Author: The Author

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

John McLaren (Z3) taking over from Ronnie Kane in the Edinburgh to Glasgow.

John McLaren was a well-liked and much respected runner in the 1950’s for Victoria Park AAC  winning national titles over the country and many team medals of gold, silver and bronze as part of the excellent VPAAC team.    Well known for his war-cry of “Guid auld Scotland” as he crossed the finishing line in first place, for the fact that his disability did not seem to impede his athletic progress, for an excruciating sense of humour, he was a popular runner who was credit to his country

We can start this profile by reproducing the one written by James Christie, also of Victoria Park, in the June 1956 issue of ‘The Scots Runner’.

Jimmy might have been a wee bit effusive, maybe a bit over the top with his last sentence, but Emmet Farrell was no less enthusiastic when he wrote this in ‘The Scots Athlete’ of February 1954.   “McLaren, Sensation of the Season.   J McLaren of Shotts Welfare who may be (Adrian) Jackson’s most serious rival is to my mind the sensation of the Scottish cross-country season.   By finishing a good second to Harry Fenion in the recent Midland test he showed that hi second to Bannon in the Lanarkshire Championship was no fluke.   For a runner muscularly handicapped in one arm his negotiation of fences and obstacles at Lenzie in the atrocious weather conditions prevalent was little short of uncanny.”

In the Midland Championships McLaren had been 14 second behind Fenion but 23 ahead of Tommy Tracey, 46 in front of Joe McGhee and 51 in front of Ronnie Kane.   It was indeed and augury for the National Junior where McLaren won from Jackson by only 4 seconds with Andy Brown of Motherwell third a further 15 seconds behind.   Eddie Bannon won the Senior race from Tracey, Fenion and Ronnie Kane but Emmet Farrell had no doubt about who was the man f the afternoon at Hamilton.   “McLaren’s Victory Performance of the Day.   Surely the race of the day was the Junior Championship over 6 miles.   The race between McLaren of Shotts and Jackson of Edinburgh was a classic.   With incredible grit and courage McLaren fought off his renowned adversary to win with little to spare.   This race was an exhilarating spectacle and while McLaren deserved the spoils of victory – great credit is due Jackson who move up to the front from about tenth place.   AH Brown of Motherwell YMCA also had a grand race and actually assumed the lead with 2 miles to go”.  

A year later McLaren went one better in the Midland Championships, again held in January at Woodilee in Lenzie when he won from Eddie Bannon by 22 seconds with Henson of Victoria Park third a further 17 seconds away.   In February, in his preview of the National,  Emmet Farrell was fairly confident that a repeat performance was on the cards when he said, “Classy McLaren should retain the Junior title.   John McLaren of Shotts Welfare showed by his brilliant win in the Midland 6 miles over National champion Eddie Bannon and other class runners that he has fully recovered from his foot injury, and I look forward to him retaining his junior title despite the presence of such brilliant junior contenders as Adrian Jackson of Edinburgh Varsity, Jim Russell, Victoria Park, and P McParland of Springburn.”   When he did win the title for the second time on 26th February 1955, the runners behind him included many who would go on to be real quality athletes.   The result:

1.   J McLaren (Shotts)   33:07;   2.   AS Jackson (EU)   33:28;   3.   J Russell (VP)   33:35;   4.   G Everett (Shettleston)   34:50;   5.   P Moy (Vale of Leven)  35:13;   6.   G Nelson (Bellahouston)   35:13;   7.   JC Harris (Beith)   35:18.    On the strength of his season as a whole, McLaren was chosen for the Senior team to run in San Sebastian and he finished 48th to be third counter for Scotland in front of Andy Brown (a first-year senior, 9th in the National), Joe McGhee and John Stevenson.

Having won the Scottish crown, he then made his bid for the British championship.   Farrell again: “McLaren’s Epic Victory.   Few could have failed to be thrilled by John McLaren’s victory in the English junior championship where he successfully tackled a field of some 600 runners.   True, like his colleagues he did not set the heather on fire in the International at San Sebastian (how much their poor form was due to the heavy rich food perhaps it is difficult to assess) but this temporary fall from grace cannot blot out the thrill of the Shotts boy’s display at Cardington.   All set to have a tilt at Ian Binnie over 2 miles on the track this ambition has been temporarily denied him due to Achilles tendon trouble.”

Winning the English Junior National

By the start of season 1955-56 McLaren was a member of Victoria Park AAC and turned out in the McAndrew relay on 1st October at Scotstoun.   Running for the second team he was on the third stage and his time of 15:47 was fastest in the B team and quicker than that of Chic Forbes in the A team that won the race.   In the Edinburgh to Glasgow in November he ran the fourth stage where despite a leg injury, he was equal second fastest time.   He kept the club in second place and by the end of the afternoon he had a silver E-G medal among his trophies.   Spoken of as a contender for first place in the Midland Championship at Lenzie, he won in 30:11 from Andy Brown (30:17), Eddie Bannon (30:30) and Joe McGhee 30:44).   A cover picture in the January ‘Scots Athlete’ had a caption saying that he would be a strong contender for he Scottish Championship.   In February Emmet Farrell previewed the race: “Intriguing Senior Race.   If the Junior championship looks an open and exciting one, the Senior race looks even more so, especially with the various trends in recent form.   Earlier Eddie Bannon looked quite the best prospect, but now seems to have shaded a trifle.  The McLaren’s win in the Midland championship (excellently laid and stewarded by Springburn Harriers) appeared to give him a slight edge.   Now Andy Brown after a season of consistent excellence defeated both his rivals to win the inter-district race.   Brown seems to be reaching his peak at the correct time and may start a slight favourite.   What an amazing advance the little Motherwell runner has made and after so many second places his win will enhance his confidence.”   The crystal ball was almost right – the National was won by Eddie Bannon (46:55) from Andy Brown (47:06), Tom Stevenson (47:30), John Stevenson (47:42 (both Greenock Wellpark) and John McLaren (5th in 48:08).   He led the Victoria Park squad into first place ahead of Greenock Wellpark.   The team packed so well that Johnny Stirling in 26th was a non-scorer!   The run was good enough to see him into the team for the international at Balmoral, Belfast, where he was twelfth, first Scot and less than a minute behind Alain Mimoun, the legendary French distance running athlete.   The names head of him included Mimoun,. Sando, K Norris, F Norris, H Ameur and F Herma and behind him were such as Van de Wattyne and Peter Driver.

Missing almost the entire summer in an attempt to shake off his leg injury, McLaren did manage to run 14:31.2 at Scotstoun in April (maybe the race referred to in Christie’s article above).   But he did not run in the McAndrew but was in the first team on 3rd November for the Midland relay where he ran on the last stage for the first team which finished second to Shettleston.   Fastest club runner by 27 seconds he had the impossible task of setting off behind an in-form Graham Everett who had quickest time (13:43) of the day and McLaren’s 13:56 was fourth fastest.   First race back after a long lay-off, it was a very good run indeed.    Later in the month he was again on the fourth stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow where he held first place and set a new record for the stage.   Winning the Midland District championship for the third year in succession, he went into the National in good form.   However despite beating Russell and Bannon and more of his rivals of previous years he was third behind Harry Fenion, who was to go on to win the marathon later that year, and Bellahouston team-mate Joe Connolly.   His third place saw him lead Victoria Park into first place – again Johnny Stirling was the unfortunate seventh man in 37th – one place behind sixth counter Andy Forbes!     The international was held that year at Waregem Racecourse in Belgium and Scotland was eighth out of ten teams.   The counting runners were Moy 28th, McLaren 35th, Bannon 37th, Russell 38th, Fenion 51st and McDougal 53rd.

Winter 1957-58 and in the McAndrew relay he ran in the first team which won the race – despite being slowest in the team he was equal fifth fastest time (equal with Graham Everett) as the other three had the three quickest times of the afternoon.   On to the Midland relays and John McLaren on the last stage ran the fastest lap of the day – 8 seconds faster than George Govan of Shettleston.   The race was also notable for the fact that Alex Breckenridge running for the VPAAC second team handed over at the end of the first stage ahead of Bobby Calderwood of the first team.   On 18th November as part of the winning Victoria Park team which led from start to finish, McLaren took a huge 50 seconds from his own course record of the previous year.   The Glasgow Herald report on the Midland District Championship in January 1958 read: “MIDLAND TITLE FOR McLAREN: Well Judged Race.    J McLaren (Victoria Park AAC) won the Midland District Cross-Country Championship at Renton on Saturday over a 6 mile course.   Although he was nearly 20 yards behind Graham Everett (Shettleston) at half-way, he displayed tenacity and fine judgment over the latter half of the journey in bad conditions.   He made ground, passed Everett and won his fourth consecutive victory with 40 yards to spare at the end.”   Things were looking very good indeed for the National.   Alas, the best that McLaren could manage in the National was fifth place – mind you in front of him were Andy Brown (48:19), Graham Everett (48:34), Jim Russell (VP) 48:43, Alastair Wood (48:52) with McLaren on 49:18 pursued by Joe Connolly, Adrian Jackson, Harry Fenion, Des Dickson and Pat Moy!     It was good enough however to get him into the National team for the race at Cardiff but that was not a good day for him either.   McLaren finished 68th and out of the counting six.

The following year  McLaren ran on the third stage for the club in the District relays with seventh fastest time of the afternoon.   Later in November, pulling the club from third to first on the fourth stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow with the fastest stage time of the day, he gave the club a position they could not hold as they slipped to third by the end of the event.   In the Midland District race at Renton, McLaren led his team home when he finished third, the club was also third in the team race.   That left the National of 1959.   Unlike the previous year this time McLaren was among the medals again and finished second to Alastair Wood with Bert Irving of Bellahouston third.   Victoria Park was second to Shettleston in the team race.   In the International in Lisbon, he was down in fifty eighth position.

Season 1959-60  began as usual with the McAndrew relay where McLaren, running the third fastest time of the day behind Andy Brown and Alastair Wood, pulled Victoria Park into second place at the finish.   There was a repeat of second place in the Midlands relay at the start of November when John McLaren on the last leg held second place with the seventh fastest time of the day.  Then came the Edinburgh to Glasgow when he again ran fastest time of the day on the fourth leg gaining two places to third which was where the team stayed.   On 23rd January 1960, McLaren was sixth in the Midland District Championships at Renton leading the team to first place ahead of Bellahouston.   The big one, of course, was the National at Hamilton.  Here he finished ninth and out of the International team after five consecutive appearances in the event.

Winter 1960 – 61 was almost a complete washout for him after a good start.   On 1st October, McLaren was a member of the team which finished second in their own McAndrew relay race only two seconds down on Shettleston Harriers.   He missed the District relays and Victoria Park, missing both McLaren and Bill Kerr could only finish fifth.   They also missed the Edinburgh to Glasgow and in their absence, the club was down in twelfth position – its lowest for many a year.   Nor was there any sign of John McLaren in the District Championships in January or the National Championships.

McLaren was back in his place in the club team that finished second in the McAndrew Relay in October 1961 and in the team that was second in the Midland Relay a month later with fastest club time and fifth fastest overall.   Later the same month he was back in place on the fourth stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow where again he had fastest time of the afternoon – the only runner inside thirty minutes he was a full fifteen seconds clear of the next quickest.   Into January and the District Championships and he finished fifth leading the team to fifth place.   In March 1962 he finished seventh and qualified for the team for the international: it was to be his sixth international honour over the country and his last.   He finished eightieth this time and out of the counting six.

His best running had been done by this time although he continued to compete with some fine runs still to come but his career at the very to was basically over.   He kept running for the team though – much  appreciated at the time for a team not quite as good as the great squads of the 50’s.  In the National he was twenty first in 1963, twentieth in 1964, twenty third in 1965, thirty fifth in 1966, forty sixth in 1967 and fifty sixth in 1968.   He ran second fastest on the fourth stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow in 1962, third fastest in 1963, sixth fastest in 1964, fourth fastest in 1966, sixth again in 1967 and equal sixth on the third stage in 1968.

Two mile team race start: note the calibre of the field: Bert McKay, Alec and Andy Brown, Hugh Barrow, John McLaren, Henry Summerhill, Tom O’Reilly. Allan Faulds, Calum Laing – none noted for taking prisoners on the first bend!

John did not seem to enjoy running on the track, possibly using it as a means to an end, although he did run in many two mile team races which were fairly common on the circuit at the time.   The picture above is evidence of that.   It also indicates that, bad arm or not, he could hold his own in a crowded starting melee!   The best times and rankings I can find for him at various distances are 9:12.5 for two miles in 1959 which ranked him ninth, 14:26.4 for three miles in 1959 which ranked him eleventh and 30:40.0 for six miles in 1962 which ranked him seventh.    Given his times on the short relays over the country and on the road he was clearly much faster than these times indicate.

I have not mentioned his disability very much at all, preferring to stick to his qualities as a runner which were top class by any standard.   However, it must have had some effect.   Poliomyelitis was a scourge in the 40’s and 50’s until the vaccine was found.   One of my own near neighbours had the disease and as a result spent most of the rest of her life with an iron brace attached to her leg.  Referred to as “Scotland’s Murray Halberg”, John had to run holding the left hand with his right to maintain proper balance although he did let go when leaping the fences or ditches that were common at the time.   He was given special dispensation in the Edinburgh to Glasgow relay not to have to carry the baton.    A loyal club man he had won two Junior titles, won both Scottish and British cross-country titles in the same year and four consecutive Midlands championships.   Although he had never won the senior title over the country, he had been second third with several other top seven finishes.   Fastest time repeatedly on stage four where he set two records.   A quite outstanding career.    A hero at home,  he was chieftain at Shotts Highland Games and a local SNP councillor for many years.

Scotland really is two countries when it comes to athletics – east is east and west is west and seldom the two will meet.    The number of athletes from the east who suddenly burst upon the consciousness of the runners and hangers-on in the west is high, and I assume the same is true in the other direction.   However that may be, there is no doubt that Andy McKean was unknown to most of us in the west when he burst upon the scene with a series of superb performances in the 70’s.   And his running in the National Championships at Coatbridge was outstanding.    His career is outlined here by his friend Colin Youngson.  

Andrew McKean was a formidable international cross-country runner who also starred in the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay.   He won the Senior National Cross-Country title four times and led Edinburgh AC to many team championships, with ferocious displays of determined front-running. No one could push himself harder than tall, red-headed Andy.

Although he was born in London in 1948, Andy first appears in the record books as a first-year student at Edinburgh University in season 1967-1968.    I was starting my second year at Aberdeen University at the time, and there is no doubt that Andy was occasionally beatable for a few years, but very seldom in serious cross-country contests. Andy made an immediate impression by running the third stage in the 1967 E to G, for the winning EU team. He went on to finish a good seventh in the National Junior CC in 1968, with EU picking up the third team award. Although he represented Scottish Universities frequently during the next few years, it was apparent that Andy ‘trained through’ several minor races, such as team trials, Glasgow University Road Races, and shorter track events.

In 1969, EU was third in the E to G, with Andy promoted to the very difficult Stage Two where he ran a very good seventh fastest of the day.

In 1970, Andy made significant progress.   Having learned to cope with hard consistent training, he was narrowly beaten by Northern Irishman Dave Logue in the Scottish Universities CC Championship, nevertheless defeating another current international runner John Myatt; and followed that with a meritorious 11^th in his first attempt at the Senior National CC. Once again, Andy finished just behind Dave Logue, who was to be a major rival on the long sixth leg of the E to G!   Dave reckons that “Andy was not a big mileage man. However he seemed to be able to absorb hard training, without many injuries; and that helped in his success. Yet there was more to it than that – he was rightly nicknamed ‘Andy Machine’ – he just went to the front and kept going!”    That summer, representing Hillingdon AC as well as EU, Andy improved his 5000m PB to 14.23.4; and in the Glasgow University Road Race, he was third behind Fergus Murray and the precocious Jim Brown.  Then he ran well in a poor EU team in the E to G, being third fastest on Stage Six.

 Andy writes: “In the early years at EU, I often trained with Dave Logue (and Alex Wight) and it was certainly very hard! At that stage I was doing ‘only’ around 60 miles per week – so I guess what Dave said was true for that period anyway. Dave was right also that I suffered very few injuries during my career, although my absences from track racing in 1968 and 1969 were actually caused partly by injuries sustained towards the end of the country seasons in those years. However in the summer of 1970 I did a bit more track running (partly inspired by the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh). I substantially upped the mileage to over 100 mpw for several months, leading to the significant breakthrough in cross-country and road races in the subsequent season. In the later years at EU, Jim Dingwall was my most frequent training partner, so it remained pretty hard, as you can imagine, but after graduating in 1973, I did most of my training alone (most of it at night after work, and the mileage settled down to around 80 mpw for the remainder of my career. In fact I remember calculating that from 1970-77 I had averaged well over 4000 miles per year, only tailing off a little in 1978 before retiring. So I suspect that it was not so much the quality as the consistency of my training which really paid dividends in the end.”

 Andy McKean improved to sixth in the 1971 Senior National CC and was selected to represent Scotland in the ICCU Championships in San Sebastian, where he finished 69^th, not far behind Alistair Blamire and Lachie Stewart. In March, Andy broke the record (49.06) in the very hilly EU ten mile road race. Having strolled to the East District 5000m title, he improved his 5000m best to 14.19.6 for third in the British Universities 5000m at Birmingham, behind Frank Briscoe and Andy Holden (but in front of future marathon star Ian Thompson). Then he was fastest on Stage Six of the E to G, recording 31.36, 21 seconds faster than ex-National CC Champion Dick Wedlock.

The National CC in 1972 featured a dour battle for third place between Andy McKean and Alistair Blamire, the latter ‘sitting’ on Andy before sprinting away near the end. In the very last ICCU Championships at Cambridge, Andy finished fifth Scot in 44^th position. His track season was successful. For a start, he easily won the SU Championship 5000m and the SAAA 10 miles track event (49.25.8). Then he improved his bests for 5000m (14.12.8) and 10,000m (29.40.2 for third in the SAAA). Then Andy McKean was even faster (31.13) on the E to G long leg, more than a minute better than Jim Wight.

From 1973 until his retirement in 1978, Andy seldom raced on the track, although he did regain the East District 5000m title in 1977 and also improved his best time to 14.12.5 in that season. Although Andy did produce some fine performances in the prestigious Tom Scott 10 miles race, he tended to devote the summer to ‘active rest’ before getting fit again for the E to G and cross-country championships.

In 1973, Andy finished his university running career in excellent style. Colin Shields takes up the story: “Over a snow-covered course at Drumpellier Park in Coatbridge, 1200 runners competed in the National Championships. Pre-race favourite Andy McKean, with a big build up of Eastern District title, Scottish and British Universities wins and impressive runs in International races throughout the Continent, was in fine form over the open, rolling course broken only by a short, steep hill at the end of each lap. McKean took the lead on the third of the five laps, with only the surprising Adrian Weatherhead challenging him. He eventually won the first of his four National titles by 100 yards from Weatherhead.” Later, in the inaugural World Cross Country Championships, under the control of the IAAF, at Waregem Racecourse outside Ghent, Belgium, Andy improved to 30^th and second Scot behind Norman Morrison. In November, Andy McKean finally broke Fergus Murray’s 1965 record (31.07) for the long sixth stage of the E to G, recording 31 minutes precisely, sixteen seconds faster than Dave Logue (Glasgow University) and 21 seconds faster than the great Ian Stewart (Aberdeen AAC). However Edinburgh Athletic Club, Andy’s new team, was never destined to finish better than second place, which, with Andy’s invaluable assistance, they managed five years in a row (1973-77).

Andy winning at Coatbridge in 1975

In 1974, however, EAC won the National CC team title, with East District champion Andy McKean second individual after a fierce battle with front-running Jim Brown, who was in the form of his life. Subsequently in the English National CC, Andy gained revenge on Jim over nine muddy miles. Andy was third, only eight seconds behind future Olympians David Black and Bernie Ford, and in front of Tony Simmons, with Jim Brown ninth. However in the IAAF World Championships at Monza, Jim Brown ran brilliantly to finish a close fourth, while Ronnie MacDonald was second Scot in 31^st, with Andy McKean 46^th and Colin Falconer 47^th. Scotland finished seventh country from fifteen. In the E to G, Andy McKean was once again fastest on Stage Six, 20 seconds faster than Jim Brown.

 Andy writes about the 1974 English National CC. “It was nine miles of deep snow and mud at the aptly-named Graves Park in Sheffield, and it suited my running style perfectly (slight build, long stride) and I consider it to have been one of my best ever races. I ran in the English National CC also in 1975 (at Luton) and 1976 (at Leicester), finishing 7^th and 5^th respectively, and I remember Alistair Blamire (who had also run well in the English on previous occasions) remarking that it felt good to know that, if we had been running for English clubs, we would have been picked for the English Team, which still dominated the international cross-country scene at the time.”

 1975 saw Andy McKean regain his National Senior CC title, which he went on to win three times in a row. Previously, he had show good form when, wearing a Great Britain vest for the first time, he was only narrowly outsprinted by European Steeplechase Champion Bronislaw Malinowski (Poland) in a major international road race in Barcelona.   (Malinowski was rumoured to be part-Scottish!)   Andy remembers this as a real highlight in his career. At the Scottish National at Coatbridge, Andy finished 46 seconds in front of EAC clubmate Adrian Weatherhead. The team’s total was a record-low 37 points, which easily won the team title from ESH (101 points). EAC’s other scorers were Jim Alder (5^th), Alex Wight (8^th), Doug Gunstone (10^th) and Jim Wight (11^th). Jim Dingwall was an unlucky non-counter in 13^th, which was one of the reasons that caused him to switch to Falkirk Victoria. The World CC Championships were in Rabat, Morocco. Gloriously, Ian Stewart won the race. Andy was fourth Scot in 53^rd place, with Scotland 6^th team from 23. In the E to G, Andy McKean was fastest on Stage Two (for a change) in an outstanding 27.37, 18 seconds faster than Jim Brown.

In 1976, Andy McKean and EAC repeated their victories in the National CC. Colin Shields wrote: “McKean and Weatherhead went into the lead early in the race and stayed together until the final lap, where McKean established a winning lead 80 yard lead from his clubmate, with Allister Hutton third.” At Chepstow Racecourse, Wales, in the IAAF World Championships, Jim Brown (24^th) was first Scot, with Allister Hutton 34^th and Andy McKean 41^st. In the E to G, Andy was second fastest on Stage Two, just six seconds slower than the flying Jim Dingwall, after a tremendous head-to-head battle. Third fastest was 48 seconds further behind.

In 1977, Andy McKean won a record twelfth Eastern District League Race and followed this with his third East District CC title; and then his fourth and final National Senior CC. Colin Shields writes: “Andy McKean became the sixth athlete to win the National title three times in a row when he defeated over 400 entrants at Glenrothes Golf Course. Running in six inches of snow, McKean won by 21 seconds from Allister Hutton with a superb display of front running.” However EAC were narrowly squeezed into third team place by Shettleston and ESH. In the IAAF World Championships in Dusseldorf, Allister Hutton was first Scot in 14^th, ahead of Jim Brown 36^th, Laurie Reilly 41^st and Andy McKean 49^th. Later that year, Andy was fourth in a high class race at El Goibar, Spain, proving once more that he was always to be reckoned with in both National and International races. In November, Andy ran his final Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay, with second fastest on Stage Two, 9 seconds quicker than Jim Brown but 15 seconds slower than rising star Nat Muir.

The 1978 cross-country season was to be Andy McKean’s swansong. He won a fourth East District CC title, overcoming treacherous mud over a hard ice base to lead EAC to a team victory over Falkirk Victoria. The National Championships, held at Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, used the five-lap trail for the World Championships a month later. On a dry day, Allister Hutton finished well in front of Rees Ward and Andy McKean. In the World Championships, however, “the weather deteriorated badly, and appalling conditions of rain, hail and sleet were blown by strong winds horizontally into the faces of runners and spectators.” Young Nat Muir ran brilliantly to finish seventh, “and was backed by Andy McKean (19^th) and Allister Hutton (24^th) for the senior Scottish team to finish ninth from 20 countries.” I was spectating that day, and admired greatly the tremendous effort that Andy exerted to produce an excellent run – the highest placing he ever achieved in this World Championship – on a horrible day.

 Thereafter, Andy McKean retired from racing to concentrate on his successful career as an Edinburgh architect. His contemporaries breathed sighs of relief. Rivals in ESH tended to assume that, if Andy turned up at a race, the only question was who would be second. In the E to G, the problem was to have enough good runners to make up for Andy’s predictably superior performance. Overall, he had a wonderful career and must be remembered as an outstanding British and Scottish International runner who, on country and road, consistently achieved his full potential.

In the 1990s he took part in several 10k races and in 2007, after 40 years in Edinburgh, moved to Gatehouse of Fleet, Galloway, to start a self-employed business as an artist. Check his impressive website at Andrew McKean Arts. He keeps fit by regular exercises and walks, with a weekly run and a swim.

Liz McColgan (nee Lynch) is possibly Scotland’s best ever distance runner using any criteria that you care to choose – times run, titles won, whatever.   She was born on 24th May, 1964 in Dundee and took up running at the age of 11 when she was picked for the school cross country team.   She quickly joined Dundee Hawkhill Harriers where she was coached by Harry Bennett and was recognised as one of the best in her age group.    But athletics is full of ‘might have beens’, talented young athletes who ‘could have’ done great things.   Trouble is that many were badly advised, many were pushed too hard by relatives and many of them were just unrealistic about their talents and what it would take to develop them.   Well, Liz was well looked after by her family and by Harry but one of the personality traits that was to stand her in good stead throughout her own career was that she was always realistic about what could be done and what route had to be taken to get there.   Before we go on to the story of her running career, let’s have a look at her personal best times.

I quote Doug Gillon on the blog at www.scotstats.net where he writes of her greatest race.   Talking of the difficulty she had picking the race he said: “There was plenty to consider: back-to-back Commonwealth Games 10000 metres gold medals; three world records at 10000 metres on the road; a world half marathon title in world record time; world records on the road and indoors.   Numerous Scottish British and Commonwealth records.   There was the time in Budapest when she smashed Zola Budd’s world indoor 3000 metres records only to be beaten on the line by Elly van Hulst who had been towed in the Scot’s wake all the way.   There was the time the roars of the crowd drowned the stealthy approach of Joyce Chepchumba who stole past to deny her a successful London Marathon defence by a single second in what was the tightest finish ever.   That was in 1997, a year after McColgan had ensured financial security for life over the same Kenyan.   There was the …..”   But you get the picture, I don’t need to go on.   I would urge you to go to the scotstats website and read the entire article.

Many a successful athlete would have packed the spikes after such a career and gone on their way leaving a wonderful tradition for others to follow.   But Liz wasn’t finished with athletics.   She went back to Dundee and to the Hawks and started coaching.   Not doing what many TV pundits do and ‘polish’ someone else’s athletes – :Linford Christie famously said “I’m not the kind of coach who goes down to the track side in winter and works on the sessions.”    Liz is.   This is so well known that the Power of Ten website (www.thepowerof10.info) lists the athletes that she was coaching at the time it was set up!   Why is she doing it – apart from the fact that, like all serious coaches, she enjoys it?   There might be a clue in an article in the Los Angeles Times of April 12th 1987.   In an article there it says: “Liz believes that coming from the sporting backwater of the north east of Scotland has been her major obstacle.   “In Dundee we probably have one major track meet a year, whereas in London, for example, there are several to choose from,” she said.   “I have spent hours on the phone trying to get races.   People think of me as a marathon runner but I can go down to 800’s and 1500’s..”   Huddled in gloves, scarf and waterproof jogging suit in rain-lashed Dundee, Lynch said that in Alabama we run in shorts every day.   We never had to put track suits on.”   So when it comes to knowing the difficulties that talented local youth face, she knows whereof she speaks.    Liz was more than a runner and is still doing sterling work for the sport in Scotland.

Simply type her name into a search engine and the internet will produce a wealth of information about Scotland’s most successful female athlete.   The UK Athletics Hall of Fame Profile is particularly good and is printed here.  Two interviews will also be referred to: one for runbritain.com and one for Dundee University’s on-line magazine ‘The Bridge’.     First the UKA Profile.

Full Name:   Liz Lynch McColgan

Date of Birth:   24th March, 1964.

Born:   Dundee

Club:   Dundee Hawkhill Harriers

Coached by:   Harry Bennett/John Anderson.

TRIPLE TRIUMPH

The brilliant career of Liz McColgan can be broken up into three parts: Her glory at the Commonwealth Games in her own country;    her superb World Championships in Tokyo;   and her ability then to adapt that track technique to the roads.   All three of them were memorable because of the drama McColgan brought to events and her refusal to allow anyone to pass her on the way to gold.

As Liz Lynch she won the Commonwealth 10000 metres title in Edinburgh amid amazing patriotic scenes; in 1991 her amazing front-running performance to win the world 10000 metres title was mesmerising; and then she transferred that ability to making a record-breaking marathon debut.   When she was at her peak she was unstoppable.

LYNCH LEADS THE WAY

When the Commonwealth Games returned to Edinburgh, 16 years after the Scottish capital had last staged them, one of the new events was the women’s 10000 metres.   It was a stage ready-made for a Dundee Hawkhill athlete who had made her first steps to world class while at the University of Alabama for whom she won the NCAA indoor Mile that same year.   While the weather had been typically Scottish for the championships, rain and gloomy conditions never being too far away, Lynch brought rick emotion to the occasion with a tremendous and emphatic victory.   What made her stand out, and it remained such a glorious trait throughout her career, was this bloody-mindedness to dominate races just how she wanted.   If the rest of the field wanted to follow, then they knew they would be in for a tough afternoon, as the Commonwealth’s best women long distance runners discovered.   Cheered on by a packed crowd at Meadowbank Stadium with the blue and white flag of Scotland turning the event into a spectacularly colourful occasion.   Lynch ran to victory in 31:41:42, a British record and a triumph by nearly 12 seconds, with Anne Audain of New Zealand second in 31:53:31.    It was was the first of four times that McColgan would break the British record for this distance, and the lap of honour was something to behold, as Scotland celebrated their only gold medal winner of the Games.   She was second in the World Cross Country Championships in 1987 and smashed her best at all events from 800 to 10000 metres, in which she was fifth at the World Championships in Rome in 31:19.82.   Further British records at 10 K came with 31:06.99 in 1988, and 30:57.07 in 1991.

In 1987 she married Irish International Peter McColgan and twelve months later, after a hugely successful campaign on the roads, she took the Olympic silver medal at 10000 metres in Seoul in 31:08:44 as Olga Bondarenko of Russia won in 31:05.21.   She showed her strength once again in 1989 setting a world 10K road best of 30:38 at Orlando, just a week after winning world indoor silver at 3000 metres in Budapest having led nearly all the way, then returning to finish sixth at 1500 metres just 13 minutes later.   In 1990 in Victoria, she retained her Commonwealth 10000 metres crown in 32:23.56.   She was also third in the 3000 metres but her best was yet to come.

BABY WHAT A RUN

On November 25th, 1990, McColgan gave birth to her first child, Eilish, but by March of 1991 she was fit enough not only to compete at the World Cross Country Championships in Antwerp, but finish third, showing no signs that motherhood affecting her physical build or mental aggression.   It is believed that having children can actually help the make-up of an athlete, the body’s reaction providing even more substance, and on a steamy night in Tokyo at the World Championships in August,  McColgan proved that theory totally correct.   “It was the greatest performance by a British distance runner,” said Brendan Foster, the Olympic 10000 metre bronze medallist from 1976, and now a BBC television commentator.   His words were providing a backdrop to the pictures of McColgan systematically taking apart the field in the final of the 10000 metres, with an astonishing front running display which took her to the gold medal.

McColgan destroyed her rivals from the start, including defending champion the brilliant Ingrid Kristiansen of Norway, as she ran the first kilometre in 3:02.95.   The pace barely relented and McColgan, ignoring the tremendous humidity, won in 31:14.31 from China’s Zhong Huandi in 31:35.08 with her team mate Wang Xiuting third in 31:35.99.   While that pair had a race of their own, McColgan was in a class of her own and her performance won her the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.    It was an honour at the end of a year when after Tokyo she won the New York in the fastest ever debut time of 2:27:32.   A bold new step and one which would signal the final part of her career.

THE ROADS AHEAD.

The marathon was her long-term aim, but first she was determined to win the Olympic title over 10000 metres but it was not to be.   In Barcelona in 1992 she was fifth, unable to break the field this time in a year when she broke the world indoor 5000 metres with a time of 15:03.17.   But she returned to Tokyo to win their marathon in 2:27:38 and finished third in the Flora London Marathon in 1993.  She was injured for that summer and by 1995 she had been told that she might never run again as the toil on her body looked like taking its toll, having suffered with pains in her back, her knee and her foot, but her doctors probably didn’t realise who they were dealing with:   this was Liz McColgan.   In soaring heat in 1996 she won the Flora London Marathon and  BUPA Great North Run, but again she was left disappointed at the Olympics.  McColgan had chosen the marathon but just days before, while preparing at her base in Florida, she suffered an insect bite.   The poison entered her system and she was never herself, finishing sixteenth in the Games in Atlanta.

In 1997 she was so close to successfully defending her London Marathon title, losing by one second to Kenya’s Joyce Chepchumba who took victory with virtually the final step of a memorable race.   But McColgan’s time of 2:26:52 was a personal best and twelve months later she was second in London again.   After ‘retiring’ in 2001, due to a series of stress fractures she made a comeback and in 2004 she won the Scottish Cross Country and indoor titles  before finally bowing out in April that year.   Liz has been involved in coaching since she stopped competing herself and has worked with many very good athletes.

 That is a pretty comprehensive summary of Liz’s wonderful career.   One significant omission was her 1992 victory (68:53) in the inaugural World Half Marathon Championship, which was held as part of the Great North Run in Newcastle.   After her first retirement in 2001, Doug Gillon wrote in ‘the Herald’, “She was brought up in a council house in the Whitfield area of Dundee, but now lives in almost baronial splendour, with her parents occupying a second house within the grounds.    Blunt-spoken, wilful, but unfailingly honest about her own frailties, she was never far from controversy.”

Winning the Luddon inaugural Street Mile – note the Alabama vest and race organiser Hugh Barrow on the right

The interviews state that she started running at 12 years old, in her first year at secondary school.   Her PE teacher spotted her talent and she joined her local club.   She loved running longer distances from the start and never seemed to tire as much as others in her group.   She did not consider herself the most talented; but began to train much harder than the rest.   By the age of 19 she had won her first UK title.   Philosophically and wisely, she says, “Running is full of disappointments; they far outweigh the better performances.”   To the age of 17 she was coached by Harry Bennett.   After his death she self-coached to win the 1986 Commonwealth title when she was 22.   She met John Anderson after the Games and he coached her for 18 months.    She then coached herself to the World 10,000 metres title, and London Tokyo and New York marathon wins.   Then she met Grete Waitz who coached her from 1992 – 1996.

After her first Commonwealth success, Liz says, “I felt a good deal of relief when I won my first championship medal; it was Scotland’s only gold medal on the track for the entire Games.   The pressure was unbelievable before the race especially when, one by one, athletes were coming into the camp without medals they thought they were going to get.   When I got to the Stadium it was the most nerve-wracking moment of my life but I knew I was going to do it which was really weird.”   She also comments, “Winning in front of a home crowd is amazing.   Winning the 1986 Commonwealth gold was the best experience of my life.   The roar in the Stadium was elctrifying.   The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.   It was my proudest moment and to be honest nothing really ever topped it.”

As for training, she says that when she was racing on the track, she ran twice a day, and for marathons three times.   She got up at 5:30 am to run ten miles before breakfast, and also fitted in track sessions and circuits.   Bedtime was 9:30 pm but “Although my whole day was sport, I really enjoyed it and, because I was so focused, I didn’t miss going out or socialising.”   A great disappointment was the silver in the 1988 Olympics.   “I was devastated to get only silver.  I went out there aiming for gold but I was beaten in a sprint.   I was so annoyed I threw the medal in a cupboard.   I only dug it out in 1998 after seeing Paula Radcliffe, who had worked so hard, failing to win a medal in the Olympic marathon which made me realise that maybe silver wasn’t so bad.   That was the first time Eilish had ever seen it.”

Liz Hugs Yvonne After Kenya v GB 3000m in June 1992

Perhaps her biggest setback was the Atlanta Olympics.   “I had prepared the best I ever had, moved to the athletes village two nights before my marathon and got bitten on the Achilles tendon by an insect.   Because of the heat, the poison went straight into the bloodstream.   I was given two different penicillin medicines, and although I could still run the race it was a total disaster.   I don’t know how I ever finished that race, but it was one of the worst moments of my career.”

Liz admits that her single-mindedness allowed her neither time nor space to appreciate fully her greatest achievement in Tokyo 1991.   “Looking back, it would have been a good thing to live in the moment a bit more, but at the time I was on a bit of a bandwagon.   Runners at their peak have a very short time and I was very aware of that.   I wanted to do as much as I could , so as soon as the race was over, I moved on.   I never really thought about being world champion.   I just focused on my next race and running faster.”

Her motivation throughout her career was not, she insists, the pursuit of medals or titles but simply a burning desire to run and run fast.   “I loved running, I still do.   It didn’t cost me money and no one said I couldn’t do it.   I think I had the right personality too.You need to have single minded determination.   I had no dreams of becoming a world champion or an Olympic medallist.”   However, having worked in a chip shop in her early years, and also a jute factory, she had to earn a living through the sport.   “I was never lottery funded.   I had to win races to get my income.   I employed one therapist who worked solely with me and travelled to my races.   I had my husband who was my training partner and manager.”   Her tips to young runners include, “train hard and be true to yourself.   Don’t be happy just to make a team, but try to be the best you can be.   Don’t be afraid to dream big.   I was told all through my career that I would never do anything, but I always believed in myself and never let anyone’s thoughts affect me.   In athletics you have to be positive – accept the bad races and learn from them.”

McColgan would like to be remembered – and certainly will be – “as an athlete who always ran her hardest, no matter what; who was never afraid to give it a go.”

Liz’s book – well worth reading as it gives a bit of insight into her as a person and about her career. 

Scotland was fortunate to have two real giants of women’s endurance running in action at the same time.   Liz was only six months older than Yvonne Murray and their distances were almost identical with Yvonne tending towards the 1500, 3000, 5000 metres end of the scale with Liz eventually specialising in 10000 and the marathon.   There were some notable tendencies – Liz always ran what Brendan Foster would call ‘a true run race’; in other words she would always go out and do her best running and regardless of what the opposition was doing.    Always focused she was a redoubtable competitor whereas Yvonne spoke about ‘tactics’, read up on her opponents and their weaknesses and used that knowledge to help win races.   Both are perfectly acceptable ways of running.   As an indication of how they liked to run and of Liz’s character I will look at two races.   In 1991 they met up in a specially organised race in Duthie Park in Aberdeen and although there was no one close to them, Liz ran a hard race all the way to the end – well as hard as she was allowed – Yvonne was right up on her shoulder, crowding her, jostling her all the way to the finishing straight where she won the sprint finish.   I was actually shouting at the TV because of the amount of physical contact involved.   The following year they were representing Britain against Kenya and they were in the same event – the 3000 metres.   There was a lot of talk about it being a ‘grudge match’   Well it didn’t turn out quite like that – with two Kenyans to beat, Liz quickly went to the front, Yvonne settled in on her shoulder keeping the opposition back, there was no jostling, it was not one against the other but looked more like a team race – and usually it was the Kenyans who ran as a team!   Then with 300 to go, Yvonne produced ‘one of her famous kicks to win in 8:36.63.’    Emphasising that they still felt that they were firm friends – whatever certain elements of the Press  would have you believe – the two doyens of Scottish athletics then embraced and embarked on a lap of honour together.   the mood was apparently so pleasant that McColgan even found time to joke about her defeat (although 8:41.07 over 3000m for a woman whose sights are set on the 1000m is hardly something to be ashamed of)   ‘Liz said to me during our lap of honour that she made a good pacemaker for me,’ a jovial Murray revealed to the assembled Press.’   The quotes are from a report on ‘Scotland’s Runner’ of August 1992.    The accompanying picture is below as proof.   Genuine rivals over a long period, never afraid to race each other and no grudges held!

*****

At a marathon seminar at the Inchyra Grange in Grangemouth on Wednesday 25th August, 2010, Don Macgregor said, in reply to a question that in his opinion the greatest Scottish marathon runner was either Liz McColgan or Donald MacNab Robertson (six times UK Marathon Champion, first Scottish marathon champion, double Olympian, etc.   It is a compliment to either to be compared to the other – I think however that my money is on Liz!

There are several videos of her in action at the youtube website – just type in ‘liz mccolgan’ and take your pick of what’s there.

Meanwhile her daughter Eilish, coached by her Mum is a regular member of the GB team with appearances in several major Games to her credit – eg 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games 1500m and 3000m; 2011 European U23 Championships3000m steeplechase   and   Spar European Team Championships 3000m steeplechase;   2012 Olympic Games 3000m steeplechase, and   2013 IAAF World Championships 3000m steeplechase.

Liz McColgan has been inducted into the Scottish Athletics Hall of Fame.

Ian McCafferty in the International Cross Country in Clydebank, 1969

The 1970’s were a Golden Age for Scottish Endurance running and the Commonwealth Games of 1970 in Edinburgh was surely the best single showcase for the athletes of the period.    Ian McCafferty was one of the very best of the runners, known across the world for his immense talent, and was involved in one of the best 5000 metres races of all time in the Games.    His talent on the track as matched by his ability on the road and over the country where he finished third in the International Cross Country Championships in 1969 and was a winner of the Junior International Cross Country in 1964 in his only appearance in that age group in the  event.    Although he stopped racing almost 40 years ago he is still ranked highly in the all-time lists – see the table below.

Ian John McCafferty was born on 24th November, 1944, only eighteen months after his great domestic rival, Lachie Stewart..    There were many very good athletes across the board at that time but on the track and over the country the top three were Lachie Stewart Ian Stewart and I McCafferty.    They won races for Scotland and for Britain across Europe and even further afield.   There were many invitation only races at that time and promoters would ask for one or other of the ‘Big Three’ and they usually got one or other of the ‘Big Three’ if they invited some other less well known Scots.    It was through their efforts that many another Scot had his first taste of big time running on the Continent.

Ian McCafferty first makes his appearance in the records in 1963 when as a member of Motherwell YMCA he won the Midland District Youths Championship.    In 1963-64 he became even better known to athletics aficionados when he won his first Midland District Championship proper ahead of team-mate Andy Brown and Lachie Stewart.    Motherwell won the Championships with one of the lowest ever winning totals of 30 points – six runners in the first nine.   Colin Shields in his book “Whatever the Weather” says of the young McCafferty: “Even at this early stage McCafferty combined speed training and distance racing throughout the cross-country season.   The week after the National he took part in a 2 mile race at half time in a football match at Ibrox Stadium.   He had to swerve to avoid a policeman in the home straight and losing ground, finishing second to Lachie Stewart, both timed at 9:02.”   He finished second to Mel Edwards (Aberdeen) in one of the most hotly contested cross-country races that I or anyone else witnessing it had seen.    Going on to the International Championship at Leopardstown Racecourse, Dublin, he created something of a stir as well as serving notice that he had arrived by winning the race.   Colin Shields again: “In the International Championships at Leopardstown, McCafferty displayed his sharpness when winning the Junior title.   He went into the lead at the start and dictated the pace throughout the race to win by 25 seconds – the largest winning margin in the history of the race”   He led Scotland to second in the team race, one point behind England.

 That summer he showed that it was no fluke when he set a new UK Junior record for 2 Miles of 9:00.2.   In 1964-65, he won the Nigel Barge in January 1965 easily in a new course record, he won the Midland District Championship easily and won the National Junior from Roger Young of Edinburgh University.   In a trip to a cross-country invitational in Spain he was eleventh in the three man team (Jim Alder 4th and Andy Brown 8th) that finished second.    It was up an age group for the International but he was equal to it and led the Scottish team in when he was seventy first finisher.   Came the summer and he set a Scottish record for the 2 Miles of 8:42.2 and also won the SAAA Mile Championship with 4:12.0.    In 1965-66,  he ran in an International race in Madrid which he won before winning the Junior Cross-Country title for the second successive year and in the International Cross Country championship he was much higher up than before (14th) and again led the Scottish team home.   The race was described thus by Colin Shields: “It was the breath-taking confidence and ability that McCafferty displayed during the race that marked him out as a potential world-beater.   From the start McCafferty was in the leading group, and running strongly and confidently, the self-assured young Scot went into the lead at two and a half miles.   Still in the lead at 4 miles misfortune struck and he had to stop to take a stone out of his shoe.  The stop cost him over 20 places and he carried on in bare feet catching up six places in the remainder of the race to finish two places behind Stewart and two in front of Alder.

In summer 1966 he won the SAAA Mile for the second successive year with a time of 4:07.5.   Selected for the Empire and Commonwealth Games in Jamaica that year, he went with the pace set by Ron Clarke (Australia) and Kipchoge Keino (Kenya) before dropping back but nevertheless ran an excellent race to be fifth in 13:12.2 for the 3 Miles.   The result of all this fine racing was his first GB international vest – against Sweden in Stockholm where he won in 13:47.2 for the 5000m.    His record in these two country internationals was impressive from then until 1972.

He started 1967 with three wins in three weeks:    On New Yaer’s Day he won at Beith from Andy and Alex Brown and Lachie Stewart in a new record time, the next Saturday he won the Nigel Barge Road Race at Maryhill becoming the first man to break 22 minutes for the two and a half mile trail and then the following Saturday he won the Springburn Cup race at Bishopbriggs by half a minute from Eddie Knox.   He then won the Midland District championship at Bellahouston Park by 68 seconds from Lachie Stewart.   Colin Shields observed: “McCafferty, who regarded the winter season purely as a time to prepare for the summer track season when the meaningful and important races in international matches and major championships would be held, devised a varied yet interlocking system of races.   He competed on road and cross-country to develop strength and took part in shorter indoor track races to retain and sharpen his speed.   This arduous and testing schedule was copied by few athletes with any success and only Ian Stewart who carried out the same formula of race preparation a few years later was able to equal McCafferty’s success at indoor and outdoor competition.”

He won the Midland District Championship for the third time in four years.   He had a busy and successful weekend at the beginning of February when he won the AAA’s 2 Miles Championship at Cosford in 8:36.4, running the last half mile in 2:04 which was not only a UK, but also a European best for the distance.   24 hours later at Hannut in Belgium he was second, only 5 seconds behind Gaston Roelants (Belgium) in a team with Lachie Stewart (4th) and Jim Alder (15th).   He missed the National after being picked for the GB v France International in Lyons where he won the 3000m in a GB record of 7:56.6.   However the next race was the European Indoor Championships in Prague where he was disappointed to finish fifth in a time of 8:10.

On the 29th May, he added the outdoor 2 Miles record when he won an invitation event at the White City in 8:32.2.    The SAAA’s championship was won for the third time in 4:05.7.    In the AAA Championships at the White City he was third behind Ron Clarke and Lajos Mecsar (Hungary) in a Furth of Scotland record of 13:09.8 for the 3 Miles.    Only two days later he was in Santry Stadium in Dublin (where Billy Morton was in the habit of putting on very fast races with very good runners) and finished second to Ron Clarke in 13:06.4.   The following month it was back at the White City where he won the 5000m in 13:45.8.   1968 saw him lead the Scottish team home in the International fixture when he crossed the line in tenth place to end a successful cross-country season.   That summer, on 8th June, he won the 3 Miles at the British Isles Cup at Grangemouth in 13:25.8 ahead of Ian Stewart who ran 13:28.4.

He missed the Mid;and District Championships in 1968 as well when he was winning an International 8000 metres race in Minove, Holland.   He had arranged his wedding for the day of the National so he missed that one as well but when it came to the international in Tunis he did run well.   The Scottish team had prepared well for the race with monthly training sessions at Cleland Estate, Motherwell, and on the day they were fourth of the thirteen teams to finish.   The whole team started off steadily but then moved through in the second half: McCafferty who had won two races in Belgium against the best runners on the continent, “showed his great ability when he charged through the field to gain seven places in the second half and finish tenth.”   Again he was first Scot.

He had an excellent cross country season in 1968-69 culminating an a wonderful third place in the International Cross-Country Championship at the hilly Dalmuir Park Course in Clydebank.   As had become a habit he had done some indoor racing in the lead up to the major cross-country races and in January he had won the AAA Indoor 3000 metres in 8:08.4.  It clearly paid off.   Colin reported on the International Cross as follows: ” The international championships for the first time since 1960 were staged in Scotland and the Union, in conjunction with Clydebank Town Council, staged them in Clydebank.   A hilly picturesque course was laid out around Dalmuir Park and the adjacent golf course that was acclaimed the most testing course over which the championships had been held for a good number of years.   Without any of the bad luck that had affected his performance in previous international championships, Ian McCafferty finished third for the best individual performance by a Scot since Flockhart’s 1937 victory in Brussels.   Always up with the leaders he surprised everyone with his lion-hearted approach to the event, refusing to give way to anyone throughout the race, resisting every challenge to his forward position and finishing strongly to take the bronze medal ahead of England’s Mike Tagg.”   It was a real star-studded field that year and not all enjoyed it – Mohammed Gammoudi, double medallist at the Olympics the year before, of Morocco dropped out complaining of the hills. 

 He then  lost a lot of the summer through injury.   In the same month as McCafferty was running the International Cross, Ian Stewart set a new UK record of 7:55.4 which removed McCafferty’s 7:56.2.   Stewart of course won the European 5000 metres championship that year.  On 11th June both Stewart brothers (Ian and Peter) took on McCafferty in the Reading Chronicle Gala Night of Sport.   There had only been one Scot sub-four for the Mile up to then (Mike Berisford) but there were three afterwards.   The pre-arranged pace-maker (M Duff) took the field through 440 yards in 58.1 and 880 in 1L58.9 before McCafferty took over.   Ian Stewart passed him after only 220 yards and carried the pace until the last furlong when McCafferty made his big break and although Ian Stewart was closing all the way, managed to win in 3:56.8 (which was over five second faster than his personal best) with Stewart second in 3:57.3 and brother Peter third in 3:58.7.    The Stewart parents had come from Musselburgh outside Edinburgh and although Ian was born in Birmingham, Peter was born in Musselburgh.   So there were three new Scottish 4-minute milers faster than Berrisford’s 3:59.2 after the one race.   The times for the two Ians were to be lifetime bests for the distance.    McCafferty’s best for 1500 metres was to come in the next year’s Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh when he ran 3:44.2 to be seventh.

                                       The famous Sub-4 Mile at Reading in 1968: Ian Stewart (1), Ian McCafferty (5), Hugh Barrow (26)

In winter 1969-70 Ian was only eight in the Nigel Barge race a minute behind winner Lachie Stewart but when it came to the District Championships in Lenzie the rolling countryside suited him and he won in fine style.   When it came to the International in Vichy, France, there were lots of travel problems and the re was a bug travelling around the team.   When it came to the race, the expected high position from McCafferty failed to materialise and he actually dropped out.

1970 was Commonwealth Games year in Edinburgh and it was the year that Ian and Peter Stewart finally opted for Scotland.   The Games started in fine style when on the very first night Lachie Stewart won the 10000 metres from Ron Clarke and Dick Taylor of England.   McCafferty’s 1500 metres final was listless and lack lustre.    I was sitting down at the water-jump end of Meadowbank and when the runners came up out of the tunnel he just looked totally enervated – his last few strides on the track were not encouraging at all.   Peter Stewart was fourth but Ian was ‘way back in seventh.   When they came out for the 5000 metres final on the last day, it was a totally different McCafferty on display.   All three Scots (Ian McCafferty, Ian Stewart and 10000 metres victor Lachie Stewart) had qualified for the final and as McCafferty came out of the tunnel there was a spring in his step and a real desire that you could almost feel as he completed his preparations and removed his tracksuit.   The opposition?   Well, everyone who mattered was there.    Clarke, Taylor, Kip Keino, Allan Rushmer and seven more made up the fourteen man field.   No pace-makers, just a real race.   The first lap was only 70.8 but then Englishman Taylor took up the running and really made a race of it.   The field started to string out and then when McCafferty took up the running with a full 800 metres to go he increased the pace yet further and then there were three men left in with a chance: McCafferty, Stewart and Keino.   500 to go and Stewart went into the lead and kept it up, with 200 to go McCafferty moved up to Stewart’s shoulder and really looked as though he might pass him.   Many still believe he settled for second but I’m not so sure, although every time I see the film or video of the race I think, “I don’t care about last time, this time he’s going to do it!”   The truth is probably that Ian Stewart’s will-power was probably indestructible that day and no matter what anyone did, he would have beaten them.    Two Scots fighting it out up the finishing straight!    Stewart won in 13:22.8 which was a new European, UK and Scottish National record and McCafferty was rewarded with a new Scottish Native record of 13:23.4 erasing his own record of 13:29.6 set earlier that year.

1971 was not as good a season but McCafferty won the SAAA 5000m title for the only time in 13:52.   He ended the 1971-72 cross-country season as Scottish Champion when the race was held at Currie, Midlothian and finished eighty first in the International.  These were to be his final Scottish and international cross country races.

1972 was Olympic year and naturally they were all trying to qualify for the event.   The AAA 5000 metres championship at Crystal Palace  on 15th July was the big test.   David Bedford (Shaftesbury) just ran away from the field but with just under three laps to go McCafferty pulled himself through to second (13:19.8, a new Scottish National record) with Ian Stewart third (13:24.2).   They were in the team.    They both seemed to be in good shape when the Games started in Munich.   McCafferty ran a scorching last lap in 54.7 to win in 13:38.2 while Stewart was second in his Heat in a time of 13:33.0.   Not one of the three British men ran well in the final.   The pace was not hard – 3000m in 8:20.2 before Lasse Viren (Finland) made a long (2000m!) run for home and was never caught.   John Keddie in his Centenary History of Scottish Athletics thinks that McCafferty was probably suffering from anxiety and sleeplessness over a race he knew he could win and just went through the motions.   Maybe so.

Whatever the truth, Ian McCafferty was so disappointed that he never raced again as an amateur – indeed he barely ever raced at all.    The sport world-wide and the Scottish scene was the poorer when he hung up the racing spikes.

In January 1973, Ian McCafferty became a professional, a decision he came to regret, and in May 1976 his application to the SAAA for reinstatement was approved.

A year ago Karen MacLeod could only reflect on the talent and fitness that once saw her selected for the Olympic marathon.   One of Britain’s best female marathon runners of the 90’s, Skye born Macleod was in need of a kidney transplant after a long-standing illness became acute.   Her younger sister Deborah was the donor in an operation that took place last May at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.   Now, restored to health, she will be one of the thousands of walkers taking part in the Full Moon Walk – the marathon distance of 26 miles 385 yards – this June.

Raising money for cancer charities is close to her heart.   Her father died of the disease when she was young and her first event – a half-marathon at the age of 22 – was to raise funds for the cause.   It was that race that convinced her that she could run at a higher level and eventually led on to a place in the GB Olympic Games team in 1996 in Atlanta.    Now, at the age of 50, the wheel has turned full circle with her return to fund-raising alongside three friends from the island.   “I started out running charity fund-raisers but that stopped when I got serious about athletics.”   In Georgia in 1996, Macleod – who was running times of around 2 hours 30 minutes – was a team mate of Liz McColgan after selectors placed their faith in her to handle the heat of Atlanta.   She had also run for Britain in World Championships and for Scotland in the 1994 Commonwealth Games.

It was about two years after Atlanta that an alarming dip in running form led her to seek medical help and her kidney problem was diagnosed.   I don’t really know what caused it.   It could have been something to do with training really hard when I had a virus that might have damaged my immune system,” she said.   She gave up athletics at the top level and only continued her running to keep fit while developing her career with the NHS.      She is currently a health-at-work adviser with NHS Highlands in the Ross-shire area.    She gave up running in 2005, but it wasn’t until last year that her kidney problems deteriorated to such an extent that she had to undergo emergency dialysis.   A month later she had the transplant.

I didn’t really acknowledge to myself how bad it was and I got to the stage where I was really poorly and had to have emergency dialysis.   Luckily my sister was already prepared to give me her kidney.   She was adamant that if it had to happen, I should have one of hers.   She would say ‘it’s just plumbing, all they do is take it out and plumb another one in.”    My partner, Angus, really inspired me to have the operation as well.”  

MacLeod says she and her sister, a keen fell-runner, probably broke records in leaving the transplant ward in seven days and four days later respectively.   Five days later they were walking side-by-side in the Skye Half Marathon.   “You are told to get active as soon as possible but a marathon runner probably has a different idea of what getting active means,”  she joked.

Almost a year on and the transplant appears to have gone well.   “So far it’s been great and compared to what I was feeling like, I have a whole new lease of life.”   She is now looking forward to the Full Moon in nine weeks.   “Well I did the half marathon last year so I thought this year I might go the whole hog.   After all the full length marathons, it will be a novelty for me to walk one!”

The above was written and appeared in ‘The Scotsman’ in 2009 and Deborah adds (July 2012), “We’re now four years down the line and life is truly wonderful for both Karen and myself – I’m heading to Skye Torr to do the Glamaig Hill Race with her.   Karen is now coaching a young hill-runner called Hugh Campbell from Skye who  is not a bad marathon runner.”

Karen (2) in the the Scottish Championships in 1989 with Laura Adam (4), Christine Pryce (4) and Sandra Branney (5)

According to the British Olympics records, she is Karen Margaret Anne MacLeod, her height is 5’6″ (168 cm), her weight is 112 lbs (51 kg), she was born in Iringa, Tanzania on 24th April 1958 and she was a member of Edinburgh Athletics Club.   For Scottish endurance running aficionadas she is one of the few Scots to have run in the Olympics (the only woman to have done so apart from from Liz McColgan), runner in two Commonwealth Games and a competitor in the World Championships.   Of course, for some who look for the unusual, she was ‘the athlete sponsored by Runrig, the Gaelic Rock Band from Skye’.   She was married to John Davies , the former Welsh schools and Bath stand-off who became her coach as well as her husband.  To examine her career as an athlete we should maybe examine her personal best times as a measure of her quality.   The rankings are the all-time rankings.

These are very impressive, the more so when you remember that she was running at almost the same time as Liz McColgan and Yvonne Murray and that there have been several athletes who were English/Scottish who were only so for a few years.   Her list of major Games appearances is no less commendable: Commonwealth Games in 1990 (10000m) and 1994 (marathon), World Championships 1993 (marathon) and Olympic Games 1996  (marathon).   And yet there is remarkably little written about her or her running.   For the purposes of this profile I will draw heavily on two articles by Doug Gillon (one from the ‘Scotland’s Runner’ of June ’93 and one for the ‘Herald of 14th August ’93) as well as the usual statistical sites.   It is generally assumed that she was born in the Western Isles but the truth is that she was born at altitude in Tanzania where her father was a government architect and she moved to Skye as a toddler.   “When we there I spoke Swahili and had to learn both Gaelic and English”, she told Gillon, “I only remember a couple of words of Swahili now – enough to say hello to Kenyans and goodbye.”  Karen left Skye at 18 and by 1993 she was a PR graduate of Dunfermline College and also had a degree in English and History and was studying for a post-grad degree in health promotion.

She did not race until the age of 24 and her first race had been the 1982 Bath Half Marathon which she ran shortly after the death of her father to raise funds for cancer research.   “I was a bit of a sloth,” she told Gillon, “I liked my drinking and was not that fit.   I was clueless – ran in a pair of Dunlop green flash and could hardly walk the next day.”   The article goes on to say: ” She met her husband during the Wells Half Marathon later that year.  ‘He’d been following me for some time, then drew level and came out with this corny line about us wearing the same shoes – I’d graduated to a real pair by then.     John decided I should become more competitive.   He reckoned I was a real wimp.   I suppose I was a bit pathetic.   I chased after one rival and told her she had taken the wrong route – then she beat me.   I helped another girl through a stitch – and she beat me too.

John indoctrinated me to the rugby mentality of killing people off – that when people are suffering is when you put the boot in.   I’ve come around now but it’s taken a long time.”    Then there was the horse injury.    In 1983 she was thrown from a horse while pony trekking in the Mendip Hills.   “I’ve never been on a horse since, she said, “On Skye we were used to riding bareback.   If you ever got in trouble you just slid off.   But my foot stuck in the stirrup and I was dragged at the gallop, hanging by my left ankle.   I twisted my pelvis, damaged muscles and suffered sciatic problems.   Being an idiot I kept trying to run.   I developed a very awkward style and it took the physio ages to sort me out.”

Nevertheless, after starting running as reported in 1982, she started winning Scottish titles in 1985: when she won the Scottish 4000m closed cross-country championship in 1984 she beat Yvonne Murray.   She won the same title in 1986  and it was reported briefly in ‘Athletics Weekly’ thus: “SWCCU Championships held at Lochgelly on February 9th and raced over 4000m, the SWCCU ‘closed’ championships resulted in a win for Karen Macleod (EAC) in 16:07 from Penny Rother (EAC) 16:35 and Jean Lorden (ESH) 17:28.”   On the track indoors she won the WAAA Indoor 3000m, also in 1987.   She has also won the Scottish outdoor 3000m on 19th June 1987 in 9:26.61 from Christine Haskett-Price (9:28.72)   “Scotland’s Runner” reported on the race: “A cold and blustery Friday evening and the absence of Murray and Lynch conspired to ensure no fireworks.   But Karen Macleod did a competent job in adding the Scottish title to her UK indoors one.   With two laps remaining she finally broke fellow international Chris Haskett-Price, opening an ever increasing gap by the bell.   Although Chris closed on the final stretch, a last lap of 72.71 seconds was fast enough for Macleod to hold on.”   At the end of 1987 she was ranked tenth in the 1500m with 4:25.89 and eighth in the 3000m in 9:25.50.

 She competed in the last three world cross country championships.  Her victory in the SWCCU Cross-Country Championships in 1987, the ‘Athletics Weekly’ reported as follows:

EASY PICKINGS FOR KAREN MACLEOD

Victory by 24 seconds as Liz Lynch and Yvonne Murray race elsewhere.

Karen MacLeod was racing to an impressive victory in the Scottish Women’s 4 miles cross-country championships at Cowdenbeath on February 22nd.   The Edinburgh AC runner, born in the Western Isles but now living in the Bristol area, stayed with the leaders during the early stages but soon pulled away on a steep uphill stretch of heavy plough and created a gap of nearly 100m which she maintained all the way to the finish.   Despite being badly hirt in a horse riding accident a few years ago, Karen has fought back with such tenacity and courage from the injuries which threatened to terminate her athletics career, that during the past 12 months her successes have included the Scottish ‘closed’ cross-country title in 1986, the WAAA indoor 3000m crown and now her first ever national cross-country championship.”    Further through the article it said that she had, by her victory, gained automatic selection for the World Championships in Warsaw.

The Scottish Championships in 1988 were held at Crown Point Track in Glasgow and on the Friday night of 22nd July she lined up for the start of the 3000m race just as the rain started to fall.   She retained her title though in a race described as follows in “Scotland’s Runner” as follows.   “Fast finishing Alison Jenkins just failed to prevent Karen Macleod from retaining her 3000m title after a spirited sprint up the final straight.   Macleod dominated the race, breaking away from Jenkins, Audrey Sym, Valerie Clinton, Eileen Masson and Christine Price at about 800m and building up a lead of almost 60m before being hauled back in the last lap.   In poor conditions, Macleod’s time was well down on her 1987 Meadowbank clocking of 9:25.61.”   On the following afternoon in the 1500m, Karen was fourth in a time of 4:30.63.   By the end of the year the woman who would turn into one of Scotland’s best ever marathon runners appeared in four ranking lists on the track:   tenth in the 1500m with the time from the Scottish championships, seventh in the 3000m in her time from the evening before and second in the 5000m with a time of 16:26.57.     She had been helped through 1988 by sponsorship from Brooks, the clothing company as reported in the article below.

Karen MacLeod winner of the 1987 Scottish cross-country title, is back racing again following a 16 week lay-off at the end of last year.   Karen, pictured above with Alloa Brewery managing director John MacKenzie and Yvonne Murray after receiving a Skol award.   The injury was a particular setback to Macleod who had enjoyed a sustained spell of success over the previous 18 months including the UK indoor 3000m title and the Scottish track 3000m title.   Now based in Bristol, she and coach John Davies agreed that the entire cross-country season for which the athlete hoped to be bidding for the UK team to go to New Zealand would have to be missed.   However 1988 has started on a brighter note with Karen being signed up by Brooks for shoe, kit and racing sponsorship – her first such deal.   In her comeback race, eight miles over the roads in Wales on January 31st, Karen sliced three minutes off the course record with a time of 44 minutes.   John Davies says the immediate aim is to improve Karen’s 10K road best of 33:26, and then transfer to track 10000 metres.   He is also keen to dispel rumours that Karen is looking for a new coach!

(From ‘Scotland’s Runner in Mid-1988)

At the start of 1989, Karen was tenth in the International Cross-Country race at Gateshead and the summer season saw further improvements in track running with end of season bests of 3000m fifth placing with 9:22.96 and 5000m third with 16:10.98.   The 10000m was a strange one – in September the rankings had her top with a time of 33:00.00e, two months later she was top with 33:17.8 from Sandra Branney (33:40.2).    However that may be, Karen was continuing to improve and was set to retain her title over 3000m in the SWAAA Championships in July 1989.   The race report reads: “Defending Champion Karen Macleod was the early front runner in this seven and a half event, closely followed by main rivals Sandra Branney and Laura Adams,   By the 1000m mark, the field was well stretched out with the front runners emphasising their lead.   With two laps to go Branney and Adam took up the running with Adam stretching away to build a lead of 15m over Branney with Macleod a further 5m behind.   In the final lap Laura Adam was striding comfortably and building on her lead all the time.   With 250m to go, Karen LacLeod relieved Sandra Branney of her second placed position and made for home.   At the end of the race, Adam had built up a lead of 50m over second placed Macleod who was 10m ahead of Branney.”   

Laura Adam leads Karen, Christine Price and Sandra Branney

Domestically she was outshone only by Murray and McColgan although her distances tended to be more from 5000m upwards which meant that McColgan was her only real domestic rival.   And so it was internationally with all her appearances at major Games being at 10000m and marathon.    Having set her lifetime best of 33:17.88 in Oslo on 1st July 1989, her first Commonwealth Games was over the same distance in 1990 in Auckland, New Zealand, where she was eleventh in 34:24.71.   Again the race was not without mishap: She broke ribs in the final, thumped by a flying elbow and finished the race in agony before being hospitalised.   In the 1990 rankings, she was second in the 5000m with 16:20.59 and second in the 10000 with 34:24.71.

In 1991 she broke 14 course records at distances between 10K and the half marathon and was second in the Great Scottish Run.   The report on the race, held on September 22nd reads: “In the women’s race Scotland’s Karen MacLeod, attempting Olympic qualification in the marathon in Italy on October 27th, came second, never really trying to make any impression on the winner and leader throughout, Andrea Wallace.   ‘I ran with Andrea’s husband – I decided that was the next best thing,’ Macleod laughed.   ‘I suppose I’m not particularly pleased with the time, but it’s not bad for that type of day.’   MacLeod’s time of 74:22 was 73 seconds outside her personal best.   The Skye born woman, who represented Scotland over 10000m at the Auckland Commonweath Games said she was helped to the distinction of being the first Scottish woman home by the sound of the bagpipes wafting from the finishing line at Glasgow Green.   ‘They helped me pick up my pace,’ she said.   ‘I was just praying the rhythm didn’t slow down before I crossed the finish.’   In the Scottish track rankings that year she was fourth in the 10000m with 33:56.2 behind Liz McColgan (30:57.07), Annette Bell (33:30.0) and Bicki Vaughan (33:46.1).   As for the Italian marathon in November, it was not a success.   The headline was ‘Macleod Frustration.’ and the short article read as follows: “Karen MacLeod-Davies clocked 2:37:48 in Carpi, Northern Italy despite suffering badly from cramp after reaching 30k in 1:49.   “That first bit was like a 20 mile training run, but after the cramp, I had to walk and jog the final six miles.   It was really frustrating,” said the former national track and cross-country champion who finally finished twelfth.   Her biggest upset was being on course for the Olympic qualifying time of 2:35 and she is now resigned to not making the Barcelona team.   She may now go on to tackle the Houston marathon in January of next year.’

1992 being Olympic year, resigned as she said to missing out on the trip to Spain, she ran 71:45 for a half marathon in Lisbon in January and turned in a time of 2:41:35 for the London Marathon in April but then collapsed at the finish, later finding out that she suffered from a serious iron deficiency.  By the time of Doug’s article in “Scotland’s Runner” she had won three marathons and with a pb of 2:34:30 at that point, plus a course record of 53;40 in the Tom Scott Road Race, she was in superb form but did not appear anywhere in the official rankings for the year.

In 1993, described as a ‘Salford-based Scottish woman’ when she won the Bristol half-marathon in 75:00, she was running as well as ever again – witness the following performances from a woman who was now in the WV35 category.

By August 1993 Karen was selected for   the World Championships in Stuttgart and her record was impressive: she had started in five marathons and won three – in Majorca (9th December 1990 in 2:38:45), Bordeaux (26th May 1991 in 2:38:06) and Seville (21st February 1993 in 2:34:20).   These were all run in hot conditions such as those she was expecting in Germany and it was reasonable to expect a top ten finish. where she was sixteenth in 2:41:46 and the Seville time ranked her 120th in the world.    It was about this time that her connections with the Gaelic band Runrig was made public.   “The Gaelic Rock Band Runrig will be Karen Macleod’s inspiration tomorrow morning as she runs for Britain in the marathon at the World Championships in Stuttgart.   As she heads for the start, the auburn-haired Edinburgh Athletic Club woman will play her favourite Runrig tracks on her cassette player, suitably titled numbers like Protect and Survive (Once in a Lifetime), Always a Winner and The Final Mile.   And as she races, songs of the appropriate tempo will run through her head helping maintain her rhythm.   Macleod grew up on Skye where she and her sister Deborah were staunch fans long before Runrig became a national institution, when they played to fewer than 50 fans in a tiny hall in Skeabost.   But the inspiration goes much deeper than that for Karen’s sister is married to Runrig star Rory MacDonald who writes most of the band’s material.   In fact they had planned to be in Germany to support her but Rory’s mother is ill at home in Lochmaddy and they decided not to travel.”

Her second Commonwealth Games was in Victoria, Canada, on 27th August 1994 and her build-up included a lot of fast under distance racing.   In March, she went to Alphen in Holland where she was tenth in the 15,000 m road race in 52:11; in April it was 10 miles in New York where she won in 55:41 and second in the Trevira Twosome in New york.   The ‘Herald’ reported it as follows: “Karen Macleod, already selected for the Commonwealth Games marathon this year, removed any doubts about her fitness yesterday in New York where she lined up with Kenyan steeplechaser William Mutwol to win the Trevira Twosome in Central Park.   The race is based on the aggregate times of a man and a woman both covering 10 miles.   Despite thunderstorms and pelting rain and hail, Macleod covered the distance in 55:04, the fifth fastest woman’s time of the day.   Allied to Mutwol’s 47:10 it brought their team overall victory.   “Everything is on schedule and Karen is running well,” said her coach anmd husband John Davies last night.”  In June there were two 10,000m track races -at St Denis in France where she ran 33:34.85 on the tenth and 34:05:00 at Meadowbank on the twenty fifth to win the SWAAA championship.   It all paid off in the Games marathon where she was an agonising fourth in the marathon in what would prove to be her best ever time for the distance of 2:33:16  – still the sixth best ever by any Scotswoman.   After the Games on 2nd October in Thessaloniki, Greece Karen was second in in a 20000m in 70:45 and her best half marathon of the year was 73:52 in Stroud where she repeated her victory of the year before.   As a result of the Commonwealth Games race, her world ranking had moved up to 86th, a considerable improvement on the previous year.

In 1995 she was top in two events, second in three and third in another Scottish domestic ranking list in races – her six top times were in six different countries with a racing season that lasted from 15th January to 3rd December!

The peak of any athlete’s career has to be competing in the Olympic Games and Karen attained that honour in 1996 when she went to Atlanta in the United States with Liz McColgan to run in the marathon.   Again there was a lot of fast racing in the months leading up to the Games.  Her fastest marathon of the year turned out to be in Houston on 21st January when she was seventh in 2:33:50 but before that there was a whole series of good runs including winning a 10K at Bourton in Gloucestershire in 33:27 in February, 55:34 to win the 10 miles at Ballycotton in Ireland, she won the 5 miles road race in Nailsea in late June in 27:27 and in Atlanta before the Games she ran a half marathon in 75:55.  She also won the Isle of Skye half marathon in a new record time of 1:22:21.  In the Games however, there was a big field and a very good field and Liz was sixteenth  with Karen forty fifth in 2:42:08 and Suzanne Rigg (the remaining GB runner) fifty eighth.

Although Karen never ran as a veteran or in any veterans events, she is listed in the Scottish Athletics Yearbook as having run 16:59 for 5K on the road (she would have been 39 then) , 36:08 for a 10K and 17:17.2 for 5000m on the track.   A final note – on 14th July 2008, a Karen MacLeod ran in the Isle of Skye Half Marathon as a FV 50+ where she finished 250th in 2:49:50.   Was it the same Karen MacLeod?   Yes, it certainly was – and it was only four weeks following her kidney transplant operation!   A quite remarkable feat and possibly as good as any run she had ever done.   Karen and her sister Deborah are now keen advocates for organ donation and feel that more people should be aware of the programmes.   Read about the transplant via  this link.

In short, a first class athlete, perhaps a bit unfortunate to be running at the same time as Liz and Yvonne – but her record, both competitive and in terms of times, was first class and is one of only two Scottish women to have raced in the Olympic marathon

John Myatt running in Strathclyde University colours in the Hyde Park Relays, 1968

Colin Youngson has written the profile of John’s career below and it gives an excellent overview of just how good he was.   What follows is a more detailed look at his running on a year by year basis with the final years after 1972 being condensed a bit.   

John Myatt ran for Strathclyde University, Law and District AAC, Wirral AC from 1970 – 73 and Gateshead from 1974 – 86.   Between 1967 ad 1971 he produced the following track times:   one mile – 4:12.1;   5000m – 14:39.4;   10000m – 30:54;   ten miles – 50:23.    In addition he ran the Maxol Marathon in 2:21:57.

However John Myatt’s main strength was undoubtedly in cross-country running.   In 1967 he finished third in the Scottish National Junior Cross-Country Championship behind Eddie Knox and Alistair Blamire.   Myatt ran for Scotland in the ICCU Junior Championships at Barry in Wales finishing nineteenth.   Then in 1968, having won the Midland Junior Cross-Country,  John showed even greater speed when he won a gold medal in the Scottish Junior on Hamilton Racecourse, defeating the reigning ICCU and Scottish Junior Champion, Eddie Knox of Springburn Harriers.

In 1969, having won the Midland Senior title, John made an outstanding debut in the Scottish Senior National at Duddingston finishing in fourth place.   In 1970 he was third in the Midland event but led Strathclyde University to the team title. His team -mate Innis Mitchell says “John was quite a private person and a very conscientious student and athlete.   He did most of his training on his own but worked hard as Strathclyde captain (and fastest runner) to encourage improvement in others.   As well as winning the Midland, Strathclyde won the most improved team medal in the 1967 E-G, and finished a very creditable third at the prestigious Hyde Park Relays (6-man team).   John’s family lived in Calais while he was at University and after he graduated he married Christiane from France, whom he had been courting for some time, unknown to his Scottish mates.   He also had a talent for eating curries – the only person I ever knew who could consume two of Glasgow’s hottest vindaloos at the same sitting!”

 John was only twenty second in the National that year but in 1971 improved to fifth.   In the 1972 National John Myatt was seventh, a place he repeated in 1973.   He also ran well in this event in 1974 (sixteenth), 1978 (eighth) and 1980 (fifteenth).   Overall, John Myatt was marvellously consistent and thoroughly explored his talent over the country.   John was selected to run for the Scottish Senior team in the International Championships four times, but unfortunately illness prevented his participation in 1969 (Clydebank) and 1971 (San Sebastian). However in 1972 (Cambridge) he finished in 76th place; and in 1973 (Waregem, Belgium) he was 83rd. In addition he was chosen as a reserve in 1968 and 1978.

Law and District were not very strong at this time, although eventually Douglas Frame developed into a fast man, but John Myatt showed his ability as a road runner in the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay.   He ran five in succession for Strathclyde University, mainly on the hardest stages – Two or Six.   In 1968 he was allowed the luxury of the first stage and promptly finished first setting a course record time of 26:50.   Strathclyde’s best team position was sixth in 1970.   After that John Myatt was loyal to Law and District running the E-G for them six times until 1980.   Once again he was landed with Two or Six and his team’s best finishing place was tenth in 1974.

John running in Elgoibar, 1973

We can take a more detailed look at John’s cross-country running career in Scotland from the pages of the ‘Glasgow Herald’.   He started his career with Strathclyde University in 1966, came to public attention after his performance in the Midlands championship of 1967 and ran at a very high level for several years thereafter when he was one of the top runners in the country.  The review of the 1966-67 cross-country season comes first.

We can start with his first appearance in the sports pages on 12th November, 1966, when he was second to Adrian Weatherhead in the Inter-University four and a half mile race at Heriot Watt playing fields 29 seconds down.   He followed this with fourth place two weeks later in the Inter-University six and a half miles at Westerlands – Weatherhead won again – but the race gained him selection for the Scottish Universities team to meet the SCCU two weeks later at King’s Buildings in Edinburgh.   He was unplaced in this race but the standard was very high and in the absence of McCafferty and Stewart it was won by John Linaker from Alec Brown and Gareth Bryan-Jones.   His first race in  1967 was on 14th January when he ran in the Glasgow University v Strathclyde University v Heriot Watt v Cambuslang Harriers at Moriston Park, Cambuslang.  John won this race in 32:38 from Charlie Jarvie of Cambuslang and John Hickey of Glasgow.

John’s first very good run – his ‘breakthrough’ as it has been described – came in the Midland District Championhip on 21st January 1967 where he finished sixth, Ron Marshall commented in the ‘Glasgow Herald’:  “The biggest surprise of the leading finishers was the sixth place of J Myatt (Strathclyde University) who has known only modest success in student circles.”   His friend and rival Alastair Johnston and says that he well remembers the race where John showed he himself and many others a “muddy if not a clean pair of heels”.   He adds that brilliant McCafferty won, beating Lachie Stewart by a minute and although John was sixth (just behind the outstanding Jim Brennan) he was ahead of Eddie Knox who was running really well at that point and a fixture in Scottish teams.   John’s own comment to Alastair in reply to the above was that “The big breakthrough was the 1967 Midland District Cross-Country where I was sixth being third Junior behind Knox and Brennan.   You will remember the course and the rain throughout the race which suited me particularly.   I remember seeing you and Pat Maclagan in pursuit along with many other big names and hoped that I could hold on until the end.”   He went on to prove that this very good run was not a ‘one-off’ but the start of several years when he was among the best in the country.   The result was:

1. I McCafferty (Motherwell);   2.  JL Stewart (Vale of Leven);   3.   AP Brown (Motherwell);   4.   AH Brown (Motherwell);   5.   J Brennan (Maryhill);   6.   J Myatt (Strathclyde);   7.   E Knox (Springburn).

Tenth in the Scottish University Championships the following week, where Edinburgh University whitewashed the field,  he ran in the BUSF Championships at Parliament Hill Fields in London  on 4th February -the day that Edinburgh University won the title.   Myatt was fifteenth in 31:38 to be fifth Scottish representative.    Ian Young was eighth (31:13), Jim Wight eleventh (31:25), Gareth Bryan-Jones thirteenth (31:36) and Alistair Blamire fourteenth (31:37).   One week later he won the six mile race at Moriston Park in 31:16 which beat the record of 31:39 set by Lachie Stewart of the Vale of Leven in 1965.   The result:  1.   J Myatt (Strathclyde U);  2.  A Faulds (Stirling)   32:23;   3.   J Hickey (GU)   32:40.

In the Junior National on 25th February, 1967, John was third behind a ferocious race to the line in which Eddie Knox beat Alistair Blamire by one second (28:03 to 28:04).   The quality of this race can be seen by those who finished outside the first three – Myatt’s time was 28:33, fourth was Jim Brennan in 28:59, fifth was Dave Logue in 29:06, sixth was Harry Gorman in 29:16 and seventh was Norman Morrison in 29:30.   After the race, four Juniors were selected for the International at Barry in Wales on March 18th – Eddie Knox, John Myatt, Norman Morrison, Willie Day and Jim Cook of Garscube who had won the Youths race.   Blamire and Brennan were Juniors at home but internationally their dates of birth made then seniors and ineligible for the team but Myatt as third finisher would have been selected anyway.   In the English Championships the following week, Myatt was fifteenth – four places ahead of Knox.   Nearer home on 11th March, he won the University championship after the annual handicap race at Cambuslang.   In the international at Barry on 18th March, Myatt finished 19th and third Scot behind Knox and Morrison.

The cross-country season for 1966-67 drew to a close and it had been very interesting one for the student who started so quietly and gradually wound up the performances until he was one of the chosen four to run for Scotland at the international in March.  There were a number of hugely talented individuals at this point – Knox, Blamire, Morrison, Brennan were all among the best the country has produced – and John Myatt was more than holding his own.   The following summer he was ranked at 16th in Scotland for the Mile where his best run was 4:12.1 before heading back to the roads and country in October.

Hyde Park 1970

As before he seemed to start the 1967 – 68 season gently and the first report was on 21st October in a University race at Glasgow involving Queen’s, Belfast, Glasgow University and Strathclyde University in which John was second to John Hickey by 24 seconds.   Then on the weekend of 6th November the University squad went to Belfast where there was a three-way contest involving Queen’s and Aberdeen.   In the first race over six miles in Belfast, John beat team mate Alistair Johnston by 10 seconds and then in the second race at Dublin Alastair won by 14 seconds.   Alastair says that there was a healthy rivalry between them.   Alastair says:

“We always finished quite close – he ahead in the mud, me ahead on the road generally.    A good example was the Irish Tour you mention – muddy Belfast on day one, fast Parkland/ Road in Phoenix Park, Dublin the next day.    It was more a healthy respect we had for one another as compared with a good friendship – we were both quite quiet guys and “business-like” and loved meeting on a Wednesday afternoon and burning up a ten miler along Alexandra Park to the countryside around Hogganfield Loch.   Of course on the way back , the pace would accelerate and a close “race” would develop with us dodging buses, people and dogs until reaching the sanctuary of the Cathedral Street gym, thoroughly pleased with ourselves.   Ah – happy days!”

John confirms that they liked different racing conditions and his comments on the ’67 Midland District above say as much.

The team returned from Ireland and the headline the next week read “Easy Victory for Myatt” after an inter-university race at Aberdeen where he won by 32 seconds from John Hickey.   It should be noted however that Edinburgh University was absent – possibly because the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay was the following week.    Strathclyde also had a team forward and it finished 12th and won the most meritorious unplaced team award.   John ran on the second stage and pulled the team up two places when he ran the ninth fastest time of the day.   Edinburgh University won from Shettleston.   On 25th November and the annual SCCU v Northern Counties and SCCU v The Army joint fixtures were held at King’s Buildings in Edinburgh where Myatt was running for the team against the Army.   He finished eighth in the hardest race of the afternoon.   Into December and in the high-quality Lanarkshire Cross-Country Championship, the first six were :   1.   I McCafferty,  2.   E Knox,   3.  AP Brown,   4.   AH Brown,   5.   R Wedlock,   6.   J Myatt.   His last race of the year, at least as recorded by the Glasgow Herald, was the well-supported East Kilbride five and a half mile road race which was won by Jim Brennan of Maryhill in 25:57 from Alec Brown of Law in 26:04 with John Myatt third in 26:08 – only eleven seconds down on the winner.

On 13th January, 1968, Adrian Weatherhead of Heriot Watt University guested in a three cornered match between Edinburgh, Strathclyde and Glasgow Universities and won in 26:12 from John Myatt who ran 26:13.   It was another good run – third was Alex Wight in 26:16, fourth Gareth Bryan-Jones in 26:54 and fifth Andy McKean in 26:59.   Myatt was racing the best of the outstanding University runners and often beating the best.   In the Midlands District Championship at Bellahouston the next week, he was fourth behind Pat Maclagan (VPAAC), Jim Brennan (Maryhill) and Alex Brown.    The Glasgow Herald report commented that “for a long time it appeared as if J Myatt (Strathclyde University) – who is still a Junior – would take a splendid third place but inexorably he was overhauled by Alex Brown (Law).   Myatt flogged himself up the finishing straight in an effort to displace Brown but he missed only by a second.”    On 27th January in the Scottish Universities Championships he was fourth in another very close race.   1.   D Logue   33:02;   2.   J Wight   33:09;   3.   A Johnston   33:12;   4.   J Myatt   33:14;   5.   A Wight   33:18.    Five runners within 16 seconds!    Seven days later it was the British Universities championships in London and the report said that J Myatt (Strathclyde University) was the best placed Scot – Edinburgh University was runner-up to Cambridge in the team contest.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ report read :Edinburgh, winners over the same course last year, totalled 97 points and took their second place ahead of Oxford.   Their counting runners were A Blamire (7), D Logue (10), A Wight (14), A McKean (18),  G Bryan-Jones (23) and I Young (25).   The best placed Scot was J Myatt (Strathclyde) in twelfth position.”   

In the 1968 National Championship at Hamilton where Eddie Knox was seen as the man to beat.   He had all the talent but was going through a rough patch.   In the actual race, the first five turned out to be:   1.  J Myatt   26:27;   2.   E Knox   26:39;   3.   B Mullett   26:59;   4.   M MacMahon   27:04;   5.   N Morrison   27:28.   Myatt won by 60 yards from Knox in a field of approximately 160.   Fourth in 1967 to champion in 1968.   When the team was announced the following Monday Myatt, too old by international rules to be run as a Junior, was only selected as a reserve for the senior team with Gareth Bryan Jones who had a bad run in the National because of a stone inside one of his shoes ripping his feet.   Wedlock, Don Macgregor and Myatt all had their supporters for the last place but Bryan-Jones was the man selected on his form during the lead-in to the championships.   In the International itself on 16th March, the team had a chance of third place but the last counting runner was Bryan-Jones running in his first international.   He finished 47th and the team was fourth.

In summer 1968 his best best mile time was 4:16.2 which ranked him 12th in Scotland and his best 10 miles time was 50:23.0 which ranked him third in Scotland.

Lanarkshire Relays, l969:   Albert Smith to John Myatt and John Myatt to Innis Mitchell

Winter 1968-69 started in October and Strathclyde was seventh but no individual times were recorded in the Herald.   The first headline garnered by Myatt was not until 26th October when it read “Myatt helps club to narrow win.”    It referred to an inter-university road race at Westerlands in Glasgow where he won by 200 yards from David Ritchie of Aberdeen – any kin to Donald, I wonder – with a time of 36:42 to Ritchie’s 37:12 with J Youngson  – any kin to Colin? – third in 37:43.   Strathclyde won from Aberdeen by four points.      The Midland District Relays were held on 2nd November and the headline and article read as follows:

“STRATHCLYDE THE SURPRISE PACKETS OF THE MIDLAND RELAY

No one talked very much about Shettleston Harriers victory in the Midland District relay championship.   They were all too busy talking about how Strathclyde University had managed to come home second in front of a good number of more fancied teams.   The course at Bellshill, a two and three quarter mile slog through fields heavy with mud knocked the steam out of   some of our better runners and, conversely, brought out previously unrevealed tenacity in others.   Tom Patterson (Shettleston) and Mike McLean (Bellahouston) are only two who spring to mind as having reached beyond their normal heights.  

The Strathclyde team – in order of running John Myatt, Albert Smith, Kenny Laing and Colin Maciver – looked no more than ordinary on paper.  But Myatt’s great lead-off leg in which he sprinted home first, must have provided the rest with a welcome stimulus.   Smith, of course, had little hope of outpacing Dick Wedlock, Shettleston’s second man, but how well he protected second position for Strathclyde during the next 10 minutes or so.   Even then, with Laing and McIvor to come, the students were by no means sure of staying there.   Nevertheless the unexpected continued to happen.   Where were Law, Springburn and Victoria Park?   Was there no late challenge coming from any of them?   It began to look that way as Laing handed over to the fair-haired McIvor giving him a lead of about 40 yards over Bellahouston.   Indeed Maciver kept that lead, perhaps slightly adding to it, and gave his club their most significant relay result for several years. ” 

The race result was

1. Shettleston.   T Patterson 11:53;   R Wedlock  11:47;   W Scally   12:03;   JL Stewart   11:44
2. Strathclyde U   J Myatt   11:52;   A Smith   12:11;   K Laing   12:19;   C McIvor 12:28
3. Bellahouston H:   B Goodwin   12:15;   M McLean   12:04;   J Adair   12:10;   A Yates   12:29.

One week later and the headline was “Myatt’s Time Shows His Class” after he had won the Glasgow University road race at Westerlands.   He had won the race from Eddie Knox and former Strathclyde team mate Alistair Johnston in a time of 25:21 which was only five seconds outside Lachie Stewart’s record time.   Knox was 13 seconds down.   There were quite a few missing from the race because the following week was the Edinburgh to Glasgow relay.   Myatt ran the first stage for Strathclyde and set a new record for the first stage which was 4 seconds inside Jim Alder’s time of the previous year but his team were unfortunately outside the medals.    His third race in three weeks was an inter-university match in Aberdeen to help select the team to compete against the SCCU in mid-December.   Myatt won by 20 yards from Adrian Weatherhead who was 15 yards up on Dave Logue, who was followed by Colin Youngson, Andy McKean and Donald Ritchie.   His time beat Bill Ewing’s course record by one second.   On the same day he was also selected to compete for the SCCU along with Lachie and Dick Wedlock at Edinburgh the following week.   This time he was seventh finisher in the race and a member of the winning team.   Straight into December and he was third in the Lanarkshire championship behind Lachie and Dick Wedlock again before the match between Scottish Universities and the SCCU.    The first four were – Lachie Stewart (1), Dick Wedlock (2), Alistair Blamire (who was having a really superb season, 3) and John Myatt (4).    It had been an excellent series of races to end the year on.

Missing the Nigel Barge and Springburn Cup road races at the start of the year, on the 20th January he won the Midland cross-country championship beating Andy Brown by over 100 yards.   After racing in January in Scotland, Myatt travelled to Spain with a small Scottish squad to race in San Sebastian against approximately 100 top class runners along with Ian McCafferty and Adrian Weatherhead.   The race was won in a temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit by Mike Tagg (England) with McCafferty twelfth, Myatt twenty eighth and Weatherhead thirty first.   “Myatt and Weatherhead ran courageously.   They went with the big leading group early on and fought hard even as they slipped place by place in the latter stages of the race,” said Ron Marshall.   Myatt then missed several weeks races including the inter-district race won by John Linaker and an inter-university race at Aberdeen the week before the National.   He did turn out in the National – and he ran well, so well that he finished fourth ahead of such as Don Macgregor, Jim Alder, John Linaker and Gareth Bryan-Jones, and was selected for the International to be held in Clydebank on March 22nd.      When it came to the actual international though, John Myatt was absent through illness.   He himself feels that he was at his best in the late 60’s and it is a pity that he had to wait until 1972 for his first full cap in the big international.

John Myatt, Willie Diverty and Gareth Bryan-Jones at the Cross des Capitals, Tunis, in 1969

1969-70 started with a win in a triangular cross-country race against Queen’s and Glasgow at Westerlands in which Myatt and Albert Smith had a Strathclyde 1-2 in 37:35 and 37:51.       The Midland Relay was on 1st November and Strathclyde could not match the previous year’s performance but finished fifth with Myatt running first (11:11:32, Mitchell second (11:48), Smith third (12:04) and Hall fourth (12:06).   Myatt was not included in the results of the Glasgow University Road race which was won in 1969 by Pat Maclagan from Eddie Knox, Alex Brown and Alistair Johnstone.     In the Edinburgh to Glasgow the following week, he was on the long sixth stage and dropped one place – from 7th to 8th – when he was passed by Alex Brown and turned in seventh fastest time.   On 24th November the trial for the Universities team to meet the SCCU was held at Cambuslang and Myatt was fourth behind J McHardy, A McKean and A Blamire.   At the end of January, in the Midland District championship at Lenzie,  Myatt was third behind Ian McCafferty and Eddie Knox and just in front of Alastair Johnston and Pat Maclagan.  Strathclyde won the team race with runners placed 3, 10, 19, 21, 34 and 38.   He had a relatively quiet season in 69-70 thanks to the finals at University but was selected for the Scottish Universities team for the BUSF Championships in Sheffield the following week.  John finished 15th with Dave Logue also in the field but the Press attention was focused on Norman Morrison.  On 21st February at Ayr on a misty, wet afternoon, Myatt was again the Strathclyde University leading runner – but he was down in 22nd place on a day when all the odds were upset.   eg Eddie Knox was 20th, Andy Brown 25th Alex Brown 30th.    No international appearance was on the cards that year.   His summer of 1970 was a good one with rankings at 5000m (14:39.4 and ranked 19th),  10000m (30:54.0 18th) and 10 miles (51:57.0 8th).

On graduating he went to Port Sunlight and joined Wirral AC.   He continued to run in Scotland for Strathclyde as an associate member of the athletic club.   Eventually the SCCU queried this status which, while consistent with the Strathclyde AC constitution did not apparently fit that of the SCCU although they had by default accepted it in accepting the University as a member club.   They decided that associate status was not a good thing and allowed John  to join another club.   He opted for Law & District, another Lanarkshire club, which he thought would benefit from his services in the Edinburgh to Glasgow and the National championship.

Then it was into winter 1970-71.   On 21st November, 1970, he ran in the Edinburgh to Glasgow on the sixth leg for the University.   He dropped one place and was outside the top ten times.   His next appearance in fact was on 20th February in the National Championships at Bellahouston Park where he finished fifth and was selected with Lachie Stewart, Ian McCafferty, Fergus Murray, Alistair Blamire, Dick Wedlock and Ian Stewart for the international in Spain.   Unfortunately he had to withdraw from the team through injury – made more unfortunate because the actual course was a real mudbath and would probably have suited him down to the ground.   He was to make good on his omission from the team over the next two years.

In winter 1971-72 he made his first appearance in the Scottish papers on 13th November 1971 when he was tenth in the Waterloo eight mile road race at L:iverpool where the top Scot was Jim Alder in sixth.      Nevertheless he turned out for Strathclyde in the Edinburgh to Glasgow the following week – the University team had Frank Clement on the first stage who was fourth and John on the second who moved them up to third with the third fastest time of the day.   Unfortunately that was about it as far as the team was concerned and it fell away to sixteenth by the end of the race.   In the National held in February Myatt finished fifth and was an automatic selection for the International to be held that year in Cambridge.   The team looked a good one – Ian McCafferty, Jim Alder, Lachie Stewart, John Myatt, Ian Stewart, Dick Wedlock, Alistair Blamire and Jim Wight – but did not perform on the day.   McCafferty was not even in the counting six and there was not a single Scot in the first 19.   Jim Alder was 20th and Lachie Stewart 27th and the team manager, the normally genial Jim Morton from Springburn was reported as saying it was not bloody good enough.    John was last counting runner in 74th place, three places behind Dick Wedlock.

Into winter 1972-73 and this year Myatt missed all the classic domestic races but, running for Liverpool, finished seventh in the National Championships in February to be selected for the Scottish team to compete in Waregem, Belgium.   These championships had previously been organised by the International Cross-Country Union but the responsibility was taken over by the International Amateur Athletics Federation in 1973 and so, after several years of disappointment, Myatt was one of the few to run under both sets of conditions in successive years.   Although he was listed as Liverpool in the National, the SCCU history notes that he was a member of Law and District for the international.    In the international he finished 83rd to be out of the scoring six.

John running in the Law colours in the Edinburgh to Glasgow in 1978

Myatt turned out for his new club in the Edinburgh to Glasgow in November 1973 on the second stage where he gained two places, from 16th to 14th, in seventh fastest time of the day on this very difficult stage of the race and saw the club finish fourteenth.   Came the National at the end of the season and he was the first Law man to finish when he was sixteenth.   It should be noted that the papers at the time did not always publish the details of three- and four-man teams in international races on the Continent, often contenting themselves with a head line that said ‘Victory for Stewart’, McCafferty Wins In Belgium’ or whatever with no reference to the rest of the team.  Myatt ran in races such as Hannut in Belgium (twice), San Sebastian, Elgoibar and Tunis over the years.   There is a picture of him running in Elgoibar above and the one below with Ewan Murray and Fergus Murray is another from the same race.

Elgoibar, 1973, John (second left) with Ian Gilmour who finished ahead of John,  Fergus Murray and Ewan Murray

On 16th November 1974 he ran his second Edinburgh to Glasgow for Law & District, this time on the sixth stage where he gained one place (16th to 15th) for the team which finished tenth.   He also turned out for them in this race in 1975 (second stage), 1976 (second stage – picked up from 10th to 9th), 1977 (second stage, picked up from 11th to 9th), 1979 (second stage, picked up from 17th to 14th), 1980 (second stage, maintained 12th) and in 1981 Law & District dropped out of the race for a year and the thread was broken.    1980 was his last E-G.

As for the National, he missed the National in 1975, 1976 and 1977 but in 1978 there was a surprise for just about everybody when J Myatt (Law & District) finished eighth.  Not selected for the team he was a non-travelling reserve for the international but no one dropped out and his last chance was gone.   It was ten years since he had last been a reserve for the event and even then, no one was kind enough to drop out.    He ran again in the National for the club in 1979 when he finished 49th, 1980 when he was fifteenth, in 1981 when he was 46th, 1982 when he was 21st and 1983 in 67th.    It was a remarkable record of loyalty to a club which was falling down the finishing order almost every year, particularly when it is realised that he was travelling up from the north of England to do so.

John ran for Gateshead for many years but had to stop running in 2000 due to lower back trouble and he currently keeps fit by walking and swimming.    He moved from Durham to Darmstadt in 1993 before retiring to Biarritz in 2008.

Yvonne winning the Commonwealth Games 10000m in 1994

Yvonne Murray was born in Musselburgh on 4th October 1964 and was to go on to represent Scotland in the Commonwealth Games and Great Britain in the Olympic Game, European and World Championships.   During her time in the sport Scottish women’s endurance running had many very good athletes indeed but there were only two giants – Yvonne and Liz McColgan.   Unlike Coe and Ovett in England they did not avoid each other – it was not unknown for Coe or Ovett to turn up at a Grand Prix, find that the other was slated for the same race and ask for a separate race to be organised so that they did not cross swords: there were many meeting where there were separate races at 1500 metres and the mile.   The situation did not prevail as far as Murray and McColgan were concerned.   The races were hotly contested – I remember one in particular on the roads inside Duthie Park in Aberdeen where they ran so close together that, with no one else within a hundred yards, shoulders were jostled and heels were clipped.   But strong as their rivalry was, they both had their eyes on bigger prizes than domestic ones – both went for the Commonwealth Games, the European Games and the big one, the Olympic Games.

Where Liz was advised over the years by a range of coaches – notably Harry Bennett, John Mitchell and John Anderson – Yvonne only had two.   In the beginning it was Bill Gentleman in Edinburgh and she ran some very good times and won some big medals while with him, and then Tommy Boyle.   What difference did the change make?   Well to many Yvonne seemed a bit more self assured while with Boyle, she was certainly a harder athlete than before – although she was a delightful personality, when she was running she was a real competitor – and had a broader range of tactics.   I have seen her sit in and go over the last couple of hundred metres, I have seen her go from 1000 metres in a 1500 metres race, I’ve seen her go from the front.   She was also known to track other runners – Liz and Elana Mayer among them – so closely as to cause them some discomfort mentally as well as physically.   This may have come with maturity anyway but that a ‘might-have-been’ and ‘might-have-beens’ do not count.   The fact is that she was a talented and redoubtable character who drove herself hard in her quest for success.   The following account of Yvonne’s career was written by Colin Youngson.

Yvonne and Liz

Colin writes:   “It must have been 1977 or 1978.   I was teaching at Craigmount High School, Edinburgh, and my friend Dave Taylor convinced me to set up a cross country team to take part in the Edinburgh Schools Cross Country League.   So one Tuesday afternoon we boarded a minibus and headed off for the distant wind-swept playing fields.  Since I was running at least 70 miles per week at the time, no opportunity could be lost to add to the total.    My method of ‘coaching’  was to make sure that my boys and girls were warming up, and then to cheer on the leaders in every race by running parallel with them.   So it was that I first met Yvonne Murray, who may have been 13 years old.   She was the small but extremely determined figure who was inevitably so far ahead of the other girls that they may as well not have bothered.   What impressed me was that she was bashing on flat-out right to the finish, when she could have jogged on and still won easily.   I praised and encouraged her without having any idea about just how good she would be in the future.

Her coach at the time was Bill Gentleman who had met her at Musselburgh Grammar.   Bill was, and still is, a chunky enthusiast who can out-talk anyone.   Even in 2010 he remains an outstanding veteran hammer thrower who wins medals at World Masters Championships.   How on earth could he coach a middle-distance runner?   Nevertheless the partnership worked well until 1987 when she switched to Tommy Boyle (Tom McKean’s coach) and Stuart Hogg.   Before then Yvonne had made very good progress.   Stan Greenberg wrote the following for the 1995 Scottish Athletics Yearbook: ‘She first came top notice on the big stage with a sixth placing in the 1981 European Junior 3000 metres, and the following year set a British Junior record for the distance and won the Scottish title.   Celebrating her eighteenth birthday at the Commonwealth Games she placed an unnoticed tenth in both the 1500 and 3000 metres.   In 1983 she began to make a mark showing her range by winning the Scottish 800 and the UK 5000 metres titles.   She also gained her first Senior International.   The following year witnessed a series of personal bests, although no particular victories of note, but she began 1985 with a bronze medal at the European Indoor Championships.   Later in the year she took the UK 3000 metres title.   1986 was a come-through year and Yvonne improved to a silver medal at the European indoor meet.   At the Commonwealth Games she won bronze in the 3000 metres as well as placing fifth in the 1500  and repeated her bronze at the European Championships in Stuttgart with an 18 second improvement.’  

***

Naturally I had followed her progress with interest.   Although she was an extremely brave front-runner, and had improved immensely, she seemed to lack a finishing sprint.   Stan Greenberg again: ‘In 1987 she finally got her first gold medal, for the 3000 at the European indoor championships, and followed that with fifth in the World Indoor Meet.   Despite a dislike for cross country, which still endures, she placed sixteenth for Scotland at the World Championships in Poland.   Later in the year she took took second place in the European Cup 3000 metres and was seventh in the World Championships in Rome.   Yvonne won her first WAAA title (at 3000 metres) in 1988 and went on to win an Olympic bronze medal in Seoul in the excellent time of 8:29.02.’   

Bob Mackenzie has written, ‘This Olympic bronze only convinced her coaches that the Musselburgh secretary would have to experiment to find out her real capabilities to cope with the campaign of the 1990’s.   She proved a quick learner and the notorious one pace and desperate finish, already on the way out in Seoul, was eliminated in 1989.’   

In early 1990 Yvonne said, ‘We tried different things, going for the big finish from a variety of lengths, and although it would vary according to the race and the competition, I know I am a better racer for the experience.   I had a fixation about fast times for a while.   It seemed that I should always be going for a record, but I have learned to race and it worked well in the 1989 World Cup final in Barcelona.   The time was nothing special, about 8:44, but I won and that is what matters.’    Tommy Boyle added, ‘I told her before the World Cup final at Gateshead (where she won silver) to go from 200 metres.   At first she though I meant 200 metres from home – I meant 200 metres from the start.   You have to be one ahead of the opposition all of the time.   Most of the girls are very fit now, and it is the mentally tougher one who wins.   Yvonne will be a much better runner hopefully for what we have learned in the past season.’

His hopes were fulfilled in 1990.   Although in the Auckland Commonwealth Games, Yvonne was pipped by one second to the gold by Canada’s Angela Chalmers, she won the WAAA’s title and as Stan Greenberg wrote, ‘At the European Championships in Split she really came into her own with a 600 metre finishing kick to win the gold medal.’   Yvonne Murray was awarded an MBE that year.

Greenberg continued, ‘Although she retained her WAAA title in 1991, the year was not happy as she had poor runs in the European Cup (fifth after a remarkable first lap of 61 seconds) and in the Tokyo World Championships (tenth after leading at the bell).   The following year at the Barcelona Olympics, also after leading at the bell, she finished in eighth place – disappointing after her excellent WAAA 1500 metres victory.’

In March 1993, ‘Athletics Today’ wrote about the World Indoor Championships in Toronto – one of Scottish Athletics’s finest moments since gold medals for Yvonne Murray (3000m) and Tom McKean (800m), who were both coached by Tommy Boyle, and David Strang (1500m)  would have put Scotland in third place in the medal table if they had not been running for GB!   ‘No major championships would be complete without some tears from Yvonne Murray.   But this time the tears that spilled were over victory, not defeat.   After two miserable years, the Scottish lion was rampant again as Murray lifted the 3000 metres title with the biggest winning margin in the race’s history – 12 seconds – and the fastest time – 8:50.55 – in the world this year.     Murray who had tried to break away on each occasion in Tokyo and Barcelona with 600 metres left, reverted to an old favourite from her bag of tricks – running from the front.   As soon as the big clock flashed up’1000, 3:02.98′ Murray went, stepping past three time World Cross Country Champion Lynn Jennings (USA) and putting her head down.’   (Also left behind was Elly van Hulst (Holland) who had won gold in the same event back in 1989 narrowly outkicking Scotland’s Liz McColgan and breaking the world record in Budapest.)

‘The pace was brutal (that 200 was covered in 32.30, the 400 in 65.6 and the 800 in 2:13.9) and deadly.   Within 200 metres she had put six seconds between herself and the rest of the 12 woman field.   At its widest Murray’s lead stretched to 18 seconds with three laps left.   The giant video screen, Murray admitted, had been a useful tool in her break.’    ‘I always used  to run from the front but when I joined Tommy Boyle I tried to become unpredictable rather than predictable.   I knew what kind of shape I was in today and if anyone was going to beat me they would have to run bloody hard to do it.   A lot of people will say that the World Indoor Championships are not important.   But to any youngsters or anyone trying to re-establish themselves, I think they are important.   I feel like they’re a hurdle I’ve overcome.  It doesn’t matter if they’re the World Indoor Championships or the European Championships – it’s great to hear the national anthem.’    Murray is only Britain’s fourth senior woman runner to become a world champion, following Wendy Sly (World road race 10K 1988), Zola Budd (World CC 1985 and 1986) and Liz McColgan (World 10000 1999 and World Half Marathon Champion in 1992).   Yvonne finished her lap of honour clutching the Union Jack in one hand and the flag of St Andrew in the other.’

Ultimately, despite this superb performance (and another victory in the WAAA 3000 metres), Yvonne faded to ninth in the World Championships in Stuttgart.   However in typical fashion, she bounced back in 1994 with (in the words of Stan Greenberg) ‘a gallant second place in the European 3000 metres at Helsinki, and then, in only her second run at the distance, ran an outstanding 1000 metres to win the gold at the Commonwealth Games in Victoria.   Then to end a wonderful season, she won her second World Cup 3000.’   She was BBC Scotland’s Sports Personality of the Year for 1994.

On the few occasions I have met Yvonne since her earliest racing days, I have been impressed, not only by the fact that her international experiences had matured her into a tall confident young lady, but also by her modest, friendly greetings to old acquaintances.   Yet I remember watching a needle match between her and Liz McColgan – a 5K international road race in Aberdeen organised by Brendan Foster.   Liz tried to run away while Yvonne maintained iron physical control by following so closely that she frequently unsettled Liz by tapping her heels.   Naturally Yvonne won the final sprint.   She is a lovely person but a ruthless competitor.  

Although she continued to race until almost 2000, injuries eventually hastened her retirement after an extremely successful career.   Her Scottish records endure.   1500: 4:01.2, One Mile: 4:22.64; 2000 metres: 5:25.93; and 3000 metres: 8:29.02.   Yvonne Murray-Mooney (her married name) was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2007.   She is now an inspirational athletics development coach with North Lanarkshire Leisure and is involved in promoting the International Children’s Games.   Participants will be extremely fortunate if they go on to emulate Yvonne’s own triumphs.”   

The account above is fairly comprehensive but a couple of things need to be added.   One is an overview of what she won and when and the other is some description of some key races in her career.   We’ll go with the overview first in the table below.

In addition she had seven Scottish Championships, three AAA’s championships (two at 3000 m and one at 5000m) as well as AAA’s indoor champion.    When she was second to Angela Chalmers in the Commonwealth Games in Auckland in 3000 metres one of those behind her was Liz McColgan.

‘The “Independent”s Ken Jones described her first major gold (in Split) with the words “With three and a half laps left she dropped back a stride or two and the others, particularly Yelena Romanova waited for her strategy to unfold.   Around again, pad, pad, pad, the pace metronomic and seldom disturbed.   When would Murray make her move?   Her closest rivals had said they could not tell.   A feint to the front as though to get them on edge and then back again into third place.   Suddenly she went.  Kicking off a bend and towards the bell; a long punishing run for home….. the field was in disarray, stretched out, watching her extend her lead to 15 metres with some 600 left.   Had she gone too early?   Did Romanova have the energy to catch her?   No danger.   The girl from Musselburgh went further and further away, uncatchable in the final stretch.”    The debt Murray owes to Boyle, said the ‘Athletics Today’ magazine, is enormous.   “I was cautious, never prepared to gamble,” she confesses.   Murray’s tactics in Split were certainly a gamble.   If they had failed or she had misjudged them, Murray may have left the Yugoslavian resort without even a medal.’    If this was a clear triumph for tactics, the 1994 victory in Toronto was another tactical victory – but not one that met with universal approval – at least not Elana Meyer’s!

In the Commonwealth Games 10000 metres in 1994 she defeated Elana Meyer of South Africa, who had been second in the 10000 metres at the Barcelona Olympics, for the title.   Meyer, said by her countrymen even today to be the best woman endurance runner ever from the country,  was another not known for her sprint and she was better known for leading or for winding the pace up from a long way out.   An article on the SI.com website anticipating her duel with Liz McColgan in 1992 said that in the past Meyer had not had to race so much as simply run and added that in Barcelona, “the wispy Meyer may not fare well if the 10000 turns physical.”    We all know how well she ran in the Olympics to finish second and the symbolic value of her lap of honour with Tulu who had won the race.   But one thing that can be said about Boyle’s team – they did their homework and Murray was well capable of carrying out the instructions.   If physicality was a problem for Meyer then an element of it could be introduced into the race.    (Word has it that for the race in Duthie Park mentioned above Tommy Boyle had instructed Yvonne to get right up on Liz and the phrase ‘even get inside her vest’ was quoted in one paper.)   This time too Elana did the leading with Yvonne following very closely indeed which let the South African know she was there, know she was just holding herself back with difficulty and then when she decided to go Yvonne went on to win by just over nine seconds – 31:56.97 to 32:06.74.   The tone of the contest was indicated by Doug Gillon’s headline in the Herald the following day: “Murray Wins the War and a Gold Medal to go with it.”   The report reads as follows – “”It was war out there” said Murray, whose time was a modest 31:56.74 which nevertheless had dropped all but three of the field with nine laps to go.   Second was South African, Elana Meyer with Kenyan Jane Omoro third.   The Scottish team captain, Vikki McPherson was fifth in 33:02.74.   Murray finished bleeding from spike marks, testimony to her concentrated close pursuit which had Meyer looking daggers at her.   “Now I understand why Liz McColgan gets so upset when she races Yvonne”, said the angry Meyer.   It was sweet revenge for Murray who had been shadowed in similar fashion only to lose her own European 3000 metres title in Helsinki last month.   “I am delighted,” said Murray, “but it really was a battle.   Elana kept slowing and I would clip her heels but it was not intentional.”   The pace was modest to 5000 metres (16:27.37) with eleven runners still in contention, but when Meyer broke with Omoro and Murray in pursuit, they were soon shed and the medals were already decided.   Murray contained her impatience and struck in utterly ruthless fashion with 500 metres to go covering the final lap in 65 seconds.”   A day later and he wrote, “Criticised by Meyer for having run too close to her, Murray countered, “She’s got pretty good elbows herself.   Elana said something similar about the Kenyan, Sally Barsosio, at the World Championships when she dropped out.   But I have poor eyesight and sometimes miss a gap appearing, that’s why I stay close.”    Meyer insisted it had been excessive: “I could feel her breathing – pretty heavily too.  It gave me hope.”

In an interview published in July 1991 Yvonne spoke openly about competition tactics.

Competition tactics

1. Athlete’s Input: It is essential that the athlete communicates with the coach and discusses competition tactics, and I felt that this was beneficial for myself and the coach; for the coach checking to see that his athlete was switched on, and for the athlete making me concentrate on what was important – WINNING!
2. Know your opposition: Most athletes keep a check on how other athletes are getting on through televised meetings and running magazines.   I find it useful checking up on the new faces also.
3. Evaluate their strengths and weaknesses: I find it useful looking through videos of races, checking on pace, tactics, etc.   It is much easier and I can learn quicker about the opposition by watching rather than reading reports on races or by other peoples views, eg Puica is a kicker; I will have to go easy to compensate and try and burn her out early.
4. Plan tactics on strengths to exploit their weaknesses: After finding our opposition’s weaknesses, plan one or two ways of approaching a race and practice in training until feel comfortable about it.
5. Olympics 1988 – thought processes: My own thoughts before the Olympics were ones of confidence.   I was the outsider, not expected to get a medal, and I used this as best I could.   After planning one or two ways of running the race, I read through the start lists, checking the opposition in a positive manner, knowing the biggest and best field ever, including Samolyenko/Ivan/Decker, etc had been assembled and it was going to be hard but it didn’t frighten me.    I then concentrated hard on what I was going to do during the race, no negative thoughts, thinking this was just another race that I wanted to win.   I cut down the opposition to two people, Paula Ivan and Tatyana Samolyenko, as the main threats and made sure I knew where they were during the race.   I knew that Decker would take it up and hoped she would keep it going knowing that she was not the athlete of old, and at the right point, used my race plan, finishing third, winning a bronze medal, and improving my best for 3000m by nine seconds, but of equal importance the result fully justified my decision to take a much more professional approach and leave no stone unturned in my quest to become the perfect elite 3000m runner.   I shall share with you my thoughts on the best tactics to employ to consistently win high level 3000m races.   This shall of course be after retiring from international athletics!

*

Very interesting indeed.   It is not often realised by the general public that middle and long distance racing is a physical contact sport – whether it was the Victorian peds flicking the heel of the leader with the hand every ten or fifteen strides or deliberately boxing in a runner in a  1500 metres Championship race or learning to use your elbows to your own advantage in a Highland Games handicap 800.    However the results of the 3000 m races described with their tactics above are as follows:

25/9/88  Seoul Olympics   1.   Tatyana Samolenko (USSR)   8:25.15; 2.   Paula Ivan (Rumania)   8:27.15; 3.   Yvonne Murray (GB)   8:29:02; 4.   Yelenka Romanova (USSR)   8:30.45.

29/8/90   European Championships, Split.   1.   Yvonne Murray (GB)   8:43.06; 2.   Yelena Romanova (USSR)   8:43.68;   3.   Roberta Brunet (Italy)   8:46.19.

There are several videos of her races at the Youtube website – just type in ‘Yvonne Murray’ and take your pick.

Yvonne Murray has been inducted into the Scottish Athletics Hall of Fame.