the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1970.

His first race in Scotland had been at the SAAA Championships on 6th June at Meadowbank where the Games would be held.   On that day he won the 5000 metres from Lachie Stewart (no relation) in a Championship record time of 13:47.8.  Brother Peter won the 1500 metres from Ian McCafferty on the same day but just one week later at the same venue, Ian won the family duel in the Emsley Carr Mile with 3:57.4 being the time allocated to them both.   Ian McCafferty was second to Dick Taylor in the 5000 metres with 13:29.6 making him the second Briton to run under thirteen and a half minutes for the 5000m.   The build-up to the 5000 metres continued.    The Games had started with a great win for Scotland in the first Final of the Games when Lachie Stewart defeated Ron Clarke and Dick Taylor in a very good race which set the tone for the Games.    Lachie was also in the Final of the 5000 metres on the last day of the Games along with Ian Stewart and Ian McCafferty.    Dick Taylor of England drove the pace on until with 800 to go Ian McCafferty took over and upped the pace.   Only 200 yards later Stewart went to the front and kept there although McCafferty had another go at him over the last 200 metres – he even looked like catching him at the start of the finishing but Stewart’s famous determination kept him in front to win by less than half a second in 13:22.85.   Keino was third.   The Scots times (McCafferty was 13:23.4) put them second and third on the all-time list and gave Stewart new European, UK and Scottish National records and McCafferty had a Scottish native record.   Ian was later reported as saying of the race, “That has got to be regarded as a highlight.   I couldn’t hear the lap times because of the noise the crowd was making and so I was surprised the time was so fast.   When we came up to the bell, I just kicked and tried to make Keino run wide.   If people wondered why I ran for Scotland, that was it.”

After 1970, 1971 was a bit of an anti-climax.   Stewart was ill for most of the year which he had started with a UK All-Comers’ best of 7:50.0 when winning the AAA Indoor 3000m Championship.   1972 however was Olympic year and both men were determined to go and determined to pick up medals.   The ‘trial’ from which the team would be selected was the AAA 5000m Championship at Crystal Palace on 15th July.   David Bedford knocked the idea of a trial out of the window when he just ran away from the field to win as he liked in 13:17.2.   McCafferty pulled away from Stewart with three laps to go and closed the gap on Bedford who was still nearly three seconds up on his 13:19.8 with Stewart content to qualify in third place with 13:24.2.   In Munich they both seemed to be in the shape to do great things: in the Heats McCafferty won with 13:38.2 (last lap – 54.7) and Stewart qualified in second place in Heat 2 behind Vaatainen (Finland) with a time of 13:33.0.   Bedford also qualified for the final which was to be held on 10th September but none of the three did himself justice in the Final.   John Keddie describes that race thus: “After a fairly leisurely 3000m (8:20.2) the Finnish winner of the 10000m, Lasse Viren, made an irresistible prolonged run for home and was never headed over that 2000m which occupied only 5:06.2.   McCafferty alas, probably suffering from anxiety and sleeplessness over a race he knew he could win, rather went through the motions and was dropped along with Bedford and Vaatainen over the last few laps.   They finished 11th to 13th, McCafferty clocking 13:43.2 behind Viren’s 13:26.4.   Ian Stewart fared better and probably lost because he let a gap develop 800m from home.   He did however come with a rush over the final to 200m to snatch the bronze medal in 13:27.6, but he too was disappointed.   What is not mentioned is the fact that Stewart was knocked by the American Steve Prefontaine and lost ground that maybe cost him the race.   He only overtook Prefontaine in the last 90 metres to get the bronze medal.   There was something else that happened in Munich at the Games – the Black September gang forced their way into the Village to capture Israeli athletes and there was a stand-off at gunpoint before the athletes were killed in an airport shoot out.   Did this affect Stewart and the others?   When asked about it by the ‘News Chronicle’ in June 2006 Ian replied as follows: “Stewart could easily hide behind the gruesome stake-out when crack German marksmen targeted terrorists and hostages alike, but, typically he does not.   He alone, he says, was to blame for his failure.   Failure, incidentally, brought an Olympic bronze medal in the 5000m  which many would view as great success but Stewart says, ‘You don’t win a bronze medal, you lose a gold medal instead.  

Of that terrible day, Ian told me, ‘It was weird to be truthful.   The break-in occurred during the night and it was only at breakfast that I discovered what had happened.   the Americans have talked since of hearing gunfire and the like, but I certainly didn’t.   It all took time to sink in – the full horror only hit me afterwards.   But in no way do I blame it for my performance.   That failure was down to me and me alone.   I’d trained in San Moritz with Brendan Foster and was in the best shape of my life.   I should have won the 5000m going away from the field, but I ran a stinker.   I was absolutely sick – the Olympics come around only every four years so you probably only have one shot at a gold medal when you are at your peak both physically and mentally and in terms of form.”

Ian Stewart returned to the track with a victory early in 1973 when he won the AAA Indoor 3000m in 7:58.0.    In 1974 he took part in his second Commonwealth Games in January 1974 with deeply disappointing results.   In the 10000m he was sixth in 28:17.2 in an event won by Dick Tayler of New Zealand in 27:46.4 and in the 5000m he was fifth in 13:40.32 with Kenya’s Ben Jipcho winning in 13:40.32.   To make matters worse, two of his domestic rivals finished second in the events – Brendan Foster was second in the 5000m in 13:14.6 and David Black was second in the 10000m in 27:48.6.    Like McCafferty after the Olympic disaster of 1972, Ian retired from athletics and took up cycling.   Unlike McCafferty, however, he was unable to stay away and returned in December that year.   The results soon started to come and he had two magnificent victories in consecutive weeks in March, 1975.   On the ninth at Katowice in a British vest he won the European Indoor 3000m with a time of 7:58.6 and the following weekend he won the IAAF International Cross-Country title in Rabat, Morocco wearing a Scottish vest.    The quality of the field in this race is well worth noting.   With 173 finishers the first ten were :

Other runners included Emiel Puttemans, Waldemar Czierpinski and Frank Shorter.

In 1976 he had hoped to run in the Olympics in Montreal but dropped out of the ‘trial’ at the Kraft Games and refused to take part in a run-pff for the third slot against Bernie Ford which ruled him out.   He did however qualify for the Olympic 5000 metres where he could only finish seventh in the Final which was won by Viren. At the bell he had been on Viren’s shoulder but he just did not have the pace to finish the job.   It was a very good run but not what he had wanted.   13:27.8 was the time – a season’s best but a journalist quoted by Keddie in his centenary history of the SAAA remarked “it was the sort of race in which earlier in his career he might have flourished but the world has moved on.”

In 1978 he ran in the English National Cross Country Championships for the first and only time and finished second to Bernie Ford and retired that summer.   He was awarded the MBE in 1979 – his career as a runner was over but a new career within athletics was about to open up.   Before that, let’s look at some of his achievements as listed on the UK Athletics website:

International Championships

1969: 1st 3000m European Indoors; 1st 5000m European Championships                                                          1970:   1st 5000m Commonwealth Games                            1972:   3rd   5000m Olympic Games

1974: 5th 5000m, 6th 10000m Commonwealth Games                                                                                       1975:   1st World CC, 1st 3000m European Indoors             1976:   7th   5000m Olympic Games

International Cross-Country: 1968 – 6th Junior, 1971 – 9th, 1972 – 3rd, 1975 – 1st                                             UK Internationals – 18 (1968 – 1977)

Won AAA 5000m 1969, UK 10000 1977, Indoor 3000m 1972, 1973, 1975, National Junior CC 1968, Scottish 5000m 1970

In addition to the above times, he ran a 10 miles road race at Stoke in 1991 in 49:17 as a M40 veteran.   He was one of six children three of whom were GB Internationalists and all three won European indoor championships!    As well as Ian, Peter won the 3000m in Sofia in 1971 and sister Mary won the 1500m in San Sebastian in 1977.

Ian Stewart: Promotions Officer

After he retired from running, Ian became a coach and worked with some excellent young talent – Darius Burrows being maybe the best of his protégés.   he was a keen motor-cyclist and got involved in motor-bikes and athletics simultaneously after he stopped running.   It started when he rode to Oxford to watch an athletics road race and the BBC asked if they could put a cameraman on the pillion seat to film the race while it happened.   It went well and he ended up working for many British and foreign TV stations at all sorts of road events such as the Tour de France.   He is quoted as saying,  “It was crazy – lashing down mountains on the wrong side of the road with the cameraman standing up on the pillion!   It was also great fun!”    He did that for about eight years until in 1994 he was appointed to succeed the notorious Andy Norman as Promotions Officer for British Athletics.   Andy was very controversial – a demon to some (and I know of several Scots international athletes who have been on the wrong side of the man) and a hero to others because of his effect on their careers – but he had lots of power and Ian inherited that power.   He was made responsible for putting together the top-class fields for the international meetings that took place in Britain every year.   The ‘Evening Chronicle’ article has this to say about the job: “It wasn’t very pleasant for the first three years.   What I quickly learned was not to take any rejection personally.   Athletes and their agents will let you down, change their minds.   I’m always on the move, all over the place,” he said.   “However  I’m single and I only have myself to please.”    Reality doesn’t seem to depress Stewart and well it might not.   He is rich in memories and achievements, has gathered about himself not a little fame and has worked continuously in a sport which clearly is the real love of his life.   That is enough for any man.”   

In addition to the job of race promoter for Fast Track he is now Head of Endurance for British Athletics tasked with restoring success to a branch of the sport which has fallen somewhat from the standards of his day.

Looking back at his career, does he have any regrets about the lack of financial rewards or envy of the present generation?   “There’s no question that if Bren and I were running today we would very quickly have become millionaires,” Stewart told me.   “We got expenses whereas now the top men and women demand figures in noughts.   I remember Bren and I clashing at Crystal Palace.   Our photos were splashed all over the cover of the Radio Times because the meet was live on telly – but Bren ran for the price of a train ticket from Newcastle and me for a ticket from Birmingham.   When I was only 20 back in 1969 I was in the GB  squad against the USA at the White City.   All the great Americans were on display and 50,000 squeezed into the stadium to watch us – me and Dick Taylor were the only GB one-two all night.   I appeared for my £3:10:00 rail fare and then haggled over the cost of my breakfast!”   Surely that must gnaw at a man renowned in his pomp for being brash, controversial and just plain bloody-minded.   “Athletics has moved on greatly and in the main it has been for the good, insisted Stewart”, perhaps surprisingly.   

Ian was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2002

There are not many athletes from any country who are instantly recognisable from just their Christian name but just say the single word ‘Lachie’ in any athletics company and there are immediately warm smiles all around – everybody knows Lachie Stewart and they all have a favourite story about him.   Even in Spain, where they call him ‘El Lachie’, he is known.   He is a quiet, helpful, knowledgeable, friendly man whose ability as an athlete was never in doubt.   He was a stand-out on track and over the country.   Let’s take a look at what he has achieved.

Cross-Country:   10 International Appearances in what are now the World Championships; 2 Scottish Championships at a time when there was real strength in depth, 1 Midland District Championship.   Third in Junior International, second in the English National,  fourth in the Senior International.  

Track:   Scottish 10 Miles Champion 4 times (1966, 67, 68, 71);     Scottish Three Miles Champion 3 times (1965, 67 and 68);     Scottish Six Miles Champion twice (1967, 68);    Scottish 5000 metres Champion once (1969);   Scottish Three Miles Champion 3 times (1965, 67, 68).   Thirteen titles in all between 1966 and 1973.

Track records:   He set track records at 2 Miles, 4 Miles, 5 Miles, 6 Miles, 7 Miles, 8 Miles, 9 Miles, 10 Miles, 11 Miles, 12 Miles and One Hour (He was the first Scot to run over 12 miles in the hour) and at 10000 metres.   In all there were 19 record breaking runs.

He was awarded the Crabbie Cup three times (1967, 1968, 19700 and the Coronation Cup once (1968).   The former is presented to the athlete who in the opinion of the General Committee had the most meritorious performance in the Senior Championships; the latter, presented since 1951, goes to the athlete who in the opinion of the Committee is the outstanding athlete of the year.

AAA’s Championships: He won the 3 Miles Championship in 1968 in a time of 13:28.4.

And, most famously of all, he won the 10000 metres at the British Commonwealth Games in 1970 at Edinburgh, defeating many of the brightest stars in the endurance running firmament.   What that run did for Scottish Athletics was immeasurable.

Before we go on to look at his career in detail, we should maybe have Lachie’s own input in the form of his answers to the questionnaire.

Name: Lachie Stewart (Joseph Laughlin Stewart)

Club: Started with Vale of Leven AAC 1957  –  1968;      Shettleston Harriers  –  1968/69  –  1980;      Spango Valley AAC, Greenock as a veteran: 1980  – app. 1990

Date of Birth: 22/6/43

Occupation:   Dental technician.   I worked for the entire 44.5 years of my running career as a dental technician.

How Did You Get Into The Sport Initially?   Through the local school.

Personal Bests?   They are all listed above except for the marathon which I ran in 2:29 as a vet for keep fit purposes.

Has any individual or group had a marked effect on either your attitude to the sport or to your performances?   Joining Vale of Leven and not having a coach at the club, I would go down to the club and do some reps with the seniors.   400/200, four or six of them, then I would join the sprinters and do some of their training which I am sure gave me a good sprint finish in many of my races.

What exactly did you get out of the sport?   Sport I feel gives you stronger views of life and makes you more determined and there is exhilaration in running fast in races.

Can you describe your general attitude to the sport?   I loved athletics as it’s an individual sport.   Bad run, my fault; good run, all my own effort.

What do you consider your best ever performance?   Obviously 1970 Commonwealth Games 10000m and many good international cross-country races.

And your worst?   The international cross-country championship in Dublin about 1964.   Telling everyone at the evening reception that I was last in my first ever Senior cross-country race till I got results later and discovered that there were ten runners behind me that I could not see when looking down the straight at the end of the race.

What goals did you have that were unachieved?   Winning an Olympic gold (as is everybody’s goal.)  

What has running brought you that you would not have wanted to miss?   Meeting people from many different walks of life and, especially abroad, staying with people in the athletic organisation in the different countries and seeing the countries as they really are and not from a tourist point of view.   Sport is a common bond to participating sports people.

Can you give some details of your training?   During the winter months (October – February/March) mainly just steady running to build up strength and endurance.   From January I usually felt I could run faster so introduced some one or two minute faster sections and then dropping back to the same pace I was doing before the efforts (on roads).   On grass such as Westerlands where I trained most lunch times, the faster efforts may be a bit faster due to softer ground condition.   Also from January onwards interval type training mostly at Westerlands on grass and not on track.    They would consist of   8 x 800,  12 x 600, 20 x 300 and occasionally 30 x 200 yard runs with jogging half the distance recovery.  

Every month towards the summer months (mid June onwards, I would increase the recovery and decrease the number of efforts.   (Peter Coe years later called this 5 tier pace training).

Most of my training was done on my own but I did occasionally have some company which I enjoyed:  but I ran on my own was due to the times I trained during the week.

Joseph Laughlin Stewart was born in the Vale of Leven in June 1943 – an area that produced many very talented athletes.   In the field of endurance running Alex McDougall was a Scottish Internationalist who competed in the Cardiff Empire Games and ran in the International Cross Country Championships in 1957; Pat Moy was a quite outstanding cross country runner who also represented Scotland in 1956, 1957 and 1958 in the International Cross-Country Championships.   Both were members of the Vale of Leven AAC.   Lachie obviously had a natural talent but he developed it by dedicated hard work: he also had the right mental attitude – intelligent, practical, thoughtful and realistic – that so many talented athletes lacked.    The result was a career that fulfilled his ambitions more completely than any other Scottish distance runner of his generation.

An interesting light on his beginnings in the sport is shed by the centenary history of Shettleston Harriers.   I quote directly:

He began running at the age of 14 while at the Vale of even Academy, and competed for his Boys Brigade company in Dumbarton before joining the Vale of Leven Harriers in 1957 and becoming the first ever winner of the SCCU boys cross-country championships at Hamilton.   In 1960 he was invited to take part in a coaching scheme for young athletes, but after high blood pressure was diagnosed in a preliminary medical examination, he was hospitalised for three weeks and advised to give up running completely.   He ignored the prognosis and continued to pound the roads of ‘The Vale’, provoking extreme maternal concern.   Every time he set off on a training run he would leave with the words of his mother ringing in his ears, ‘Don’t you run too hard.’

Brought up on the Dalmonach Estate, he was a pupil at the Vale of Leven Academy where he was spotted by his PE teacher and directed to the Vale of Leven club who trained just down the road at Milburn Park track.   Although he trained with the club he did a lot of running on his own.   The area round the Vale is very hilly and very muddy – in the days on inter-club runs and contests the trails used were to some extent dreaded.   Lachie trained in the hills above the golf course and did his hill reps on the steep Auchingarroch Road.    There were several good Senior athletes in the club at the time and on road runs he would accompany the men including Alex McDougall.   As a Youth and Junior he ran in all the same races as everyone else did – County, District and National Championships, County and District Relays and in the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay whenever the club were invited to compete, as well as all the classics such as the Nigel Barge Road Race, the McAndrew Relays and even the Beith New Year’s Day race.   On the track, it was the County, District and National Championships as well as in various open meetings and Highland Games like Gourock and Babcock and Wilcox (in Paisley)  –  he even travelled as far as Kinlochleven which was an overnighter.   All the time he was learning: I remember after one County Track Championships at  Westerlands where he had won the Mile and the Three Miles.   I had been in the Three and ran with him in the knowledge that he would pull me away from the rest of the field leaving me only with the one problem  how to stay in front.   It worked but the moment came after we had passed the four laps to go when he actually said to me, “Sorry Brian, but I’m going now!”   And he did but after the race when we were sitting on the grass changing our shoes he advised me in the course of the conversation not to use up all my will-power in training.   And he developed the theme – the thing is that he was only a Junior and I was a Senior athlete who had been running for years and he was giving me sound advice!    He always knew what he was about.   As a member of the Vale of Leven AAC (founded 1945) he won the Junior Championship in 1961-62, 1962-63 and 1963-64 and the Senior Championship in 1964-65 and 1965-66.   In a booklet released in 1975, the club secretary had this to say: “Starting in 1958, he won the club, county and national senior boys cross-country championship in his first season.   This was followed in 1966 with the Midland District Senior Boys Cross-Country Championship and the Junior Championship in 1966-67.    As well as ‘over the country’ Lachie also made his mark on the roads winning a number of road races including the Balloch-Clydebank and the Clydebank-Helensburgh.”

Lachie after winning the Elgoibar Cross-Country Race in Spain

Having started with the Vale, he stayed with them until he moved to Glasgow and joined Shettleston Harriers in 1968.    You will note from the statistics above that he had gained 5 Senior Track titles, set many many track records and picked up four Scottish senior cross country vests for the world championships as well as having two appearances in the Junior age group – in 1962 and 1963 when he was third.  The first mention of Lachie Stewart in the record books is in 1958 when he won the inaugural National Senior Boys Cross Country Championship at Hamilton.   In 1959 in the same age group he finished eight seconds behind George Brownlee of Edinburgh Southern Harrier.   In 1961 he was sixth in the Youths age group behind several very good athletes such as Jim Finn (Monkland, later Law and District), George Brownlee, Hugh Barrow, Craig Douglas (Teviotdale, later ESH) and A Leitch from Gateshead.   Behind him were Alex Brown (Motherwell, eighth) and Mel Edwards (Aberdeen, ninth) – some years are tougher than others and Mel was to win a memorable Junior Championships just a few years later.   In 1962, Jim Finn won again and Lachie joined him in the Scottish team for the International Championships and was tenth finisher and first Scot home: AIC Heron was eleventh and Jim Finn sixteenth.    In 1963 he won the Midland District Junior title after finishing a close-up third behind Andy Brown and John Linaker.   Fourth in the National behind Fergus Murray, Mike Ryan and Alex Brown.   In the Junior International, held that year at San Sebastian, Lachie was third and led the Scottish team to third place medals.  Ranking lists tell us that in summer 1963 he was ranked twentieth in the Three Miles with 14:36.0 which was good enough to win the West District title from Hamish McHattie of St Modan’s and Billy Murray from Greenock Glenpark; seventh in the Six Miles with 30:01; and 10:11.2 in the steeplechase which placed him third in the West District event.

 The District Championships in 1963-64 were a home fixture for Lachie, being held at the Strathleven Estate in the Renton and he finished third behind Ian McCafferty and Alex Brown.    The Scottish National Junior Cross Country Championships at Hamilton in 1964 was one of the finest races I have ever seen with Mel Edwards just getting the better of Ian McCafferty with Lachie third.  Lachie then won a Two Mile Invitation Race at Ibrox from McCafferty with both being timed at 9:02.   In his first year in the Senior International, Lachie was sixty ninth and out of the counting runners in the International at Leopardstown in Ireland.      It was the only time that he was a non-scorer in an international cross-country race.

In the District Championships in season 1964-65 he was third behind McCafferty and Andy Brown.   The National was again at Hamilton and Fergus Murray won by over 20 seconds from Jim Alder with Lachie eleven seconds back in third place.   In the international at Ostend, Lachie was fifty eighth and the team was sixth.   Colin Shields in his history of the Scottish Cross Country Union, ‘Whatever the Weather’ begins his comments on 1965-66:    “Lachie Stewart who won the inaugural National Boys Title in 1958, had been busy studying dentistry at evening classes in the intervening years as a Youth and Junior.   With studies successfully completed the Vale of Leven athlete had time to train and he blossomed forth, with the resultant hard work producing startling performances in track, road and cross country races.   Undefeated since the start of the season, except in the long Morpeth to Newcastle race at New Year, Stewart won the shorter Nigel Barge race in the record time of 22 minutes 05 seconds, a time that would still win the race more than a quarter of a century later.   Stewart continued his strong running when winning the District title at the Renton.   He led by 80 yards at half distance and doubled his lead by the finish.   In the National at Hamilton however he finished second to Fergus Murray after a hard race over heavy, hilly country.   Ian McCafferty won the Junior Championship that day and was selected for the Senior team in the International to be held in Rabat, Morocco.  McCafferty took the lead and held it until near the end when a stone in his shoe made him stop to remove it and he was second Scot to finish in fourteenth place – two behind Lachie who led the team home.”

Summer 1966 was a wonderful season by any standards: many athletes would have happily retired after it!   In the ranking lists Lachie appeared in the One Mile (12th, 4:10.0), Two Miles (first, 8:38.8), Three Miles (third, 13:32.6), Six Miles (second, 28:58.2) and steeplechase (second, 8:44.8)    He had won the West steeplechase and been second in the SAAA and this was the season when he made real go at the event – with some success but he didn’t follow it through after 1966.   There was a real rivalry between Lachie and John Linaker  and he had set a new Scottish Native record holder at the end of 1965 with 9:07.8.   Having started 1966 with a wonderful run at Seedhill in Paisley over 10 miles to set a new native record of 48:44.4, he ran 8:59 for the steeplechase becoming the first man in Scotland to break 9 minutes.   At the Scottish. Lachie faced Linaker (who had run 8:50.2 at the English Inter-Counties who was a better hurdler than he was but Lachie was the faster runner.   There was nothing in it until Linaker pulled clear – not by much, but enough – and held it to the finish to win in 8:48..8 for a new Scottish all-comers record, while Lachie set a new Native record of 8:49.4.    A fortnight later Lachie ran 8:44.8 in the AAA Championships for third place.   As a result he was selected for the Empire and Commonwealth Games in Jamaica and for the European Championships in Budapest.   He did not do himself justice in either event. In the Commonwealths he was ninth in the steeplechase in 8:57.0 and twelfth in the Three Miles in 13:40.0.

Lachie started 1966-67 winter in second place behind Ian McCafferty in the annual short New Year’s Day cross-country race at Beith and a day later was third in the Morpeth to Newcastle 10 miler.   He was second again to McCafferty in the Nigel Barge and again in the Midland District Championship at Bellahouston Park.   In February, he ran in the International race at Hannut in Belgium where he finished fourth: with Ian McCafferty second and Jim Alder fifteenth the team was second.   The New Zealand team for the international ran as guests in the National at Hamilton and Eddie Gray of NZ was first across the line followed by Lachie and then five more New Zealanders.   Lachie of course took the Scottish title.   One week later he became the first Scot since Jim Flockhart in 1937 to win an individual medal in the English National when he was second to Dick Taylor, just outsprinting Barry Rose of NZ.    Unfortunately in the International in Barry, Glamorgan, Lachie himself was outsprinted at the finish for third place by – Barry Rose of NZ.   The team was fifth of ten countries.   His summer campaigns in 1967 and in 1968 were top class affairs with SAAA Championship wins in the Three Miles, Six Miles and Ten Miles in both years.   The race in 1967 where he really showed how good he was came in August at Dunoon in the Cowal Highland Games where he won the One Hour Race.   His distance of 12 miles 188 yards was the first time that a Scotsman had run more than 12 miles in an hour.   There were also Scottish Records for eleven and twelve miles.

The Nationals in 1968 were the last to be held at Hamilton Race Course.   There were no showers or changing accommodation at all at the venue and despite the good courses to be found there, the championships really had to move elsewhere in Scotland.   Lachie was favourite to retain his title but he had a terrific battle with Alastair Blamire who had been runner-up in the Junior Championship the previous year.   He was ultimately victorious by only one single second.   The international championships were held at Tunis and the Scots had justifiably high hopes of a medal placing.   There were group training sessions at Cleland Estate at Motherwell and when the International came along the team ran well but were ‘only’ fourth again.   team placings were 10 Ian McCafferty, 18 Lachie Stewart. 19 Andy Brown, 20 Jim Wright, 23 Jim Alder, 47 Gareth Bryan-Jones.   Down the field initially the Scots surged through from halfway and gained approximately 6 places per man in the second half of the race.   They missed bronze by just 8 points!   In summer that year he won the Three Miles at the AAA’s Championships in 13:28.4.

Lachie’s self-coached spell at the Vale of Leven AAC had seen steady improvement from a novice schoolboys to Scottish and British Champion and Commonwealth and European Games representative.   It was all done without an all-weather track and without a brilliant club squad to train with.    The table below summarises the annual progress.

1968-69 was Lachie’s first winter as a member of Shettleston Harriers and was to usher in a period when he amassed a host of team honours as well as individual medals, trophies and championships.  His run in the Edinburgh – Glasgow Relay in November as part of the winning Shettleston team saw him return the fastest time on the sixth (and longest) stage of the race twenty six seconds ahead of Fergus Murray.   Lachie along with Jim Alder and Dick Wedlock ran at Hannut and then defeated Mariano Haro (Spain) in an international race at Elgoibar in Spain before going down with ‘flu.   The National that year was over five laps of Duddingston Park Golf Course in Edinburgh over hard, frozen and rutted ground topped with slush with steeplechase barriers as obstacles in an attempt to turn a park into a cross country course.   Dick Wedlock won by eight seconds from Fergus Murray Murray with Lachie, still suffering from ‘flu, in tenth place.   The International was held in Clydebank in 1969 over a very hilly course and Ian McCafferty ran a superb race to be third with Lachie second Scot in twentieth and Fergus Murray twenty third.

Colin Shields, writing about the 1969-70 cross country season in Scotland points out that Scotland’s distance runners were among the best in Britain and Europe and as such were in demand for many invitation cross country races on the Continent and he points out  too that Lachie Stewart was among the most successful and consistent runners on the Continent with numerous wins, especially in Spain where the spectators dubbed him ‘El Lachie’.   He won two international races in Spain that winter at Madrid and at Juan Muguerza race at Elgoibar as well as being fourth at San Sebastian.   At home the National Championships were held at Ayr Racecourse and although he did not run, Lachie was picked for the International where he was twelfth and first Scot home at Vichy.      The summer of 1970 witnessed one of Scotland’s finest athletics moments – courtesy of Lachie Stewart.

1970 was a year that Scottish Athletics should never forget and a lot of that was down to Lachie.   He won the SAAA Championships in 28:33.4 – a time on which David Coleman cast some doubt when commentating on the AAA Championships and Games Trial with “They say that Lachie Stewart has run 28:33.4 in the Scottish Championships ….” – and came into the  Commonwealth Games with a solid background of strength and speed, the international championships and small team races at Hannut, San Sebastian, Elgoibar and the rest had removed any reservations about his ability to take on the best that other countries could throw at him.

 John Keddie reported the actual race as follows:   “1970 was this popular athlete’s greatest year and one in which he was to produce one of the great moments of Scottish athletics.   The occasion was the opening track final of the 9th Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.   It was a rather dull, rainy and windy July afternoon as the athletes lined up for the start of the 10000 metres at ten past four in the afternoon.   There were plenty of big names in the line-up: World Record Holder Ron Clarke, defending champion Naftali Temu, , UK record holder Dick Taylor, Canadian Jerome Drayton, Australian steeplechase star Kerry O’Brien and compatriots Temu, Ng’eno and Ndoo.   Was it too much to expect that the relatively untested Stewart could triumph in such company?   It was Drayton who took up the running immediately with a 66.2 second first lap.   The Canadian led for six laps or so after which the lead changed hands several times up to the 7000 metre mark when Ron Clarke made his first move.   His break was not decisive even though it did string out the field.   Sticking to him were Englishman Taylor and Lachie Stewart.   Even a scorching 63.6 nineteenth lap did not drop the two Britons.   This was undoubtedly the vital part of the race for Stewart for had the pace not slackened noticeably he may well have been dropped.   But the pace did drop slightly over the following five laps and Stewart was still in contention going into the final lap.   Needless to say, the excitement of the crowd was reaching fever-pitch; the steady drizzle was forgotten as the runners braced themselves for the last lap effort.   The Australian took up the running from Taylor down the back straight but Lachie Stewart followed in his slip-stream, biding his time.   He knew he was the man with the sprint finish.   And so it was down the home straight he tore past Clarke and broke the tape amidst the resounding cheers of the partisan crowd.    And incidentally his time of 28:11.8 was a Games record and Scottish All-Comers’, National and Native Records.”

If that’s the official story it misses a lot.    First of all Lachie was indeed a popular figure in Scottish athletics – as well as all the Championships and invitations he raced at the Highland Games meetings, he ran at Beith and Bellahouston, he supported all club events.   Nobody had anything but good to say about Lachie.   Second there had never been a Games like this in Scotland – ever!   Meadowbank was transformed.   There were never big crowds for athletics meetings – the biggest crowd was at the Rangers Sports but they had come to see the 5-a-sides; there were occasionally races at half-time in big football matches and there was Cowal Highland Games which always had a massive crowd.   They were the exceptions and Meadowbank with its big stand and the temporary scaffolding seating raised high into the sky all round the track outdid them all.   The atmosphere was like nothing any of us had ever felt before.   And as the race progressed and Lachie and Dick Wedlock – Scotland’s other representative were still there, it built up and built up.   Then when it was down to three and we all knew Lachie had the kick (he had said to me once when I congratulated him on a fine finish “In the finishing straight, I’m invincible”   I looked for signs that he was kidding but there was no kidding – he believed it). and Clarke had been out-gunned in the finishing straight so often before, we hoped and hoped.   Then came the finishing straight and sped past Clarke and in the TV clip that they showed so often afterwards, he has a quick look over his shoulder for the opposition and smiling turns back to the final few yards.    Absolutely astounding.   We had won the first final!    We had beaten the world!    Scottish endurance running had real respectability which was confirmed later in the week when Ian Stewart and Ian McCafferty were first and second in the 5000 metres.    One of my club-mates was in Portsmouth that afternoon watching the race on television with several Portsmouth team mates and reported that they were more than slightly annoyed that the Scotsman had won after doing none of the work!    I’ll tell you, if Clarke could have won that way, if Dick Taylor could have won that way, they would certainly have done so!

The picture at the top is of Lachie with the team mascot – a bear in Scottish colours called Dunky Dick – Dunky Wright was the team manager and Frank Dick the team coach.   Thereafter he was taken out by a team member to any Scot who won a medal at the Games and this was his first public airing!   Incidentally, Lachie convinced that he could have won it from two laps out – he felt the pace dropping, saw the how the other two were looking and says he could have gone then.   However that may be, he won the gold and the nation was ecstatic.   The Press had a field day: how about this from John Rafferty of ‘The Scotsman’ the following day?   Under the headline “Lachie Stewart, so diffident ….. so great”, he wrote:   “The Gold Medal hung from a ribbon round Lachie Stewart’s neck – ignored by him.   His eyes were turned away from it looking up to the big man, Ron Clarke.   They were eyes neither filled with achievement nor flashing contempt for the loser but soft with the humility of a nun at prayer, the hero-worship of a young man meeting a film star he has for long adored.”    So it went on for the best part of two long columns in the broadsheet.

A week or two afterwards he was called up into the GB team for the European Cup match in Portugal and didn’t run well – it was an anti-climax but even then David Coleman had a remark to make – “It’s unbelievable: he is so unfamiliar with the event that he had to ask me how many laps there were in a 10,000 metres!”   How many had Lachie run up to that point?

As a member of a very good Shettleston team he was part of many medal winning teams and over 10 years he amassed a collection of approximately 21 gold, 6 silver and 2 bronze medals from the National Championships, the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay, the Midland Relay, the Scottish 4 Stage Relay, the McAndrew and the two Lanarkshire relays.    That doesn’t include his individual medal tally that we will be looking at in the next few paragraphs.

The Games victory led to many honours …

Into the winter of the 1970/71 season and the team (Lachie, Norman Morrison, Bill Scally and Dick Wedlock) started well with a victory in the McAndrew Relay at Scotstoun; he had been a member of the winning team in 1968 and would collect two more winners medals in this well-established road race – in 1971 and 1972.   The same quartet won their own Allan Scally Relay – Lachie was to be a member of six winning teams in the “Scally’s”.   In the Edinburgh to Glasgow the victorious Shettleston team had Lachie on  the sixth stage: he took over in first, handed over in first and had the third fastest time of the stage behind Jim Alder and Don McGregor.    The National in 1971 was held and Shettleston were again victorious with Lachie finishing eighth.   The international at San Sebastian was a saga of misfortune including the withdrawal of Ian McCafferty through illness, delays and problems with transport to the meeting and a stomach bug that affected several members of the team.   Lachie finished 60th.   Prior to that the Shettleston club team had entered the English National Championship at Norwich and became the first Scottish team since Victoria Park 19 years earlier.   Lachie was nineteenth finisher.     It had been a hard season for him coming immediately after the triumph at Meadowbank with invitations to speak at Dinners, Coaches’ Meetings, Schools, giving interviews, making public appearances, etc – he was even involved in making TV Commercials.    The demands on his time had been huge and yet he had still managed a very good cross country season despite all of that.

The summer of 1971 had Lachie ranked sixteenth in the 1500 metres with 3:53.3, third in the 3000 metres behind Ian and Peter Stewart with 7:59.0, fifth in the 5000 metres with 13:58.6, second behind Jim Alder in the 10000 metres with 29:00.0 and first in the 10 Miles Track with 47:59.0.    The 10 Miles was a Scottish Native Record and won the Championship for the year.   The Yearbook for 1972 commented on the 10000 metres that year as follows “Although recording the season’s fastest time, Jim Alder was beaten into second place in the Scottish Championships by Lachie Stewart who had a very quiet season compared to his Commonwealth Games exploits and did not manage to break 29 min 00 sec.   Suffering from heat exhaustion – the temperature was in the eighties – Lachie finished a dismal eleventh in the AAA Championships at which David Bedford set a European record of 27 min 47.0 sec.”

The 1971-72 winter started as last year with a win in the McAndrew Relays and the Allan Scally Relay.   The Edinburgh to Glasgow was also won with Lachie having the fastest time on Stage 2 by over half a minute.   Early in the New Year, Lachie had two victories in Spain.   After a diabolical journey with diversions and an arrival at 4:30 am and very little sleep, he managed to win the Juan Muguerza at Elgoibar and then one week later he won at San Sebastian by inches from Jack Lane of England.   Came the National at Currie in Midlothian he was fifth and his club with five men in the first fifteen won the Championship.   It was off to the English Championships at Sutton Coldfield.   The race has gained a notoriety because of the freak winter storm that appeared at the start of the race and many were forced to drop out – Lachie was one of these who had to drop out requiring medical attention.   For the International which was to be in Cambridge, the Scots were favourites to at least win a medal.   It was important this year above all others because the format had been widened to include all countries to enter and the event was to become global.    With Ian and Lachie Stewart (Commonwealth Games gold medallists), Jim Alder and Ian McCafferty (CG silver medallists), Dick Wedlock (CG 10000 metres runner with sub-29 minutes), Alastair Blamire (GB Steeplechase internationalist) plus Andy McKean, Jim Wright and John Myatt, it was a remarkably strong team.    However ……………..  Ian Stewart was third but as Colin Shields said in his book, ‘the backup failed to materialise’ and Jim Alder was next Scot in twentieth, Lachie in twenty seventh, Alastair in thirty sixth, Andy McKean forty fourth and Dick Wedlock in seventy first completed the team.   Ian McCafferty was seventy ninth and not even a scoring runner.

In the summer of 1972 the big event in world athletics was the Munich Olympic Games where the seizure of the Israeli team by the members of the Black September movement cast a cloud over the whole Games and indeed changed them for ever.  Lachie was there and ran in the 10000 metres where he was second fastest Briton but his 28:31.4 was not good enough for him to progress to the final.

The following winter season started with another first place in the McAndrew Relay with Lachie on the first stage.   Came the Edinburgh to Glasgow and after finishing sixteenth on the first stage, Shettleston were in front by the end of the fifth stage after a brilliant run by Dick Wedlock, Lachie ran the long sixth stage with the third fastest time and the club ran out winners again.   Norman Morrison, however,  was the Shettleston star man in winter 1972-73 and won the Nigel Barge race from a very good field and then won at Arlon in the European clubs championship.   Lachie was third.  In the Nationals at Coatbridge, Lachie was suffering from the after effects of ‘flu and finished second to a strong-running Andy McKean.   In the International at Waregem, Belgium, he finished twenty seventh in what was to be his last cross-country international race.  Colin Shields remarks on this: “The 1973 Championships was Lachie Stewart’s tenth and final appearance in a Scottish vest after a long and distinguished career since his first appearance in 1964.   However his athletic successes had been just as great on the track where he was Scotland’s most successful post-war long distance runner winning thirteen titles between 1965 and 1973.”   There are three more paragraphs outlining Lachie’s career up to that point and I recommend the book to anyone interested in Lachie’s career or indeed any aspect of Scottish cross country running..   Summer 1973 was the year that Lachie won his last Scottish title when he took the 10000 metres in 28:59.2.   In summer 1974 he competed in his third Commonwealth Games, this time in New Zealand.   He had only run one 5000 metres in preparation on a pre-Games warm-up meeting at Timaru on 19th January where he was timed at 14:24.8.    For his feats as an endurance runner, especially for the run in 1970,  he was appointed flag-bearer for the opening ceremony: not a good plan for someone about to run the 10000 metres on the first day!   He finished tenth in the event in 29:22.6 ahead of several very good athletes such as Bernie Plain of Wales, Kevin Ryan of New Zealand and his compatriot Norman Morrison.

1973 – he ran in the National Championships in 1975 (28th), 1977 (20th) and 1980 (89th); he ran in the Edinburgh to Glasgow in 1976 when he was fastest man on the second stage in the winning team, 1977 to be sixth on the first stage and in 1980 on the third stage.

Despite the fact that this all happened nearer forty than thirty years ago, his performances have stood the test of time.   The table below has his best times for the distances, when it was achieved and what the top ranked Scot did in 2009.  The exception is the 3000 metres where the time to Lachie’s credit is for Two Miles.   The steeplechase time stands to USA based Andrew Lemoncello, the next best (first home Scot) is 9:01.

As his own career was starting to slow down, he began to take an interest in coaching his son, Glen, who showed an aptitude for and an interest in distance running.   Always interested in coaching and helping others, Lachie organised Glen’s training so well that he set ne British Under 15 records in the 1500 metres and the Mile in 1985 – and they still stand at the end  of summer 2010.    And unlike many a young prodigy, Glen went on to be a successful athlete at Under 17, Under 20 and Senior age levels and was the first British finisher in the 10000m (29:04.3) at the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002.   He also ran the 5000 where he was unplaced in 13:49.7.   His personal best times as a senior include 3:38.66 (1500), 3:59.56 (Mile), 7:55.15 (3000), 13:37,17 (5000) and 29:40.14 (10000).   These are all considerably good times and speak highly of Glen’s determination and ability but they are also a testament to Lachie’s coaching – good results early on but no danger of burn out.   When I resigned at British Milers’ Club Secretary for Scotland, Lachie took over and his special interest was organising races for the younger age groups, getting promising you athletes into the British Milers’ Club so that the good races were made available to them.   In an article in the ‘Herald’ in July 2010, Doug Gillon has this to say about Lachie’s coaching.   “Stewart coached his son Glen to British Under 15 Mile and 1500m records in 1985, yet when Lachie sat a coaching examination (which he passed) he was told he should have more speedwork in the programme which he had presented.   “It was the one I’d used with Glen,” he recalls.   Lachie was passed over when a Scottish coaching post was considered.   “They said I’d no coaching certificates.   They didn’t bother checking or they’d have found out that I have two.    I once phoned about an advert for a coaching job.   I was told that applications closed the next day.   I’d no access to a fax, so I just let it go.”   So did the sport’s governing bodies – who should have bitten his hand off .   For – whisper it very quietly – the Scottish Native 10000 metres record which he set on 18th July, 1970 – knocking more than 20 seconds from his best, survives to this day.   “I wanted to get every kid from school  and age-group finals followed up,” he says, “It’s not usually the winners of these age groups who become Senior Champions but the kids who have to work at it.   We are wasting an enormous amount of talent.    It’s embarrassing that Scottish records from 1970 still survive.   I blame the coaches, they focus too much on speed.   There’s not enough emphasis on speed endurance.”

Lachie’s comments on his training were also interesting.    I asked him whether he was ever at any stage coached and the answer was a clear negative.   In his final year as a Dental Student he was awarded the Student of the Year prize and with the Book Token that came with the award he bought two books: one was a book on dental technology and the other one was ‘Running’ by Franz Stampfl.   As he says above, his club had no coach and he joined in the reps done by the Senior athletes.   But using Stampfl as a guide he started to increase the number of reps and found that he got better results so he stuck with it.   As the track season approached he reduced the length of the recovery and increased the speed.   He trained at lunchtime at Westerlands, the grounds of Glasgow University which had a red blaes track but also had a large L shaped area of good grass with a slight downhill slope on the long edge which was about 300 yards in length.   He sorted out distances on the grass – the long side was 300 yards,  the long side + the straight along the bottom of the L  was 400 yards and so on.   He used the grass more than the track.   There were several athletes training there including some of Scotland’s best 800 metre runners (Graeme Grant [Dumbarton], Dick Hodelet [Greenock Glenpark], etc.   Lachie sometimes joined in their sessions but after a time was doing them better than they were.    He also feels that strength is important and thought that many of Scotland’s middle distance runners lacked endurance: some he would back in, say, an 800m with a slow fast lap followed by a burn-up but not in a faster race.   Long runs are important but he would include three or four fast stretches coming back to the same pace again.    When I put it to him that many endurance runners did hill sessions he said that he didn’t do them as such but did do runs with a lot of hills in them.   He also said that  he never increased the pace up hills in races – “Why expend the extra effort?” – but preferred picking it up once the hill was over.   (On a personal note I remember him saying when we were speaking at a particularly hilly 3 miles road relay course the ‘there were a lot of graveyards out there’.    He was dead right – the number of runners who killed their own chances on any one of four climbs was high!)

Going back to Doug Gillon’s comments: an excellent example of another good source of education and inspiration not used by the governing body – and his words about speed endurance are spot on too!   So instead of being encouraged to spend time coaching he works away on the fantastically detailed scale models of ships with the same attention to detail that made him such a formidable athlete.

Friend, rival and team-mate Lawrie Spence freely admits to having learned from Lachie and has written the insightful and informative  paragraph below.

“Like many Scots I was inspired by Lachie’s Commonwealth gold in 1970 at Meadowbank.   I still remember going for a long run (which seemed to pass by so quickly as I was filled with enthusiasm and dreams that one day it could be me!) with my Brothers after we had sat and watched the race – and the classic of us all shouting at the TV as well!   I was lucky in that a few years later,  Lachie had agreed to help me with my breakthrough into international racing.   I was doing well but really needed to make the next step up to consolidate at Scottish level and move on to the British level.   From getting me a run at Hampden Park at the  pre-Scottish Football Cup Final entertainment organised by Dunky Wright (and running in front of massive crowds), races down south and, most of all, allowing me to join him in training sessions and runs, so helping me to improve and be better prepared for these key races.  

The one thing I really learned and admired him for was his racing brain.   He won many a race which on paper he should not have had a look in and to many the Commonwealth Games is the moot point.    In today’s paced races, his skill, experience and what I would describe as the old head of Lachie is not being used any more.   I appreciate that times do matter but if you race well and smart, the times will come!   For example he taught me a valuable lesson as I was beginning to get the better of him in races.   It was a race at Scotstoun and after changing I went with him for a warm up.   The old bandit put the boot in during the warm up, and not wanting to admit it was maybe too hard for me, and Lachie was doing it and it must be OK, I kept going.   When it came to the race I had lost my edge and in the finish he sorted me out and won the race which I should have won.   Afterwards I had a go at him and he just put on that look and smile of his saying I hope you learn from this – I did.   He was great spending time talking to you especially on long runs when his stories and giving advice made the run go by so quickly.   He did not have to spend much time with me but he did,  and not only was a great athlete for Scotland but gave back to the sport’s future even when he was still competing.  

He was a coach even then and proved how good he was in the future when he helped his son Glen to the success he had.   As mentioned elsewhere, it is a pity that he was not sought after by the Association to get him into such a role.   Maybe we would be in a far better position today if we had.    He was a great mentor and role model.”

Lachie was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2007.    He was the best Scottish endurance runner of his generation – and for several more thereafter.

Alaister Russell at Livingston, 1985

Alaister Russell (17/06/68) is a talented athlete who, although displaying his remarkable talent in every age group from Junior Boy right through to second-year Junior,  and despite winning national championships as a senior man and having a career that most distance runners would seriously envy, there was always the feeling that it could have been even better.    He appeared on the scene in 1981 as a Junior Boy and after winning every single cross-country age group championship, had to miss the nationals of 1988 (second year Junior) .through injury.  I asked him about injuries and he reckoned that it was not a single recurring major problem but rather a series of injuries.   Training at the level he was at was treading a fine line between doing what was necessary and what was too much.   There were also particular problems at certain points in his career – eg at one time when he couldn’t get to a track he did some interval training on the road which led to shin splints.   All runners can relate to that kind of scenario.    He also won every single cross-country age group title in the Western Districts and on the track he was the first athlete since Lachie Stewart to win the 5000m and 10000 metres Scottish Championships in one year.     As a member of Law and District through the 80’s and 90’s, he was in a club that seemed to pass on many relays – on the road they seldom appeared in the McAndrew, Allan Scally or National Six Stage events, and on the country they would often do well in the District event and then not have a team out in the Nationals.   They also tended to fight shy of some of the classic road races such as the GU Road Race in September, the Nigel Barge and Jack Crawford races in January.   At this time they seemed to be a cross-country club in winter rather than a road andcross country club – almost the direct opposite of the Victoria Park habits!   He was of course incredibly good on the country and when, later in his career he came to run on the roads he proved to be talented there as well.

Before looking at his career it might be better to look at his replies to the questionnaire.

Name: Alaister Russell

Club/s:   Law and District AAC, Border Harriers and AC

Date of Birth:   17/06/68

Occupation:   Plant Operator

Personal Bests:       800m:   1:57;     1500:   3:56;     3000m:   8:16;     5000m   14:17;     10000m   29:52;     Half Marathon   65:53

How did you get involved in the sport:   By winning the 400m at the school sports and by my big brother David.

What exactly did you get out of the sport?   Enjoyment.

Can you describe your general attitude to the sport?    Still enjoy watching athletics on TV but no involvement with athletics at the club.

What do you consider to be your best ever performance/performances?   Winning the Youths’ Race at the Presto Cross-Country at Gateshead – Rob Denmark was second – and my first Scottish title as a Junior boy.

And your worst:   Scottish Cross-Country Championship at Hawick, 73rd.

What ambitions do you have that remain unfulfilled?   Winning the Senior cross-country championship.

What did you do apart from running to relax?    Work on my Dad’s farm.

What did running bring you that you would have wanted not to miss?   Meeting my wife.

Can you give some details of your training?   Track sessions such as – 12 -20  x  400m;     5  x  1000m;     20  x  200m.               Hill work.    Long runs  on grass

You also ran for Border Harriers, what was the connection?   Some Law athletes used to run for Border Harriers in the Eighties and when I reached Senior level I ran in the British League, the North of England 12 Stage Relay, the North of England Cross-Country Championship and in the National Road Relays at Sutton Park.

Kodak Junior 3000m, Crown Point, 1986.   Alaister(40), Sam Wallace (28), Struan Marshall (12), Andy Gallagher (4), Alan Ramage (48)

He was first eligible for a national cross-country championship in 1981 as a Junior Boy but finished tenth and followed it up with a victory the following year  in the same age group.   It was as a Senior Boy in 1983 that he finished tenth again in a race won by Tom Hanlon of Edinburgh Southern Harriers who went on to great things as a steeplechaser.  Second that year was John Graham, who went on to a wonderful senior career in most endurance events but particularly as a marathon runner.   Just as in the junior boy ranks, Alaister made up for the slip with a victory the following year (1984), ahead of Sam Wallace of Cambuslang.

As a youth he won the title in both 1985 and 1986 (as well as winning the District Championships and leading the  Law team to victory) to make it three national championships on the trot.  In ’85 Tom Hanlon was second and in ’86 Sam Wallace was again second.    These were both excellent athletes but on the country Alaister was fast becoming one of Scotland’s top men.   In 1987 as a first year Junior he won the national title again, this time from Tom Hanlon and David Donnet (Springburn) to make it four nationals in a row.   Among his other championship victories were the West District championships as a Junior Boy in 1982, as a Senior Boy in 1983 and 1984, as a Youth in 1985 and 1986 and as a Junior in 1988.    If you add in good runs in other events round the country and the Lanarkshire County Championships, then you clearly have a young man of talent.    Of the 1988 race, Colin Shields in his centenary history of the SCCU, ‘Whatever the Weather’ says: Alaister Russell won the Junior 6 Mile race for his fifth Junior District title having previously won the Senior Boys title in 1983-’84, and the Youths’ title in 85 and ’86.”                                                                                                                                                             

We could maybe start the story with his two victories in the Youths (Under 17) Cross-Country Championships.   He started 1985 winning the West District Championships on 25th January at Bellshill and leading his club to team victory, just as he had done as a Senior Boy with Alan Ramage always the second club runner to finish.   Traditionally the first runner in the Youth race was selected for the Junior team and the first Junior was normally picked for the Seniors.  In February he duly won the National and the season’s highlight for Alaister saw him win the first of his three Scottish International appearances after he won the Youths cross-country title in February 1985: no mean feat for a first year Youth.   He finished 60th and was a scoring runner for his country in his first appearance on the big stage.

In season 1985-’86 he again made the team.   He again started the year by winning the District title in January and, with Alan Ramage third and J Aitchison sixteenth, they won the team title.   In February, after winning his second consecutive National Youths title he was picked for the Scottish team, but this time in the international, he went one better and was the first Scottish runner to cross the line in the Junior International when he finished fifty ninth.   From leading the Law team, he was now leading the national squad.

With his third International ahead of him in ’87,  Alaister started the year by unfortunately missing the West District Championship where he had been such a force since he was a boy.  At the very end of January, Alaister was selected for the Inter-Counties Cross-Country Championships in Derby.   He was first Scot home in the Junior race which he finished in eleventh place, nine ahead of Rob Carey from Annan.    By the time the National came along though, he was back in fine form and again ran out victorious.  Doug Gillon’s report on the race in ‘Scotland’s Runner’ of April 1987 read:   Alaister Russell’s victory over Tom Hanlon in the Junior Race may not have been as convincing a margin as Muir’s 22-second senior one, but it was almost as noteworthy.   The young Law farmer has now compiled a record of national titles that not even Muir can boast.   Russell was Junior Boy champion in 1981, Senior Boy winner in ’84 and Youth champion for the past two seasons.   If you had to identify Muir’s potential successor, look no further.   And yet those around Quothquan (Quothquan Farm was where Alaister worked) who know something of the sport swear that his brother David, national Senior Boy champion in ’81, but subsequently injured was an even better prospect.   Happily we can report that after surgery and a three-year lay off , David is now back in training.   Russell heads a Junior team for Poland which Youth winner Terry Reid (Dundee Hawkhill) is unfortunate not to be in.”   Whether the remarks about being successor to Nat Muir were tempting Providence, or whether his brother’s injuries were a portent remains to be seen but 1987 was the last time a separate Scottish team was entered in the international championship and as winner of the National Junior Championship Alaister was selected and in the race he replicated the previous year’s feat when he led the Scots team home with his eighty fourth place.

There are no records of Alaister running in summer 1987 – he doesn’t appear in the ranking lists and there is nothing about him in the championship reports, nor is he anywhere in the road rankings for the year.  However, in the short relays when October came around he showed the class that made him a triple world championship runner.  There was no significant Law & District team in the McAndrew Relay but the club was third in the West District Cross-Country Relay.   They had a good four – Douglas Frame was an established figure on the Scottish cross-country and international squad team, Hugh Forgie was a track international over 1500 metres and Billy Nelson was a very gifted runner whom everybody felt could have been superb had he trained as many others did at the time.   The team was not only third behind Cambuslang and Springburn but Alaister was fastest in the team with 13:11 and fastest man in the race – ahead of Alex Gilmour of Cambuslang, Adrian Callan of Springburn, Alastair Douglas of Vicky Park and Tommy Murray of Glenpark.   The Lanarkshire County Relays were a fiasco with the senior race being abandoned, in the words of ‘Scotland’s Runner’, ‘race declared void due to runners going off badly stewarded trail,’   It was also at the end of 1987 that Alaister had his first run in the International at San Sebastian where he was ninth in the Junior Race.   He also ran there in 1989 as a second year senior in a team with Bobby Quinn and Tommy Murray, finishing seventy second.     In the National Cross-Country relays at Galashiels, Law finished seventh with Alaister being sixth fastest only eighteen seconds behind an in-form Adrian Callan.    At the start of 1988, Alistair missed out the Beith, Nigel Barge and Jack Crawford races at the start of January, but won the West District Junior Cross-Country race on 16th January by over a minute from East Kilbride’s Ian Tierney.   Unfortunately he missed the National, probably through injury and we hear no more about him is in April when he was third in the Open Graded Meeting organised by Victoria Park: he was third in the 3000m in 8:44.7.    Missing most road races he did run in the Annan 4.5 mile event on 29th June which he won with 21:56 from Teviotdale’s Davie Cavers.     But once again, he was not ranked in the annual performance lists – although it didn’t mean he was not in good form!

At the very start of season 1988/89, the club was not placed in the District Relays but Alaister was fifth fastest on the day in 12:06 which was 21 seconds behind fastest man Tommy Murray.   Came the National Relays on 22nd October at Bellahouston and again the club was unplaced but Alaister had a good day.   “At the end of the first lap, Law and District were ahead thanks to Alaister Russell’s 13:03 effort.”   The run was good enough to have him sixth quickest on the day.   Unfortunately the club was not in the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay at this time but maybe it was just as well since the Law top men seemed to avoid the McAndrew and Allan Scally  Relays as a matter of policy.   Certainly we seldom if ever saw any of the top men turn out on the roads over the winter.   He missed several of the open cross country races such as the Bellahouston Park event in December but one he didn’t miss was the SCCU v NI v ScotUnis v Civil Service on the fourth: He finished second to John Robson in that one to help the SCCU team to a comfortable first place. On 17th December it was down to Cardiff for the Miller Lite International where Alaister finished forty sixth to be the fourth Scot to finish.   On 8th January, Alaister represented Scotland once again, this time in the Celtic Countries Cross-Country International at the Beach Park in Irvine: he won in 31:42 from A Spellman (Republic of Ireland in 31:56.       He maintained top form for the West Districts on 21st January when he finished second to Tommy Murray (40:21) in 41:14, two seconds in front of Alan Puckrin who had been three places ahead of him in Wales.   Came the National and Alaister was away down in seventy third position.   This was so atypical of his running and ability that it must be supposed that his not-so-good season was down to an injury.

Season 1989-90   started with no team from Law & District in the District or National Relays, and given that they again missed the McAndrew Relay at Scotstoun, the Allan Scally Relay at Barrachnie and the GU Road Race, it was a quiet start to the season.    Alaister broke his early season competitive duck with a run in the Presto Open Cross-Country Races at Gateshead on 25th November where he was  twenty third in the 6900 metres race and sixth Scot to finish.   He missed the West District Championships at Troon on 20th January 1990 and was not a member of the Scottish team for the AAU Inter-County Championships at Corby a week later.   Not only did Alaister miss the West District Championships that year but there was again no team from Law in the race.  Again in 1990, Alaister did not contest the National Championship.

1990-’91 cross country started for Alaister with a fine run in the District Cross-Country Championships at Twechar in Dunbartonshire.   With all eyes on Steve Ovett and Steve Binns both running for Annan, the winning team, Tommy Murray and Bobby Quinn tie-ing for third place between them and Nat Muir being only fifth fastest, Alaister was seventh quickest over the course for the Law team to be eighth.   The club again did not enter the National Relays and his next run was in the Bellahouston Harriers Open Cross-Country on 24th November which he won in 30:58 from international track and cross-country runner Ian Campbell of Dundee Hawkhill.   One week later he ran in and won the Lanarkshire Cross-Country Championships from Charlie Thomson of Cambuslang by twelve seconds.   two weeks later, on 15th December he was fourth in the International 10K Cross-Country Championships over the difficult and hilly course at Cumbernauld in 34 minutes behind Quinn (33:20), Mitchell (33:21) and Cavers (33:44) and ahead of Northern Ireland’s Dermot Donnelly (34:05).   At the very end of 1990, he ran in the County Durham International Meeting where he was fifty third, five seconds ahead of Adrian Callan but tenth Scot. Into 1991 and on 19th January he won the West District Cross Country Championship without being first to finish!   Tommy Murray had that honour but was disqualified so that Alaister who was thirteen seconds behind, was awarded the title.   Further drama ensued at the race, held in Clydebank, when third placed Hammy Cox refused to accept his medal for second place because he had not been selected for the Inter-Counties: a newspaper report had said he would not run for Scotland again, so he had not been picked.   When they heard that he was in fact available, he was picked for the team – and then he turned it down.   Doug Gillon reported on the race in ‘“Scotland’s Runner” as follows.   “The cross-country course for the West District Championships was one of the toughest of the year, but Tommy Murray was its master.   Murray, however, refused to run in his Greenock Glenpark colours – he had already sent a letter of resignation – and paid a heavy price.   Although the former National Champion completed the 7.5 mile course first, in 39:45, for a unique third successive victory, race referee Bob Peel disqualified him promoting Alaister Russell to winner, and Hammy Cox to runner-up.   ‘I did not take this decision lightly,’ said Peel, who was faced with a clause in the rules which states that such transgressors as Murray are “liable to disqualification”.   He was apparently aware that Murray had been warned prior to the race even by his own clubmates.   The decision means that Murray was denied the honour of being the only man to complete the hat-trick since the event was inaugurated in 1985.   But for Russell, of Ian Skelly Law and District, there was another unique place in history.   The Quothquan farmer became the first athlete ever to win the West title in all five age groups – junior and senior boy, youth, junior and senior.

‘I take no honour from this title.   Tommy won fair and square,’ said Russell afterwards.   He was followed home by Cox, Murray’s team mate, in 40:02 with Cambuslang and Scotland steeplechaser Graeme Croll third. ” 

On 26th January, Alaister travelled to Leicester for the CAU Inter-County Championships where he finished forty fourth and sixth Scot.   It must have disappointing for him then to miss the National Championships – won incidentally  by his old rival Tom Hanlon – and he was not the only one who was marked absent.   ‘Scotland’s Runner’ only said that “absent for one reason or another were Nat Muir, the most prolific winner ever, five time world championship team member Chris Robison, former winner  Neil Tennant, and current internationalists Alaister Russell and Terry Mitchell..”  On 9th March, he made a rare foray onto the roads when he turned out in the Clydesdale Harriers Dunky Wright 5.5 miles race.   The race was of very high quality (1st Bobby Quinn, 2nd Allister Hutton, 3rd Tom Hearle, 4th Nat Muir, 5th Alan Puckrin) and Alaister finished nineteenth.

In 1991-92  there was a Law and District team in the District Relays which finished seventh and if Alaister ran, then he did not feature in the fastest twenty times, and again there was no team from the club in the National Cross Country Relays.   He was however victorious at the Lasswade Cross Country Meeting at Bonnyrigg on 3rd November 1991 when he won by one second from Davie Cavers in 29:15.   At the end of the month he had another excellent run to be just two seconds behind George Braidwood of Springburn in the Lanarkshire Championships leading his club to fourth place.  Alaister had his reward when on 14th December he he again represented the SCCU in the International and Inter-District Race at Cumbernauld.   This time he was fifth on 33:29 against Bobby Quinn’s winning run of 31:50.   His next race was also a representative on – the Reebok International at Mallusk, Belfast on 4th January where he was thirty sixth and third Scot to finish in a truly international event where the first three runners were Kenyans.   Then at Bellahouston on 18th January, the finishing order in the District Championships was the same as at Clydebank a year earlier but this time all was in order and the result stood with Alistair being second in the championship, just eight seconds adrift.   Then it was back on the road for the Grangemouth Round the Houses 10K on 9th February where he finished seventh, three seconds behind George Braidwood.   With his form now improving with every year – he now had two very good cross-country seasons linked by a successful summer season, he started to climb back up the field in the National.   At Irvine on 22nd February he was tenth in classy company in a race won by Tommy Murray from Chris Robison, Bobby Quinn, Neil Tennant and Adrian Callan.

Came winter 1992-’93.   There was no Law representation in the West District relays in October 1992, nor were they present at the National Relays.   On December 5th 1992 Alaister ran again in the East Kilbride Festival of Road Running and this time won from Brian Kirkwood in 30:55.   Alistair did not run in the District Championships in January 1993 and again there was no team from Law & District competing.  He did however win the Cumnock Open Cross-Country Championship on 31st January  from Graeme Wight of Ayr Seaforth and Mike Gallagher of Maryhill Harriers.     There was however no sign of Alaister in the National that year again.  He was back to somewhere near his best the following cross-country season,   the high spot of which came on December 19, 1993 when he was selected for the 5 Nations International at Turin in Italy, where he was 19th.   He was also selected to run in the World CC Trials at Alnwick on 19th Febrruary, 1994 and this time he was 50th and 5th Scot.   Nearer home, on 30th January, he ran in the West District where he finished third   This was followed by a fine run in the National where he was twelfth, finishing ahead of runners of the calibre of Terry Mitchell and marathon man Davie Cavers.   He was twelfth in the National the following year as well beating David Ross of Racing Club on the line, with both runners recording the same time.

1996 started with  the Coca-Cola International at Mallusk in Ireland on 6th January.   Alaister was seventeenth and second Scot behind Tom Hanlon, ahead of Glen Stewart, Adrian Callan.   On 10th Feb in the National at Irvine, he made up for missing the previous year’s event by finishing third behind Bobby Quinn (36:46), Tommy Murray (36:56) while he was on 37:02.   This was followed on 3rd March by the  BAF  cross-country championships at Ashington, County Durham where he was twenty first and third Scot.

The November 1996 Edinburgh to Glasgow was the first he had ever run and  he was sent out on the sixth stage.   By that time the Law fate had been sealed – they had been running twenty first from the end of the first stage : Alaister could do nothing about it and held the place despite pulling up a lot of distance on the man in front.  The following week he ran in the West District Championships at Girvan and he was beaten again in these championships by Tommy Murray who ran 32: ro Alaister’s 32:46 with Charlie Thomson a further ten seconds back.   Alaister did not run in the National that year at Perth.   Following the poor performance the previous year, in November 1997 there was no team from Law in the E-G, however on 29th November in the West Districts he was second, 12 seconds down on T Murray – again!   On the 13th December in the  Inter Districts at Cumbernauld he ran well to be fourth.   In the National  he was eighth, sandwiched between Neil Wilkinson of Cambuslang and Ken Chapman of Racing Club.

Alaister had another go at the Edinburgh to Glasgow in November 1998 with Law once again in the race.   They finished fifteenth with Alaister on the second stage – he seemed to relish the challenge of facing the best men in the race when they were close enough   .He would go on to run the same stage four times before the event was discontinued.  this time he took the club up from ninth to fifth place on the hardest stage in the race, with fifth fastest stage time.  Another good National at the end of the season saw him ninth.   At the finish there were three runners within one second of each other  three within a second of each other,    Colin Donnelly was seventh in 39:31, Steven Conaghan eighth in 39:32 and Alaister ninth in 39:32.   His next National would be in 2002 with a thirty second place finish. In November he ran the second stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow and this time he brought the team from twentieth to thirteenth with the second fastest time of the day to see them finish ninth and win the most meritorious medals.

In the E-G in 2000 he was again on the second stage, again picking up places before seeing club finish twelfth this time round.   His own run was another good one where he pulled up from nineteenth at the start of the leg to thirteenth for the handover.  In 2001,  he was to run his last Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay and it was another run over the by now familiar second leg.  Second fastest again he pulled the team up from fourth to third and the club finished eleventh and in the National, as already mentioned, he was thirty second.

Alaister as a Senior Boy  (33) starting in the Youths race at Livingston in 1983

Sam Wallace is 785.

TRACK:

In 1991, he started with third in the West District 5000m in 14:36.62 behind Kilbarchan’s Bobby Quinn and Tommy Hearle.   Missing the SAAA Championship in July, he raced on 27th July in AAA Champs,  where he ran 14:17.22 for the  5000m which ranked him eighth – although the seven in front included Ian Hamer (Welsh) and John Sherban.

If we take the start of March 1992 as marking the start of the summer, then Alaister started the summer with second to Mike Carroll in the Annan Cross-Country River Races in 31:03 to Mike’s 30:14 course record on 1st March.  Then on 5th March, Alaister ran in the Tom Scott 10 mile race over the original Law to Motherwell course and finished fourth in 50:31 which was a commendable time for his first run over the distance.   On 24th May he turned out in the Reebok Festival of Running in Kirkintilloch where he was second to Tommy Murray and one place ahead of Nat Muir in 29:53 for the 10K course.   On 13th May he ran as a guest in the 3000m in the representative match at Grangemouth in 8:32.3.   He ran in the 10000m at the SAAA Championships that year and and finished sixth in 30:20.7. At Crown Point on the 19th August, Alastair ran in the 3000m and finished fifth in 8:26.5.    On 30th August he ran in the 10 Mile Road Race from Loch Park Stadium at Carluke – the Ian Skelly race – and won again in 51:41 from Ian Brown of Racing Club (51:52) and Steven Wylie of Cambuslang (53:47).       Ranked –  3000m:   20th – 8:26.5;   5000m – 14th  –  14:33.39;   10000m – 4th – 30:20.07

1993 summer season was started with a run in the Tom Scott Road Race which was organised this year for the first time by his own club,.   Alastair was seventh in 49:57 in race won by Steven Wyklie of Cambuslang in a new course record of 47:29.   A notable feature of this race was the forty first place of Andy Brown – one of the founding fathers of the race (and of Law and District AAC) who had won the first ever Tom Scott 10.   Andy was not only winner of the M60 class, but also set a new world’s age best for the distance of 55:08.   He also led the club vet’s team to silver medals in the team race behind Cambuslang.   Alaister continued to race right to the end of the su,mmer with a victory in the Barrmill10K Road Race at Galston in Ayrshire on 1st September in the time of 30:40 to beat Gordon Tenney of Kilbarchan (31:13).   Four days later he was second to Mike Carroll of Annan in the Carluke 10 miles road race in 51:27 ahead of David Ross of Racing Club who recorded 53:10.   Although unplaced in the shorter distances, Alaister picked up third place in the SAAA 10000m on the track behind Bobby Quinn and Tommy Murray. He actually had a fairly good summer on the track with rankings in four different events:

                                            1500m – 37th – 3:56.3;        3000m – 13th with  8:19.79;        5000m – 16th with  14:39.35;      10000m – 5th with 30:38.95

In 1994 he was only ranked in two lists – the 5000m and the 10000m and in both he was a bit slower than the year before.   The actual performances were  5000m – 21st – 14:51.8;   10,000m – 8th – 30:53.91.   The following summer was altogether different.   In 1995 the events, times and positions were:   3000m – 23rd – 8:38.4;    5000m – 7th – 14:26.7;      10000m – 4th – 29:52.16. The 10000m time was done in the SAF championships where he was second behind Robison and ahead of Quinn.   He was also ranked on the road for almost the first time with good performances at 10K and Half Marathon.   10K – 10th – 29:54; half marathon – 11th – 67:30.   By 1996 the performances turned in were again ranked in three track events as well as in the 10K on the road.   1996 – 3000m – 7th – 8:21.9;   5000m – 8th – 14:17.1 – + 14:25.11 + 3rd in West Dist;   10000m – 7th – 30:36.02.   ROAD:   10K – 29th – 30:37;

Rankings in Summer 1997 were again in the 3000m, 5000m and 10000m.    3000m – 10th – 8:30.6;   5000m – 11th – 14:27.6.   10000m – 3rd – 30:32.6.   The 5000m and  10000m won him the National Championships.  The Annual Yearbook said of the feat:   “Once again the national title  at Meadowbank provided one of the closest races of the summer when Alaister Russell outsprinted Daniel Leggate in a slow run race with just one tenth of a second between them at the finishing line.”;   .   “With a winning sprint over the last 200 yards, Alaister Russell won the national title on one of the hottest days of the summer.   H e thus became the first runner to win both 5000m and 10000m titles in the same year since Lachie Stewart won the linear equivalent 3 and 6 mile double in 1968 in a 24 hour timespan, in 14:16/29:12 (converted times) against Russell’s 14:48/30:33.”      ROAD RANKINGS – 10K – 21st – 30:40; half marathon – 9th – 66:20.

In 1998 he raced well over the summer on both road and track and again he medalled in the SAF 10000m track championships with his fastest time of the year.   The figures were:    5000m – 11th – 14:33.56;   10000m – 3rd – 30:17.03;   ROAD RANKINGS:    5 miles – 11th – 24:37;   half marathon – 4th – 67:10.   There was only one appearance in the track lists in 1999, in the 5000m where 14:40.1 was good enough to place him thirteenth in Scotland.   There were however three appearances on the road lists.    ROAD:   10K – 11th – 30:15;   10 Miles – 9th – 51.38;   half-marathon – 2nd – 65:53.   Into the new millennium and there was the best series of times for several years – 2000m – 2nd in 5:25.8;  3000m – 7th in 8:25.64;   5000m – 5th in 14:47.06;   10000m in 3rd – 30:33.07.   The 10000m time was good enough for second in the SAF Champs behind Tommy Murray.

When asked about his track running and his involvement with Border Harriers, Alaister said that he ‘didn’t have the turn of speed’ needed for track success and so he often lost out at the end of races.   He joined Border Harriers with the encouragement of team mate Hugh Forgie who was already a member, because he felt that he would get better races in the British Athletics League.    Although he never ever ran in al four BAL meetings in any year, he did run in at least two a season.   Some of these were memorable races such as when he was second to Spencer Barden (14:10) at Portsmouth in 14:17: they had been together all the way until the final two laps when Barden broke away.   On the road he ran in the Northern 6-Stage and 12-Stage as well as in the National 6-Stage and 12-Stage.  On one occasion he ran into third place in the 6-satge at Liverpool when the Borders team finished third team.   He also turned out over the country for them finishing eighth in the Northern Championships at Manchester in 1998.   He was coached initially by Bill Dickson who was a friend of Alex Naylor the Scottish group coach for endurance events for many years after taking up the sport and Bill came to the opinion that he had taken Alaister as far as he could and that for him to develop further he should move on.   Alaister then trained with Ian McCafferty for a while and then moved to train with Tommy Boyle where he did the sessions with Yvonne Murray while Robert Ftizsimmons (Bellahouston) was training with Tom McKean.   The relationship was not long-lived and Alaister went back to his own training.    For track work he did some sessions with Ian White (L&L Track Club) who was a 1:52 800m runner and these helped with the speed that Alaister needed.

For several years he helped out by coaching in the club: their main training venue is at Wishaw and there were many youngsters at Carluke who were interested in the sport.   Alaister set up a group at the Carluke track with the help of some parents and they fed into the main club.   Unfortunately other commitments that he is now unable to carry on with his coaching and he currently has no active involvement in the sport.

Chris Robison leads from Craig Ross (Dundee Hawkhill Harriers) in the 1985 Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay

I first met Chris Robison at a BMC Conference and AGM which I was organising at Jordanhill College in 1985.   It was a good conference with exactly 100 people attending over the two days to hear Peter Coe, Jimmy Hedley, Frank Horwill, Malcolm Brown and Alex Naylor talking about various aspects of middle distance training.   Most Scottish clubs were there – and four-minute miler (well, 4:00.3, if you want to be picky) and English international cross-country runner Chris was there having just arrived in Scotland to take up his new posting.    Word took about five minutes to circulate and for a big chunk of the week-end Chris was pestered by folk giving good reasons why he should join their club.   He fended them off effortlessly.  Some were sceptical of his ‘Scottishness’ but the scepticism disappeared when this first-class athlete who could have continued racing for England chose to represent Scotland on track and country and turn out for his club in all the major, and many not-so-major, competitions.   Chris who was only 24 at the time of the conference with a nice symmetrical birth date of 16/3/61 would end the millennium with personal bests as indicated in the table below.

To that you can add a Five Miles time of 23:26 at Portsmouth  in the North End 5 in 1982 as well as 24:01 at Bridge of Earn in 2000 at the age of 39.    The titles won since settling in Scotland include three national cross country championships (plus four seconds, a third and a fourth in possibly the closest ever first four finish in the history of the event, two 5000m championships on the outdoor track and a 3000m indoors plus a road racing 10K title in 1993!    He also ran in ten Edinburgh to Glasgow races turning in five fastest times and two second fastest times on his stage.   A very quiet and unassuming man, Chris deserved every one of them and all the success he has achieved in athletics.     He is also well-known for his chosen career in the Navy and training round the deck of HMS Glasgow at one point (9 laps to the mile – half the distance of a lap of the Kelvin Hall track!) which makes his profile the more fascinating.

Born and raised in Derbyshire, he took up the sport there and ran for the Derby and County AC.    Chris says: “My first recollection of any form of athletics was school PE and having to run a 1500m on a grass track along with the rest of the class.   I finished in second place in about 5:15 and thoroughly enjoyed it.   My taste for competition had been ignited at the age of 12.

Sport for me in those early years at school was a mix of rugby and cross country in the winter and limited athletics in the summer.   By the age of 15 it was clear that rugby was not going to be my most successful sport and with some minor successes in my own school at cross-country and sports day I decided to spend more time on running.   My PE teacher would assist my pace judgement by asking me to do laps of the track at a certain pace and he would blow the whistle at the time on which I was supposed to be passing every 100m.   Crude but effective and I still treasure these early memories of instilling pace discipline.  

It was not until 1976 at the age of 15 that I ventured anywhere near an athletics club.  Up until then I would do some steady running once or twice a week from home and whatever the PE teacher recommended at school when he had time to stand by the track while I tried to run laps at various speeds.  

The Montreal Olympics really lit a flame (excuse the pun) for me and I found myself following anything remotely linked to athletics.   I had started attending training on a semi-regular basis at Derby and County AC.   It was about two and a half miles to the track and I would jog down and back after school twice a week for the club session.   There was a strong group of teenage boys and I was just an average club athlete ‘hanging in’ on the regular sessions of 20 x 200 with the standard cross-track jog recovery, or maybe the 400m reps.   I recall these sessions being hard work both physically and mentally.   Having done very little structured training up until this point, this was far more intense  and coupled with the 5 mile round trip jog to and from the track I was running very tired.   Although I was middle of the pack both at training and in the club races I was incredibly motivated to stick at it and see if I could improve.   Additionally we had a superb camaraderie within the training group with at least 10 boys all about the same age all training together.   We would go to races together in a big minibus owned and driven by the coach and the social side of the club life was excellent.

Improvement for me was more gradual.   Early results show finishing 108th in my first English Schools Cross-Country and often not making the scoring team for Derby AC ‘Youths Teams’ when we ran in the Midlands Cross-Country Leagues.   I was exceptionally slight up until the age of 18 but I slowly matured and built up my endurance over time from having to run to and from training sessions.   I also lacked any kind of speed and naturally raced over the longer track distances – 3000m and 5000m.   My first indication of any sign of genuine ability occurred completely out of the blue at the English Schools cross-country championships in 1977.   Having finished sixth in the Derbyshire county trials, I went to the English Schools at Redditch with no real aspirations other than beating the 108th of two years previous.   With a mile to go I found myself in about 18th place with my coach screaming that if I was able to pick it up then there was an outside chance of an England vest!    Unbeknown to me, there was a home countries international event and the top eight were selected with two travelling reserves.   I finished eleventh.   It was a massive breakthrough.   To this day I do not know how I made that level of improvement and was able to run so well compared to my club peers.   I was a changed athlete and suddenly believed that I could be successful.

The 1977 track season saw significant improvements over 3000m and I ran 8:57 to qualify for the English Schools Track Championships.   That was another steep learning curve with warm-up areas, the need to sit in a holding area and many hundreds of spectators.   The highs of the cross-country season were a distant memory as I managed to prevent being lapped (in a 3000m!)   One of the officials questioned my qualification time and suggested that I should not have been running.   It was not what I needed to hear at that point as I was trying very hard to keep back the tears.   That race was a tipping point and I was determined that I would never repeat that experience.   It also stood me in good stead for later much bigger competitions and the pressure that comes with them.  

As a footnote, that same official who had criticised me was officiating in an event that I ran at four years later – the Dewhirst Games.   After running a pb of 8:05 and finishing third in a decent class field, he came up to me and congratulated me adding that he had watched my improving career with interest since his comments in 1977. 

My track times improved moderately across the board over the next few years and in the summer of 1979 I prepared to leave home and start a career in the Royal Navy with pb’s of just under two minutes for the 800m, 3:59 for the 1500m and 14:55 for the 5000m.   I still struggled to run sub 60 seconds for 400m at this point.

I joined the Navy in September 1979 and really did not know what to expect as far as the running career was concerned.   Fortunately I was to spend most of the first two years on land at the Naval College at Dartmouth in Devon.   For anyone that knows that part of the world, you cannot fail to become good at running up and down hills!   I spent three months at sea in early 1980 on the training ship during which time I had the pleasure of running the Gibraltar Rock Race (more of that later!) and learning to keep fit on a warship at sea (more of that later as well!!!)   What was significant about this time in my life was my maturing physique – maybe the fact that I was a late developer and also because I was regularly required to do physical gym work, parade ground, sailing dinghies and a range of other outward-bound type activities that until now had been alien to me.   I grew and I beefed up!

The outcome of this was returning from my spell at sea in Spring 1980 about a stone heavier than when I left home.   I made the decision to use this additional strength to try and develop some speed and do something about what was clearly a weakness in my running ability to date.   I ran hill reps, did speed work, drills on the 200 steps that went from the college down to the quayside and some basic gym work.   The outcome was significant and over the next 14 months I improved my 1500m time from 3:59 to 3:44.6.   More significantly I ran a 51.7 400m and I was beginning to win track races with a sprint finish.

As I look back on my career, this is probably one of the most significant decisions I had made, and what’s more it had not adversely affected my endurance capability – in fact quite the opposite.   During the same period I finished second in the 1981 Junior Inter-Counties just behind Dave Lewis, got third place in the Junior National behind John Doherty and gained my first senior Combined Services vest when finishing third in the annual match against English Cross-Country Union, British Police, British Polytechnics and British Universities.    Things were looking good.   I loved my running.   The Navy Training regime at the College was suiting me and I was gaining confidence across all the athletic disciplines.   Winning the 1981 Inter Services 1500m championships outsprinting both Steve Jones and Roger Hackney (both RAF) in Portsmouth in 1981 in front of the Admiral was a highlight.   I knew my career was going to put some serious restraints on how far I could go with the running but these early successes had allowed me to make a name for myself that may help in securing access to major events in the future.”

His first club run in Scotland was in a Spango Valley AAC B Team at the Kilbarchan relays in 1985 BUT ….  “if the truth be known, my first race in Scotland was in a home countries International cross-country at Cumbernauld in 1982 – running for (shhh!) England.   I finished third behind Paul Davies-Hale and John Theophilous (Wales).   Can’t remember who was in the Scottish team that day but it will be in my scrapbook somewhere!!  His first run in the Scottish Cross-Country Championship was not until 1987 when he was second to Nat Muir but by then he had run in two Edinburgh to Glasgow races for Spango Valley AAC (based in Greenock) – he had married a local girl whose brother was a runner so all the approaches from clubs as far away as Glasgow, and even further, were clearly to no avail.   His first E to G was in November 1985 when he was on the second leg and pulled the club from eighth to first in the fastest time (28:33) of the day; the team was fifth.   In  November 1986 he raced on the fourth stage where he moved from third to first in the second fastest time of the day to see the team finish the race in fourth place.  In the track rankings for 1986, he was placed second in the 2000m behind Nat Muir with his best time of 7:58.6, fourth in the 5000m with 14:00.85 and topped the ratings for the 10000m with a very good 28:39.35 with Nat Muir second  less half a second slower (28:39.65.)

The 1986-87 cross country season was a good one: Chris ran on the fourth stage for Spango Valley turning in the second fastest time on the stage a lifting them from third to first.   This was followed the E to G run with a win at Bellahouston Harriers Open CC Race on the 22nd in 33:03 to Eddie Stewart’s 33:10 which was good enough for him to be selected for, run in and win the quadrangular international cross-country race at Stirling University between the SCCU, Ireland, Scottish Universities and a Scottish banks team.   He defeated Terry Mitchell by 11 seconds.  On the 2nd January, in the New Year’s Day Road Race at Beith, Chris won by 32 seconds from Alistair Douglas and ahead of such Scottish stars as Hammy Cox, Alistair Currie and Gordon Crawford.  On 13th January at Portsmouth he was second in the Inter-Services Cross-Country Championship to Steve Jones (RAF) who ran 31:42 to Chris’s 31:48.  A week later he won the West District Cross-Country Championships at Kirkintilloch from fellow Spango Valley runner, Tommy Murray.   After a torrid battle over mud covered and hilly trail with the lead constantly changing hands, he prevailed by eight seconds.    In his preview of the National Cross-Country Championships that year, Doug Gillon (writing in ‘Scotland’s Runner’ said “then there is Chris Robison of Spango Valley, Derbyshire born, and a member of England’s team in the world championships two years ago, but who, since being posted to HMS Gannet at Prestwick, has opted to run for Scotland.   In the National his second place to Nat Muir was 22 seconds down but eleven ahead of Allister Hutton.   His place was assured for the World Championships where he improved on his previous year’s performance.   It was a significant race because the Championships, to be held in Warsaw, were to be the last in which Scotland would compete as an independent nation.   In future there would be only  great Britain team instead of the four home countries all running independently.

He started summer 1987 racing over a variety of distances.  On 6th March, he was sixth in the Kodak 10K Classic National Road Championship behind Nat Muir, Allister Hutton, Paul O’Callaghan from England, Tim Hutchings from Crawley and an Irish runner in a time of 29:38.   Three weeks later it was the fourth stage of the National Six Stage Relay at East Kilbride where he was not only fastest on the fourth leg but fastest long leg runner overall with a time of 30:48.   Nobody else was inside thirty one minutes..   A month later he turned out in the Adidas Challenge 5K Road Race in Pollock Park, Glasgow, and finished second to Peter Fleming in 14:30 to Fleming’s 14:14.   A week later in the Pearl Assurance Half Marathon he was second in 66:09 to Terry Greene from Ireland who won in 65:44.   Another week later and he raced in the Gallery Street Mile at Kirkintilloch on the day of the Luddon Half Marathon, and was fifth in 4:02.   Unfortunately he did not run in the SAAA Championships in June but he was fourth in the Runsport 10K in Stirling in 30:07 (Allister Hutton won in 29:09) and nine days later in the Inverness People’s 10K he was second (29:41) to Peter Fox (29:28).   The “Scotland’s Runner” magazine had held a road running championship over a series of races during the summer and in the September 1987 issue, there was a photo of a smiling Chris with the caption: “Chris Robison ….. hovering high above his rivals in the championship.”   The text read: “Chris Robison, the Royal Navy Lieutenant who navigates Sea King helicopters from Prestwick Airport, has moved into a commanding lead in the men’s championship table.   His improvement of 70 points from his seventh place last month was due to good runs in the Runsport 10K (fourth) and haf marathon (second) places at Stirling and third place in the City of Edinburgh 10 mile road race along Cramond Esplanade.”   The points table had Chris top with 143 points from Frank Harper (Pitreavie) on 105 and Alex Gilmour (Cambuslang on 100 points.    His win in the League was confirmed in the December issue where he had 221 points to Harper’s 138 and Alistair Douglas’s 134 with Gilmour slipping to fourth (119).   The report read:   “Robison who was stationed at the Royal Navy air station at Prestwick for over two years, is now back in his home town of Derby but, having married a Greenock girl whose brother Terry Wilkie is a member of the Spango Valley club, will return to Scotland for the big Scottish championships events.”

In season 1987-88, he started with an outstanding run in the Scottish National Four Stage Cross Country Relay Championship at Gala where he had second fastest time of 11:39 – just one second slower than Springburn’s Adrian Callan.   The Spango Valley team of Cameron Spence, Stephen Connaghan,  Chris Robison and Lawrie Spence finished third behind Cambuslang and Springburn.  He had another run on the second stage of the E to G and managed to turn in the fastest time on the stage yet again (29:10) in moving his team from fourteenth to sixth with the team finishing tenth.  He married Carol in September 1987 and left Scotland and was posted to various spots in England for six months.  There was the Royal Naval College in Greenwich in Autumn followed by three months in the careers office in Derby.   He reckons this set him up for his best winter period.   First in the Inter-Services (always a very tough race) followed by fifth in the English National and second in the Scottish behind Neil Tennant from Luton in 38:47 to Tennant’s 38:14 with a man who would be both rival and team mate, Tommy Murray, third in 38:50.   After fifth in the first ever trial for a GB team in the World Championships, he was automatically selected for the team in the World Cross Country Championships which were held in Auckland, New Zealand that year and improved yet again to finish just outside the first 100 runners.     This meant that in four years he had run for England (85), Scotland (86 and 87) and Great Britain (88) in the same championships.   He ran his first marathon off the back of the cross-country season in London and ran what he says felt like an easy 2:24:42.   He was mentally pretty near exhaustion after the winter season having done too much racing, travelling, etc.   It was he says pretty clear to him that he was never going to be a marathon runner – but it would have been nice to se what he could have done, all the same!

In April 1988, he joined a new air squadron and went to sea on the carrier HMS Illustrious for most of the next 12 months – right up to summer 1989   He pops up again in the records in the Scottish Championships, 1989, in the 10000m where he was fifth in 29:42:00 in a very tough race.   Result: 1.   Kevin Forster   29:03.8; 2.   Mike Carroll   29:22.5;   3.   K McCluskey (Copeland)   29:30.5;   4.   D MacFadyen (Greenock Glenpark)   29:33.4;   5.   C Robison   29:42.00;   6.   Alan Robson   29:42.7.     He went on to race a lot, and race well, in August.   On 9th August in the Shettleston Harriers Open Meeting  he was second to Bobby Quinn (8:15.1) in the 3000m with 8:19.1.   Nine days later in the British Airways 10K in Glasgow he was second again – this time to Nat Muir with 30:22.3 to Nat’s 30:22.2 with Allister Hutton third in 30:27.   Two days later, 20th August, he was second for the third time, this time in the Barnsley 6 mile road race where John Nuttall won with Chris second in 30:51 and clearly unhappy Nat Muir third in 31:27.

Chris missed most of the 1989 – 90 winter season for the reasons given and did not run in either the E to G or the National.   He ran in the Inter County Championships at Corby on 27th January and finished third in 40:19 running for Cornwall, presumably he had been posted to a Naval base there, but the next Scot to finish was Bobby Quinn in sixth in 40:26.   This was enough to get him into the World Cross-Country Championship trials to be held in Bellahouston Park.   On a course described as “heavy but not impossible” he finished fourth (33:04) behind Adrian Passey (England: 32:46), D MacNeilly (Ireland: 32:59) and Paul Taylor (England:: 33:04).   “Scotland’s Chris Robison (IBM Spango Valley) was pipped for third place by England’s Paul Taylor but comfortably secured his position in the UK team for the World Championships in Aix-Les-Bains.   The event was held on 25th March and Chris after missing so much time over the previous year and a half finished 90th which was to be his best placing ever in the event.

Chris after qualifying for the World CC Champs, 1990

(Photo from ‘Scotland’s Runner’ by Peter Devlin.)

On 26th May, 1990, he was second to Robert Quinn in the West District Championship 5000m in what was to be his season’s best time of 14:11.91 behind Quinn’s 14:09.91.   In the SAAA Championships at Crownpoint Road in Glasgow he was fifth in a very competitive 10000 metres, which was won by England’s Olympic 5000m and 10000m runner Eamonn Martin in 28:40.78, in 30:22.61.     These times had him placed sixth and seventh respectively in the end-of-season rankings.   He finished the summer season with a win in record time (29:52) in the Bill Elder Memorial 10K road race at Greenock ahead of Hammy Cox (30:50).

His next winter (1990 – 1991) started in great style.   The traditional start to the winter season is the McAndrew Relay at Scotstoun and that year the talking point was the appearance of Steve Ovett.   Steve had retired from international athletics and come to Scotland to stay in the Borders.   He had joined Annan AC, as had Steve Binns after him and together with locals Rob Carey and Mike Carroll they made a formidable striking force.   It was an exciting race, as indeed it always is, with Steve Ovett turning in the fastest time of 14:49, six seconds ahead of Chris who was second quickest.    In the E to G in November, 1990 he was back on the second stage and turned in the fastest time of the day moving his club up from fourteenth to sixth – a wonderful run on this stage of endurance running giants.

In the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay in November 1991   he had fastest time on the second stage when taking Spango Valley from fourteenth place up to fourth – they finished the race six stages later in seventh position.   The National Championships in 1992 were won by Tommy Murray with Chris second in 34:17, just 19 seconds adrift with Bobby Quinn a mere two seconds behind that.    This three-way rivalry was a feature of Scottish athletics for a period about ten years with all three having their successes – eg all won the National Cross-Country Championships, all three won track championships, all three ran for Scotland on the country, road, track and hills, all three had outstanding runs in the various relays and road championships and Scotland was fortunate to have them competing as often as they did.  Chris again qualified for the IAAF Cross Country Championship which was held in Boston in 1992 and in the race itself, he finished 115th.    Chris’s best track time in 1992 was a quick 5000m in 14:47.9 in September which ranked him twenty first in Scotland and on the road he was first in the SAF 10K Championships at Alexandria on 27th June in 30:01 which was the fastest time in the country that year and his best half marathon was on 14th March at Hastings where he was ninth in 66:54.

1992 – 93 was a disappointing run for Chris in the E to G when his 30:13, slowest run he had ever done so far, was only good enough to keep sixteenth place for his team.   In the National in 1993 he did not run. With 8:24.2 in the Kelvin Hall on 10th March.    He was however more active during the summer of 1993 where he was sixth the 5000m rankings with 14:13.63 run at Ayr on the 16th of May to win the West District race from Alan Puckrin (14:15.45) and then ran 14:14.13 at Grangemouth to win the National title from John Sherban (14:15.8) and Bobby Quinn (14:16.4).    He won a 3000m race at Gourock earlier in May in 8:19 from Alan Puckrin (8:20.1).   He also ran a 29:31.70  10000m at Crystal Palace on 12th June when finishing eleventh and 29:58.1 for the same distance at Crown Point when defeating David Cameron (Shettleston, 30:43.7) for the same distance.   The Scottish Athletics Yearbook pointed out that his 10000m time “… was almost a minute outside his best, set seven years ago.”   If the hint was that he was past his best, well – how wrong can you be?

He started season 1993 – 94 (Commonwealth Games coming in 1994 added a bit extra to the whole training and racing year!)  with another cracking run on the second stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay when he was second fastest taking Spango Valley from eleventh to sixth.   He finished the winter in great style by winning this 10K time of 29:35 when winning in Edinburgh on 1st October.    There was also a fast 10 miles in Gosport on 24th September.   1994 started with a 3000m indoors at the Kelvin Hall  where he won the championship from Graeme Croll (8:10.32) and Tommy Murray (8:18.10).  And in the National Cross-Country Championship at Irvine he won in 32:45 from Tommy Murray (33:06) and Graeme Croll (steeplechase champion from East Kilbride, 33:13).

On the roads he was fifth in the 10K at Alexandria in 29:46 but on the track Chris had a very good season.   He won both West District and National 5000m titles.   The former was won in 14:09.98 from John MacKay (Shettleston) in 14:34.02, and the latter was in 14:08.52 from B Clas (USA, 14:09.62).   In the rankings he was second with 13:55.7 at Grangemouth in August, fourth with 14:08.52 and fifth with 14:09.98.   In the 10000m he travelled to the AAA’s championship at Sheffield on 11th June to record 28:51.12 when finishing sixth.   This ranked him number one in Scotland.   The Yearbook had this to say: “…Chris Robison took advantage of a fast race in the AAA’s to be the only Scot to better 29 minutes this season, but his run was still over 12 seconds outside his eight year old best for the distance.”

Then there were the two international fixtures.   First in the Scotland v Wales v South of England v Midlands Counties v North of England indoors at Birmingham on 26th February when he won the 3000m in 8:05.94; and then on 21st May in Turkey in the Scotland v Israel v Wales v Turkey match he was third in the 5000m in 14:50.37 in a race won by Turkish runner in 14:08.23.

Then there was the big one!  He had gained selection for the Commonwealth Games:  This year the Games were in Vancouver in August where he took part in the 10000m.   In a Commonwealth race including many of the major African countries that dominate endurance running at the time, Chris ran well but was tenth in 29:50.23.    On a night not suited to endurance running, he stuck to his task and seeing several athletes drop out – including team-mate John Sherban – did not seem to affect him at all.

In to season 1994-95 he ran in the E to G in what was to be his slowest ever second stage and the only time when he ever dropped a place.   It had been a good year but a long one with a lot of racing and travelling as well, of course, as his day job.   In the relay he ran 32:52 and dropped from thirteenth to fourteenth.   The Spango Valley team was not at its strongest but he turned out and raced for them.   By the National in Perth in February 1995 he had recaptured some of his old verve and finished second in 41:29 to Anglo Keith Anderson who won in 41:08 with Graeme Croll, third again, only two seconds behind Chris. On the track in summer 1995 he was ranked second in Scotland in the 5000m with his best time of 13:59.45 at Wishaw on 13th May when winning the West District championship.   The Yearbook commented, “Chris Robison was again second ranked in the event, narrowly bettering 14:00 in an exciting West event where in a whirlwind final lap, he just got the better of a rejuvenated Bobby Quinn.”   Quinn’s time was 14:00.91 and Adrian Callan in third recorded 14:05.58.   When it came to the SAF Championships however, it was a different story with Chris finishing third (14:29.33) behind Dermot Donnelly (14:16.40) and Adrian Callan (gaining revenge with 14:18.82).    Chris also turned in times of 14:10.0 at Pitreavie on 28th May, 14:14 at Coatbridge on 23rd April and 14:29.33 at Meadowbank on 24th June.   In the 10000m track, he went to Loughborough on 11th June for the GB World Championships trial and finished third in 29:03.69 with Bobby Quinn running 29:16.23.   These were season’s bests for both men and made them numbers one and two in Scotland.   There was also some road running and he was rated number four with his 10 K time run in Edinburgh on 1st October of 29:35 and in the 10 miles there was a good 49:59 at Gosport on 24th September.

In January 1996, he was fourth in the National behind Bobby Quinn, Tommy Murray and Alaistair Russell.  The big feature for  1996  however was that there was a new club on the block.   There were three Greenock clubs in membership of the governing body in Scotland:   Greenock Glenpark Harriers, Greenock Wellpark Harriers and Spango Valley AAC – the Women’s club of Greenock Rankine Park had long since folded.   Numbers were declining and meetings were held with a view to the clubs amalgamating to make one strong club.   Glenpark felt that they could not go along with what was proposed but nevertheless Inverclyde AAC emerged from the union of Wellpark and Spango Valley along with some members of Glenpark who thought they liked what was on offer. Chris was one of the prime movers in the amalgamation being very keen to promote a strong club in the town that provided all athletes with a chance to compete in all disciplines, but especially on the track.  Chris was keen to further develop his club career by joining Shettleston who at the time were regularly competing in team events throughout the UK.    For a short time therefore, Chris ran with the local Inverclyde colours on the track but in country or road races where there was no representation, he competed for Shettleston Harriers and both parties gained from the connection.   Chris accordingly appears in the rankings for 1996 under the banners of both clubs.   In the track standings, he ran a good 14:15.8 at Portsmouth on 2nd July to finish first and at Crown Point Road on 29th June he did 14:16.5.   The latter time was when he finished second to Phil Mowbray (14:16.42) in the SAF Championships.   These were in the Inverclyde colours.

Then running as a member of Shettleston Harriers he was ranked as follows for road events in 1996:

Into the 1996 – 97 winter season and Chris tackled road, cross-country and indoor track.   Indoors he won the Scottish 3000m championship in 8:26.04 on 19th January.   His first run for Shettleston was in the Ekiden Relay at Greenock in September 1996 when they won the title for the second successive year.   In October he travelled with them to the BAF 10K Championship at Solihull in Birmingham where he finished third in 29:20 leading the club not only to the team title but also representing the West District to the Inter-District title.   In November he ran in the Allan Scally Relay team that finished second to Racing Club.   In the Edinburgh to Glasgow he ran on the second stage bringing the club from second to first but they slipped back to second and he picked up a silver medal.   Missing the West District Championships he was fourth in the Inter-District at Cumbernauld in December and in February he won the Grangemouth Round the Houses 10K.   On 16th February, 1997 in the National Cross Country Championships he won his second title – this time he defeated John Downes (who many claimed should not have been allowed to race) in a time of 37:19.    His next race was the UK Cross-Country Championship at Luton where he finished second.

On the track in summer 1997, he was ranked in the 1500m for the first time in many years with 3:50.69, run in Spain on 21st June – the ranked him fifteenth in Scotland; his indoor 3000m time had him top of the rankings. and he raced to 14:07.1 at Hexham on 8th October when he placed third in a time of 14:07.1    The statisticians in their Yearbook said, “With Chris Robison waiting until October to record his best time in the Northumberland Multi-Terrain Challenge against Kenyan opposition ….”    He topped the 10000m lists again with 28:47.26.2 which gained him fifth place in a race in Sheffield on 29th June.   On the roads, again in Shettleston colours, he was second quickest in the Mile with 4:17.3 set in Seaton on 8th October, and his 10K time of 29:26, run in Norham on 5th October had him in fourth place.

Although he missed the McAndrew, West District and Scally Relays in 1997, November saw him win his second Edinburgh to Glasgow medal when the Shettleston team which he was representing on the eighth stage finished second with Chris having second fastest time on the eight stage.   The National in 1998 had probably the closest finish of any – certainly of any that I have seen or read about – 4 runners covered by four seconds!    Bobby Quinn won in 35:35, Keith Anderson was second in 35:36. Chris Robison was third in 35:37 and Glen Stewart was fourth in 35:38!    Needless to say he was first Shettleston man to finish.   He was not finished with either the 1998 cross-country season or the IAAF Championships yet!   He again qualified for the GB team in the world championships and earned his trip to Marrakech, after being fifth n the trial at Cardiff, where he finished eighty seventh – his best placing in six races at the championships spread over13 years!     He was actually getting faster again on the track:  finishing second at Grangemouth on 17th May, he ran 3:55.9 for the 1500m.   In the 5000m he was third in the West District at Scotstoun on 10th May in 14:21.21  (he also raced to 14:22 at Hexham on 29th May).   The West District result was: 1.   Glen Stewart 14:03.34; 2.   Bobby Quinn   14:19.3 and third Chris in 14:21.21.   On the roads he was ranked in three events :in the 5K he was top with 14:42 run at Dewsbury on 8th February; in the four miles, he was second with a time of 19:31 run at Ford on 25th May and in the 10K he was again top of the heap with 29:16, recorded at Dewsbury on 8th February (all run in Shettleston colours.)

In 1998 Inverclyde was in road and cross-country action and Chris turned out in the Edinburgh to Glasgow for the last time: in the black and white stripes of his local club, he ran the fastest time of the day on the tough second stage – exactly thirty minutes – and brought the club from fourteenth to seventh.      Basil Heatley of Coventry Godiva Harriers once wrote a reply to a letter in ‘Athletics Weekly’ which had said that good runners in teams which were down the field could never run as fast as they were able because the incentive wasn’t there; Heatley’s reply was that in such a situation the really good athlete really works to get his team back into the race and that’s incentive enough.   Chris, like many other class athletes, lived that philosophy.   In eight races for his local club in Scotland’s premier road race, he had a total gain of 39 places!   His biggest collection was in 1991 when he moved from 14th to fourth with the fastest time of the day.    To me that says as much about the man as most of his more glamorous races.   He did not run in the National in 1999, nor did he in 2000.

There was very little recorded in the way of track running in 1999 or 2000.   Not ranked on the track in either year, his road rankings were as follows:

1999:    1 Mile   first   4:21  6th August   Dunfermline.   2 Miles   third   9:21   Dunfermline   3rd September;     10K   29:47     Dewsbury     7th February.

2000:    5 Miles   third   24:31   22nd April   Balmoral;   10K   sixth     30:18   Alexandria   25th June;   half marathon   68:06   Glasgow   20/8.

There was however another athletics challenge that took up his time in 1999.    Not content with winning international vests on the track and on the road as well as over the country, Chris took up hill running.    (It seems to be a Scottish thing, calling mountains hills.    There is the story of the Scotsman camping out in South Africa hearing a voice outside his tent saying “Would you look at these hills?”   Since the hills in question were the Drakensbergs, he knew the speaker had to be a Scot.)    The first the public heard of it was from an article by Doug Gillon in the ‘Herald’ of 31st May, 1999.   “Athletics Scotland internationals dominated the English team trial races on Latrigg and Skiddaw at Keswick yesterday for the uphill-only mountain running European Trophy in five weeks time in Austria.   Great Britain selection for the Grand Prix Series was also at stake.   Bobby Quinn (Kilbarchan AAC) beat all the opposition over the 6.5 mile 3000 feet climb race agreeing to a dead-heat at the end with Richard Findlow (Bradford) having led for most of the way.   Fellow Scottish cross-country champion Chris Robison (Inverclyde AAC), still a novice at hill running, held off fast finishing Alan Bowers (Cumberland) for third.”   Two weeks later they finished first and second in the Glas Tuileachean Hill Race at Glenshee, which had been designated as the Scottish hill trial,  with Bobby first in 35:52 and Chris second in 36:19.   They both went to run for Scotland in the World Mountain Running Trophy race that year  at Mount Kinabalu Park in Borneo in September where he was second Scot to finish (seventeenth in 58:47) behind Bobby Quinn (ninth in 57:13) with Colin Donnelly (26th) and Tommy Murray (28th) being the next two Scots to complete the course.   The interest continued into 2000 when he ran in the European Mountain Running Trophy where, with Bobby Quinn and Neil Wilkinson he was a member of teh team which finished second.   The European Mountain Running Championship at that point had four teams from Britain taking part but when it was re-organised in 2002, it re-organised the four Home Countries out in favour of a single GB team.   He also travelled to Bergen in Germany in 2000 to compete in the World Mountain Running Championships where he was first Scot to finish when he crossed the line in twenty fifth in 52:29

But the winter season of 2000 – 01 would spring one of Chris’s biggest surprises yet!   On 26th February 2001 Doug Gillon wrote an article in ‘The Herald’ under the headline “Robison proves to be ageless wonder: As 40 looms, Scotland’s endurance coach shows the way to be a winner.”    What was it all about?    Read on : “Chris Robison became the oldest man ever to win the Scottish cross-country title at Irvine last Saturday, just 20 days before his fortieth birthday.   Robison’s third title at such an age, and bronze for his 39 year old Inverclyde club-mate Tommy Murray, tells much about the current health of the sport, yet despite his advancing years, the future lies in Robison’s hands.   The former Royal Navy helicopter navigator is Scotland’s full-time endurance coach, charged with seeking out talent an rescuing the sport from decline.   “I think it helps that I can lead by example,” said Robison, “This will help give me credibility.”   Robison has won an international vest in every year for the past 20 representing Scotland and Great Britain in world cross-country championships and on road and track, and hills as well as the country.

“He was in the 1994 Commonwealth Games team but Saturday’s run over 12,000 metres of the Beach Park at the Fila National Championships surely represents his finest hour.   He had to call on every ounce of experience and concentration to despatch younger opposition which had seemed insuperable, notably Glen Stewart, only Scot to have won a place in Britain’s world championship team for Belfast next month.   Second in the British 4000m trial race earlier this month, Stewart had failed to recover fully from a cold.   By pushing hard from the gun, Robison forced him to dig deep early.   Within a mile he was sweating ominously, and he abandoned after two of the three laps.   Robison almost paid for having pushed the needle into the red, but held on to win in 38:49 from the fast-closing Andy Caine (38:58) with Murray another six seconds back.   “That was tough – especially the final mile,” said Robison, “I only really started training hard at Christmas because I was struggling with my work-load.”   Robison needs no lessons in time-management however.   Even on duty, he maintained fitness during NATO exercises in the North Atlantic by running round the deck of a destroyer.”

That’s Doug’s way of saying that Chris won the Scottish cross-country title when he was nearly 40!   It really was a remarkable feat at a time when he was already looking at his career options after the racing at the top had to stop.    o-ordination, well-drilled teams

In the course of 17 years in the Royal Navy, Chris reached the rank of Lieutenant Commander but his future is totally committed to sport.    He was appointed Scottish Athletics National Endurance Coach towards the end of 2000 and in 2002 took on the additional responsibilities of  Performance Director.   In 2002 he was Lead Coach at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester.   In 2004 he was appointed Policy Director for the Scottish Sports Association – a post he held for approximately five and a half years before leaving in February 2010 to take up a post as Lead Manager with sportscotland.  His job with SSA was to lead on policy matters and ensure that the voice of the various governing bodies is heard and that the needs of these bodies are met.   While there he sat as a member of the Parliamentary Cross-Party Group on Sport at the Scottish Parliament where he “developed excellent working relationships with many MSP’s.   He is a respected source of information and advice for Parliamentary researchers and leading journalists.”    The quote is from www.zoominfo.com which has a fairly detailed account of Chris’s activities and posts after he had stopped the high level competing although he is still very active in sport himself.   He also was a member of the SCVO (Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations) and was for a time on secondment with the Scottish Government Sports Division where he led a review of the National Strategy for Sport – Reaching Higher.   The list of groups, committees, working parties and statutory bodies – virtually all sport-related – on which and for which he has worked is long but the commitment to the Scottish cause made in 1985 is being honoured handsomely to our benefit.

What did his time in the Royal Navy contribute to his success?   Well if we go back to Doug Gillon’s article about Ageless Robison he is quoted as saying “the service taught that if you want something badly enough, get organised, and plan thoroughly, you can probably achieve it.   It has everything to do with lifestyle philosophy and motivation.   For every hour in the air you need two planning, just as for every moment you spend racing you spend much more preparing to compete.   Flying helicopters, saving lives, is about co-ordination, well-drilled teams and planning.”

We have emphasised how full his life is at present – he is no stranger to a ten hour day, he finds time to cycle, run and take part in many physical activities – we haven’t mentioned his coaching career yet.   Currently working with John Newsom of Central AAC, will it become a regular part of his routine?    The old saying that, “if you want a job done, ask a busy man” might have been coined with someone just like Chris in mind!

Chris and John Newsom: he must be a real coach – he’s got two stopwatches!

But whatever the reporters, pundits and athletics historians say, the people who get really up close and see what a runner is like are the other runners who faced them on the starting line and raced them for the finish.    One of Chris’s rivals,Bobby Quinn, had this to say about him: “I had many memorable races with Chris.   Throughout the 1990’s, over the country, the National title or first Scot in the UK trial always seemed to come down to a joust between Chris, Tommy Murray and myself – these were great days and for each of us you knew at the start of the season if you could get the better of the other two, you would be top of the pile.   Other athletes would run well before Christmas or in relays, but when it got to the business end of the season, it would be all about getting the better of Chris and Tommy.   Chris had periodisation and peaking down to a fine art, he was the master of this.   You always knew Chris was a really dangerous opponent if he was aiming for something, whether it be winning the National or making the team for the World Cross.   He had tremendous strength and determination but also had a wicked finishing kick which made him very difficult to beat if he was on song.   He was a great team-mate (and friend) as well as a rival – one of my earliest memories of being part of a Scottish team with Chris was when we won the prestigious team race at the Gateshead International Cross Country Race in 1985 (with Nat Muir and Lawrie Spence).   His National victory in 1997 (in Perth) was superb and his victory in 2001 (just short of his fortieth birthday) was inspirational but I think his best performances were usually at the British Championships (again demonstrating the art of peaking) where he would regularly be first Scot and usually end up in the UK team.

I’ve had some great tussles with Chris (and Tommy) on the track, road and country, and even on the Mountains – and over the last few years when I have still been doing some races, it has not been quite the same, I miss the challenge from my old Renfrewshire rivals.”

A sincere tribute from one of his toughest rivals – a compliment that Chris thoroughly deserves, and a fitting place to end the profile.

Robert in the 3000m at the 1991 Small Nations Championships

Robert Quinn is and always has been a remarkable athlete.   Known to be high quality and with a bright future he was the victim of what can only be called a horrific accident that would have ended many a career in sport, he continued to improve and has won Scottish International honours on the track, on the road, over the country and as a hill runner.   I dissent from the view sometimes expressed that he came back ‘better than ever’: nobody comes back from such an incident better as an athlete.   It may have made him tougher as a person or more determined as an opponent, but no one knows just how good he could have become.   Nevertheless he has had a career that would have been the envy of many an athlete.   So, even although he is still running and racing at a high level, it is appropriate to look at his successful career in some detail.   Finally the fact that he joined Kilbarchan AAC in 1981 and is still running in 2011 – 40 years later – means that not all races, etc, can be covered here.   It would require a book of its own to do that but there will be enough to tell the reader about the quality of athlete we have here, how his career progressed and all aspects will be included.

To start with I will quote from an article in ‘Scotland’s Runner’ of August 1989 by James Allen.

“He (Robert) was all of 15 or 16 years old when his interests in sport stretched beyond the usual kick-abouts.   ‘I played a bit of football but I was always pretty mediocre.  I liked most sports but I always won the cross-country races we had round the school playing fields.   I suppose I realised that I maybe could do something in running when I won a five mile sponsored run that my uncle’s football team had organised.  M y dad found out about our local athletic club, Kilbarchan, and took me down there.   The first training run I did down there was a nightmare.   I was last on every rep.   But the training soon paid off.   I joined the club in October 1981 and by March 1982 I was eighth in the British Schools Cross-Country Championships and eleventh in the National Cross Country.’   Quinn lost no time in proving his initial successes were no flash in the pan; in 1983 he started the year in style by winning the Youths National, relegating burgeoning talents Stevie Marshall and David McShane to the silver and bronze positions.   ‘That race still goes down as one of my best ever victories, because it was completely unexpected’, he recalls.   From now on winning would be expected of Robert Quinn, and he was about to start a period of complete domination of his age-groups.

In season 1983 – 1984 he won the Midland District Championship and was the first winner of the Mackenzie Medal; Colin Shields:  ‘Robert Quinn (Kilbarchan) won the inaugural Junior championship race receiving the Mackenzie Medal for his victory.   This trophy consisted of one of the gold National championship team medals won by George MacKenzie in the pre-First World War period, donated by the MacKenzie family and mounted on a plaque to be presented to the West District Junior champion.’   1983 also saw him run in his first ever Edinburgh to Glasgow eight man relay race.   He ran on the first stage and finished a very good fourth.   He then won the National of 1984 prompting this observation from Colin Shields in his history of the SCCU,  ‘Whatever the Weather’:    ‘The previous year’s Youth Champion, Robert Quinn, won the Junior title at his first attempt, the first runner since Nat Muir in 1975 to achieve this – with his Kilbarchan club-mate Alan Puckrin finishing runner-up 50 yards behind.’   Robert went on to Glasgow University in 1984 and his friendship with Puckrin developed.    ‘Alan was a big influence on me.   He was older but made the same age group because of the date of his birthday.   I suppose we were pretty inseparable in races too.   I won the Renfrewshire, West District and National Championships and Alan was second in them all.’   Quinn’s ‘marvels over the mud’ as Allen put it,  won him a coveted place in the Scottish junior team for the 1984 world cross-country championships in New York.   Despite feeling slightly intimidated by the company he finished a superb twentieth.   The rest of ’84 was taken over with Quinn’s first serious track season, when he set a pb of 14:24 for 5000m and won junior track vests at Scottish and British level.  (Allen reports that he also discovered he had a talent for downing a pint of beer in three seconds flat!  This has been confirmed by a couple of his University friends).   However one of the highlights over the country in 1984 was leading the Glasgow University team to victory in the British Universities Championship.   This was the University’s first win in the event since 1939 and was most unexpected – especially by the English Universities, although with runners such as Quinn (fourth), Alastair Douglas, Andy Girling, and Plug Wilson, the Hares and Hounds were too good to ignore.

At the start of season 1984 – 1985, saw a continuation of the previous year’s great form.   He won every single age-group race he competed in at junior level, won every domestic cross-country title for which he was eligible, including the National , beat Paul Roden, the English junior champion, established himself in the senior Scottish team.   In November ’84 he had run a superb fourth stage of the E – G and returned the fastest time on the stage while moving his club up from tenth to third.  As a result of his fine running in the National he went to the World cross-country again, this time as a senior man.   ‘I was the youngest competitor in the senior race.   I was a bit out of my depth.   It’s an unbelievably fast start.   Basically you sprint flat out for 400 metres until your legs are full of lactic acid and you still have 7.5 miles to go.’     In the summer Robert would place second in the Scottish 5000m final in 14:03 losing out to George Braidwood by only two seconds.   I was really pleased to hack all that time off my pb and it was great to get second place because four of us went into the last lap together.’   Quinn’s great summer continued when he represented Scotland at senior level in their match against Norway, Ireland, Israel and Wales before heading into the winter 1985-1986 season.

‘Everything was going to plan: now I was only 15 seconds away from a qualifying time for the 1986 Commonwealth Games.   I was confident that a good solid winter would see me knock that bit off my best 5000m time,’ he says.   He had the solid winter he was after, with the highlight perhaps being ninth in the World Student Cross-Country Championships.   The winner was Australian marathon maestro Steve Moneghetti.   Robert was still in the lead pack with a mile to go and only two falls prevented him finishing higher.   The winter work over, Quinn was looking forward to honing himself into shape for his assault on the Commonwealth Games.   Surely he would do it.

May 8th, 1986, will always be a black day in the training diary of Robert Quinn.   What began innocently enough as a training run with friends would end disastrously and send shockwaves through Scottish athletics.   It was an ordinary enough day – there was a twenty first birthday party for one of the girls that night and they were intending to be there.   As usual they went out for a run – Robert, Alastair Douglas and Ross Welch.   Then it happened.    At first we heard he had been knocked down, then we heard that he had been struck in the passing by a motor-cycle but the story that Robert told to James Allen was as follows: ‘We were running in single file along a country road when this motor-cyclist came over the brow of the hill, lost control of his bike and ran into the side of me.   I tried to pick myself up but couldn’t.   It was then I looked down and my foot appeared to be almost dangling off.   I didn’t black out and at that point I wasn’t in a great deal of pain, due, I think, to being in severe shock.’   Everyone was in severe shock as well: the girls were waiting for the boys to turn up for the party and when they weren’t on time, they were getting really mad at them.   When they finally turned up, very, very late, they were chalk white.  It being before mobile phones, etc, they had had no prior warning of the accident.   Meanwhile for Bobby, the initial impact of the accident had been replaced with a sickening pain, two pins in his leg to hold it together and the devastating thought that he might never run again.   He is fulsome in his praise of the hospital’s work at the time.   He is quoted by Allen as saying: ‘They asked me what level I ran at and promised to do their very best to fix me.   It was a terrible time, being terrified about never being able to run again.’

His friends all rallied round and he actually ‘ran’ in the 10K at Inverness on crutches in a remarkable time of 75 minutes.   He describes it as the hardest race of his life.  Before the event he had taken a felt tipped pen, crossed out the word FUN in Fun RUN and substituted SERIOUS!    Just to document the event, three pictures of the race are below (courtesy of his friend Doug McDonald).   The first is of him crossing the line, the second is a measure of how much effort was actually called for and the last is the man himself with some friends afterwards.

 When the plaster came off, the bones weren’t right so there was another lengthy operation and another full length plaster from foot to hip.   He says, ‘the second plaster came off in January 1987 and my leg was like a twig.   It was obvious that it would be a slow build up.   I was getting three hours a day physiotherapy with Lena Wighton at the Western Infirmary and that really helped my leg get back to something like normal.   Then I started doing water running with a wet vest to try and regain a bit of fitness.’   He managed to get himself back running but he had a pronounced limp and his performances were not the same – how could they be so soon?   But even worse than that he was getting a lot of pain in the leg.   ‘I was told that it wouldn’t hurt but I was always getting pain in runs and was constantly taking anti-inflammatory tablets.   I just couldn’t keep going like that so when Jimmy Graham, an orthopaedic surgeon, told me about an operation where part of my hip could be taken and grafted on to the gap in my fibula, I jumped at the chance.   I was told there was only a 50% chance of it working but I knew I had to take the risk.   If there was any chance of me getting back to my form I wanted to take it.’    James Allen goes on “In a bizarre weekend when he was due to have his operation, Quinn checked in to hospital to have his leg painted with a black arrow so they would get the correct leg in the operating theatre – and then promptly checked out again to do some racing.   He managed to get himself a weekend pass to indulge in what has been known since as the ‘shortest track season in history’.   On the Saturday he took on Tommy Murray over 1500m in the Renfrewshire Championships and beat him and then finished second to Willie Robertson over 5000m in a Scottish League race on the Sunday!   ‘I was pretty sad after those two races while I was in hospital waiting for the operation, but I knew it was something I had to do, a gamble I had to take.’   Being in plaster once again caused severe muscle wastage for Robert and once again the laborious, not to mention lonely, job of building it up again commenced.   He was doing four sessions a week in the pool just as he would previously have done them on the track.   His first run consisted of a 10 minute hop, but gradually, bit by bit, he was getting there and this time the pain was fading away.    It should be noted that Bobby gave a lot of credit to Rona, his fiancée, his friend Alastair Douglas and his coach Derek Parker who provided the support and practical help to get him back.

Quinn couldn’t have picked a better (or maybe worse)  race to re-enter the world of athletics.   The Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay was the event.   Robert ran the first stage for his team and was fifth at the changeover, a mere 20 seconds down on the stage ‘winner’, his friend Ian Archibald who was running for East Kilbride.   (For some reason James Allen has Robert racing the third stage and having second fastest time although the archive gives the result as shown here: check it out at www.salroadrunningandcrosscountrymedalists.co.uk on the Edinburgh to Glasgow results page in the Archive.)   He was back in business.

By December 1987, he was winning the SCCU Inter District Cross Country at St Andrew’s in 30:25 for the 6 Miles ahead of David Donnet’s 30:40.   On the 26th December he took part in the Kilbarchan club 11 Mile Road Race and finished first equal with Robert Hawkins and Jim Fairley in 59:22 – maybe the finish was staged but the time indicates that it was no easy-peasy festive run!   At the end of January it was the Seven Miles Kirkintilloch Olympians Road Race that he tackled and he finished second in 36:57 which was only two seconds behind winner Alan Robson.   He missed the National in 1988 just as he had missed the other championships (County and West Districts) that winter but he was clearly on the mend.

The following winter (1988-89) he ran a very good third leg of the Edinburgh to Glasgow in November when he moved his club from nineteenth to eleventh on the difficult switchback going.   On 4th December in the SCCU v Northern Ireland v Scottish Universities v Civil Service, he was seventh in 29:57 ahead of Peter McColgan who was also timed at 29:57.   A week later and it was a trip to Irvine for the Harriers v Cyclists race and he was second to Alastair Douglas with no times being given.   At the end of January he competed in the CAU Inter-Counties Cross-Country at Derby where he was nineteenth in 39:18.   In February the National Cross Country Championship was held at Hawick in quite dreadful conditions: in a television interview after the race Steve Ovett commented that at one point he thought he had made a mistake when he found a bit of firm ground!    Bobby was fifth – one place behind Ovett.   I say fifth but if you take out Ovett and Paul Evans, whose Scottish credentials were a bit flaky, Bobby was third Scot.   Close but no medal!   He also competed in the World Championships Trials at Gateshead where he was thirty seventh.   Less than two years after the accident he was now running at a very high standard on road and over the country and in all weathers – a quite remarkable recovery but there was better to come.

Robert started the summer of 1989 with a fourth place in the Clydesdale Harriers Dunky Wright road race in 26:09 behind Adrian Callan (26:01), Nat Muir (26:03) and Allister Hutton (26:05).    A really high class group of athletes.      That was on the 11thMarch and on the 23rd he ran in the SCCU National Six-Stage Relay at East Kilbride.   He had the fifth fastest time on the long stage with athletes such as Gary Grindlay, Tommy Murray, Charlie Haskett and Peter Fox recording slower times.   Two of these were behind him again on 6th May when he won the Adidas Torsion 5K in Glasgow in 22:51 – Peter Fox was second in 22:54 and Tommy Murray third in 23:00.   Three days later there was another victory at the 10K in Lennoxtown when he set a new record of 29:54.   His first track run of the season was on May 17th when he raced in the Scot Unis v Scottish Juniors v Track League over 3000m and finished second in 8:17.9 behind Adrian Callan’s 8:11.0.   Ten days later he raced in the 5000m at the West District Championships and won comfortably in 14:23.5 from Tommy Murray’s 14:34.5.   On the 18th June he ran in the League for his club and won the 5000m in 14:28.2.    He did not run in the SAAA Championships but did represent Scotland in the Small Nations International in the 5000m where he was third in 14:03.8 which equalled his personal best.   He ran in a good 3000m at Shettleston Harriers Open Meeting on 9th August against Chris Robison, George Braidwood, Graham Crawford, and Billy Coyle and won in 8:15.1.   In the final Scottish League fixture at Crown Point in Glasgow he won the 5000m in 14:48.58.   On the 27th August he ran in the Inter-District he at Grangemouth he won the 5000m in 14:08.6 and on September 17th racing in the Munich v Edinburgh/Scottish Select, he won the 5000m in 14:47.88.    His best 5000m time of the summer (13:57.8) had him placed fourth in the annual rankings.

Missing the McAndrew Relays on 7th October Robert was second fastest in the Renfrewshire Relay with Tommy Murray being the man in front.    On 28th October at the National Relays he was sixth fastest and at the start of November finished sixth in the Glasgow University Road Race in 22:47.   The very next day he went to Gateshead for the Preston Open Cross Country race where he was eleventh and third Scot.   In the Edinburgh to Glasgow he was given the honour of running the second stage – the one where tradition has all the big guns out – and he pulled Kilbarchan up from nineteenth to twelfth!   Then he confirmed this form when at the start of December he won the International and Inter-District fixture at Cumbernauld in 33:29.    Into the New Year and on 27th January 1990, Robert Quinn was sixth in the CAU Inter-Counties at Corby in 40:26.   He then went indoors for the Scotland v Belgium v Ireland v Norway in the Kelvin Hall where he was second in the 3000m in 8:17.3.   In the National Championships at Irvine on 24th February, he was third behind Peter McColgan and Anglo-Scot Neil Tennant.   His time of 43:26 was 28 seconds behind the winner’s 42:58.   Nobody disputes Tennant’s Scottish eligibility or the fact that McColgan was living and competing regularly in Scotland but Bobby could arguably be regarded as the top Scot on this occasion.

On the track he won the West District 5000m at Ayr in 14:09.91 which placed him seventh in the rankings at the end of the year.   He did not follow up with a run in the Scottish Championships in 1990    Before that there was a victory in the Saltcoats ‘Round the Houses’ race in a new record for the course of 19:33 with his good friend Alastair Douglas only one second behind.   Kilbarchan had dropped to Division Three of the Track League that year and like all good club men Bobby did his bit -on 5th August at Coatbridge he won the 1500m in 3:57.1 and the 5000m in 15:51.5.   On the eighth he ran in the 5000m at Shettleston’s Open Graded Meeting where he was fourth in 14:12.6 and then on 6th September he won the Calderglen 10 Mile Road Race at East Kilbride in 49:50 and Alastair Douglas was again second in 50:43.

The first race he tackled in the 1990 – 1991 season was  the George Cummings Relay at Kilbarchan where he was second fastest over the course in 11:15 which was four seconds slower than Steve Ovett recorded but was eight seconds quicker than Nat Muir.   Robert then went to the McAndrew Relays at Scotstoun and was seventh fastest with 15:17 just two seconds better than Nat Muir recorded.   In the West District Relay at Twechar, Ovett and Binns (both Annan) had equal fastest time of 10:16 and Robert and Tommy Murray had equal third fastest time of 10:23 with Nat Muir fifth with 10:29!    Three races, three times quicker than Nat Muir!   On 28th October in the National Relays though, Muir struck back: Ovett had fastest time of 11:20, Muir and McColgan had 11:23 and Robert was timed at 11:25 for fourth.

Placed third in the Glasgow University race in 22:39, three seconds behind winner McColgan and two behind second placed Geoff Wightman, he went into the Edinburgh to Glasgow where he was running the longest stage, Stage Six, where there was again fearsome opposition at a point in the race where the gaps have really started to open up, he picked up one place from eleventh to tenth.   He travelled down to Gateshead again on 23rd November for the Safeway Cross Country and finished second on the 6900m course in 20:42 behind the crack Kenyan, Benson Masya (20:04).    December 1990 was the month for representative appearances with the International Cross-Country at Cumbernauld on the 15th resulting in a win for Robert with County Durham on the 29th where he was second Scot when he finished eighteenth in the 8000m race.   He started January 1991 with a representative match as well: the Celtic Countries International at Limerick in Ireland where in a real international field (first was a Kenyan, second runner came from the USA and the third placer was also Kenyan) Robert in thirteenth place was first Scot.   He had missed the West District Championships as well as the Nigel Barge and Jack Crawford Road Races and then travelled to the CAU Inter-Counties event at Leicester where was twelfth and second Scot behind Chris Robison.   In February he travelled to Elgin to compete as a guest in a Northern League cross-country race which he won in 30:53.   He didn’t run in the National in 1991 and his next race was the Clydesdale Harriers Dunky Wright race on 9th March which he won from a sparkling field in 26:04.   Allister Hutton was second (26:10), Tommy Hearle third (26:13) and Nat Muir fourth (26:19.   Later in the month he ran in the Six-Stage Relays at East Kilbride where he was fifth fastest on the long leg.

It is straightforward enough listing times and events but the flavour and intensity of the racing at this time is not always conveyed by them.   In the race just quoted, Hutton was always a formidable opponent and he liked the Dunky Wright as part of his preparation for the London Marathon each year; Tommy Hearle was doing some of the best running of his career and Nat Muir is, like Hutton, a legend!   Bearing this in mind, I will quote Colin Shields’s report on his next race, just to give a flavour of the typical race.   The race was the Renfrewshire 10 miles championship road race on 13th April 1991.   “A good field of over 80 athletes took part in the Renfrewshire 10 mile road race.   Within a mile of the start, the field had already began to string out.    John Duffy (Spango Valley), Gerry Gaffney (Wellpark Harriers), Tommy Murray (Glenpark Harriers), Robert Quinn and Adam Eyre-Walker (Ed U) – had pulled away and were all working hard as they reached the hilly part of the course.   Duncan McFadyen (Wellpark) and Cammy Spence (Spango Valley) were only slightly behind and remained close enough to provide a threat to the leaders.   With the hills past, the leading five had gone further away and the race was now on.   The first move came after the Gantock Hotel as Duffy moved to the front and Eyre-Walker dropped off the back.   Murray was next to apply the pressure in an attempt to break the pack: this time Gaffney dropped off the pace.   The decisive move occurred with two miles remaining.   Robert Quinn who had been at the back of the front group burst through and immediately he was 50 metres up on Duffy and Murray.   Quinn put in another sustained burst and his gap increased to 250 metres at the finish which he crossed in 50:43.   Behind him Duffy outsprinted Murray for second place.   Gaffney was fourth.   A sprint finish in which McFadyen was stronger just edged out Spence.”    Hard running at the front with first one and then the other trying to break clear and competition all down the field.   It was even harder when the field included Muir, Hutton, Murray, Douglas and Quinn.

On May 14th in the West District Track Championships at Ayr Robert won the 5000m from clubmate Hearle in 14:12.67.   In the SAAA 10000m at Crown Point on July 5th he was third in 29:46.34 behind two Englishman with the winner (D Swanston) running 29:41.5:   Behind Robert were Chris Robison, Tommy Murray and Tommy Hearle.   Ten days later he won the Saltcoats race in a new record of 19:17 before going back on to the track at the Shettleston Harriers Open Graded meetings: on 21st August,  in the first one, he was fourth in the 3000m in 8:11.6 and in the second on 27th August he won the 5000m in 14:06.4.

The new season of 1991 – 1992 began in October and Robert had fourth fastest time in the West District Relays on the 19th.   In the Glasgow Un race on 9th November he was second to England’s Paul Dugdale in 22:23 – Dugdale’s time of 22:19 was a course record.   On the 17th of November in the Edinburgh to Glasgow he ran on the second stage and moved his club from twelfth to third.   When it came to the National in 1992, he finished third in 34:19 behind Tommy Murray (33:58) and Chris Robison, second in 34:17.   In the summer of 1992, Robert Quinn was unable to train on a track from May because of injury and was restricted to substituting sessions wearing a flotation jacket in a swimming pool.  The only race recorded in the Yearbook for 1992 was on 30th May when he won the West District 5000m in 14:21.66 which ranked him eighth for the season.  He was ready for action properly when the relays came along in October that year.

Tommy Murray was in superb form at that time and others such as Chris Robison were top class runners who would not give in to anybody, but at the 1992 West Relays Quinn had the fastest time of the day with 12:27 to Murray’s 12:33 to give Kilbarchan victory over Cambuslang, for whom Murray was running at that point.   Murray wasn’t happy – he had fallen and reckoned that but for the fall he would have had fastest time and Cambuslang would have won.  Came the National Relays on October 24th and Murray it was who had fastest time: 13:00 to Quinn’s 13:10.    Robert had run an excellent race pulling in both of the Reebok Racing Club teams and getting his club in to second place behind Cambuslang with the second quickest run of the afternoon.      Missing the Allan Scally Relays, he next raced in the Glasgow University Road Race and finished second in 22:38 behind the record setting Paul Dugdale’s 22:35.   Came the Edinburgh to Glasgow and he ran the fastest time on the second stage with an amazing run which moved Kilbarchan from eleventh to third.   In the annual International Cross-Country Race at Cumbernauld in December he won in 32:37.   Then there was the representative match in Mallusk in Ireland on 4th January where he was eleventh and second Scot before heading in to the West Districts Championships at Kirkintilloch.   Again he was second (36:41) to Tommy Murray (36:18) who was a full 23 seconds in front.   Murray really was in terrific form at this point and emphasised the point when he won the National on 27th February 1993 in 42:12 from Robert in second with a time of 43:08.

However 1992 was also the year of what Robert considers to be his best ever cross-country performance on the international stage.   Robert won the British students cross-country by quite a long way and as a result captained the UK team in the World Student Cross-Country Championships in Dijon in France.   At this event Robert won the individual bronze medal and led the British team to the bronze medals.   He himself was only seconds behind winner Sean Creighton who had been sixth in that summer’s Olympic steeplechase.   The excellent GB Athletics website is a statistician’s dream and has major UK medallists at cross-country on it at the following link: http://www.gbrathletics.com/bm/xc.htm

Robert’s running in the 1990’s would turn out to be some of the best he would do and he started to show some of this in the summer of 1993.   He had three races at 5000m ranked in the Yearbook: 14:12.8 at Wrexham on 8th August in the International against Wales, Northern Ireland, the North of England and the Midlands of England, 14:13.64 at Loughborough on 4th July and 14:16.40 at Grangemouth on 10th July when finishing second to Chris Robison in the SAAA Championships.   There were also two ranked races over 10000m.   On July 24th at Linwood he won the Scottish 10000m championship in 30:07.59 from Tommy Murray (30:12.32) and then in Loughborough on 15th August he ran 29:37.4 for a personal best.   The Yearbook remarked, “Robert Quinn won his first Scottish track title in an engrossingly ‘cat and mouse’ race defeating Tommy Murray at Linwood.   He later improved his personal best with a run over 30 seconds faster in England.”

The first representative  match of the season came on 19th December at La Mandria in Italy where he was ninth and second Scot in the Five Nations international.   In the Edinburgh – Glasgow on 14th November 1993 he ran on the second stage and moved from sixth to second with the second quickest time of the day – behind Alan Puckrin who was racing for Glenpark Harriers.   Robert did not run in the National Cross-Country Championships in 1994 or 1995.    In summer 1994 he only appeared in the one ranking list and that was the 3000m where on 13th July he won in 8:14.24 which placed him number nine in the country for that summer.   On the road he ran 30:12 for the 10K in Alexandria in June which placed him third for the season behind Chris Robison (29:46) and Peter Fleming (29:52).

At the UK Cross-Country Championships in 1995 Tommy Murray was fourth and Bobby fifth and they both made the team for the World Cross-Country Championships held in Durham.

He was ranked in no fewer than four track and one road event in summer 1995.   His time of 4:13.1 for the Mile in Dundee ranked him ninth in Scotland and in the 3000m he was seventh thanks to an 8:16.1 at Grangemouth.   There were however four 5000m times recorded and a championship medal for second place in the West District Championships with 14:00.91 behind Chris Robison’s 13:59.4.   This time put him in third place in the rankings with the other time being 14:12.6 at Narbonne in France on 29th July, 14:16.6 at Coatbridge on 23rd April and 14:23.3 at Birmingham on 15th July.   He was also ranked number three in the 10000 where there were two good times recorded: 29:55.2 when finishing third in the Scottish Championships but he went even quicker for a pb of 29:14.23 at Loughborough in a fast World Championships Trial on 11th June.   On the road he was ranked sixth for his 10K time of 29:47 set at Grangemouth on 19th February.

The cross-country season 1995-96 was when he lifted his first cross-country championship and introduced a five year spell where he was first four times and third once.  These five years will be dealt with together with the intervening summer seasons being treated separately.    On 13th January 1996 at Luton in the CAU Inter-Counties Championship, he finished an excellent seventh to be first Scot in the event.   The next race was the big one.   In the National he was ten seconds clear of Tommy Murray who was followed home by Alastair Russell, Chris Robison, Glen Stewart, Keith Anderson and David Ross: no easy victory then.   On 3rd March at Ashington it was the BAF Championships and Robert finished ninth.    The Yearbook  says: “Robert Quinn missed out on a world place, being named as a non-travelling reserve after finishing strongly in a race in which the course was found to be short.   Quinn finished ahead of tenth placed Rob Denmark who was selected.”   The implication being what every Scot felt at the time, he wuz robbed!   And it would be hard to differ from the sentiment that Robert should have been in the GB team for the World Championships.    He was unfortunate that his career came after Scotland was dropped from the World Championships for he would surely have been challenging for most runs in the race, he then did what was asked of him for the UK team but was passed over in favour of the Englishman who was behind him.   Nevertheless, it was a wonderful end to the season

In season 1996-97 he ran in the Margate International on 10th November where he was again first Scot finishing eleventh in 24:04.   In the Edinburgh to Glasgow later in the month he ran the second stage and ran very well to bring his club from fourth to second.   On 14th December it was back to Cumbernauld for the Inter District Championships where he was second to Phil Mowbray (eight seconds down) and in that year he was also seventeenth in the World Mountain Trophy in Austria.   He started 1997 with 19th place in the Coca-Cola International in Belfast and on 16th February at Perth he was third behind Chris Robison and John Downes, an Irishman running for Salford in England.    There was a lot of discussion about the permission for Downes to run and most that I spoke to were against it, but he did run and finished second.

Season 1997-98 Edinburgh – Glasgow he ran the third stage and pulled his club from seventh to third.   The next big one was the Inter-District at Cumbernauld on 13th Dec where he was third behind Phil Mowbray and Pat O’Keefe.   That was the lead-in to the National where he won his second title in three years in a very close race with three others of the very best men getting clear and the finishing order was : 1.   R Quinn   35:35; 2.   Keith Anderson   35:36; 3.   Chris Robison   35:37; 4.   Glen Stewart   35:38.

He started 1999 with another Scottish Championship win when he was victorious in the SAF 4K Cross-Country Championship at Pollok Park in Glasgow.   His time was 13:10, well ahead of John Tonner’s 13:33.   On the 23rd January he returned to the familiar turf in Belfast for the Coca-Cola International in which he was first Scot (13th) in 25:33 with Chris Robison twentieth in 26:00 and Glen Stewart thirty fourth in 27:04.   The National Championships came up on 6th February and were at Cupar in Fife.   Robert won again in  38:08 from David Cavers of Teviotdale Harriers on 38:26.

Season 1999-2000 saw Robert miss the Renfrewshire Relays but turn out on the anchor leg of the team for the National Relays where they were second.  the Edinburgh to Glasgow on 14th November was one where Robert’s run was quite superb: he brought his team from ninth to fourth on the second stage and running the fastest time of the day in the process.    On 21st November he was out again in the Margate International fixture and this time he was fifteenth in 27:42.   On 18th December he was fifth in the Inter-District Championships at Cumbernauld.   On 8th January 2000 he raced in the Fila International in Belfast where he finished eleventh and was first Scot ahead of Phil Mowbray.   On 12th February he ran in the Reebok CAU Inter-Counties. in Nottingham over 12K and was again first Scot when he was twelfth in 38:01.   Thus prepared he went to the National Championships looking for three in a row.   No pressure on him, then.   But again, Robert was The Man.   He won in 41:16 from old rival Tommy Murray (now running for Inverclyde AC) by seven seconds with Glen Stewart next in 41:51.

First in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 with a third in 1997: a quite remarkable record: and if we add in the SAF 4K Championship in 1999 that makes it five national Cross-Country Championships in five years!

Let’s go back a bit and trace Robert’s progress on the track over the five years when he was performing so well over the country.   In summer 1996 he started with second in the SAF Road Race 10K Championships in a time of 29:31 behind Glen Stewart’s 29:28.   On the track he was ranked fourth in the 5000m with 14:16.8 which he set when winning the West District Championship and he had two more times in the Scottish top twenty – 14:19.3 in Dublin in June and 14:19.68 at Crown Point also in June.   When we say he was third Scot the following quote from the Yearbook “Three Scots bettered 14:00 albeit Paul Wilson, being a newly discovered Scot who does most of his racing in South Africa and USA, …..” That was the last we ever heard of Mr Wilson so Robert should be properly ranked number two for the year.   In the 10000m he was ranked number one and also had the number two time for the year.   He ran 29:48.47 in Birmingham on 14th June and 29:49.77 when winning the SAF Championships from Neil Wilkinson of Salford.   The Yearbook again: “Once again the National proved to be the most important race of the season providing 7 of the top 8 fastest times recorded in Scotland.   Robert Quinn who recorded the season’s fastest time at the AAA won the National reversing the positions from 1995.”   On the roads he was ranked in both the 5000m and the 10000.    In the former he was seventh with a time of 14:46 at Barrhead on 26th May and in the latter he was fourth with 29:31 which was run at Motherwell on 6th April.

In 1997 he had four times in the top Scottish rankings with the best (14:14.8 at Crown Point in June) being number six in the country.   the others were 14:26.11 when he won the West Districts; 14:23.0 at Greenock on 15th June and 14:28.3 at Meadowbank on 18th May.   On the road he was ranked at number one in the five miles with 23:22 at Chelfield on 2nd February and in the 10K he was sixth with 29:44 at Helensburgh on 22nd May.   In 1998 he was ranked in no fewer than three events.   In the 1500m he was twelfth with 3:53.1 at Scotstoun in June and in the 5000m he had three times.   The quickest was 14:19.3 when he was second in the West District, then there was 14:26.8 at Crown Point in June and then he was timed at 14:42.88 at the Scottish Championships where he finished third.   In the 10000m he had the top four times in the country.   He won the SAF 10000 at Meadowbank in June but there were two faster times – 29:20.72 at Lisbon in April and 29:25.55 at Bedford in July.   His fourth time was 29:43.88 at Prague in June and the Yearbook had this to say: “Robert Quinn recorded the top time of the year in the early season European 10000m Challenge at Lisbon and was just 5 seconds slower at the AAA Championships three months later.   We had to rely on the National Championships race at Meadowbank which Quinn won by 10 seconds for the next four ranked runners.”    On the roads he was Number One for the 5 Miles distance with 24:00 at Balmoral on 11th April.

He only was ranked in one event – the 5000m – in summer 1999.   He was second in the SAF 5000m Championships in 14:21.7 to Anglo-Scot Christian Nicolson of Team Solent (Southampton) who did 14:20.4.    His best time of 14:09.4 at Loughborough in May had him fourth in Scotland and he also had 14:23.0 at Crown Point in Glasgow on 16th May.   On the road he was number 14 in the 10000m rankings.    ore will be said of his hill racing ability separately but in 1999 he was eighth in the European Mountain Running Championships and ninth in the World Trophy.   In 2000 he was not ranked at all on the track but was number four in the country over 5K on the road where he ran 14:27 at Clydebank on 18 March.   He was ranked at number twelve at 3000m in 2001 with his best time of 8:31.12 but I would like to have a closer look at the list for a moment.   I have mentioned Paul Wilson above – I do not know any Scot who ever met him or saw him in action.   To claim him as Scottish was maybe pushing things a bit.   It was however a time when more Anglos and foreign based athletes were sending in times or coming up for races bringing their qualifications with them.   In this 3000m ranking list there were no fewer than six Anglos ahead of Robert: Christian Nicolson (from Southampton), Jon McCallum (from Croydon), Andrew Caine (from the North of England and whose father ran for England), Kevin Nash (Belgrave), Neil Wilkinson (from Salford) and Simon Plummer.   With no offence to any of them, most of whom ran well for Scotland, it is a straight historical fact that there were more of them at that time than ever before!

His cross-country career had a slight hiccup in 2001 when he missed almost every one of his usual races – no Reebok CAU for instance, no Cumbernauld Inter-District or International – and he did not run in the National Championships which was a pity after his three-in-a-row.   Season 2001-02 would be better.   Before Christmas in the biggest race in the first half of the season,  he ran the second stage  of the Edinburgh to Glasgow and brought Kilbarchan up from eighth to seventh with his usual good run.   In February 2002 he was eighth in the Reebok CAU Inter-Counties at Nottingham in 37:53 to be leading Scot.   Two weeks later, 23rd February, he ran in the Fila SAF National Championship where he was a very good second to Glen Stewart’s 39:23.   This was maybe a significant result: Glen was to run in both the 5000m and 10000m at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester later in the year and he was the main man in Scottish endurance running for the next couple of years.   He could not repeat his father’s victory in 1970 – the Africans were in greater numbers, more experienced and better prepared than most but he did have the satisfaction of being first Briton home in the 10000m.    In 2003 Robert was again only ranked in the 5000m on the track: he won the West District title with 14:53.17 but his best performance of 14:45.60 at Meadowbank on 11th May placed him twelfth in the country.   On the road he was ninth in the 5K with 14:58 recorded in Clydebank on 22nd March.   His cross country running in early 2005 was good: on 10th January he won the West District Championship in 35:25 ahead of Jamie Reid on 35:28 and on 1st February in Glasgow he was second to Andrew Lemoncello in the SAF 4K Cross-Country Championships.   However the National, while featuring a good run by Robert had some ominous portents.   The first five placings were: 1.   Glen Stewart (34:52); 2. Phil Mowbray (34:57), 3. Andrew Lemoncello (35:02); Martin Graham (35:06; 5. R Quinn (35:09).  Tthe ominous feature was that they were all home-grown Scots and all were very young.   Mowbray less than the others but he could still give Robert eight years.   Robert was the only one of the former elite still there: the top ten did not feature Tommy Murray or Chris Robison at all.

Robert became a veteran (M40) in 2005 so it is appropriate to look at his personal best times and they are in the table above.   The 2 Miles time is slow but then it has seldom been raced over the last twenty years or more.   However, although his career seemed to be winding down at this point that was far from the truth: he more cross-country to do, he had more track to do and he had a newish career as an international hill-runner.   There will be a look at that aspect of his running as well as a look at his running as a veteran competing against younger men and as a veteran athlete.   The truth is that he never ever really made a separate career as a vet: he entered all the same races but maybe slightly fewer than before with good results (eg two tenth places in the Senior Men’s National) and it was only later that he entered vets events and when he did he usually won (eg in 2011 as an M45 he won the race, took also the M45 award and that gave him eleven National titles since his first in 1982!)

As an over 40 he has so far only run three times in the National and then with distinction: in 2008 he was tenth, in 2009 he was again tenth and in 2011 he was sixteenth.   The last was particularly praiseworthy: it was a National with lots of young men in the first 100 in distinction to previous years dominated by older, more experienced (and maybe a bit slower) runners, they were virtually all home Scots and Bobby was the only M40 in the first 30 and in fact he was coming up for his 46th birthday.   Always in a good position he ran very well indeed.    In Veteran’s athletics he first appears in the cross-country championships in 2008 after the new M35 category had been devised.   As an M40 he won the championship comfortably from David Millar and Steven Wylie  who were both M35’s.   In 2009 he won again from Steven Wylie who was still M35).   Robert missed 2010 which would have given him three-in-a-row here as well had he won it but he was back in 2011 when he was overall champion again – as an M45 he won with room to spare from Kerry Liam Wilson and Steven Wylie who were both M40’s!   Ran three, won three – so far!    At British level he was also a star and, says Colin Youngson, a hero to all Scottish vests from W35 to M70 when he was first in the M35/M40/M45 in the British and Irish Masters Cross Country International (5 countries including Ireland) at Stormont, Belfast on 16th November 2007.   On 15th November 2008, Bobby (M40) was second to England’s Tim Hartley but well clear of Welsh International steeplechaser (based in USA) Justin Chaston.  It was run that year on a very hilly and muddy course in Singleton Park, Swansea.   Bobby himself rated this as a better run than his gold the previous year.   In 2010 he won the Scottish vets 5000m on the track at Pitreavie on a day when the wind was very strong:   Bobby was not the only runner who likened turning into the home straight on each lap like “running into a brick wall.”

With all the success he has had why did he add in hill and mountain running?   He reckons that he was always a good climber and being light with a good strength to weight ratio so he was suited to it in a way that many cross-country runners are not.   It was also a good way to re-invigorate his running career and extend international running well into his thirties.   Spending summers racing over the most beautiful mountains in Europe and beyond he describes as ‘great’ – and who would disagree?      His record is fantastic.   Look at the international results in the table below.   For full details you can go to the World Mountain Running Association Website at www.wmra.ch    The World Championships tend to be held in September. the Europeans in July and the Commonwealths have only been held once – in September 2009.   So far though he doesn’t seem to have put ‘veteran’ and ‘hill running’ together to get the Masters World Mountain  Running Championships together,.

There is also a Grand Prix for Mountain Running – see the link above – which involves races all over the Continent including major championships.   Robert actually won one of the major Grand Prix events in 1999 at Lenzerhide.   His overall world ranking in 1999 was third, in 2000 fifth, and in 2001he was ninth.   The rankings can be found using this link:   

http://www.wmra.ch/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=570&Itemid=39

*****

So that’s Robert’s career as an athlete up to the start of 2011:    11 National Cross Country titles between Under 17 and Over 45, a 4k Cross Country Championships and many victories on the track.  At the age of 44, he is the current Scottish 10000m champion!   One of his claims to fame is that he is the first person to gain full senior  UK representative honours across all major surfaces –

Track: European 10000 Challenge, Lisbon, 1996

Road: World Ekiden Road Relays, Copenhagen 1997

Cross-Country: World Championships, 1995

Mountains: see the Table

GB and Scottish International vests on the track, over the country, on the hills and on the roads.   There could/should have been another  GB cross-country vest in 1996 (see above) but for bad luck and selectorial vagaries!   A talented athlete, a superb worker, a ferocious competitor and a real and practising lover of our sport.   Long may he continue to bring us pleasure!

Robert was profiled again in the December 2018 Scottish Veteran Harriers Club Newsletter. Here is the information about his Veteran/Masters career.

As a Masters athlete, Robert has also enjoyed many successes, despite periods of inevitable injury. His M40, M45 and M50 Scottish Masters XC wins have been mentioned earlier in this article. Kilbarchan won team bronze in 2008 and silver in 2009. In 2007, he was first Masters finisher in the Gateshead UK XC Challenge. On the track, he was first in a gale-torn 2010 Scottish Masters 5000m at Pitreavie (a title he regained in 2013); and, also in 2013, won the Scottish Masters indoor 3000m at the Emirates Stadium, Glasgow.

Robert’s three races for Scotland in the splendid annual British and Irish Masters XC International have been outstanding. In 2007 at Stormont, Belfast, he won the M40 title and at the presentation was cheered deafeningly as the hero of his entire team (female or male, aged 35 to 70 plus). In 2008 at the very muddy and hilly Singleton Park, Swansea, he may have been second to England’s Tim Hartley, but considers this run to have been even better than Belfast. At Derry in 2017, despite being hampered by limited training due to injury niggles, he narrowly missed a medal, battling to fourth M50.

In the Scottish National senior cross-country Robert finished first Master three times, in 2008, 2009 and 2011, with his best position tenth.

In UK Masters rankings, Robert has been first M40 in 3000m, 5000m, 10,000m and Parkrun; and first M45 in Parkrun.

In 2018 he has taken a break from running, hopefully freshening his legs for future age-groups! Naturally, he remains very fit. This summer, as well as completing bike tours of Arran, Mull of Kintyre, round Loch Fyne, Bute and Rothesay, Robert cycled up major Pyrenean climbs like Luz Ardiden and the Tourmalet. In fact, before the road was closed on 27th July, he ‘nipped’ up the Tourmalet again to take photos of the Tour de France racers who were not far behind.

Brian McAusland finished his profile with the following. “A talented athlete, a superb worker, a ferocious competitor and a real and practising lover of our sport.” All his many friends, including SVHC runners, wish this intelligent, friendly, admirable man a speedy return to running.

Christine winning the road mile at Stirling, 1985

Many Scottish runners had parents, siblings and children who also enjoyed the sport. The most successful surname must be Stewart: Lachie and his son Glen from Glasgow; the unrelated Peter and his siblings Ian and Mary from Birmingham – all five GB International athletes. Aberdeen has Mel Edwards and his son Myles. But the battle for top running family has been most intense in the Dundee area. Liz McColgan and her daughter Eilish; Doug Gunstone, his wife Palm, his sister Penny and his son Neil. But the Hasketts take some beating. Christine Haskett represented Scotland in the ICCU or IAAF World Cross Country Championships no less than 14 times; her brother Charlie ran the IAAF event six times; and now his son Mark is showing that he may have the talent to emulate the achievements of his father and his aunt.

Christine Haskett was born on the 30^th of November 1952. Her father Charles, known as Chick, had been involved in athletics before and during the Second World War, particularly with Dundee Hawkhill Harriers, a club that trained in and around Caird Park, which had its own running track. When interviewed in early 1987 by Doug Gillon for ‘Scotland’s Runner’ magazine, Chris recalled her first race in 1968. “It was for the Hawks against Dundee University on a very bumpy grass track. I ran about 2.20 for 880 yards.” Harry Bennett (who went on to tutor Liz Lynch / McColgan), became Chris’s coach. She was second in the Scottish Intermediate 880 yards that year.

Her progress was extremely rapid. In the 1969 Scottish Under-17 CC she finished second but a long way behind Rose Murphy of Bathgate Harriers. However that summer she reduced her 800m personal best to 2.15.1. Although Sandra Sutherland of ESH topped the Intermediate yearlist with 2.14.2 (defeating Haskett for the first time in the WAAA Championships), Christine “the slimly built Dundee girl showed brilliant form in Scotland, annexing four major titles” – the East District, East v West, Scottish Schools and SWAAA championships.

Christine (on the right) with the triumphant Hawkhill Women’s national winning team

1970 was a fantastic year for Christine Haskett. In the Scottish Senior CC, at the tender age of seventeen, she was a very close second, sharing the winning time of Margaret MacSherry (Cambridge Harriers). Jim Logan reported: “They quickly moved away from the field – MacSherry leading with Haskett about ten yards behind. With a mile left, Christine made her challenge, but MacSherry resisted and they passed and re-passed until at 200 yards MacSherry made what appeared to be the decisive move. Christine guttily came again and the two girls fought all the way to the line, both clocking 26.00 but with MacSherry a whisker in front.” These two athletes were to be close rivals for several years.

The SATS Yearbook reports: “The 1500 metres was completely dominated in 1970 from a Scottish point of view by two runners, Margaret MacSherry and Christine Haskett, who between them re-wrote the Scottish records: Margaret the National, lowering the time to 4.22.4; and Christine the Native, which she reduced in stages from 4.42.3 to 4.40.9, 4.30.8 and 4.23.8. Her time in the CG final was a new UK age-best and she was chosen to compete for GB in the European Junior Championships in Paris (where she won a silver medal) and in the match v West Germany at Leicester (finishing third).” Before the Games, Christine won the 1500m in the East District Championship and the East v West, before coming second, just half a second behind Margaret, in the SWAAA event, which sealed her selection for the Games.

In the Eleventh British Commonwealth Games in Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh, on the 25^th of July, Chris, who was still only seventeen, set a very good new 1500m personal best (4.23.8) in 8^th place, just one place behind Margaret MacSherry (4.23.6). The winner was England’s Rita Ridley in 4.18.8.   Chris finished the season with a win over 800m (2.14.3) back home at Caird Park.

She reminisced in 1987 that she was lucky, because her time in the Scottish was point eight of a second over the qualifying time, but the selectors did choose her for the Games. At 17 she was not the youngest – sprinter Helen Golden and long jumper Moira Walls were both her junior – but she was the lightest. She knows that because she was selected as the athlete to stand at the top of the ladder  which Dave Wilson, Ricky Taylor, Dave Kidner and others carried round the Meadowbank Stadium in that marvellously spontaneous closing ceremony.

In the 1971 Scottish Senior CC, Chris Haskett took revenge on Margaret MacSherry, “scoring a runaway win on her home course at Dundee. She won the three and three-quarter mile race by over a minute.” The first six were chosen for the International CC in San Sebastian, where Christine finished an excellent sixth. During the track season she improved her 800m time to 2.09.5; and won the East v West, followed by gold in the SWAAA 1500m. Her season’s bests were a list-topping 4.25.4 for 1500m at Crystal Palace; and a Scottish National Record of 4.49.4 for one mile.

The 1972 Scottish Senior CC featured a close battle between Chris Haskett and the newly-married Margaret Coomber. This time it was Margaret who regained her title by 12 seconds – her final victory over Chris in this championship. The track season produced the following times for Chris Haskett: 800m 2.08.1; 1500m 4.25.5; 3000m 9.40.4 (a Scottish National record). She won the Scottish WAAA 1500m title plus the East v West race and was ranked top in the Scottish yearlist. However she suffered from lack of top-class competition at international level.

Chris Haskett regained her Scottish CC title in 1973 with a clear win over Margaret Coomber. However Mary Stewart dominated the track season, and Chris’s best mark was 4.25.6 for 1500m. Her lack of form meant that she was not selected for the Commonwealth Games at Christchurch, where Mary Stewart finished fourth in the 1500m in a new Scottish National record of 4.14.7.

Although Chris lost her Scottish CC title in 1974 when finishing second to Moira O’Boyle, she enjoyed her best track season since 1970. At the SWAAA Championships at Meadowbank on 22^nd June, Chris secured a rare double: 1500m in 4.24.4 and 3000m in 9.36.0 – both crushing victories. She produced new personal bests with 4.18.8 and 9.32.0 (a Scottish National record). Chris had the top eight 3000m performances in the Scottish yearlist.

Christine with the Scottish Women’s Team in Monza in 1974

1975 continued this success. Chris Haskett not only regained her Scottish CC title (the first of three in succession) but also repeated her double success in the SWAAA championships with gold medals for 1500m (4.21.6 – a Scottish Native record) and 3000m. Earlier she had set a 3000m Scottish Native record of 9.24.6 at Meadowbank. Then in the WAAA championships at Crystal Palace on the 18^th of July she won a valiant silver medal behind Ireland’s Mary Purcell in a Scottish National record of 9.18.4. Consequently, she was selected to run 3000m for Great Britain v France at Dieppe.

Once more, she had the top eight performances in the Scottish 3000m year list.

1974 and 1975 proved to be the peak years for Christine Haskett, although she continued to be successful until 1993! She won the Scottish 3000m title in 1976 and also retained her Scottish CC championship in 1976 (defeating Moira O’Boyle) and 1977 (in front of Margaret Coomber).

In addition, Chris competed indoors for about 3 years, winning the National indoor 3000m championships at Cosford in February 1975 in 9m 40.2 seconds. She competed for Great Britain indoors at 1500m in 1975 v Belgium at Cosford finishing 4th; and also ran 3000m for GB against Canada in Montreal in March 1976. 

By 1979 she was married and running as Christine Price. Next year she switched clubs to Bolton United Harriers. 1981 produced a good 3000m time of 9.31.1. Then in 1982 she won the Scottish CC title for the sixth time, twenty seconds ahead of a certain Elizabeth Lynch of her old club Dundee Hawkhill Harriers. That summer Christine’s 3000m best was 9.24.39, although she continued to race only south of the border.

Chris moved back to Dundee and by 1986 was competing for DHH once again. In both 1986 and 1987 she was second in the Scottish CC championships and in the latter year, along with her brother Charlie Haskett, Christine Price was part of the final Scottish team which was permitted to take part in the World CC Championships. As Colin Shields reported: “This was at the Sluzewiec Racecourse in Warsaw, Poland, in dreadful conditions on a slippery muddy surface in sub zero weather. Amongst the Scots, only Liz Lynch (who won a silver medal) ran really well.” However Christine Price could take justifiable pride in her record fourteenth appearance for Scotland in this competition (or its International CC precursor).

On the track, the creation of 10,000m races for women offered Chris Haskett-Price a further chance of a Commonwealth Games place, sixteen years after her first. In 1985 she won two gold medals in the SWAAA Championship: 5000m in 16.35.7; and 10,000m in 35.10.42. In 1986, after retaining her Scottish 10,000m title in 35.02.33, she was selected for the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. In Meadowbank Stadium, on the 28^th o f July, Chris ran well to finish tenth in a personal best of 33.59.90. It was a great day for the Scots, since Liz Lynch won the gold medal.

Even well after their peaks, many runners continue competing or at least trying to keep fit. Christine Haskett-Price always wore the Scottish vest with distinction and in November 1993 she took part in the Home Countries (5 Nations) International Veterans Cross Country Championship over a dry course in an estate outside Cardiff.

Chris was competitive all the way and eventually finished second overall, just 13 seconds down on the W35 victor for England, Margaret Eldridge. However Chris was ten seconds clear in the battle for W40 honours and became one of the very few individual winners for Scotland in this annual and most prestigious event in British Veteran Athletics.

In 2020, Christine reflected as follows: “I would consider that my best achievements have been: the silver medal I got competing for GB in the European Junior 1500m championships in 1970; representing GB on the track both indoors and outdoors; competing for Scotland in two Commonwealth Games; representing Scotland on the track, cross country and road; and helping my clubs (Dundee Hawkhill Harriers, Bolton United Harriers and Stretford AC) in many races.

My best memories of competing and training are the many friendships I made.  Also thinking back to the times I’ve stood on the start line shivering in the cold and driving sleet waiting for the gun to go off!!   I was also very fortunate, due to athletics, to travel to parts of the world that I would not have otherwise seen.

I think athletics now is so different compared to when I was running.  It is now a professional sport and, if you are good enough, you can make a living from it.  However, because of the money that can be earned it also brings the temptation to ‘win at all costs ‘ which I’m sure applies to only a very small minority.  For me, the greatest prize for was being able to represent my country.

I probably stopped running about 1993 or thereabouts and kept reasonably fit by swimming and walking.  Nowadays I go out walking most days and spend a lot of time gardening!”

Christine ran for Scotland: on the track, 14 times (including the 1970 and 1986 Commonwealth Games); on the road, three times; and on cross-country 21 times. She represented her country considerably more often than any other female runner; and she and her brother Charlie (two Junior and ten Senior XC vests plus one track international and three on the road), undoubtedly hold the Scottish Siblings (middle and long distance) record too! 

Christine Haskett-Price enjoyed a long and distinguished career, winning many championships and enthralling spectators with her grace and fighting spirit. Dundee and Scotland should be very proud of her.

Susan Partridge is one of the country’s best endurance runners having had success on the track and over the country but it is on the roads that she has really made her mark.   This profile by Colin Youngson has been written at a time when she is still running and will require up-dating in a few years time.   For now, here is Colin’s profile of this talented athlete.

Susan Partridge was born on the fourth of January 1980. On the 27^th of August 2011 she represented Great Britain in the World Championship marathon in Daegu, Korea. Her international career has been impressive. She has run in: the World and also the European cross-country championships (helping Britain to team gold in the latter); the 2006 Commonwealth marathon; the 2010 European Marathon; and has top-thirty places from the World Road Running and World Half-Marathon Championships. Only the Olympics to go!

Susan’s father, Alan, was a tough, successful and well-respected runner in the 1970s and early 1980s, representing Jordanhill College and East Kilbride AAC. He showed early promise by finishing a close second to GB International steeplechaser Alistair Blamire in the 1971 Scottish Universities CC Championship, in front of future Olympic 1500m finalist Frank Clement. Alan’s personal bests included: 3000 metres steeplechase 9.29.4; 5000 metres 14.25.4; and 10,000 metres 30.39.7. Perhaps his finest Performance was eighth in the extremely competitive 1977 Scottish National cross-country championships. He finished fourth in the Scottish Marathon Championship in 1974; and in the 1982 London Marathon recorded a good time of 2.22.30.

Nowadays Susan’s parents live in Appin, near Oban, and when Susan (a Glasgow University engineering graduate who runs for Leeds City AC) visits, she enjoys training with her two-year-old German short-haired pointer called Piper, on an old railway line and along the forest trails of Barcaldine. Alan often accompanies them on his bike.

Susan Partridge started running properly when she was fifteen. In an interview for runbritain in 2010, she said “I used to look after a horse from my local stables during the winter months and one day decided that I should try to keep fit by running to the stables and back. My Dad was a runner and although he was always careful not to put any pressure on me, he was able to give me advice on how to train and would come out running with me”. Susan realised early on that she had natural talent for longer events, which at the time were 800m or 1500m.   She made an early impact on the Scottish cross-country scene, winning the National under-17 title in both 1996 and 1997. In 1998 she was 12^th (second Junior) in the Scottish Senior CC championships.   As an under-23 in 2002, running for Victoria Park City of Glasgow AC, she had progressed to 5000m in 16.32.31 (winning a silver medal in the Scottish Championships); and had also run the Great North Run half marathon in 76.11.

In 2003, Susan won the Scottish Athletics Federation Cross-Country title and then became Scottish Champion at 5000m, as well as improving her 10,000m PB to 34.26.18. 2004 was the year that she concentrated on road running. After making her marathon debut with 2.41.44 at London, she produced an excellent half-marathon time of 73.22 (second in a race in Spain). Then she returned to the track to finish seventh in the AAA Championships 5000m in a new PB of 16.24.73.

In the 2005 London Marathon, Susan Partridge progressed to 2.37.50. In October, she ran for GB in the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Edmonton, Canada, finishing 25^th in 73.49, only a few seconds slower than her personal best of 73.10, which was set when she won the Bath Half Marathon in March.

2006 was Commonwealth Games year and Susan’s preparations included a PB 10k (33.19) and a good half-marathon (73.14) in Spain, before finishing a solid tenth (2.39.54) in Melbourne, Australia on the 19^th of March. Then in July she improved her best ten mile time to 57.23. In September’s Great Scottish Run Glasgow Half Marathon another impressive PB was achieved: 72.40.   After a series of 10k races in 2007, Susan Partridge cut a few seconds off her 10 mile best (57.14), and finished the year well with 6^th in the Great North Run Half Marathon (72.33 – PB) and another sixth in the Dublin Marathon (2.38.33).

In 2008, Susan started well by reclaiming the Scottish CC title in Falkirk. However London produced a slower time (2.41.40). A new venture was winning the Puma Garburn trail race in Stavely (which she went on to win three years in succession). The rest of the season was comparatively unsuccessful. Susan says: “In 2008-2009 I had a time when I felt sick after all my runs, even relatively easy ones. It was difficult as despite doing some tests there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with me and we never really got to the bottom of it. After a while I took a couple of months off and tried to enjoy life. I lacked motivation and for a while questioned whether I wanted to get back to running competitively.” Eventually “something just clicked” and she targeted trying to make the GB team for the 2009 world half marathon championships in Birmingham. Despite narrowly missing out on selection, she “felt my old self both physically and mentally and did manage to win the EDF Energy Birmingham Half Marathon in a time that wasn’t far off my PB (72.50). Everyone goes through rough times and in hindsight they usually help to show you how much running means to you and how much you care.”

In early 2010, Susan Partridge ran many miles and a series of good sessions. She got a part-time job doing research into joint replacement at Leeds University and “I think that helped to give me a routine. I had previously been self-employed and although I probably had more time to train, my time management left a lot to be desired. I definitely prefer routine.”    All this led to a breakthrough in the London Marathon, where she finished 17^th (second Briton) in a PB of 2.35.57 (which also won her a gold medal in the Scottish Marathon Championship!) and was selected for the GB team for the European Championships at the end of July. After a couple of weeks rest, she got back into 90 to 100 miles per week training. In the heat and humidity of Barcelona she finished in 2.39.07 and Michelle Ross-Cope (14^th), Susan (16^th) and Holly Rush (20th) were the three scorers for the six-women GB team which won European Cup bronze medals.

The website runbritain.com reported “These girls have a lot in common: they are exceedingly talented and totally driven in their pursuit of marathon success. They also have superb back-up teams that include faithful training partners to accompany them on training runs through rain and shine!” These training partners are their dogs.

The article says “Piper’s favourite thing is going for a long run. Susan had tried to do speed work involving repetitions over shorter distances with recovery in between but he doesn’t understand why you would want to run back and forward and just gives up and starts sniffing around…….. Piper usually accompanies Susan’s husband, Martin, to watch at races and gets very excited when he sees Susan run past.”  She explained “Pointers never stop running so he’s the perfect training partner. He’s been great for me over the last year as he motivates me to get out of bed in the morning. I’m not a morning person and it would be easy to roll over for another half-hour when the alarm goes at 6.30 a.m. but I know Piper has to go out so I’ve barely missed a morning run since we got him. He’s great company and a handsome boy too. I’m proud of him.”

2010 was Susan’s most successful year on the roads: she recorded six wins over distances from 10k to 20 miles.

2011 has started really well. In January, Susan Partridge became first Yorkshire and Humberside CC champion and secondly won the Northern CC title. In mid-March she won the Spenborough 20 mile race and a week later finished fourth in the well-known Reading Half Marathon (73.47). April’s London Marathon produced a new PB (2.34.13), 25^th place (3^rd British woman) and selection for the World Marathon Championships in Korea at the end of August.

A satisfying training race took place at the end of June, when Susan won the Dunfermline Half Marathon in 76.26 on a testing course. This incorporated the Home Countries International Road Race Series, and Scotland defeated England for the first time in the history of the event. In addition, Susan Partridge became SAF Half Marathon Champion.

Doug Gillon reported recently that, in preparation for Korea, Susan has spent time in an acclimatisation chamber at Leeds University (90 minutes on a treadmill in 33 degree heat and 70% humidity). “Dr Mark Heatherington, a human performance scientist at Leeds, is helping her with a plan for taking on just the right amount of fluid.” “Her respected coach for the last fourteen years, John Montgomery, is commendably open-minded, encouraging other influences, and two months before the London Marathon she spent a month at moderate altitude in Boulder, USA, this year with the former marathon world-record-holder Steve Jones.”

Susan sent back two blog entries about this experience to runbritain.com. She was inspired by Steve’s insistence that a good runner should learn to ‘run from the gut’, as hard as possible, and realise that sometimes, in a race, you just have to go for it when it feels right and not be scared of what might go wrong. She did disagree to some extent with Steve, and still believes that in a training schedule there should be room for some easier running and steady 13 mile sessions at marathon pace. However Susan did try Steve’s morning speed sessions: 8×3 minutes with 2 minutes rest; 5×5 minutes with 2 minutes rest; 10x 90 second hills with a jog back down. Other morning sessions included one hour 45 minutes steady; or one hour ten minutes easy; or one hour 15 minutes including 25 minutes tempo. Three afternoons a week added a 30 or 45 minute easy run. Sunday, of course, is the long run – 2 hours 30 minutes at an easy pace, picking up speed a couple of miles from home. Monday: only one hour easy. Total – about 95 miles per week. Susan enjoyed the contrast in weather from February in Leeds. “If you get up at 7 a.m. in Boulder and walk out the door you’re met with beautiful sunshine, cool fresh mountain air, frolicking wildlife and quite frankly it makes you glad to be alive.”    Early morning speed sessions in British ice, rain and traffic fumes might not be sensible.

After two weeks acclimatisation in Korea, Susan Partridge took part in the IAAF World Championship Marathon in Daegu. In stifling conditions, she ran a calm, sensible race and came through strongly to finish a meritorious 24^th (1^st GB, 6^th European), in 3.25.57) from the 54 starters.    In an interview afterwards, she assessed this performance. “I am only 31, which for a  marathon runner is quite young, so having this experience of major championships now, and being able to perform well both in qualifying and in this race is great. I’m really pleased – less than two minutes off my PB in those conditions. I got in a group quite early on with three Americans and the pace was perfect for me. I felt quite strong – I was telling myself just wait, just wait, don’t get carried away, but over the last few miles I was picking people off all the time. I felt so strong and it encourages you to keep it strong right through to the end. Overall I feel encouraged. I was in the mix there with some good athletes and it makes me think I’ve been able to go away and up the mileage and improve my sessions and I’m still improving. If I can do that again, I don’t know how close I can get to the Olympic team but it’s still worth making a bid for it. My strength is my consistency –  I seem to be able to qualify then turn it around and produce a good championship run as well, which is a quality in itself and, in marathon running, confidence is vital.”

Unfortunately, Susan was not selected for the London Olympic marathon, after recording 2.37.45 in London 2012. Subsequently she worked on her speed, recording personal bests of 4.36.23 for 1500m and 9.19.18 for 3000m. She was selected as one of the three-women team that represented GB & NI in the World Half Marathon Championships in Kavarna, Bulgaria, where she finished 22^nd. A week later Susan won the Cardiff Half Marathon in 71.10, another PB.

Her hard work over the winter included several brisk cross-country outings, including a win in the Yorkshire championships and an excellent 70.31 in the prestigious Bath Half Marathon in March 2013. Then came April and London again. The Scotsman reported: “Susan Partridge maintained her brilliant form this year by remaining in touch with the leading pack in pursuit of a strong African contingent. When eventual winner Priscah Jeptoo pulled away, the Scot maintained a steady pace to cross the line 9th in 2.30.46, a time three minutes quicker than her previous best and good enough for fifth in the Scottish all-time rankings, earning a trip to Moscow in August for the World Championships marathon. After being the top British woman and inside the qualifying standard, the only question was whether Partridge (who also secured the 2014 Commonwealth Games standard) wanted to go to Moscow, and she certainly did.”

The afternoon of the tenth of August was a very humid afternoon in the Russian capital, when 72 athletes started the Women’s World Championship Marathon. Susan, who by now had a full-time job as a researcher in joint replacement at the University of Leeds, set off very carefully, well down the field. After reaching the finish in the Luzhniki Stadium, Olympic Park, she said, “It was all about places today. I was way back at the start and for a minute wondered if I’d been a little bit cautious, but once I got my rhythm going I started to come back and pick people off.” Live television coverage made clear how well Susan was moving up throughout the entire race. Eventually she crossed the line in 2.36.24 to secure a fine tenth place (third European). In the history of the event, Great Britain previously had only four top-ten finishers: Paula Radcliffe (1^st in 2005); Joyce Smith (9^th in 1983); Mara Yamauchi (9^th in 2007); and Sally Ellis (10^th in 1991).

Susan recovered well from this career-defining performance, and another highlight came on 6^th October, when she ran right away from a good lead pack to win the Great Scottish Half Marathon in Glasgow. Her time (70.40) was only nine seconds slower than her fastest. Once again the whole event was televised and Susan’s powerful, determined running seemed to augur well for her hopes in the 2014 Commonwealth Games marathon in the same city.

Susan Partridge should be very proud of what she has achieved, due to talent, resilience and consistent hard training. One inspiration has been Paula Radcliffe, who kept on increasing her mileage until she reached her peak. Susan has experienced a fantastic range of British and International racing highlights. She clearly loves running and should be considered an excellent role model for all aspiring Scottish distance athletes.

Moira O’Boyle’s Dad, Cyril, was a club mate of mine at Clydesdale Harriers for many years and we must have covered hundreds of miles, maybe thousands, together, so I have known Moira for a long time.   They were a superb family to know and be friends with.    Her Mum Noreen became a runner eventually – and a good one – and her sister Pat was always in evidence but couldn’t be a runner because of asthma.    I remember at the 1986 Commonwealth Games when Moira was coming on to the track to start the Marathon and I was standing waiting for the Scottish contingent to come out.  She came over to me and asked if I could make sure her Dad got a cup of tea because ‘he’s had nothing all morning.’   In the mid 1990’s I was at Cumbernauld for the International Cross Country races and as I was crossing the infield to shout encouragement (or something) to one of my runners, this voice behind me said, ‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’   I did recognise her immediately: thinner than of yore but she had been ill and she was with the Irish team in some official category and we had a good old blether until she had to go and see how the Irish runners were doing.    So if she’s Irish, why is she here?   She’s here because she was more Scottish than some who might be included!   Brought up in Clydebank, trained at Whitecrook in Clydebank and Scotstoun in Glasgow; winner of Scottish titles on the track and over the country, Scottish Internationalist until the whole family moved back to Ireland in the late 70’s    Let’s look at her career in a bit of detail.

Moira was born on 20th August 1956 and the first trace of her in the Scottish Women’s Cross Country Championships is in 1970 when she was sixth in the Girls Race in a time of exactly ten minutes.   Two years later she was second in the Intermediate age group to Mary Stewart – sister of Ian and Peter Stewart.   The next year was very good one for Moira and the ‘Athletics Weekly’ report on the Scottish Championships in Edinburgh in 1973 runs as follows: “Mary Stewart did not appear to defend her Intermediate title, thus robbing the meeting of its expected highlight – the clash of Mary and the bang-in-form Moira O’Boyle.   In the absence of her most formidable rival, Moira beat another Anglo-Scot Sheila Barrass by over a minute.”   The actual times were 15:48 and 16:53.   In 1974 Moira was competing in the Seniors Championship at Milngavie, the AW report read: “Fulfilling all expectations, Moira O’Boyle continued her already distinguished career by winning the Scottish Senior Cross Country title in 22:04.   Although this is Moira’s first year as a senior, she made her mark in this section at the first attempt.   On this form Moira might well be a surprise medallist in the International Championships at Monza, in Italy, in March.”    The official times were 22:04 and 22:26 for Christine Haskett in second.  This year also marked the first run in the event of her mother Noreen who finished nineteenth. Among her successes in 1974 was a win in the prestigious GB Universities Cross Country Championships.    Moira did not run in 1975 because of “adverse effects of smallpox vaccinations for Morocco.”   The championships in 1976 were held in Livingston she was over a minute behind Chris Haskett (21:03 to 22:06).   Noreen was twenty fourth this time.   Moira had a rather good run at Louvain in France when she ran for the British team in the World Students Championships to finish second leading the GB team to victory.

The Scottish team in Monza, 1974.   Moira is second from the right

She was also considerably good on the track.   In 1969 as a Junior the longest distance which she was allowed to run was 800 metres and she was ranked eighth with a time of 2:54.7.   Two years later, in 1971 she was running as an Intermediate and won the West District Intermediate 1500 metres in 5:07.9, was second in the East v West Match in 4:57.7  and was second in the Scottish intermediate 1500 behind Mary Stewart in 4:47.2.    In her own age group she was ranked fourteenth in the 800 with 2:28 and second in the 1500 with the 4:47.2 time behind Mary Stewart’s 4:35.5.     In 1972 she was West District and SWAAA 1500 metres champions with a best of 4:44.1, third in the Scottish Senior 3000 metres and a season’s best of 10:21.6.   In 1973 Moira won the West District 1500 metres and 3000 metres titles and was second in the Scottish 3000 metres with season’s bests of 4:54.4 and 10:05.8.    The following year she won the West 3000 metres title and had a best for the year of 9:58.2. which ranked her second in Scotland and then in the East v West match she won both the 1500 and 3000 metres in 4:52.2 and 10:30.4 – she was just 19 at the time.    In 1975 she had a best for the 3000 metres of 9:57.8.   The family moved back to Ireland in the late 1970’s and Moira moved up to the marathon in 1982 – a step up that he father never made.   Cyril was an Irish champion and International class athlete who created quite a stir when he arrived in Scotland but although a very talented road runner he never took the final step to the ultimate road runner’s distance.   Moira did and, I believe found her real metier.

Colin Youngson ran for Victoria Park AAC for a year or two while teaching at Kelvinside Academy and he has some interesting and informative memories of Moira – and the rest of the family.  What follows is an extract from his memories of this time: there is some duplication of what has been written above but not too much and there is a different emphasis.

Ronnie Kane had been in a brilliant Victoria Park team that won the Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay on many occasions in the 1950’s.   He was now Captain of Victoria Park AAC and decided on the routes for the fast pack/slow pack club training sessions around the streets in Tuesday and Thursday evenings.   Ronnie also coached the ‘Ladies Section’ which had only been formed three years earlier (ie 1968).   They were very quickly successful and their undoubted star was then only 15 years old: Moira O’Boyle.

Her parents were also good runners.   Cyril O’Boyle, a loquacious, droll Irishman who ran for Clydesdale Harriers and his charming wife Noreen.   The club mag bemoaned the fact that despite doing all her training with Victoria Park, Noreen continued to race with Clydesdale which prevented Victoria Park Seniors from winning even more team titles!   The intermediate age group was for young women aged 15 – 17.   In early winter 1971 my newspaper cuttings indicate that Moira O’Boyle occasionally lost a race – shock, horror!   She had won a silver Thistle Award for that year’s track season (1500 in 4:47.2) but finished second in the first league cross-country race.   However by early November she was beating the  1971 Intermediate Scottish 1500m and cross country champion, Eileen Radka from Bathgate; and in the Scottish Women’s Western District Cross-Country Championships at Pollok Estate in early December 1971 Moira won the Intermediate two miles by fully 400 yards “an astonishing margin in a race of this length”.   Her team won of course.   Her mother Noreen was ninth in the Senior race.

In early January 1972 Moira won her age-group in the East v West cross-country race at Fauldhouse.   Then at the end of that month, VP Intermediate girls won the SWCCU Road Relay.    Although Moira finished second to the outstanding Anglo-Scot Mary Stewart from Birchfield Harriers in the Scottish Championships at Pitreavie, the VP team won and Moira bounced back to achieve fifth place in the English Cross-Country Championships at the end of February and to win the Scottish Schools Cross Country title.   That summer Moira’s progress was clear.   First she won the Intermediate 1500m title in the West Championships, the East v West, and then the SWAAA Championships.   Her pb improved to 4:44.1.   Then at the age of only 16 she won a bronze medal in the SWAAA 3000 metres senior championships at Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh, behind Ann Barrass from Aldershot and Wanda Sosinka (ESH).   Moira’s time was 10:21.6 (when the National Record was only 9:40!) and the yearbook commented “she looks an outstanding prospect.”  

Moira O’Boyle’s success continued.   She was VP Ladies Captain for 1972-73.   The next cutting I have indicates that she continued to ‘murder’ the opposition over the country.   On December 2nd, 1972, she retained her West District title.   Then she was congratulated on her “fine performance at Watford on 16th December representing Scotland in the Inter-League Match.”  However a major highlight came on 10th February 1973 in Edinburgh when Moira O’Boyle won the SWCCU Intermediate CC Championship by more than a minute.  In the summer she did not improve her 1500 m best but did win the Wesy and the East v West events.   Moira’s 3000 metres time improved to 10:05.8 and she on the West and West v East races.   She improved to a silver medal in the SWAAA Senior 3000 metres, behind Ann Barrass again.

Almost exactly a year later on 9th February 1974, at Milngavie, Moira achieved her most amazing feat so far when she won the Scottish Women’s Senior Cross-Country Championship and led VPAAC to victory in the team race.   The report is as follows: “Fulfilling all expectations, Moira O’Boyle, Victoria Park, continued her already distinguished career by winning the title in 22:04.   Although this is Moira’s first year as a Senior, she (like Jim Brown a week later) made her mark in this section at the first attempt.   On this form, Moira might well be a medallist at the International Championships at Monza, Italy in March.   Second in the Senior race was Dundonian Christine Haskett, now with Stretford AC, and third was the highly rated Ann Barrass of Aldershot.   The fourth counter in the winning VP team was one Noreen O’Boyle who must have been immensely proud.”   That summer, although 17 year old Moira did not improve her 1500 metres time (an error?)   she broke the 10 minute barrier with 9:58.2 as well as winning the West and West v East again.   The yearbook suggested that she was to be regarded as “mainly a cross-country specialist.”    Nothing wrong with that!

What a start to a running career!   My own memories of Moira at this time are twofold.   A newspaper photograph of her zooming away to yet another overwhelming victory reminds me of her face in a racing grimace: this was a young woman who always tried as hard as possible, despite the lack of opposition.   In private she did not smile a great deal, but was mature and serious at 16, her eyes intense as she talked fluently about training and her ambitions in the sport.   I do not know details about her training but she was rumoured to be piling up the miles, as well as working on speed endurance.   She was an unusual person, attractive and unsettling in her relentless enthusiasm.

Moira O’Boyle deserved utterly every single athletic success she achieved.”

The miles that Colin reports her as piling up and the speed endurance and cross-country successes all made for a first class marathon and road running career.   Starting with 3:05 in 1982 in the Foyle Festival Marathon in Derry – not a great time but a fair enough time for a woman in 1982.  Moira went on to win the Northern Ireland championship three times, win the Dublin Marathon, compete in two Commonwealth Games and set Northern Irish records for both half-marathon and marathon.   Her first attempt at the marathon is noted above but her second attempt over the same course brought her home in 2:47:38 and there were comments in the press about her being a sub 2:40 runner.  For example from the Marathon and Distance Runner: “Then more drama as 1982 Ladies’s winner Moira O’Boyle of Clydebank (but with Irish connections) came charging through with a 2:47:58 to destroy her 1982 time by nearly 18 minutes and set a new Northern Ireland Women’s All-Comers Record.   26 year old O’Boyle’s run puts her on the fringe of top class and she certainly looks like a lady ready for a sub 2:40.”   (This is a direct quote, including the ‘Ladies’s!)   The ‘Derry Journal’ in December 1983 reported on her win in the Foyle Women’s only 5K as follows:  “In October 1983 women in their hundreds took to the streets of Derry to take part in the first ever Foyle Female 5K for the Foyle Hospice.    The event was won by Moita O’Boyle, daughter of the legendary Donegal athlete Cyril O’Boyle.’

In 1984 she won the Belfast Marathon in 2:53:54 and with it her first Northern Ireland championship title.   The following year she repeated the feat with a time of 2:45:40 and then in 1986 she picked up her third consecutive title with the fastest time yet – 2:43:26.   This qualified her for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Edinburgh and there she finished eighth in 2:42:29.    Every race faster than the one before and by this time she had become Moira O’Neill having married the Irish marathon internationalist John O’Neill .   Her first, and as far as I can find out, her only run under 2:40 came in Dublin in 1987 where she won in 2:37:06 .  Wikipedia reports that in 1989 she finished two minutes ahead of Liz Bullen but I can find no other record of this particular race.   Just over 3,000 runners finished that year. Liz Bullen who finished second, is the twin sister of John Treacy,    I can find no record of her running another marathon in 1989 but in 1990 she ran in the Commonwealth Games in Auckland New Zealand and finished twelfth in 2:48:52.

With her Dad Cyril.

Moira died from cancer on 29th August 2012, just a week after her 56th birthday.   There is some information at http://insidetrak.blogspot.co.uk/  She still had the second fastest marathon time ever by a Northern Ireland athlete.

Winning the Scottish Cross-Country Championship, 1992

Having been involved in athletics, particularly endurance running, since 1957 I have found that others involved in the sport are almost universally friendly, genuine and helpful.   I had watched Vikki in training and racing for several years and admired her abilities when I invited her to help organise the women’s events in the major BMC Grand Prix meeting at Scotstoun at the turn of the century.   She was happy to come to the committee meetings when she could, gave valuable advice and was a real asset to a male dominated committee.   One of the most genuine and approachable international athletes that you could come across, she has suffered from a surprising lack of recognition domestically.   It may be the price of being a talented runner at the same time as Liz McColgan and Yvonne Murray in Scotland, and Paula Radford and Liz Yelling in Britain.   Of her talent, there is no doubt and Colin Youngson has written this profile of her athletics career.

Vikki McPherson (born 1^st of June 1971) achieved a great deal in her running career during the 1990s.   She was a Scottish and British Universities champion, a Scottish title winner, and ran internationally for both Scotland and Great Britain, on track as well as cross country.   In addition she won medals in World Universities competitions and in the World Cross Country Championship.   Between 1989 and 1993 Vikki studied accountancy, and enjoyed playing a full part in the athletic and social life of her club, Glasgow University Hares & Hounds. She was a natural choice to be Treasurer and, of course, won a Blue. Previously, she had been a member of Troon Tortoises; and went on to compete for City of Glasgow AC.

Fellow Harey Alastair Douglas writes “Vikki trained very hard under the guidance of Bill Parker.   She was both organised and disciplined in her approach to training and was also happy to advise and encourage other runners.   She was extremely friendly and popular within the sport.”   This is obvious if the history of GUH&H is consulted. It makes clear not only that Vikki improved constantly as an athlete, but also that she competed in all the usual student races, including the Isle of Man Easter Running Festival, and was a lively, mischievous young woman who loved a party.   There is frequent reference to the singing of certain student songs and the writing of satirical performance poetry.   Vikki’s team-mates in a very successful outfit included Hayley Haining, Joanna Cliffe, Suzie Donaldson, Jan Roxburgh, Katrina Paton and Michelle Jeffrey.

Vikki’s potential was immediately obvious.   As a ‘fresher’ she was fourth in the West District Junior CC, third in Scottish Universities, 18^th in BUSF and 6^th in the Scottish Senior National.   In addition, while in front on the first stage of the famous Hyde Park Relays, she led the entire field off course!   The next season brought a real challenge for Vikki, with the arrival at GU of the immensely talented (but somewhat injury-prone) Hayley Haining, who had been second in the 1990 National CC. Hayley proceeded to finish a little way in front of Vikki in several races but their rivalry led to improved performances for both.   Vikki (still only 19) was victorious in the West District Senior CC.   At an International 3000m road race, held in Turkey on 5^th December 1990. Hayley was second and Vikki fourth.   In early 1991, Vikki McPherson won the Scottish Universities CC title in Bellahouston Park, and GUH&H won the team.   At  BUSF in Sunderland, Vikki was a close second.  Then at Beach Park, Irvine, when the Scottish Women’s Cross Country Championships were held, Hayley Haining won, Vikki finished third and GUH&H won the national team title.   Over the Easter vacation, according to the GU history  “Vikki, Joanna and Michelle escaped death on a number of occasions, while running along the West Highland Way in three days.   The wild animals they encountered were fortunately held at bay by an essential item of Vikki’s equipment – her hairdryer!”

In November 1991, at the Safeway International CC Meeting at the infamous Riverside Bowl in Gateshead, Vikki finished sixth in a 5000m race.   Then in December, Vikki McPherson managed to defeat Hayley Haining in the Lita Allen Race in Kirkcaldy, by the narrow margin of four seconds.   Then in February 1992 at Keele University, Vikki McPherson had a tremendous run to win the British Universities CC title.   She followed that with an outstanding third place in the UK Championship and World CC Trial, held in Basingstoke.   After that, at Callender Park, Falkirk, Vikki became Scottish Women’s CC Champion.  Writing in The Herald, Doug Gillon noted “The twenty-year-old Glasgow student Vikki McPherson confirmed to a Scottish crowd yesterday that she has graduated from tortoise to hare.   The former Troon Tortoise has blossomed under the coaching of Bill Parker since moving to Glasgow to study accountancy.” 

At the 1992 World Cross Country Championships in Boston, USA, Vikki McPherson had a fine run for GB in freezing conditions over a snow-covered course and finished 62^nd.   Then in the World Students CC Championships in Dijon, France, Vikki captained the British Women’s team to victory and secured an individual silver medal.   (In 1994 she was also part of the winning team in this event when it took place in Limerick.)   In May, Vikki won the Strathclyde Women’s Kelvin 10k race in 33.05, 38 seconds in front of fellow International athlete Sandra Branney.

During her final year at Glasgow University, Vikki appeared less frequently for the students.   However in December she won a Women’s Inter-District CC race in Irvine; and went on to represent Scotland in an International CC Race in Durham, along with Hayley Haining and Joanna Cliffe (the West District and Scottish Universities CC winner).   This may well have been the contest that Alastair Douglas referred to when he wrote “one year in the televised Durham International Cross Country, the Hares & Hounds beat Kenya in the team race!”    In 1993, Vikki McPherson retained her Scottish CC title at Callender Park, Falkirk, and after being third once again in the UKChampionship trial race, once again gained selection for the British team competing in the World Cross Country Championships in Amorebieta, Spain, where she improved her finishing position to 38^th.

That summer, Vikki McPherson ran an excellent race when she finished fourth in the 1993 World Student Games 10,000m at Buffalo, USA, recording a lifetime best of 32.32.42 (which at the time was second only to Liz McColgan in the all-time Scottish ranking list).   In addition she ran the 10,000m for Great Britain in the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart.

After leaving university, Vikki continued her successful athletics career, although she began to suffer from injury.   She was fifth in the World CC trials and represented GB once more. Running for Scotland in the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada, Yvonne Murray won the 10,000m, with Vikki finishing fifth in 33.02.74.

In 1995, Vikki McPherson regained her Scottish Women’s Cross Country title in February; and in May won the Women’s Home Countries International 10,000m road race in Kelvingrove Park.

After several injuries, Vikki started to make a comeback by running for Britain in a 3000m at Gateshead in September 1997.    The following year – 1998 – was very successful. In the UK Championships and World CC Trial, she won the silver medal, sharing the winning time with Liz Talbot (Yelling). Then in the World Championships in Marrakesh, Paula Radcliffe, Hayley Haining, Vikki McPherson and Liz Yelling won team bronze.   Vikki improved her 3000m best to 9.21.2 and ran a very good 10,000m (32.38.42) in Lisbon in April 1998.   Then she set a 5000m PB of 15.56.04. She became Scotland’s Commonwealth Games Team Captain and when the 10,000m took place in the steamy heat of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Vikki finished a meritorious fourth.

Alastair Douglas concludes “Vikki was also outstanding on the roads. She won the Women’s 10k in Glasgow, finished third (and first Scot) in the Great Scottish Run, and sixth in the Great North Run Half Marathon, in the fast time of 71 minutes.   One of the disappointments of her career was missing out on an Olympic place. (Barcelona came just too soon for her and she was injured for Atlanta).   I think she would have eventually moved up to the marathon where, I have no doubt, she would have run for GB in more major events and would have run significantly under 2.30.   However injuries took their toll and she was never able to make that transition.   Nevertheless she had an outstanding career, although it was fairly short, and maybe did not get the recognition she deserved by being at her best around the era of Yvonne Murray and Liz McColgan.”

Since retiring from distance running, Vikki McPherson has made sport her profession, working with UK Sport, UK Athletics and becoming GB Badminton Performance Director