The following articles have been passed on by Colin Youngson  and have been written by Roger Robinson   Before we start it might be appropriate to quote the following:

“This article appeared in “Marathon & Beyond” (now deceased). Its research findings – for instance, that the man with the moustache and arm-band was not Conan Doyle, that the track was three laps to the mile, and that the distance was wrongly stated as 40km in the instructions to competitors – have become accepted as standard in later books.

Roger Robinson is co-author of 26.2 Marathon Stories (with Kathrine Switzer, Rodale, 2006). His article “The fascinating struggle” develops some of his research for that book. Senior writer for Running Times and a frequent Marathon & Beyond contributor, he is also author of Heroes and Sparrows and Running in Literature (Breakaway, 2003), as well as literary titles such as the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature and Robert Louis Stevenson: His Best Pacific Writings. He is Emeritus Professor of English, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and lives with his wife Kathrine Switzer on hills in Wellington and New York’s Hudson Valley.”

1. LONDON, 1908 (Roger Robinson’s choice for greatest Olympic Marathon)

They started outside Windsor Castle, with the royal family picnicking on the lawn, 26 miles 385 yards from the finish line in White City Stadium. If you ever find a marathon one mile too far, blame British royalty. Perhaps inspired by the presence of the Princess of Wales, a big group of British runners went out fast, news that delighted the huge crowd waiting in the stadium. But it was too fast, given 1908 training and the day’s hot sun. Two survived to 10 miles, but 56:53 was still suicidal. Soon it was the big South African Charles Hefferon in front, shaking off the little Italian Dorando Pietri. Behind, the pre-race favorite, Canadian Indian Tom Longboat, attacked hard, raced through to second at 16 miles, but by 17 was walking. To quench his thirst he was given champagne by his bicycle  attendant, which probably did not help. Hefferon led by two minutes at 15 miles, by nearly four at 20 miles. The race was surely his. But those days no one understood how suddenly the tank can go dry in a marathon. Pietri caught Hefferon at 25. Now began the drama that entered the consciousness of the 20th century. Pietri was heat-exhausted. He collapsed, unseen by the crowd, in the passage into the stadium. Then he entered, to the roar of 100,000 spectators. But he was shuffling, staggering, and confused. Officials had to turn him the right way for the final half circuit of the big (three laps to the mile) track. He floundered a few steps, then crumpled. Officials and medical attendants ran to help. “It was impossible to leave him there, for it looked as if he might die,” said the official report later. Lifted to his feet, he covered a few more yards, and fell again. The crowd demanded that he be helped. Twice more he was rubbed and raised, twice more he stuttered a few yards and collapsed. “Surely he is done now,” wrote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, observing from the stand. Now the next runner appeared, Johnny Hayes of the United States, who had judged the distance perfectly, and (I have calculated) was moving at close to 6-minute miles at the end. As Hayes reached the final bend, Pietri was on his feet once more, and with floppy legs and dazed face, supported at the right elbow by race manager Jack Andrew, he tottered to the tape. Thus was created one of the iconic sports images of all time. Pietri was hastily declared the winner, there was a protest, Hayes properly replaced him, controversy raged, and the marathon footrace entered the world’s imagination as the ultimate challenge to human endurance.

Run-up to the Olympics 5: For weekend reading, my story of the most famous marathon of all time, the 1908 Olympics, full of original research. The first photo (before the finish) settles whether Pietri received “assistance!” But why did the Brits want him to win? American readers, avert your eyes!

The fascinating struggle
Part 1: Near-death drama at the Great White City (London 1908)

Roger Robinson

“He has gone to the extreme of human endurance…It is horrible, and yet fascinating, this struggle between a set purpose and an utterly exhausted frame.” – Arthur Conan Doyle on Dorando Pietri

It is the fantasy moment all marathon runners imagine during training runs on cold wet nights – you’re running through a dark tunnel and out into the bright sunlight of the stadium – and then, that sudden swelling roar of acclamation rises from a hundred thousand people. Your blood races at the very thought of it. No other moment in sport, however thrilling, is quite like this one. There are great touchdowns, and soccer goals, and home runs, and sprint finishes to one-mile races; but we watch and analyze the unfolding plays that precede each of those – we are witness to the whole drama. At the finish of a marathon, the stadium crowd sees only the final minute of a 3-hour narrative. And for the runner the moment of encounter is just as sudden – 26 miles of lonely effort, then this sudden welcoming rapture.
It happens in a second. The crowd has waited, often with limited information. It mutters and shuffles and worries and waits – and then, he’s there, in front of you – he or she, since that iconic emergence into the sunlight by Joan Benoit in 1984. So much significance is condensed into that first glimpse of the marathon leader – an arrival that is the beginning, not the end, of the drama, a hero completing a journey, on the edge of triumph, yet still not quite there, visibly tired, terribly vulnerable, a tiny figure on a huge arena. Few moments are so expressive of human heroism and human frailty, the aspirations and fears we all share. Even as we roar in praise, we are looking anxiously or eagerly for the next runner. The runner’s sense of completion is also full of fear.
That moment has never been more dramatic than on July 24, 1908, at the Olympic Games marathon in London. Ten minutes earlier, a gun and a megaphone announcement, “The runners are in sight,” had told the crowd that they were near, but gave no names. “Finally after what seemed to be an intolerable suspense a runner staggered down the incline leading to the track,” wrote the New York Times. Down the sloping ramp and out on to the crunching cinders came a small, slight man in a sodden white tee shirt and baggy knee-length red shorts, a white handkerchief on his head. It was the Italian Dorando Pietri. And the crowd roared.
Earlier bulletins had brought them the welcome news from the course that some of the twelve British runners went out fast into the lead, and that two were still well ahead at 10 miles. Later the announcement was that South African Charles Hefferon was in front by nearly four minutes at 20 miles. For a British crowd, a South African winner born in England was nearly as good as a Briton in 1908, only six years after a bruising war had given Britain that last major colony. Better the South African than the young Canadian Indian Tom Longboat, who was the pre-race favorite following his record-breaking win at Boston in 1907 – but who was suspected of having taken money for running. Far better Hefferon, most of the crowd thought, than any of the twelve Americans, whose team had won many events and few friends in those conflict-ridden Games.
But when you’re waiting for the marathon leader to appear, nothing is certain. It was not the big white South African but the little dark Italian who by some miracle entered the roaring furnace of the Great White City (as the stadium was known). And the crowd cheered him a welcome from his dreams.
The dream was already a nightmare. At the very moment he appeared and was acclaimed, his frailty was evident. He staggered and shuffled rather than ran. He “reeled as he entered and faced the roar of the applause,” wrote Arthur Conan Doyle (see “The Man With the Armband”). “It was evident at once to everyone that the man was practically delirious,” wrote the New York Times. He stuttered slowly out on to the cinder track, tried to turn the wrong way, encountered officials bewilderingly shouting and gesticulating at him, stopped in confusion, “afraid that they were trying to deceive him” (New York Times). He finally turned (or was turned) the right way, began to shuffle again. “He staggered along like a man in a dream, his gait being neither a walk nor a run, but simply a flounder, with arms shaking and legs tottering” (New York Times). Wavering from side to side, he covered about twenty yards – and then, to the horror of nearly 100,000 people, his legs crumpled and he fell. He was directly in front of a huge packed stand, and the people held their breath. Some thought he had died.
We might think that the noise or heat of the stadium overcame Pietri, but it is a little known detail that he had already collapsed on the way into the arena. The marathon medical officer, Dr Michael Bulger, reported, “I was first called to Dorando in the passage leading to the stadium. He was in a state of absolute collapse and quite pulseless. In a short time he recovered sufficiently to enter the stadium.”
Now he was down and out in full view of the crowd. Officials ran to help the stricken runner. Later, Pietri lamented that the runners’ official bicycling attendants were not permitted inside the stadium. “If I had had my attendant to guide me and give me such aid as I was entitled to, I could have finished without falling again,” he said (through his half-brother as interpreter).
“There were wild gesticulations. Men stooped and rose again,” wrote Conan Doyle. All was confusion, and I’m trying to say only what I’m sure from contemporary sources did actually happen. Even eyewitness reports vary wildly. “He had to do one round of the arena [in fact it was half a lap] where unfortunately he was helped up, and so disqualified.” (Lady Metcalfe, letter to the Daily Telegraph, September 1965). “My recollection is that Dorando, on arriving at the track, was followed by a few enthusiasts…who patted him on the back. This no doubt caused his collapse.” (G. Chapman, letter to the Daily Telegraph, August 1965). Think how hard it is to get agreement on exactly what happened in the Budd/Decker incident in 1984 – and that was televised and recorded on video.
The official report probably gets nearest to a clear account. “As it was impossible to leave him there, for it looked as if he might die in the very presence of the Queen and that enormous crowd, the doctors and attendants rushed to his assistance. When he was slightly resuscitated the excitement of his compatriots was so intense that the officials did not put him on an ambulance and send him out, as they no would doubt have done under less agitating circumstances.” (T. A. Cook, Official Report of the Olympic Games of 1908).
Pietri now struggled, or more probably was helped, to his feet, tottered along the rest of the long straight, “the little red legs going incoherently,” as Doyle wrote. “Driven by a supreme will within,” he reached the curve, and “there is a groan as he falls once more” (Doyle). “The crowd shouted that he should not be left there, perhaps to expire in front of them all,” said Lord Desborough, the starter and referee, on a 1960s BBC radio program (“Scrapbook for 1908”). Up again – “a cheer as he staggers to his feet” (Doyle) – Pietri covered only a few yards before crumpling at the top of the bend. This time there is a photograph, showing him lying on his back, supported in the arms of the medical officer, Dr Bulger (see “The Case of the Man With the Armband”), with another man touching, perhaps massaging, his leg. Pietri looks totally out of it – eyes shut, limbs soggy, face shattered. He seems to have passed out. How he got to his feet again I can’t imagine, but he did, almost certainly with plenty of help. He got round the bend, “in the same furious and yet uncertain gait. Then again he collapsed, kind hands saving him from a heavy fall” (Doyle). And again the crowd gasped in horrified sympathy. Only about sixty yards remained to the white tape stretched across the track in the middle of the straight. But Pietri was down. “Surely he is done now. He cannot rise again,” writes Doyle, with the dramatic immediacy of a commentator on live radio or TV.
And now things became really exciting. The next runner appeared, the striped shield of the USA on his white shirt. It was Johnny Hayes, a New Yorker of Irish parentage. And he was charging – “going gallantly, well within his strength,” wrote Doyle. Hayes had run a perfectly judged race when everyone else was going bananas. The Brits ran the first mile in 5:01, and 1908 training and 1908 road surfaces simply did not give you a 2:11 marathon. Perhaps they were carried away by the presence of Mary, Princess of Wales at the start (see “Not in the Nursery”). She received a telegraph from Queen Alexandra, and thereupon commanded Lord Desborough to fire the gun. With that royal inspiration two of the Brits reached 10 miles in a still suicidal 56:53. Hefferon and Pietri were on 57:12 – also much too fast, on that training, on a hot day, on a course that was mostly dirt and stone and crossed cow paddocks at 25 miles. But Hefferon and Pietri had enough in reserve to sweep up the Brits by 14 miles, where Hefferon moved powerfully away – too powerfully. On the fifteenth mile he went ahead by two minutes. Then Tom Longboat came up fast – too fast. He was in second at 16 miles. At 17 he was walking. He soon gave up. (“A Special Car will follow to carry competitors who abandon the race,” promised the official instructions.) Longboat’s bicycle assistant was plying him with champagne to quench his thirst, which probably did not help.
Hayes ran the first few miles well back in the field of 56. Some say dead last, but his teammate Joseph Forshaw of Missouri, who came through to 3rd (4th counting Pietri), told the New York Times that Hayes was always ahead of him. Anyway, he went out slow. At 17 miles, probably running with two teammates, he was still six minutes behind Hefferon the leader – which means he was running perfectly. One photo taken at 23 miles shows him, now alone, looking composed and resolute, with a firm stride. Pietri in a photo at the same point looks wobbly – his head on one side, down on his hips. At 25 miles, Pietri had caught Hefferon and they were battling for the lead, but it must have been a battle in slow motion. Hayes was coming on strong two minutes or so behind. Soon after Pietri dropped Hefferon, Hayes scooped him up, and was in second. While Pietri was a crumpled heap on the track, Hayes was powering over the cow tracks across the open space of Wormwood Scrubs towards the ramp into the stadium, running close to 6-minute miles (see below). He appeared. And the crowd roared again – not entirely in acclamation.
How did Pietri ever reach the finish? He got there as Hayes was on the final bend, a mere 150 yards behind, roughly. The famous finish line photo shows Pietri with liquid legs and glazed expression. Clerk of the Course (Race Director in our terms) Jack Andrew is helping him through the tape, with a good grip on Pietri’s right upper arm, holding a huge megaphone in the other hand. Andrew claimed later that he “only caught Dorando as he was falling at the tape,” and Dr Bulger said “I exercised my right in having precautions taken that he should not fall again. Hence the slight assistance rendered by Mr. J.M. Andrew just before the goal was reached.”
The photo does not bear out that interpretation. Andrew is supporting and steering the sagging Italian, and it looks likely that he has had that grip on the arm for some time. Given Doyle’s phrase, “kindly hands saving him from a heavy fall,” Andrew and others were probably alongside him all the way from the second time he fell (within the stadium). Another retrospective eyewitness account recalled, “local officials couldn’t bear to see Dorando lose, so they picked him up and threw him over the tape” (Major N. Leith-Hay-Clark, letter to the Sunday Times, 1964). That makes it sound a little too like the great Australian pub sport of dwarf tossing, but it gets the spirit of the moment.
That is not to criticize Andrew. “Kind hands” is appropriate. The instinct to help a courageous and dangerously exhausted man is a decent one. Dr Bulger had been right with Pietri since the very first collapse on the ramp into the stadium, and seems properly to have taken responsibility on medical grounds. The huge crowd was noisily pleading for Pietri to be helped. Hayes was coming on fast. The place must have been bedlam.
Andrew promptly declared Pietri the winner, presumably announcing it through that giant megaphone. As a long-time stadium announcer, I’m very grateful I wasn’t working that day. The American team immediately lodged a protest, which of course was upheld. They had already lodged four in four days of the Games, which shows something of the tension between the hosts and their most successful guests. It started when the American flag was only at half-mast during the opening ceremony. (Well, it really started in 1776. British Imperialism was at its height in 1908, and America represented its one great failure.) In the 400 meters, the race was declared void, one American was disqualified, all four withdrew, and a single Brit did the re-run final solo. The American Bishop of Pennsylvania, invited to deliver the Sunday sermon at St Paul’s Cathedral in London in the middle of the Games, tried to defuse the dispute by coining the phrase “the important thing in the Olympic Games is not so much winning as taking part.” Baron Pierre de Coubertin at the post-Games Government banquet, only a few hours after the Hayes/Pietri drama, quoted that phrase, and it has become enshrined in the Olympic creed. What Hayes and Pietri thought about it is not recorded.
Anyway, Johnny Hayes was the winner. How well was Hayes running during those climactic final seconds? All eyes were (and still are) on Pietri at the tape, but an important question is whether Hayes was charging him down or struggling along in a similar state of near-collapse. One American spectator said that Hayes “trotted into the stadium as fresh as a daisy,” and Doyle said he was “well within his strength,” but other accounts say things like he “struggled in second, apparently befuddled by strychnine” (Rob Hadgraft, The Little Wonder, p. 220). Jack Andrew also reported that he “assisted Hayes in the same way” as he did Pietri. Why did he need assistance? What shape was he in?
An Italian observer’s sketch reproduced by Martin and Gynn (1979) shows the points where Pietri collapsed, and marks with an X Hayes’s position on the last bend as Pietri reached the tape. Assuming it is accurate (and it fits with Doyle’s and Cook’s accounts), this puts Hayes about 150 yards behind as Pietri reaches the tape (since the full distance on the track was 385 yards). Their finishing times were 2:54:46.4 and 2:55:18.4, a 32 second gap. 150 yards in 32 seconds is 93 second 440 speed, or 6:12 mile pace. (I’m no mathematician so please check). That’s hauling, at the end of a 2:55 marathon, average pace 6:41.
So Hayes finished fast, by any standards. To imagine him at 6-minute mile speed charging in pursuit of the tottering crumpling Pietri is to understand the full frantic drama of that scene. No wonder the crowd was in frenzy. No wonder the officials around Pietri were in a state of near panic. Andrew’s motives in giving Hayes the same “assistance” may not have been as pure as I’d like to think. You don’t need assisting if you can run 6’s. If Hayes “collapsed” or fell down after the line, well, so do plenty of us, and it doesn’t mean we were not running strong.
For astute tactics executed with judgment and determination, few Olympic marathon winners have been more deserving than Johnny Hayes. Next day, after the awards ceremony, he was carried off the track on a table held by six American teammates, with “the Greek trophy” awarded for the Marathon, a statue apparently representing the dying Pheidippides. Pietri had been carried off on a stretcher. But he did not die. He was taken to a hospital where he recovered quite quickly. The New York Times says he “was almost too weak to answer questions when seen tonight [after the race]”, but the next day he looks quite perky in the picture where he is receiving his big gold cup from Queen Alexandra. The New York Times said he “walked briskly around the track and up the steps,” which is more than I could ever do the day after a marathon. He received “a perfect ovation, the people rising in their seats and cheering him for fifteen minutes.” The American part of the crowd “kept up the demonstration long after the others had quieted down.” (New York Times)
The Brits also took the little Italian to their hearts. He became a symbol of gallantry, and of noble breeding. Conan Doyle pronounced portentously, “No Roman of the prime ever bore himself better than Dorando…The great breed is not yet extinct.” If it seems a bit of a stretch to dress up the sweaty little small-town cake maker in a toga as one of the noblest Romans of them all, well, the Brits in 1908 believed in “great breeds,” especially their own, and saw themselves as inheritors of Rome’s imperial destiny. It’s also possible that some of this spin campaign to apotheosize Pietri as the true winner of the marathon might have been meant to take the smile off the Americans’ faces.
No question that Pietri was amazingly gutsy. To get to your feet once after collapsing with heat exhaustion near the end of a marathon is tough. To do it six times is astonishing. Pietri earned his iconic place as a symbol of courage and endurance. But for my money, as a runner, it takes just as much courage to let the entire field in a major race run away from you at the start, sit sedately back while Brit spectators jeer from up every tree, allow the leaders to go away by nearly ten minutes, and wait till after 15 miles before you begin to make any ground on them. That’s really gutsy. The marathon is a sporting event that tests judgment, as well as stamina and courage. By that full test, Johnny Hayes was emphatically the winner. Pietri misjudged by probably only two or three minutes. That extra 1 mile, 385 yards indeed sank him. (Even the program said the distance was 26 miles. The official race rules said 40 kilometers.) But Hayes got it dead right, and all credit to him.
The other thing that Pietri came to symbolize is the public’s mixture of horror and fascination with physical exhaustion. This was the appeal of fights to the death in the Rome Coliseum. A hundred years before the Pietri race, in the early 19th century, the big sport was bare-knuckle boxing, which went on till one contestant was smashed to pulp. Some of the greatest fights lasted over 60 rounds. In the later 1800s, after boxing was regulated, there were still plenty of sporting events where crowds paid well to watch competitors run or walk to exhaustion, as in the six-day “Go as you please” races that have been described in Marathon & Beyond. Pietri went beyond exhaustion in front of the biggest crowd in history, and for the highest stakes. Knowledge of the causes for exhausted collapse was primitive, and included a good measure of sheer superstition. One doctor who examined Pietri at the hospital pronounced, “His heart was displaced by half an inch.” I have never worked out how he knew exactly where it had been to begin with.
It was Pietri’s “supreme will within” that most impressed Conan Doyle. He caught perfectly, in a phrase that deserves to be better known, the appeal of this kind of extreme effort: “It is horrible, and yet fascinating, this struggle between a set purpose and an utterly exhausted frame.”
Some find it so horrible that they disapprove. The London Daily News struck a pose of shocked protest. “Nothing more painful or deplorable was ever seen at a public spectacle…It may be questioned whether so great a trial of human endurance should be sanctioned.” Yet we all love to watch people risk death, even as we fear it, and even though we’re sometimes ashamed of liking it. My brother is a commentator at TT motorcycle racing, and lives every week with a public that is half morbid in its fascination with his sport. I don’t watch Nascar racing but suspect that sometimes there are crashes. It was this element of near-death danger in the Pietri drama that gave the new sport of the marathon its place in the shared human imagination. However purist we are about marathon running, and however positive in our beliefs about it, we have to acknowledge that element in its popular appeal. Having just published a book about the marathon, I know that I could not decline to include the stories of Pheidippides, Pietri and Jim Peters. They are intrinsic to marathon culture.
But Pietri’s sufferings were not the whole story. Look at any photo of the 1908 Olympic marathon, and you’ll be struck by the hordes of spectators. One wonderful picture shows dozens of them who have clambered up trees in Windsor Great Park to get a view of the start. People are lined two deep on Windsor’s Castle Hill in the pictures of the athletes walking up towards the start, and then racing downhill on the first half mile. Several photos in the official report show a crowd at Willesden, about 23 miles, as good as those in modern Brooklyn. “The people who lined the course treated us finely, and they were of great assistance in cheering us up and giving a man heart,” Joseph Forshaw told the New York Times. One estimate I have seen put the crowds at 250,000. I’ve no idea how they calculate these figures, but the crowds were evidently bigger than at Athens in 1896, so it seems safe to say the 1908 Olympic marathon was, in terms of public response, the biggest sports event in history.
Why? It was just 56 under-trained, little-known guys doing something repetitive and not specially interesting that we now know can be done very much better. Yet there was huge public interest. Probably the main reasons are the same that bring out the crowds at modern Boston, London, or New York. (1) A race is a race, the purest and best of all sports contests. (2) The marathon has a sense of historical significance that no other event equals. (3) There is the “horrible fascination” of watching apparently ordinary people heroically push themselves to the extreme that marathon runners do, (4) It’s international so gives the buzz of patriotism, and (5) The marathon happens right outside your front door, yet brings contestants from all over to do battle on your street.
With that 1908 race immediately becoming almost mythic, the marathon entered popular culture, and the English language (and other languages, of course). After the inspiring Greek victory of Spiridon Louis in 1896, the phrase “marathon race” (soon just “marathon”) denoted the new sporting event, with added associations of long and heroic effort. After Pietri, it took on the extra meanings of a struggle against exhaustion, or gallantly surviving long-term difficulty. The word was applied outside running for the first time only four months after Pietri’s race, when the London Daily Chronicle reported a potato-peeling contest named “The Murphy Marathon” (Nov 5, 1908). It entered literature the next year, when H.G. Wells was writing his novel The History of Mr. Polly (published 1910). A criminal called Uncle Jim warns Mr. Polly off his patch, appearing one evening while Polly is taking his walk. Wells spares the reader Jim’s more colorful adjectives.

Mr. Polly…quickened his pace.
“Arf a mo’,” said Uncle Jim, taking his arm. “We ain’t doing a (sanguinary) Marathon. It ain’t a (decorated) cinder track. I want a word with you, mister. See?”

If the low-life Uncle Jim, or the non-sporting H.G. Wells, knew about the marathon, it had arrived. (Wells was a keen bicyclist but had no interest in organized sports.)
Such public interest produced a great era of marathons. The rivalry between Pietri and Hayes was too colorful to let go. They were quickly signed by an enterprising New York promoter for a head-to-head race in November 1908. Pietri gave up his amateur status and endorsed Bovril (a beef tea drink) as the cause of his rapid recovery. (Another shaft for the race organizers, who had sponsorship from the rival Oxo, which was “appointed Official Caterers” to the competitors.) Tom Longboat, the Boston record-breaker with the exotic appeal of being a Canadian Onondagan, also declared himself available for prize-money racing. So did England’s Fred Appleby, another star who had suffered a bad day at London. So did an exciting new name to the marathon, multiple world record-holder Alf Shrubb of England, the world’s greatest track and cross-country runner.
The official report on the 1908 Olympics grumpily dismissed all this as an “epidemic of ‘Marathon Races’ which attacked the civilized world from Madison Square Garden to the Valley of the Nile.” It was in fact the first great running boom, and one of the most fascinating periods in the whole story of the marathon. By November 1908 they were all in New York. An all-star cast was ready for the greatest show in town.

(This history, based on his annual race reports, was compiled by Don Ritchie, the legendary ultra-distance runner.)

The Speyside Way mixed terrain 50Km race

At the meeting of the ‘Ritchie Foundation’ trustees in February 1992 it was decided to investigate the staging of a local ultra-distance race. I thought that 50Km would be an appropriate distance and Noel McPartlin, suggested using the Speyside Way. It was decided to investigate the route by bicycle, so Noel, Graham Milne and I, accompanied by our daughter Claire, set off from the old Ballindalloch railway station. Claire stopped at Aberlour, where we had our pub lunch and continued, suitably fortified, to the Spey Bay Hotel. We agreed that the course was suitable for running and quite challenging, especially the climb over Ben Aigen. The route was modified to avoid a dangerous road crossing and carefully measured from OS maps by Jim McWilliam and the start line arranged at Ballindalloch so that the estimated distance was 50Km. Mike Francis joined our group as a trustee, as we planned the race. It was decided to plan for the race to be on Easter Sunday, the 3rd of April 1994

Route description: The route will follow the Speyside Way from Ballindalloch to Spey Bay as indicated on the entry form. To accomplish the full distance a deviation of approximately 5Km commences on the descent from the forest track off Ben Aigen, to the east of Boat O’Brig. The track from Brigeton Farm is taken to the right, onto the B9103, past the Distillery, and then next left onto a road through the Moss of Cairnty. The Speyside Way is resumed on the Ordiequish road. After skirting round Fochabers, the final stretch is a track by the river Spey to the Moray coast at Spey Bay. Altogether a safe and very scenic route.

Sponsorship for the race was obtained from Isobel Ritchie, Gleaner Oils, United Distillers (Bell’s), both Elgin-based, the Coasters running club, Banff and Badenoch & Strathspey Enterprise. The race finish would be at the Spey Bay Hotel, where post race refreshments would be served and the Caravan Park showers made available. Mick Francis agreed to be race director, with all race entries being sent to him. A pre-race pasta party staffed by Moray Road Runners helpers was to be held in Lodge Moray. Elgin.

NERVOUSNESS BEFORE A TYPICAL START

In this inaugural race, Alan Reid (Peterhead AC) went straight out on his own and opened a large lead, which at one point had grown to four-and-a-half minutes. After the climb on Ben Aigen, Fraser Clyne (Metro Aberdeen) began to close on Reid and took the lead at Fochabers and went on to win in the excellent time of 3:02:03. Reid held on for second place in 3:15:00 and Eric Grant (Moray Road Runners) making his ultra distance debut, finished third in an impressive 3:19:28. Forty-nine year old Don Ritchie (Forres Harriers) was first veteran in sixth place in 3:31:06, just ahead of fifty-one year old Charlie Love (Dundee Hawkhill Harriers), who was 7th in 3:32:04. Paul Bream (Wallsend Harriers) was second veteran in 3:35:11 and Neil McGregor (Shettleston Harriers) was third in 3:37:23. Eleanor Robinson (Border Harriers) in 21st place won the ladies race in 3:59:12 ahead of Marianne Savage (Centurion Road Runners) who finished in 4:10:30 and Isobel Clark (Arbroath Footers) was third lady with 4:38:48. In a very close-fought team race, Moray Roadrunners just managed to hold off Forres Harriers by one point. One of the most pleasing aspects of the event was the fact that out of 81 starters there were only four drop-outs and 77 finished within the 6-hour time limit. Everyone involved with this event agreed that it was a success. Once all the expenses had been dealt with and all donations summed, including £62.32 raised by our nine-year-old daughter, Anna, who played her violin for two hours outside the Lossiemouth Co-op supermarket, £1247.82 was donated to the Elgin and District Cancer Research Campaign.

ALAN REID AND FRASER CLYNE

1995:

The second edition of the Speyside Way 50Km race was held on Sunday 16th April 1995. At 11am, Glen Elliot and Alan Barclay of United Distillers, the main sponsors, sent the 66 runners on their way from the old Ballindalloch Station to the finish at Spey Bay.

Allan Stewart Moray Road Runners), following his good run in the London marathon two weeks earlier, was in confident mood and assumed the lead. He extended his advantage until his pursuers, Don Ritchie (Moray Road Runners) and Andy Farquharson (Inverness Harriers) could no longer see him. At one point he was six minutes ahead.

By around 24 miles the chasing pair was caught by Peter Baxter from Pitreavie (Dunfermline). Ritchie slowed as his 50-year-old legs protested at the demands being made on them. However Allan slowed more dramatically on the rough path by the Spey towards the finish, and was passed by Farquharson and Baxter. Over the last quarter mile, Baxter was able to break away from Farquharson to win by 10 seconds in 3:23:11. Ritchie, running almost five minutes faster than last year, also passed the gallant Stewart to take third place in 3:26:25, which together with Alan Young’s 18th place gave Moray Road Runners, first team place. Paul Bream (Wallsend Harriers) was second 0ver 50 in 7th place with 3:32:24. Geoff Oliver (100Km Association) was the first over 60 with an excellent 3:51:20 in 15th place and helped his team finish second.

First Lady was Sharon Gayter (Mandale Harriers) in 4:03:58 with Helene Diamantides (Westerlands AC) second in 4:25:07 and Susan Low (Roasters RC) third in 4:29:18. Oldest finisher was John Foden from Nottingham who is 68. There were 62 finishers plus a five-person (four men and a lady) relay team from United Distillers, and Robin Gatenby’s dog.

The race organiser appreciates the assistance given by the sponsors: United Distillers, Moray, Badenoch & Strathspey Enterprise, Gleaner Oil and Gas, Lossiemouth Co-op and all the helpers on the day.

From the race proceeds, £200 was donated to the Elgin and District Cancer Research Campaign.

DON RITCHIE (YELLOW VEST) LEADS THE PACK

1996:

With the departure of Mick Francis, race director of the previous two races, to Australia, Don Ritchie added this to his race organising role. The third edition of the race, now called the ‘Bell’s Speyside Way 50Km race, was held on Sunday 14th April 1996. At 11am, George Runcie of United Distillers, the main sponsors, sent the 47 runners on their way. Brian Scally, a track specialist with a 1500 metre best of 3:49.2 soon established a lead on the run down to Carron.

Moray Road Runner Allan Stewart and Simon Pride of Keith and District were joint second at this point. As the race progressed, Scally began to tire and Stewart suffered on the downhill sections. Pride, although never having raced further than a half marathon, ran on strongly, catching and passing Scally soon after the Moss of Cairnty. He finished full of running, recording 3:11:00, the second fastest time on the route, indicating that he has the potential to become an excellent ultra distance runner. Afterwards, race organiser, Don Ritchie, along with others, who had seen Simon’s running during the last five miles, were asking: is Simon a future Scottish or British 100Km champion?

Robert Brown (Hunters Bog Trotters) from Edinburgh, the Lairig Ghru race record holder, also finished strongly to overtake Scally and take second in 3:19:29. Scally held on for third in 3:21:01, just 24 hours after helping his club win the national road relay championship. Roger Greenaway (Ochil Hill Runners) from Stirling set an over 40 course record of 3:28:51, as did Colin Youngson (Metro Aberdeen) in the over 45 category with 3:29:27.

Sharon Gayter (Mandale Harriers) from Middlesborough repeated her win of last year, and set a new course record of 3:56:04, taking over five minutes off the existing record. Susan Low (Roasters RC) from Golspie improved her time of last year by over four minutes to finish second in 3:24:56. Nicki Innes (Carnethy H.R.C) from Edinburgh was third lady in 5:03:12.

Nigel Rose (Carnethy H.R.C), Edinburgh was first over 50 in 4:28:51 and 63-year old Bill Robertson (Perth R.R) was first over 60 in 5:10:01.

Moray Road Runners won the team race with 27 points, ahead of Edinburgh Southern Harriers with 39 points. A team of five from United Distillers ran in relay over the course, co-ordinated by George Runcie.

The race organiser very much appreciates the assistance given by the sponsors: United Distillers, Moray, Badenoch & Strathspey Enterprise, Gleaner Oil and Gas, Lossiemouth Co-op and all the helpers on the day.

From the race proceeds, £500 was donated to the Elgin and District Cancer Research Campaign.

1997:

In the fourth edition of the ‘Bell’s Speyside Way 50Km race, Simon Pride successfully defended his title on 6thy April, 1997 and slashed 2 min 49 sec off the course record. The previous record was set in 1994 by Great Britain marathon international Fraser Clyne.

The event was blessed with beautiful spring weather, which came as something of a relief after two days of rather unpleasant weather leading up to it. Alan Barclay of United Distillers, sponsors of the race, sent seventy-seven runners on their way at 11 am.

Pride had set himself two goals; to win and break the course record. With his confidence high following a brilliant 40-mile track race five weeks ago at Barry in South Wales, Pride set a fast pace from the start. By the first refreshment station at Carron he had a substantial lead over Brian Scally of Shettleston Harriers, who was followed by Allan Stewart, last years ‘Moray Marathon’ winner, and Peter Shirley, both of Moray Road Runners. By Craigellachie, Pride’s lead was almost 10 minutes and such was his pace that lead cyclist, Eric Grant had to work very hard to stay ahead of him on the hill going over the brow of Ben Aigen.

Stewart running cleverly and bravely, with ‘sair feet’, moved through ahead of Scally, while Shirley continued to run well in fourth place.

Pride continued his charge down to Fochabers and on to Spey Bay and as he approached the finish it appeared that not only would he break the course record but he might also crack three hours. With yells of encouragement from supporters waiting at the finish, Pride surged to the finish to record 2:59:18, taking 2 min 49 sec off Clyne’s record.

Stewart finished well in second achieving a personal best of 3:19:06, for the course. Scally repeated his third place of last year in 3:29:00 and was closely followed by Shirley in 3:29:52. Roger Greenaway (Central AC) first veteran and first over 45 in fifth place in 3:31:32 and Joe Holden (Fife AC) in sixth place was first over 50 in 3:31:41, while Colin Mathieson (Pitreavie) in seventh was first over 40 in 3:36:20.

Leading the 15 ladies was Helene Diamantides (Westerlands AC) a Great Britain 100Km international, who finished an excellent 10th overall in 3:44:42, to take 11 min 22 sec off Sharon Gayter’s course record. Kate Todd (Kilmarnock H) was second and first veteran in 4:08:09 and Hilary Spenceley (Carnethy HRC) was third in 4:10:53. Sixty-six runners completed the course in the six-hour limit.

Moray Road Runners were again first team with Raymond Farquhar third counter. Shettleston Harriers were second and the first ladies team was Carnethy Hill Runners.

The awards were presented in the Spey Bay Hotel by Dr Alan Rutherford of United Distillers.

Simon Pride’s confidence will have been further boosted by this win and should stand him in good stead for his Great Britain 100Km debut in next month’s European Championships in Italy over the hilly ‘Del Passatorie’ course from Florence to Faenza.

The race organiser again appreciates the assistance given by the sponsors: United Distillers, Gleaner Oil and Gas, Lossiemouth Co-op and all the helpers on the day.

From the race proceeds, £600 was donated to the Elgin and District Cancer Research Campaign.

1998:

 In cold winter-like conditions, seventy-five courageous runners and several volunteer helpers assembled at Ballindalloch on Sunday 12th April, for the fifth edition of the ‘Bell’s Speyside Way’ 50Km race. Alan Barclay of United Distillers (U.D), sent the runners on their way at 11 am, and then with several other U.D employees, set out to run part of the route as part of their preparation for the London Marathon on 26th April.

Simon Pride immediately took the lead, followed by Allan Stewart of Moray Road Runners, and the field of following runners began to stretch out as each set their appropriate pace. Runners had to cope with two hail showers, with large hailstones, propelled by a strong northeast wind, which caused discomfort to exposed runners. Underfoot conditions were quite difficult in places, with snow, slush and mud, being encountered. This made the downhill section coming off Ben Aigen potentially dangerous.

Simon ran a very competent race for a third successive win in 3:19:59, over 20 minutes down on his course record of last year because of the adverse conditions. Allan Stewart ran well to take second place again in 3:30:22 and this will give him a good confidence boost for the British 100Km championships in Greenwich on 10th May. There he will represent Scotland, along with fellow Moray Road Runners; William Sichel and Don Ritchie, in the Anglo Celtic plate competition incorporated in this race. Third finisher was debutant 50Km, David Hurst (Deeside Runners) in 3:38:15. Forty-five year old Neil MacGregor (Shettleston) was first veteran in 6th place in 3:49:21. Don Ritchie in 10th was first over 50 in 3:58:32, Nigel Rose (Carnethy HR) was first over 55 in 4:35:18 and Mike Briggs was first over 60 in 4:51:02.

Carolyn Hunter-Rowe (Horwich R.M.H) was first lady, finished fifth overall in 3:47:09, indicating that in better weather conditions she would have broken the ladies course record. Kate Jenkins (Carnethy HR) in 11th, a huge improvement from last year, was second lady in 4:02:24. Kate Todd (Kilmarnock) in 22nd place was third lady and first lady veteran in 4:25:08.

Carnethy H.R.C was first men’s team and F.M.C Carnegie was first ladies team.

Organiser Don Ritchie thanked United Distillers for their sponsorship and Gleaner Oil and Gas and the Co-op, Lossiemouth who provided support. He also praised those who acted as helpers on the day.

From the race proceeds, £600 was donated to the Elgin and District Cancer Research Campaign.

1999:

Starter, Steve McGingle of United Distillers sent a record field of ninety-seven runners off in the sixth edition of the ‘Bell’s Speyside Way 50Kn race at 11 am on Sunday 11th April. Winner of the last three races, Simon Pride (Keith & District) set the pace, closely followed by Alan Reid (Peterhead AC) and these two began to pull away from Steve Reeve and Allan Stewart, both of Moray Road Runners. It was good to see Simon having team support from Mike Turner, Willie Johnstone and Andy Philips, all making their 50Km debut.

Simon continued his strong running and actually increased his pace over the last six miles to finish in 3:02:20, only 2 min 42 sec outside his course record and the third fastest time for the route. Alan Reid dropped out at 20 miles.

Steve Reeve improved greatly on his personal best, finishing second in 3:18:41 and Allan Stewart, now a veteran, ran bravely to secure third place in 3:25:32, overcoming some recent injury problems.

Defending champion, Carolyn Hunter-Rowe (Horwich R.M.H) maintained her good pace to finish seventh overall in a new ladies course record time of 3:31:59, taking a whopping 12 min 43 sec off the previous record. Kate Jenkins (Carnethy HR) running over ten minutes faster than last year was second again in 3:52:42 and Nicola May (Babcock Pitreavie) was third in 4:05:50.

James Watson (Livingston & District) was first over 45 in 4th place in 3:29:49, closely followed by fellow over 45, William Sichel (Moray Road Runners), 5th in 3:30:04. William’s fifth place gave Moray Road runners the team title ahead of Keith & District.

Don Ritchie, in 13th place was first over 50 in 3:44:44, with Neil MacGregor (Shettleston Harriers) second in 16th with 3:45:59. George Armstrong (Haddington) was first over 55 in 4:04:57. Second lady veteran behind Carolyn Hunter-Rowe was Elspeth Scott (Westerlands) in 4:15:18 and third, but first over 45 was Carol Cadger (Perth Strathtay) in 4:17:48.

A record number of 91 runners finished the course aided by the pleasant weather conditions.

Organiser Don Ritchie thanked United Distillers for their sponsorship and Gleaner Oil and Gas and the Co-op, Lossiemouth for their support. He also thanked all his helpers who made the race such a success.

From the race proceeds, £742 was donated to Charities.

2000:

On Sunday 16th April Alan Barclay of United Distillers sent off the 87 runners in the seventh edition of the Bell’s Speyside Way race in pleasant spring sunshine. The good weather was a great relief to all after the stormy weather of the preceding days.

Because of the clash of dates, Simon Pride, who has won the title for the last four years, was running in the ‘Flora London Marathon’ in his bid to make the G.B Olympic marathon squad.

Alan Reid (Peterhead AAC), the current Scottish 50Km champion, led immediately and pulled away from William Sichel (Moray Road Runners), the present British 100Km champion, and Alistair Black (Forres Harriers). At Aberlour the leading positions were unchanged, while Steve Reeve and Allan Stewart, both Moray Road Runners, were joint fourth, followed by Alex Keith (Hunters Bog Trotters) and debutant Graeme Goodall from Buckie.

Reid continued to extend his lead to finish more than two miles ahead in 3:12:20, a good performance considering how muddy and slippery parts of the route were. William Sichel set an over-45 course record of 3:26:54 in finishing second. Alastair Black was a revelation, never having raced further than a half marathon; he finished third in an excellent 3:27:10.

With Steve Reeve fifth and Allan Stewart eighth and first over-40, Moray Road Runners secured the team title ahead of Peterhead AAC. In tenth place, Don Ritchie set a new over-55 course record of 3:43:32. First over-60 was Richard Gorman (Westerlands) in 5:32:55.

Kate Jenkins (Carnethy HRC), who had finished second for the past two years, won in 3:56:32. Her team mate Hilary Spencley, was second and first veteran in 4:04:26, followed by Scottish 100Km international, Carol Cadger (Perth Strathtay H) and second veteran in 4:14:24. Dundee Road runners won the Ladies team prize.

Eighty-one runners completed the course

Organiser Mr Ritchie expressed thanks to United Distillers for their sponsorship, Gleaner Oil and Gas and the Scottish Co-op, for their support as well as the race volunteers.

From the race proceeds, £500 was donated to the Cancer Research Campaign and £407 to other Charities.

2001:

 After seven years of very generous sponsorship, United Distillers had to terminate their support for the race.  A new sponsor was found in ‘Neways’, who make a range of special health and personal care products.

.Because of the Foot and Mouth disease crisis, Moray District Council closed the Speyside Way route and would be closed for three weeks after the last recorded outbreak of the disease. Consequently, the race scheduled for the 15th of April had to be cancelled and entry fees refunded to those who had already sent entries.

2002:

Sixty-one runners assembled in damp weather on Sunday the 14th of April for he eighth edition of the race, now called the ‘Neways’ Speyside Way 50Km race. All runners, except Simon Pride were sent on their way to Spey Bay by starter, Ken McKen at 11am.

Simon, a four times winner of this race, and course record holder with a time of 2-59-18, arranged with the race director and timekeepers to start his race exactly 10 minutes after the field of 60 runners departed. The former World 100Km champion and Scottish Commonwealth Games marathon team member, used this Hares and Hound approach to ensure that he would not have such a lonely run as in some previous years.

Charlie Noble, the reigning Scottish 100Km champion, led a small group through Carron and Aberlour, before he and Ian Lewis pulled away approaching Craigellachie, some 13 miles into the race. On the climb over the brow of Ben Aigen, Lewis, who was attempting 50Km for the first tine, gained an advantage over Noble and went on to establish a lead of about 700 metres by the time he reached the road. By this time the weather had deteriorated from a ‘Scotch Mist’ to a heavier drizzle, making some parts of the course rather slippery.

Further down the field, Kate Jenkins, accompanied by her Spaniel, was running strongly and looked like repeating her success of two years ago.

Approaching his home town, of Fochabers, ‘Local Hero’ Simon Pride caught and passed Ian Lewis and went on to win convincingly for a fifth time in 3:07:27. This was a good workout for Pride, who was using the run as part of his preparations for his next marathon, in Belfast on the 6th of May. Lewis (Shettleston Harriers) was runner-up in 3:24:34, ahead of Charlie Noble (Metro Aberdeen), whose time of 3-26-44 was only 19 seconds short of Don Ritchie’s V50 course record. James Watson (Lothian R.C), also an over-50 was also close to the record with 3:26:49 to place fourth.

Alex Nicol (Carnegie H) in 10th place was first over-55 in 3:41:53 followed by Dave Stewart (Moray Road Runners) who finished 19th in 4:10:53. Alan Kay (Dundee RR) was first over-60 in 5:32:55 and Bill Robertson (Perth RR) was first over-65 and oldest finisher in 5:59:49.

Kate Jenkins (Carnethy HRC) duly won the ladies title for the second time, finishing 13th overall in 3:58:48, ahead of Carol Cadger Perth Strathtay H), who was 17th overall in 4:08:50 and also first veteran (LV50), while fellow veteran Maggie Creber (Carnethy HRC), claimed third in 4:19:59.

Westerlands C.C.C won the men’s team from Carnethy ‘A’ and Carnegie Harriers won the ladies team competition. Fifty-seven runners completed the course in the six-hour limit.

The race organiser thanked ‘Neways’ for their sponsorship, Gleaner Oil and Gas and the Scottish Co-op, for their assistance. In addition a big thank you was due to all the helpers on the day.

ON THE SPEYSIDE WAY

2003:

Eighty-eight runners assembled for the start, in excellent conditions, of the ninth edition of the ‘Neways’ Speyside Way race on Sunday the 14th of April. All, except five times previous winner Simon Pride, were sent on their way to Spey Bay by Ken McKen at 11.00 am. Simon arranged with the timekeepers and race director to start his race exactly ten minutes later, as he did last year.

At Craigellachie, Nigel Holl from Stirling, led from James Watt of Hamilton Harriers, with Alan Reid of Peterhead not far behind and John Goodall (Keith & District) in 4th place. Approaching Fochabers, Simon caught and passed Nigel Holl and went on to win convincingly for a sixth time in 3:11:55. This was a ‘good workout’ for Simon and should contribute to his preparations for his next marathon, in Belfast on the 5th of May.

Nigel Holl finished second in 3:30:39, ahead of the fast finishing veteran, John Kennedy, in 3:31:49. Alan Reid claimed fourth in 3:42:22 ahead of John Goodall, who ran very well in his debut, finishing in 3:44:18.

Roger Greenaway (Central AC) was first over-50 in 12th place in 3:49:40 and George Armstrong (H.E.L.P) was first over-60 in 4:28:46. The oldest finisher and first over-70 was William Robertson (Perth RR) in 6:05:55.

In the Ladies race, Andrea Devine, from Christchurch in New Zealand, led all the way to finish 11th overall, and first veteran in an excellent 3:48:39. Kate Jenkins, from Carnethy Hill running Club, accompanied by her Spaniel dog, was runner up in 4:01:46 and Lynne Kuz of E Z Carnegie Harriers claimed third place and second veteran in a personal best of 4:17:30 and led her team to victory in the ladies event. Deborah McDonald (Hunters Bog Trotters) was third ladies veteran in 4:27:07 and Carol Cadger (Perth Strathtay) was first over-50 Lady in 4:34:47.

Perth Road Runners won the men’s team race from Forres Harriers, with Carnethy Hill Running Club, third.

84 runners achieved the satisfaction of completing this challenging course.

The race organiser, Don Ritchie thanked ‘Neways’ for their sponsorship, also the Scottish Co-op and Gleaner Oil and Gas for their assistance. In addition a big ‘thank you’ is due to all the helpers on the day.

2004:

In the tenth edition of this race on Sunday the 11th of April, ninety-eight runners assembled for the start, in excellent conditions, and were sent on their way to Spey Bay by Ken McKen at 11.00 am. Simon Pride, the course record holder and winner on six previous occasions, soon assumed the lead and began to pull away.

By Carron, Simon was well clear of Nigel Holl (unattached) from Stirling and Andy Eccles (Wigan Phoenix), who were locked in the battle for second place. Simon continued to extend his lead to win convincingly in 3:02:15, less than three minutes outside his course record, bringing his tally of wins to seven. This was a good workout for Simon and should be a good contribution towards his preparations, representing Great Britain in the European, 100Km Championships in Italy on the 29th of May. Nigel Holl and Andy Eccles, after an excellent, race long tussle, agreed to have a dead heat for joint second place in 2:24:11. Andy’s time was a new course record for over 40’s, taking 1 min 21 sec off Allan Stewart’s record, which had stood since 1999.

Second veteran and first over-45 was Les Hill (Dumfrise RC) in fifth in 3:35:50 and Alan Lawson (Dundee RR) was first over-55, finishing 11th overall in 3:50:16. Eric Sidebottom (Strathearn H) was first over-60 in 4:33:27. First local runner was John Goodall (Keith and District) in eighth place and was closely followed by Mike Howell and Mark Priestly, both of Forres Harriers in 9th and 10th places respectively. The only Moray Road Runner was Allan Stewart, making a welcome return to ultra running, finishing a creditable 22nd despite limited training.

In the Ladies race, previous winner on two occasions, Kate Jenkins (Carnethy H.R.C), accompanied by her Spaniel dog, won in a personal best time for this route of 3:58:23. Runner up was Debbie Cox (Glasgow City) in 4:17:06, while Lynne Kuz (E Z Carnegie Harriers) claimed third place and first Lady veteran in 4:20:11, and led her team to victory in the ladies event. Judith Dobson (Kinross RR) was first lady over-45 in 4:31:36.

Forres Harriers won the men’s team race from Central AC, with Carnethy Hill Running Club, third.  94 runners achieved the satisfaction of completing this challenging course.

Race organiser, Don Ritchie, thanked ‘Neways’, for their sponsorship, also the Scottish Co-op and Gleaner Oil and Gas, for their assistance and all the helpers on the day.

2005:

The eleventh edition of this race on Sunday the 10th of April, saw sixty-one runners assembled for the start, in excellent conditions, at the former Ballindalloch railway Station and were sent on their way to Spey Bay by Ken McKen at 11.00 am. Simon Pride, the course record holder and winner on six previous occasions, was not participating on this occasion, so the race was ‘wide open’. Carl Pryce, a debutant and over-45 veteran, from Pitcaple, running for Cosmic Hillbashers, assumed the lead and began to pull away from the field.

By Carron, he was well clear and looking comfortable, even finding time to stop at the refreshment station there, for a drink and food. He continued to extend his lead to win comfortably in 3:45:11. Ritchie McCrae (Penicuik Harriers) was runner up in 3:49:23 and Andrew Brierly (Fife AC) was third man in 3:56:54. Doug Walker (Westbury Harriers) was first over-50 in fifth place in 3:57:16 and Alistair Kerr (Scottish Veteran Harriers) was first over-60 in 4:44:56. John McArdle was the only over-70 veteran and finished in 6:24:50. First local runner was Mark Priestley of Forres Harriers in 9th place in 4:07:35.

In the Ladies race, previous winner on two occasions and course record holder, Carolyn Hunter-Rowe of Dumfries R. C. moved through the field to finish third overall and a convincing third win in 3:53:45. Runner up and also second veteran behind Carolyn was Lynne Kuz (E Z Carnegie Harriers) in 4:17:32. Rosie Bell (Strathaven striders) was third lady in 4:26:52. Sue Drummond (Strathearn Harriers) was first over-55 lady veteran in 5:19:00.

Fifty-nine runners completed this challenging event.

Fife A.C. won the men’s team race from Strathearn Harriers, with Carnethy Hill Running Club, third.

Organiser, Don Ritchie, thanked ‘Neways’ for their sponsorship, the Scottish Co-op and ‘Little the Jewellers’, for their assistance. In addition a big ‘thank you’ is due to all the helpers on the day.

2006:

During my preparations for the twelfth edition of the ‘Neways’ Speyside Way 50Km I learned that the company which owned the Spey Bay Hotel was declared bankrupt and that the hotel was no longer operating. I telephoned the receivers and their representative informed me that they did not know what the status of the hotel would be on race day, the 16th of April, so I had to cancel the race. The hotel and the attached caravan park shower block were vital to provide finishing facilities, changing, showers, food and presentation of awards, for the runners.

The Spey Bay Hotel never reopened and was boarded up until May 2016, when it was demolished to make way for several ‘luxury’ homes.

It was intended that the Speyside Way 50Km race would provide a ‘stepping stone’ for some runners; from the marathon distance to the international standard ultra distance competition of 100Km. Performances in this race influenced the selection of Scottish team members for the Anglo Celtic Plate 100Km competition.

Nigel Rose (Carnethy Hill Running Club) has the distinction of having completed all of the eleven Speyside Way races.

Another benefit from the eleven races was that £5034 was donated to charities.

The existing male course records are:

Simon Pride (Keith & District), 2:59:18 (1997),

V40 Andy Eccles (Wigan Phoenix), 3:24:11 (2004),

V45 William (Sichel Moray Road Runners), 3:26:54, (2000),

V50 Donald Ritchie (Moray Road Runners), 3:26:25 (1995),

V55, Donald Ritchie (Moray Road Runners), 3:43:32 (2000),

V60, Geoff Oliver (100Km Association), 3:51:20 (1995).

Carolyn Hunter-Rowe (Horwich RMI Harriers) a lady (V35) veteran set the female record of 3:31:59 in 1999.

(The following obituary was written by Jack Davidson)

AL  HOWIE: ULTRA DISTANCE RUNNER

           BORN 16^TH SEPTEMBER 1945 WEST KILBRIDE

DIED 21^ST JUNE 2016 DUNCAN, BRITISH COLUMBIA

          (Al Howie running in the Trans-Canada event)

Scottish-born athlete Arthur Howie, known as ‘Al’, was one of the world’s most renowned ultra distance runners and record holders who made his name initially in North America after taking up running aged 30 in Canada in order to quit smoking. During a competitive career between 1979 and ’99 he ran countless thousands of miles in races in many countries pushing the boundaries of human endurance to the limit and beyond as he chalked up success upon success with scarcely believable feats. Arguably his most outstanding achievement was running across Canada from east to west in 1991, a distance of more than 4,500 miles in just over 72 days, equivalent to more than two back to back Tours de France and two and a half marathons daily. Dubbed by him as ‘The Tomorrow Run ‘91’, he set off from Mile Zero in St.John’s, Newfoundland on 21st June reaching Mile Zero in Victoria, British Columbia 72 days later. In the process he raised over half a million dollars for special needs childrens’ charities in conjunction with the Elks of Canada, a fraternal organisation dedicated to community improvement projects. His run merited the installation of a brass commemorative plaque in Victoria recording the details for posterity. Fellow athletes called him ‘the Trans Canada Running God.’

         Hardly having caught breath, two weeks later he went to New York to compete in the Sri Chimnoy 1300 mile race which he won setting a new record of just over 16 days breaking his own record set two years previously. This raised ultra distance running to unprecedented levels, particularly remarkable as he was aged 46 at the time, and along with his Trans Canada run, earned entries in the Guinness Book of Records.

        Brought up in Saltcoats with sister Elizabeth and brother Ian, his early years offered little hint of his future running career although he showed some promise in cross country while a pupil at Ardrossan Academy. Young Arthur was later known as Alfie and then as Al. His father Arthur, a merchant seaman, had boxed in the navy during the war while mother Mary was a competitive swimmer. Although Howie did not participate in structured sport his family underlined the benefits of exercise and outdoor life to him by going on long daily walks during annual holidays and his mother encouraged him to swim daily in the sea during summertime.

        After marrying an American girl temporarily living here, they moved to the Bournemouth area where he worked in landscape gardening. When the marriage broke up he entered a relationship with a Canadian lady and in about 1973 went with her to live in Toronto. It was while there that he took up running to help him cope with giving up a heavy smoking habit. Determined to prove friends wrong who thought him incapable of stopping, he soon found long distance running therapeutic to his efforts and that he had a lot of natural ability. In one of his first attempts he was able to run 10 miles in normal daily clothing and footwear with ease. From there he progressed to making his competitive debut in 1979 in a 17 mile race finishing third while in his first marathon in Edmonton in 1980 he finished first in his age group. He then ran from Edmonton to Victoria to compete in the Royal Victoria Marathon.

          By now he was dedicating his life to running and his distinctive appearance of long blond mane of hair and bushy beard, often sporting a Lion Rampant running vest and his long spindly legs soon became instantly recognisable. Referring to himself as the ‘Tartan Spartan’ he cut a somewhat eccentric figure, exacerbating that image by sometimes drinking beer before and during races while fish and chips was his food of choice. But there was no doubting the quality of his running as illustrated in the following examples.

           He won the Ottawa 24 hours day and night race[Canadian Championship] five years in a row between 1981 and ’85 and for a sixth time in ’87; in 1988 he completed the John o’ Groats to Land’s End run in the then record time of eleven days, three hours and eighteen minutes, before  going on to run through England, France and Corsica en route to competing in a 254 km race between Cagliari and Sassari in Sardinia; in 1989 he was the first runner to break 18 days in the Sri Chimnoy 1300 race in New York; his last race was the 72 hour “Across the Year” event in Phoenix  Arizona, from 29^th December 1998 to 1^st January 1999 which he won, then aged 53.Altogether he raised over a million dollars for charity in his career.

       To continue running and do so successfully he had to overcome considerable adversity. In 1985 he suffered brain cancer and in 1995 was diagnosed with Diabetes I which he controlled with daily insulin injections leading to his being honoured by the North American Association for Diabetic Athletes. In 2007 the city of Duncan awarded him the Perpetual Trophy for Excellence and Sportsmanship while in 2014 he was inducted into Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame.

        His latter years were spent in care homes in Duncan marred by diabetes and mental health issues. In 1985 he married Claudia Cole but they separated, amicably, in 2000. He is survived by his wife, son Gabe, daughter Dana, and grandchildren Jocelyn and Kiyari.

Link to profile

Danny Wilmoth winning at Shawfield in the Lanarkshire Constabulary Sports

Note the dog track (cinder) round the outside of the running track on the grass

There were two or three miles races at other venues but they were often erratic in that they were not on the programme every year.   Shawfield was a fairly good meeting but the three miles was not an ever present – they did have other attractions however which kept the meeting going for some time.   The Falkirk meeting was only held for ten years as far as I can find out and at one time the Strathallan Gathering at Bridge of Allan had a three miles handicap.   It is maybe worth looking at the first two.

The Lanarkshire Constabulary Sports were held at Shawfield Stadium on the first Saturday in June.   Shawfield was the home of Clyde Football Club and was also famous for the greyhound racing that took place on the track round the outside of the football pitch.  This kept the spectators well away from the action and the size of the stadium meant that what would have been a ‘crowd’ at another Games meeting, appeared to be a sparse gathering.   The runners had to change under the stand, cross the dog track and then they were on the grass track which was marked out on the football pitch.   It was obviously a bit short of the 440 yards distance, but that was par for the course as far as summer tracks were concerned.   The sports organised by Clyde FC were originally professional sports and remained so for a big chunk of the amateur era, becoming amateur only in the second decade of the 20th century.   They ceased to be in the 30’s but the Lanarkshire Constabulary Sports took place there one week before the Glasgow Police Sports at Ibrox.    The programme changed from time to time at Shawfield and the three miles (not the more usual two) was a team race but the emphasis was on the individual event and lots of the top men took part in it.

We all enjoyed running there but it was not one of the major venues of the summer.

There was no team race at all in 1960 where the real interest was generated by Crawford Fairbrother broke the Scottish native record of 6′ 7 1/2″ for the high jump getting over 6’8″ on his second attempt.   The invitation quarter mile was won by WillieBlack of Maryhill and the open Mile by Mike Ryan of St Modan’s.   Nor was there one in 1961 – but 1962 say a good programme of events which included a three miles race.   The report on the race read: “AP Brown (Motherwell) at half way in the three miles never looked like catching his team mate R McKay but his recovery over the final half mile was so remarkable that he beat McKay by 30 yards in the good time of 14 min 08.5 sec. ”     There was a team race and Motherwell won it with 9 points.

The meeting in 1963 was held on June 3rd and the three miles was described in the results as “Three mile team race.   Motherwell YMCA(J Linaker 1, I McCafferty 2, AH Brown 3) 6 pts.   Linaker’s winning time was 14 min 23.8 sec.”    Away from the team race there were several interesting races.   The meeting most years had an invitation three quarter mile race and this time the invitees included Graham Everett (Shettleston), and Hugh Barrow (Victoria Park).   Shortly after the start there was a collision and Hugh Barrow fell to the track and was out of the race.   He tried to make up the ground but too much ground had been lost.    Everett won in 3:07.8 from Craig Douglas of Teviotdale with Graham Peters of Victoria Park third.   These meetings organised by the football clubs almost always had a five a side football tournament and Rangers, Third Lanark, Celtic, Clyde, Hamilton and Motherwell were the teams with Motherwell beating Rangers 1-0 in the final.

Motherwell again won the three miles team race on 13th June, 1964, although Lachie Stewart won the race from Bert McKay in 14:18 after sprinting away with 200 yards to go.   Hugh Baillie of Bellahouston was favourite to win the invitation handicap 300 yards but was beaten by a yard and a half by Graeme Grant who was running from 14 yards, Grant following this up with second in the mile to Eddie Knox of Springburn.  The featured three quarters of a mile invitation was won by Wilson of Teviotdale from Jim Johnstone (Monkland) and Graham Everett in 3:06.1.

Lachie again won the race in 1965, this time from Ian McCafferty (Motherwell) and Albert Smith (Victoria Park) in 14:06.6.   This was still the only team race in the programme, it was an open race by now and the meeting in 1965 really emphasised the five a side competition pointing out that the crowd was larger than usual and that it was ‘more raucous’ when the football came on.   Graeme Grant won the three quarter mile from Bill Ewing (Aberdeen University) and Craig Douglas of Teviotdale.

Brockville during a football match: you can see how tight the bends would be for four or five lanes to be inside the goal posts for an athletic track.   Lovely running surface though: definitely a class above the usual. 

We can pick up on the Sports at Falkirk FC’s ground (Brockville Park) on 25th July 1959.   The meeting was organised jointly by Falkirk Victoria Harriers and the football club and was – unfortunately – on the same date as Gourock Highland Games.    The meeting included a five-a-side football tournament which meant the goal posts had to be in place, which meant that the track had to be on the infield with enough space inside the goal posts for several runners to run side by side without touching wood.   It was one of the smallest tracks of the summer: I only ran there once and on that afternoon we all did personal best times, only to be disappointed when we were told that we had run one lap short.   In 1959 Andy Brown of Motherwell won the two mile team race in 9:13.8, a good time on a track with short straights and tight bends.   Two Victoria Park runners – John McLaren and Bobby Calderwood – were second and third and their club team won with 9 points.   St Mirren beat Celtic in the final of the football by 3 goals and 1 corner to 3 goals, the competing clubs being Rangers, Celtic, St Mirren, Falkirk, Stenhousemuir, East Stirlingshire, Hearts and Motherwell.    There was no men’s relay but in the women’s 4 x half lap, Broxburn beat Ardeer and Clydesdale.    

Programme photographs from Graham McDonald

A year later, on 30th July 1960, the Scottish three mile record holder, Andy Brown, faced up against the SAAA three mile champion, Eddie Sinclair of Springburn.   Brown won by 50 yards in 9:18.0 with Sinclair second and club mate Tom O’Reilly third.   Sinclair led home the winning team with Springburn having 12 points.   There was a medley relay that afternoon which was won, surprisingly, by Larbert Youth Club from Edinburgh Northern Harriers and Ayr Seaforth in 2 min 34 seconds (the distances were 2 laps, 2 x half lap and 1 lap).

In 1961, George Brownlie of Edinburgh Southern Harriers was unplaced in the junior half-mile but stepped up for the team in the two miles team race and won in 9:35.2.  R McFall of ESH was second and John McLaren third.   Southern won the team contest with 13 points.   Three years, three different clubs winning the race – competition was good.   The afternoon was marred by three players being ordered off in the five-a-side – Crerand of Celtic for arguing with the referee, and then Jackson (Celtic) and Lowrie (Falkirk) for coming to blows.   To cap it all, Provan (Rangers) and Roberts (Motherwell) had their names taken.   Not a good advertisement for football.   There was no men’s relay in 1961.

On 28th July 1962  Bert McKay (Motherwell) won from ‘two more fancied competitors’, John Linaker (Pitreavie) and Andy Brown, in 8 min 14.2.   The report added, maybe unnecessarily, that the distance was undoubtedly sort for the world record was 8 min 32 sec!    Motherwell won the team race.  It was a sparkling meeting that year with Ming Campbell winning the 100 from Ronnie Whitelock (VPAAC) and G Mclachlan (St Modan’s) in 9.9 seconds.   Willie Morrison (Larkhall) won the handicap mile from Mike Ryan (St Modan’s) and AC Gibson of Hamilton and David Cairns (Springburn( won the high jump.  There was an invitation medley relay again and it was won by Edinburgh AC from Larbert and Clydesdale in 2 min 24.2 sec.

27th July 1963 saw another win for the Motherwell YMCA team but this time their leading runner was JH Linaker – the same John Linaker who had been second the previous year but who was now working in Motherwell – from Andy Brown in a sprint finish, with Ian McCafferty third.   Motherwell of course won the team contest with 6 points.   Although it was not a team contest, Teviotdale runners held the first three places in the handicap half-mile – JR Wilson (12 yards) first, Craig Douglas (scratch) second and P Roden (10 yards) third.   Hugh Barrow (VPAAC) gave Dick Wedlock 42 yards in the junior half mile and it was just too much with Wedlock winning in 1:56 before also winning the mile.   The programme was much reduced and there were no relays other than the local Under 15 race.

“The Falkirk Football Club – Falkirk Victoria Harriers joint meeting at Brockville Park suffered from the counter attraction of the Gourock meeting and entries were down for the track events”    said the ‘Glasgow Herald’ of 27th July 1964.    There were only five track events for the men and four for the women.  There were no relays for either sex or for any age group.   The only club competition was the two miles team race where JR Wilson (Teviotdale Harriers) won in 9:31.6 from Tom Brown of St Modan’s.   Teviotdale won the team race.

Les Piggot, Brian Scobie, Lachie Stewart, Jim Johnston, Dick Hodelet and the sprinters in the relay teams were all competing at Gourock that day and to top it all David Stevenson set a British record in the pole vault.  It was to be the Falkirk meeting’s last fling.   It disappeared from the calendar.   It had been a good meeting but the competition from others was great with international meetings taking place most years on that weekend and Gourock was taking the highland games/local sports custom more and more.  Falkirk Victoria Harriers are to be thanked however for their effort in putting on this attractive fixture for so long.   Below is the list of officials from the Falkirk Sports programme of 1952 with many well-known names in there – Dunky Wright of course, Joe Walker, Alex Nangle (one of two handicappers at the time along with W McNeillie), Fred Evans the doyen of all the starters, David Corbett of Bellahouston, and many others.   It is not stretching a point in any way to note that they all had the competitors interests at heart.

 

Picture from Gourock HG website

The structured inter-club competition fostered all summer was not totally selfless on the part of the Games organisers.   Almost every competitor in the events brought along at least one spectator, often two or three.   In addition a club requiring four runners in a team race, often brought at least one competitor who would not otherwise have been there.   So a club with teams in the two miles and the relay had at least eight runners plus 20 or ore paying spectators.   The club teams usually used seven or eight runners over the season – not all of the top four were always available – so more athletes were exposed to the hard fought, elbows-out-on-the-bends, competition which would help them considerably come the winter cross-country season.    It was a win/win situation.

Among the venues, the Clyde coast meetings were at the end of July and the start of August – Gourock, Bute and Cowal all on successive week ends.   The Gourock meeting was on the last Saturday in July at the picturesque Battery Park, high on a hill outside the town.   The views from the park at times were superb.   A at any of these venues, the track was short with something like 5+ laps to the mile.   It started outside the pavilion and the first bend was downhill into a short back straight with a wee climb up to the finishing straight which was also on a gentle up-slope.   But the racing was hard.   There were always good races there and in 1960 the top end of the team race featured Graham Everett of Shettleston Harriers, Steve Taylor of Aberdeen AAC and Eddie Sinclair of Springburn.   Bunched at half distance, they were split when Everett set off on his fast finish: he won by 15 yards from Taylor with Sinclair a further five yards back.   There was a tie for the team race but Shettleston was given the verdict over Springburn because their last runner was ahead of Springburn’s.   The distance events generally were well supported at Gourock and in 1960 the Mile was won by McNeil of Shettleston from McLatchie of Muirkirk and Ballantyne of Edinburgh Southern; Ian Harris won the road race from Lyall of Edinburgh Southern with George King of Greenock Wellpark third.   The relays at Gourock were a bit different in that they kept them for schools teams – one school pupil running often brought grans and grandads as well as parents and siblings along!

In 1961 the two miles was won comfortably by Andy Brown of Motherwell YMCA and his club won the team race with 12 points.   12 points is an interesting number – it can be made up of first, second and tenth, or it can be made up of first,  fifth and sixth or indeed in many ways but not one of them indicates and easy win for the club against the best of Shettleston, Victoria Park or any of the other clubs taking part in these events.   The 1962 Games were held in pouring rain – atrocious for the spectators but even worse for the runners.   The team race was won by Motherwell again, this time with 11 points, and the first three places were filled by Andy Brown (9:54.4), Bert McKay (Motherwell), and George Brownlee  (Edinburgh Southern).   That year, in addition to the schools relays, the meeting included a medley relay which was won by Victoria Park, the report saying that the lead given to them by Hugh Barrow on the first (880 yards) stage gave them no problem in winning the race from Bellahouston Harriers and Clydesdale Harriers in 3:47.3.   The road race was won by John Kerr of Airdrie from Ian Harris of Beith, with Peter McConnachie of Wellpark third.

On 20th July, 1963, the sun shone and records were set in many events on a good, dry track.   One of these was in the team race over two miles where Motherwell’s new boy, John Linaker, won from Andy Brown in 9:10.8 which took 0.4 sec from Graham Everett’s record of three years earlier.   Brown’s time was 9:13.8 and Everett, who was also running that day, was timed at 9:23.4.    Importantly though, the team race was won by Motherwell (with 7 points) for the third year in succession.    The medley relay (880 + 220 + 220 + 440) was won by Ayr Seaforth (Davidson, McCrindle, McCarvel, Stewart) in 3:39.3.   Victoria Park’s Hugh Barrow won the 880 yards won the junior half mile in 1:58.9 from a field of 15 runners, all of whom were give handicap marks ahead of him.   The Victoria Park team probably suffered from his absence on the afternoon.

On July 25th, 1964, Lachie Stewart (Vale of Leven) who had been the outstanding performer all summer on the longer track distances, won the two miles from Pat McAtier (Paisley Harriers) in 9:42.4.   Shettleston Harriers won the team race.   Bellahouston Harriers (MJ McLean, P Ritchie, R Rae and W Robertson) won the invitation medley relay from Glasgow University and Glenpark Harriers in 3:43.5.

The track for the 1965 Games was sodden but nevertheless half a dozen records were set on the ground.   One of these was by Vale of Leven’s Lachie Stewart who won the two miles in 9:03 – taking 7.8 seconds from the existing record and beating Andy Brown by 8.4 seconds.   Motherwell YMCA won the team race with 10 points.    Bellahouston again won the medley relay from Ayr Seaforth in 3:34.5 with a foursome slightly altered from the previous year – MJ McLean, W Robertson, P Ritchie and D Young to win the Auchmountain Trophy.   This relay had been won in the past four years by Victoria Park, Ayr Seaforth and Bellahouston Harriers twice, with Glenpark Harriers, Clydesdale Harriers and Glasgow University all featuring in the first three.   It was no easy race to win.

In 1966 the two miles record was broken once again – this time by Ian McCafferty who won in 9:01.2 from a genuine past master in Ian Binnie of Victoria Park.   A multi-record breaker in the 1950’s Binnie inspired Victoria Park to a team victory with 10 points.   It was the third different club to win in as many years – Motrherwell the previous year and Shettleston the year before that.    Ayr Seaforth beat Dumbarton AAC in the mile medley in 3:39.7.   The road race was won by Alex Wight of Edinburgh University from Andy Brown in 1:12:33.   Graeme Grant (Dumbarton – scratch) won the half mile Duncan Middletin (Springburn – 10 yards) in 1:54.1, Norman Morrison (Shettleston – 130 yards) beat Jim Johnstone (Monkland – 10 yards) in the Mile in 4:17.8.   The field events featured Crawford Fairbroither (HJ) and Douglas Edmunds (throws).

Gourock Highland is still pulling in the crowds – the date has changed: initially it went to the fourth Saturday in July and it has moved back in the calendar to May now -but it was always a favourite venue for the club against club battles and much was read into the victories.

Hannah Park, Shotts: Home of Shotts Bon Accord FC and the Shotts Highland Games

There were always two meetings in September that attracted the attention: on the first Saturday here was Shotts Highland Games in the heart of Lanarkshire where the welcome was warm, the prizes good, and the track poor.   The back straight was definitely downhill, the home straight was definitely, indisputably, uphill.   The track was of red blaes and in wet weather was heavy and clinging.   White vests needed the aid of the best detergents to remove it.   But it was a good meeting.   The second Saturday in September was always Dunblane Highland Gathering.   An altogether more douce kind of affair in a kind of natural amphitheatre with close cropped grass banks on three sides for spectators to sit and watch the events unfold.   It was a grass track and at times the start of the bottom bend had some big holes made by the shot putters best efforts.   Each had a 14 miles road race but Shotts had the team events that Dunblane lacked.    Club competition was one of the things at Shotts.

In 1961, the team race was won by JT Anderson of Saltwell Harriers in England from Graham Everett of Shettleston in 9:12.4.   The track was narrow and with five or six teams of four plus a couple of individual entries, the starting line was usually crowded – if you were not on the front two ranks, then you had no option but to start relatively slowly while those in front burst forth on the gun with a serious sprint for the first bend.   Bert McKay of Motherwell YMCA was third and the team race was won the the Englishmen from Saltwell.   Shotts at this time was also known for the quality of its relay racing, often incorporating an SAAA sprint or medley relay into the programme.   In 1961 it was the SAAA mile medley relay championship and the report read:

“One of the closest races at the Shotts Highland Games at Hannah Park was the Scottish Mile Medley Relay championship.   Bellahouston Harriers won by two yards in the good time of 3:38.3, but their success was by no means assured until the final lap.   With Bellahouston third and 12 yards behind the leaders, Ayr Seaforth AC, at the three-quarter mile mark, young R Greig made such good progress that he overtook and beat the two runners ahead of him, including JR Boyd (Ayr) the holder of the half mile record.   Some watches showed that Greig had returned his personal best time of 50.3 seconds.”

 In 1962, individual and team honours in the two miles team race again went to Saltwell Harriers: Anderson (9:08.4) and Hillen finished one-two, with Bert McKay and Andy Brown (winner of the 14 miles road race the previous year) in three and four.   The SAAA medley relay championship went to Victoria Park’s squad of Barrow, Turner, Johnstone and Ballantyne) who won in 3:34 from Ayr Seaforth and Bellahouston.   According to the reprt in the Herald, McLatchie beat Barrow in the opening half mile eg ‘by a good margin’ , and Seaforth retained the lead until the last 440 yards leg when ‘A Ballantyne (Victoria Park) ran one of the best races of his career and beat the junior quarter mile champion, JC Stewart (Ayr Seaforth) .’   There was also a women’s medley relay which ended as a contest when Bellahouston’s Helen Cherry gave them a big lead over the half mile.   Getting away from team races and club involvement temporarily, the Shotts 14 mile road race (featuring a couple of serious hill climbs) has something totally unique as a prize – it’s a silver groat.   A groat was an old Scottish coin worth fourpence and it is not something that most Scots have seen.   The race is usually well supported and the winner in 1962 was J Layburn of Jarrow in 1:14:34.    Among the winners in the open events was Ian McCafferty running off 120 yards in the handicap mile, Neil Donnachie of Edinburgh in the half-mile off 16 yards and in the field events Howard Payne of Birchfield won the hammer with an allowance of 3′.

On September 9th, 1963, it was a wet and windy day at Hannah Park and several invitees did not turn up but the club teams for the two miles race were there as usual renewing their rivalry.   This time there were no raiders from across the border and the race was won by Ian McCafferty in 9:34.6 from Jim Johnstone (Monkland Harriers) and Tom Brown (St Modan’s).   The team race was won, not by Motherwell as expected, but by Springburn Harriers whose team of Tom O’Reilly in fourth, Ian Young fifth and Moir Logie in seventh had 16 points.    The medley relay was the feature race that day with the title going to Ayr Seaforth’s quartet of J Davidson, C Stewart, R McCrindle and R Billson in 3:38.0 from Bellahouston and Octavians.   ‘Victoria Park were unable to field a satisfactory team as their leading half-milers were engaged elsewhere.’    Only five of the ten invited runners turned up for the invitation mile which was won by JR Wilson of Teviotdale Harriers from Fergus Murray.   The road race again went to Layburn of Jarrow from Donald Macgregor and Charlie McAlinden.

In 1965 it was Ian McCafferty’s turn to win the team race ‘in workmanlike fashion’ from team mate Bert McKay in 9:09.6 with Motherwell taking the team race.   Lachie Stewart won the road race from Layburn by over two minutes in a new record time (1:11:20) but the race gaining all the attention was the other inter-club race – the invitation medley relay.   The report read: “Glasgow University, holders of the Scottish Mile Medley Relay championship title, even with BW Scobie, WM Campbell, J McGeogh and AB Kennedy, found Bellahouston Harriers more than a match for them.   MJ McLean, a junior, obviously instructed to have as big a lead as possible over the 880 yards first leg, never let up and Scobie found it impossible to get any nearer him than 20 yards.   Thereafter the race was as good as won for H Robertson, W Robertson and H Baillie made the most of this advantage and won by 25 yards.”   Dumbarton AAC was third and the winning time was 3:34.0.

More records were set in 1966, again Ian McCafferty won the two miles, but this time it was no ‘workmanlike’ job – not when he was racing Fergus Murray.   Murray dropped bck in the second mile and McCafferty’s winning time was 9:04.4 with a winning margin by the end of about 14 seconds.   The run erased the time set by John Anderson from Saltwell Harriers from the books by four seconds.   Motherwell (first, third and fourth) won the team race.    McCafferty almost won the handicap mile from scratch – finishing second to Mike Bradley of Paisley who was off 100 yards.   In the medley relay, Bellahouston Harriers won from Octavians with Edinburgh AC third.   Their team of MJ McLean, J Williams, HJ Carmichael and W Robertson were timed at 3:32.1.   Incidentally the 880 yards leg featured an excellent field including Graeme Grant, Adrian Weatherhead (Octavians), Stewart (Edinburgh AC) and Mike McLean with McLean comfortably beating the favourite, Grant.   In the open handicap half mile, Hugh Barrow (18 yards) defeated MJ McCarthy (Gosforth – 34) in 1:53.4.

In 1967 it was again McCafferty who won the two miles team race, this time in 9:10.0, and Motherwell won the team race.   The drama of the day was in the SAAA Medley Relay.   The report:

“One Scottish title was settled – the senior mile medley relay, but in the most frustrating manner possible for former holders, Bellahouston Harriers.  Victoria Park, having been second in the Amateur Athletic Association Championships earlier in the year, were favourites, even without P Hepburn, one of their 220 runners.   An unconvincing first leg (880 yards) by WH Barrow left Victoria Park with only a slight lead , and as the last leg (440 yards) was about to begin they had at the most, a yard in hand over Bellahouston – enough we thought for H Baillie (Bellahouston) to catch RT Laurie .   In a scrambled changeover, however, Baillie was knocked prostrate on the track by an incoming opponent, Laurie was gone, unaware of his rival’s bad luck, and he raced home a clear winner.   The blame really rests with an association which can award the holding of a national event to a meeting whose track has no lane markings and is approximately 17 feet wide instead of 24.”    The winning team was Barrow, A Wood, J Duguid and Laurie and finished in 3:06.8 with Edinburgh AC third.

Shotts was undoubtedly a good meeting with excellent athletes and, coming as it did a month before the winter season’s pipe-opener in the 4 man McAndrew Relay, was supported by the cross-country fraternity as an early lead in to the season.   Unfortunately in Scotland at the start of September, it seemed in retrospect, to have its share of rain!

Lachie Stewart and Norman Morrison at Cowal Highland Gathering

Of all the Highland Games meetings, Cowal was probably the best known among the general public and among athletes it was seen as a two-day meeting, a well sponsored meeting (they paid expenses for invited teams!), and the one with the biggest crowds by far.   Clubs took buses to Cowal – it was a long drive – and many athletes went by train to Craigendoran (at Helensburgh) and then went by boat to Dunoon.   The journey, whether in a busload of friends or by train and steamer, was part of the whole day.   And the quality of the athletics was always high.    When I started going there, there were only six teams invited to the two miles team race and one of them was always an English club.    We were sharing the dressing room and lining up with the best of Longwood and Saltwell Harriers, for instance.   Running at Cowal was a dream of a day for men who normally had to pay money and travel to England to race these guys.

If we look at the 1959 Cowal Games first …    They were held on the last weekend in August and the inter-club element was usually by invitation unless there was a championship relay being held.   “Three runners in the two miles invitation caught the eye – GD Ibbotson (South London Harriers), a former world record holder for the mile, GE Everett (Shettleston Harriers) the Scottish mile champion, and AH Brown (Motherwell YMCA), holder of the Scottish native record for the three miles.   The first mile was completed in 4 minutes 25 seconds with Ibbotson allowing Everett to make the pace.   The position was generally similar until the last lap when Ibbotson went to the front and opened a wide lead from Everett, who appeared to be tiring rapidly.   Brown made a strong effort to chase Ibbotson but the Englishman finished 10 yards ahead of him in 8:37.7 , Brown’s time was 8:59.4 and Everett was third in 9:15.2 – a time which he has easily beaten on previous occasions. “

Everett was out again in the medley relay where the Shettleston team won (Everett, McNulty, Meggat, Dewar) from Garscube and Ayr Seaforth.

Another Englishman won the event in 1960 – John Anderson of Saltwell Harriers winning from Bill Kerr (Victoria Park) and Eddie Sinclair of Springburn in 9:05.7.   Team victors were Victoria Park (15 points) from Bellahpouston (21) and Springburn (24).   The West District relay was included on the programme and as won by Victoria Park (Dunbar, Turner, Hildrey and Whitlock) in 42.3, a native record, from Larbert YC and Ayr Seaforth.   The medley relay was Seaforth from Bellahouston and Liverpool Harriers.   The inter-club component was important to the development of the athletes and the sport and to be representing your club before tens of thousands of spectator at what was an international gathering gave the athletes a real shot of adrenalin.   The Rangers Sports were still going strong but they had no inter-club element to them – they fulfilled another function.

The team race in 1961 was on a higher plane than for many years when Ibbotson, Anderson and Everett faced each other on the starting line.   It was a wet day and times generally were slow but the report read: “The two miles was a close race among JD Anderson (Saltwell), GD Ibbotson (Longwood) and GE Everett (Shettleston).   They finished in that order, in 9:11, 9:11.8 and 9:12.2.   Anderson had the edge for speed on his opponents down the finishing straight.   GD Ibbotson turned out in the open mile, and although he made good progress through the big field of handicap runners, he just failed to be placed.   JT McLatchie (Muirkirk AC) showed fine form and won from 45 yards in 4:11.8.”

The team race was won by Shettleston Harriers (20) from Bellahouston Harriers .   Bellahouston had their consolation when they won the medley relay from Liverpool Harriers and Seaforth AC.   Their winning team of Currie, LaPointe, Robertson and Greig was timed at 3:35.5.   The West District Relay was again won by Victoria Park whose team was Ballantine, Hamilton, Hildrey and Whitlock in 43.2 seconds.   The only other invitation event was the Youthe 880 yards which was won by Hugh Barrow (VPAAC) in 1:57.2 from Jim Johnston and Jim Finn (both Monkland).

On  the second day of the 1962 meeting John Anderson achieved a notable double when he won the invitation mile as well as the two miles.   The photograph in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ showed three men straining for the line – Anderson, Ibbotson and Jim McLatchie with times of 4:08.9, 4:09.9 and 4:09.9.   The Two Miles was another hard race between the two Englishmen with Anderson’s 8:56.6 beating Ibbotson’s 9:01.2 and John Hillen (Saltwell) in 9:01.4.   As they took the eye of the photographer and the spectating masses, there was a hard team race taking part which was won by Motherwell YMCA.   The Medley Relay was won by Bellahouston (Currie, McGaw, LaPointe and Greig) from a fast finishing Seaforth AC  and Liverpool Harriers in 3 min 31.7 sec.    Bellahouston (Mayberry, McGaw, LaPointe and Rae) also won the West 4 x 110 yards relay in 43.6 seconds from Seaforth and Clydesdale.   Ibbotson had enjoyed his previous experiences at Dunoon so much that he brought his wife Madeleine up in 1962 and she won a women’s invitation 880 yards from Scotland’s Georgena Buchanan and Ireland’s Maeve Kyle.in 2:16.0.

31st August, 1963,  was another good day for JP Anderson of Saltwell.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ report read: JP Anderson was one of the most successful competitors at the annual Cowal Games on Saturday at Dunoon.   He won the invitation two miles in the most satisfactory time of 8:54 on a track that had been made soft and heavy by continuous rain.   There was never ever doubt about Anderson’s ability, for when he decided to take control of the race all that was left was to see who was going to be second.    In the circumstances young I McCafferty (Motherwell YMCA) showed considerable ability, for in determined fashion he beat the more experienced JJ Hillen (Saltwell) for second place in 9:00.2 for his personal best and the best time ever shown by a junior.   Motherwell again won the team race with 15 points with the brothers AH  and  AP Brown the supporting members for McCafferty.   Bellahouston Harriers retained the Western District 4 x 110 yards relay championship.  Ayr Seaforth and Clydesdale were again second and third respectively.   

Saltwell Harriers was second in the two miles with 30 points and the medley relay was replaced by the SAAA junior medley relay which was won by Victoria Park (Laurie, Smith, Lappin and Wood from Edinburgh Southern and Seaforth.

*

This was Anderson’s third year at Cowal, and Ibbotson had been there twice.   What was the attraction?   The arena consisted of an ash track round a very tight infield.   On the infield there was always (a) two pipe band circles, (b) a highland dancing platform, (c) a wrestling competition and the runners had to warm up around them, keeping an eye out for the pipe bands marching into the arena.   On the outside of the track there was a crowd of 40000 or 50000, so close to the track that the athlete in the outside lane could shake hands with the spectators.   It was a very intense experience.

*

Cowal was always a two-day meeting with an incomplete programme on the Friday with most of the standard track events, then on the Saturday with a complete programme of events.  This enabled distance men to run two races, sometimes three, over the weeend.  On 29th August, 1964, young Hugh Barrow took the plaudits.  On the Friday evening he set a new SAAA record for the rarely run three-quarter mile distance of 3:00.5, just beating John McGrow on the line.   He would go on to equal this time twice – at Airdrie in 1968 and 1969 – but never to beat it.  Not content with that, he was out for his club on the Saturday in the two miles team race.   Second in the two miles to Derek Ibbotson, who won in 8:49.4, he set a personal best time by no fewer than 11 seconds when he ran 8:54.   Ian McCafferty was third in 8:59.4.   Glasgow University (McGeoch, Gibbons, Ewan and Campbell) won the Western District 4 x 110 yards in 43.1 seconds from Seaforth and Clydesdale.   The SAAA Junior 4 x 110 yards was won by Bellahouston  (Carmichael, Brown, Symeonides and Ritchie) from Edinburgh Southern and Victoria Park in 44.1 sec and in the SAAA Junior medley relay (440 + 220 + 220 + 440), Bellahouston (Baillie, Carmichael, Ritchie McLean) beat Ayr Seaforth and Victoria Park in 2:28.6.

Barrow (right) beats McGrow in 1964

Came 1965 and Edinburgh Southern Harriers were back at Cowal and led by  Kenny Ballantyne, they acquitted themselves well.  “The most absorbing contest on the track was the two miles in which R McKay, KD Ballantyne and E Knox ran in that order for most of the way.   McKay, the veteran of the three, was obviously trying to take the sting out of his rivals finish during the last two laps, and succeeded with Knox.   Ballantyne however had too much left and in the home straight fought past McKay and won in 9 minutes exactly. “

Bellahouston Harriers won all three relays that year – the West District 4 x 110 yards, the SAAA Junior 4 x 110 championship and the SAAA junior medley relay championship.

The 1966 Games 440 yards invitation race was a personal triumph for Hugh Baillie of Bellahouston Harriers who won in 48.7 but the two miles team race where the country’s top clubs faced each other was as hotly contested as ever.    Ian McCafferty (Motherwell YMCA) won from Hugh Barrow (VPAAC) by 17 seconds.   Only Barrow attempted to go with him and their times at the finish were 8:42.2 and 9:05.6.   McCafferty had come through the first mile in 4:21.   Motherwell won the team race, as they did at so many venues in the 1960’s, with 9 points (1, 3, 5).    In the relays, Bellahouston (Williams, Symeonides, Baillie and Carmichael) won the SAAA West District 4 x 110 yards in 43.4 seconds, and with a team of Johnstone, Wood, McAlpine and Wallace) the SAAA Junior 4 x 110 yards in 46.3.    Edinburgh Southern Harriers (Hay, Miller, Railton and Stewart)  however won the SAAA Junior medley relay in 2:32.2 from Bellahouston.

Alastair Shaw’s prize ticket from the mid-70’s: the prize was a cake stand

It is interesting to reflect on what effect all this head-to-head racing of runners of all standards at the various meetings had on standards generally in Scottish athletics.   It should be borne in mind that Cowal was not as easily reached as all the other central belt venues – Gourock, Ibrox, Shotts and the rest were all well attended and the top men, the clubmen and the young pretenders all faced their own rivals on tracks around the country week in, week out and although the times were not good the lessons in hard racing were learned and perfected.

*

Star turn in 1967 was Lachie Stewart’s one hour run on the Friday evening in which he covered 12 miles 188 yards to set a new Scottish record.   He also ran in the two miles on the Saturday and although always up at the front of the field, he dropped back allowing Ian McCafferty to win in 8:59.4 seconds leading Motherwell to team victory with 8 points(1, 3, 4).   McCafferty also won the mile from Hugh Barrow in 4:03.1.   The relays?   The West District 4 x 110 was won by Garscube Harriers in 44.4 seconds after the ‘winning’ team from Victoria Park had been disqualified despite being well ahead at the finish, the SAAA Junior 4 x 110 yards was won by Shettleston Harriers in 44.8 seconds and the SAAA Junior medley relay championship was won by Shettleston in 2:32.2.

For some reason the Glasgow Herald correspondent took to reporting English fixtures at greater length about this time and the reports on Cowal and other Games and Sports dwindled and only winners were listed and, even less praiseworthy, the team events were not given their proper place.   In 1968, Lachie Stewart won the mile against Walter Wilkinson of Longwood Harriers in 4:05.7 as well as the team race in 8:59.6.   The West District 4 x 110 yards was won by Bellahouston and the SAAA junior 4 x 110 yards by Airdrie Harriers.   Shettleston retained the junior medley relay title in 2:34.0.   In 1969, the event went again to Lachie Stewart whose time was 8:52.6 and Shettleston won the team race; the West District 4 x 110 yards relay went to Victoria Park, thanks to a ‘splendid run by Andrew Wood, Victoria Park’s anchor man which enabled his club to win by six yards from Bellahouston Harriers .   Wood later ran from scratch in the final of the open 220 yards and won by two yards in 22.7.” 

Cowal continued to be  good meeting but the point has been made about the inter club element being an ifactor.   Man against man is what the sport is about but the club element where runners challenge themselves against their equals or betters for their club, when they would not do so for themselves, has always been an important factor in athletes development.

As an example of a typical meeting for the athletes we have extracts from the 1971 programme with all the results.

The meeting was still drawing the crowds in 1989 –

Unfortunately after many years as a model of how the light athletics (running and jumping events) should be incorporated into the programme, Cowal dropped all athletics events other than the heavies and the programme is less varied in other respects.   The only running event in the 21st century is a 5K road race (plus some schools races), and the arena events now look like this.   In the Stadium there are Heavy Events, Highland Dancing, Pipe Bands and Wrestling; and in the Performance Arena there is Axe Throwing.   This is a sad loss for the athletics community and for the local athletics fans in Dunoon.

 

Lachie Stewart (48) leading from Dick Wedlock (45) and Hugh Barrow (71)

Inter-club rivalry and competition did not stop with Tuesday or Thursday night matches but continued at Sports Meetings and some Highland Games during the summer season.   Many of these occasions were enhanced by the inclusion of a two mile team race and one – or at times two – relays at the end of the meeting.   Of course, athletes travelling to such meetings, would also enter individual races to maximise their pleasure or competition experience on the day.   It was not unusual to see a runner finish the team race and immediately change the race number for the one he would wear in the up-coming mile handicap; it was unusual to see – as we saw Gordon Eadie of Cambuslang do once – a runner win a 14 mile road race and then step on to the track for the two mile team event!   The sprinters in the 4 x 100 relay would as a matter of course also enter two of the 100 yards, 220 yards or 440 yards.   I remember at Cowal the relay came before the 220 yards handicap and since so few turned up for the furlong, it was decided to have a straight final.   After the decision was taken and the announcement made, the sprinters trooped across from the relay and it was discovered that there were almost two dozen runners for the straight final!   They went ahead with it and it made for a most interesting race.   But the thing is that the top men turned out in these races and with, say, Motherwell YMCA, Victoria Park and Shettleston facing each other almost every other week, the head to head racing that helped develop the top men, was the highlight of many a local sports day.

One of the most popular was that held at Babcock & Wilcox Sports in Renfrew at Moorcroft Park, on the third Saturday in June.  By then the runners were well tuned up having run  in the team race at the Lanarkshire Constabulary Sports at Shawfield on the first Saturday of the month and then as individuals in the Glasgow Police Sports on the second Saturday.   The Glasgow polis did not have a two mile team race at this point.   The track at Moorcroft Park was just good grass – it had no eccentricities (Cowal had a big hole on the inside of the second bend, Gourock had an uphill last bend and finish, and so on) , was easily reached by public transport and there was a trophy (the Empire Exhibition Trophy) for the club with the highest points for the afternoon..   In addition the prizes were of a good standard – eg we once had 54″  x  27″  fireside rugs for being second team.

In 1960 the race was won by Graham Everett in 9:00.2 at a time when he was SAAA Champion and GB Internationalist for the Mile.   To keep the inter-club theme going, Edinburgh Northern Harriers won the Medley Relay in 3:38.8.   1961 was also a close run thing in the team race – Graham Everett again won the two miles from two Bellahouston runners – Joe Connolly was second and Dick Penman was third but Bellahouston won the team race convincingly with 9 points to Shettleston’s 20.   Everett was out again in the medley relay and this time Shettleston won in 3:37.8.   The Empire Exhibition Shield went to a third club – Springburn Harriers who were closely challenged by Bellahouston and Victoria Park.   Nobody won anything unchallenged at Babcock’s.

Having come close in 1961, Victoria Park won the Shield in 1962 and possibly the two miles team race (the exact result is not available) but the Mile Medley Relay went to Larkhall YMCA who won in 3:38.8.   Came 1963 and it was Bellahouston Harriers’s turn to win the Empire Trophy and the match incorporated a match between Renfrew and London which was won by the home team.   The Two Miles was a clean sweep for Motherwell whose first three were Bert McKay (9:08.9), Andy Brown and Alex Brown with the team race being decided on these three places, with Victoria Park second  and Edinburgh Southern Harriers third.   The medley relay this time went to Maryhill Harriers from Dumbarton in second and Clydesdale Harriers in third.

In 1964 Lachie Stewart won the two miles in 9:6.8 while Motherwell again won the team race but the relays were the high point of the meeting.   The medley relay was won by Ayr Seaforth for whom Jim McLatchie, home on holiday from America, ran the first stage but an added attraction was the holding of the two SAAA championship relays over 4 x 100 and 4 x 440 yards.   The former was won by Glasgow University (McGeough, Gibbons, Ewan and Campbell) in 43 seconds, holding off Edinburgh Southern by a yard; and the students from Glasgow also won the long relay (Foster, Wilson, Hodelet and Campbell) in 3:19.1 by five yards.   The inter-club events added a great deal to the sports – coming just a week before the SAAA Championships didn’t hurt either.

Lachie won the race in 1965 in 9:11.6 with Victoria Park taking the team race.   Dumbarton AAC went one better than in 1963 when they won the mile medley relay in 3:42.3.   In 1966 the weather was wet, the ground soggy and times generally slow but Victoria Park again won the Empire Trophy which they had won a year earlier and the race of the afternoon was reported to have been the two miles which was won again by Lachie Stewart in 9:24.8 while Bellahouston defeated Dumbarton to win the medley relay in 3:50.2.   Bellahouston won the relay again in 1967 in 2:31.8 and Lachie Stewart of Vale of Leven won the two miles in 8:58.

Thereafter the third Saturday in June – which had always been taken up with the Scottish Schoolboys Championships, the Scottish Schoolgirls Championships and Babcock’s Sports was invaded by more and more meetings and one of the most enjoyable meetings on the calendar disappeared.

The point made at the top of the page – that inter-club competition which was beneficial to the clubs, to the individuals and to the sport in the country was continued throughout the season in a variety of ways.   We can look at some of the other sports and games that included two miles team and relay races on another page.

Inter Clubs at Shawfield and Brockville    Shotts and  Gourock    Cowal 

The inter-clubs were in the main  organised by the clubs concerned and were often annual fixtures – for instance Clydesdale Harriers always had track matches with Vale of Leven, Greenock Glenpark Harriers and Springburn Harriers with others (Shettleston, Victoria Park, Maryhill, etc) being less frequent.   They should not be looked back on in a patronising fashion – they were far from being easy, wee social occasions – although there was always a social element present.    I have printed the results of the first one here had 16 events, including almost all field events, and others had eighteen events on the programme.   Bear in mind that they required all the hurdles on the track for both hurdles races, the uprights and other kit for the high jump and pole vault plus all the throwing equipment to be present and in a good condition and that track events usually went up to 6 miles and had both relays..

They were not contested solely by B string or C string athletes – note some of the names below – SAAA champions such as Ming Campbell, Joe Connolly, Tom McNab, Peter Milligan, Alan Dunbar, Mike Hildrey and so on all appeared in them.   Arranged before the season started, these matches were often written in to the competition before the season began.

This is just a sampling of the fixtures – those from the East Coast are not here, nor are many of the local meetings in the counties around Glasgow such as Dunbartonshire, Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire or Ayrshire.   Not all results have been printed.   If you want any particular set added, it can be done.   Here we go.

Wednesday, 27th April, 1960:   “Bellahouston Harriers beat Shettleston Harriers by 117 points to 82 last night in an inter-club contest at Corkerhill.   R Sykes (Bellahouston) won three events,  the shot putt (41′ 9″), discus (126′ 4 1/2″) and the long jump (19′ 7”) and he was equal first in the pole vault.   Other winners:

100 yards: D Robinson (S) 10.7 sec;   220 yards: A McGaw (B) 22.9 sec;   440 yards: R Cairney (B) 51.6 sec;   880 yards: B Forrest (B)  2 min 9.3 sec;   Mile:   B Dickson (B) 4 min 32.3 sec;   Three Miles: J Connolly (B) 14 min 21.8 sec;   Six Miles:  J Irvine (B) 31 min 7.1 sec; 120 yards hurdles:  G Brown (B) 16.6 sec; 440 yards hurdles: Brown, 60.6.

High Jump: R Santini (S)  5′ 5″;   hop, step and jump: T McNab (B) 43′ 11 1/2″;   Javelin:  D Fraser (S) 149′ 8″;   pole vault: F McDonald and Sykes 9′;   Hammer:  T McNab (B) 79′ 1 1/2″;   4 x 100 yards relay:   Bellahouston (S Watson, R Sykes, S Wineberg, S McGaw)45.4 sec;    4 x 440 yards: Bellahouston (W Robertson, J Currie, A Forrest, R Cairney) 3 min 35.1 sec.”

Friday, 29th April:   Tomorrow there is a triangular contest at Barrachnie where Shettleston Harriers will have  Seaforth AC and Garscube Harriers as visitors.   Shettleston should prove too strong for both opponents as they have a much stronger team than that which lost to Bellahouston.”

Monday, 1st May:  Shettleston Harriers won a triangular match against Seaforth AC and Garscube Harriers with an aggregate of 89 points to 66 for Seaforth and 36 for Garscube.   J Meggat and T McNab (Shettleston) had doubles in the 100 yards and 220 yards  and  the long jump and shot putt  respectively.  

Results:   100 yards:  J McNulty (SH)  10.4 sec;   second race:  J Meggat (SH) 10.5 sec;   220 yards: W Stockton (SH) 23.6;  second race:  Meggat (SH) 23.6 sec;   440 yards: J Baird (SH) 53 sec;   second race: J Wilson (SAC)  53.2 sec;   880 yards:  J Young (SAC) 1 min 58 sec;   Mile: J Davidson (SAC)  4 min 35 sec; Three Miles:  I Donald (SH)  15 min 7.8 sec;   High Jump:  A Santini (SH) 5′ 3 1/2″; Long Jump:  T McNab (SH) 19′ 5 1/2″;  Shot Putt:  McNab (SH) 36′ 10 1/2″; 4 x half lap relay:  Shettleston  1 min 17.2 sec.

[There were also races for Youths and Boys]

Wednesday, 3rd May: “Bellahouston Harriers beat Jordanhill Training College by 108 points to 84 last night at Corkerhill.   G Brown (Bellahouston) won the 120 yards hurdles and 440 yards hurdles in 17.3 sec and 60 sec respectively.  Another notable performance was achieved by J Connolly (Bellahouston) who won the three miles in 14 min 13.5 sec, 2 sec outside his own personal best for the distance.”   

Friday, May 6th:  “Shettleston Harriers will meet Edinburgh University in what should be a very closely contested men’s inter-club match at Barrachnie.

Glasgow University should give a good account of themselves in a three cornered contest at St Andrews against the local students and Queen’s University, Belfast.    The Scottish Universities B Teams with Clydesdale Harriers will have a match at Westerlands.”

Monday, 9th May at Barrachnie:   “Edinburgh University beat Shettleston Harriers by 78 points to 64 at Barrachnie.   T McNab and RA Findlay, both of Shettleston, won two events.   McNab won the long jump and the hop, step and jump and Findlay the shot putt and javelin.   The students won 10 of the 15 events.”

Wednesday, 11th May:   “Bellahouston Harriers beat Victoria Park by 82 1/2 points to 78 1/2 points in an inter-club contest last night at Nethercraigs.   G Brown (Bellahouston) won both hurdles events, the 120 yards in 12.1 seconds and 440 yards in 57.4 seconds, and RC Sykes (Bellahouston) won the shot putt with 39′ 11″and the discus with 112′ 10″.   In the high jump, C  Fairbrother (Victoria Park) cleared 6’6″ but failed at three attempts at 6’8″.   

Friday, May 13th:  Springburn Harriers with 72 points won a triangular contest at St Augustine’s playing fields, Milton against Glasgow University (66 pts) and Garscube Harriers (45 pts).”

Monday 16th May, at St Andrews:   “One of the best performances at the triangular match between St Andrews University, Edinburgh Southern Harriers and Shettleston Harriers was the pole vault of 12′ 6″ by N Brown (Shettleston), beating the ground record by 9″.   St Andrews won the men’s contest with 95 points to Southern’s 62 and Shettleston’s 27.   Jordanhill Training College, with 39 points won the women’s contest from Southern, 36 and St Andrews, 33.    DJ Whyte (St Andrews) won three events – 100 yards (10.4 sec), high jump (5’11”) and long jump (22′  6 1/2 “)”

Wednesday, May 18th:   Glasgow University narrowly won an inter-club contest at Westerlands last night with an aggregate of 79 points.   Victoria Park AAC were runners up with 74, Jordanhill Training College third with 52, and Shettleston Harriers fourth, 38.   CW Fairbrother (Victoria Park) the British high jump champion, was one of the outstanding competitors with a jump of 6′ 7″, only half an inch outside the Scottish record.   G McLaughlan (Victoria Park) equalled the 120 yards native hurdles record with a time of 15.3 sec.

[This was a particularly interesting match with many top class athletes competing – eg Mike Hildrey won the 100 yards, Graham Everett won the mile, Joe Connolly won the three miles, Tom McNab won the triple jump and hammer, PeterMilligan won the pole vault and Fraser Riach won the shot, discus and javelin.]

Friday, May 20th:   Shettleston Harriers beat Glasgow University select by 71 points to 66 last night at Westerlands.”

Monday, 23rd May:   Edinburgh Southern Harriers beat Victoria Park AAC by two points at Fernieside.   Six ground records were broken and one equalled.     Bellahouston Harriers beat Ayr Seaforth by 71 points to 45 at Ayr.

Wednesday, 25th May:   “Glasgow University beat Bellahouston Harriers by 109 points to 78 last night at Westerlands.   R Sykes (Bellahouston) won the shot putt (41′ 8 1/2″), the discus (124′ 5″) and the pole vault (9′).   AM Miller (University) won the 100 yards in 10.4 sec and the 220 yards in 22.5 sec, and RR Mills (University) also won two events, the 120 yards hurdles (16.1 s) and the 440 yards hurdles (57 s).”

Friday, 27th May:   “Victoria Park AAC beat Glasgow University by 58 points to 40 last night at Westerlands.   I Binnie (Victoria Park AAC), holder of records from 7 to 12 miles, took part after a long absence from the track.   He won the two miles comfortably in 9 min 55.5 sec in heavy rain.” 

[June had most club championships, some county championships and a few open meetings – the big one was the SAAA Championships at the end of the month and the inter-clubs had been well used by most of the big names to get themselves in shape, often by running distances other than their usual but also some hard racing away in relatively private conditions against other top competitors. There were never many two or three club fixtures in June.    July was the ‘holiday month’ with all the various Fair Holidays – several had the first fortnight as their annual break, others had the second two weeks and and very few clubs could field a complete team at that time of year.  If you add in the AAA’s Championships with the best athletes competing there and having to prepare on their own for the week or two beforehand, the problem was exacerbated.   So June and July were relatively free of the inter-club fixture although there were a few.]

 Tuesday, June 14th:   “Garscube Harriers beat Springburn Harriers by 108 points to 102 last night in their inter-club contest at Knightswood.   MM Campbell (Garscube) won the 100 and 220 yards in 10.4 sec and 23.6 sec and E Sinclair (Springburn) won the mile in  4 min 33.5 sec, and the two miles in 9 min 33.1 sec.”

Friday, 12th August:   “Shettleston have a contest against Edinburgh Southern Harriers tomorrow at Scotstoun.   Shettleston, who have already beaten Victoria Park and Glasgow University, out to be more than a match for Edinburgh Southern.   The Glasgow club will be without GE Everett, who will be competing at the British Games at White City, London, but Southern will be more heavily handicapped through the absence of RB Cockburn in the sprints, KD Ballantyne in the middle distance events and D McKechnie in the jumps.   These three are included in the Scottish side who are due to compete in the Belfast Highland Games.”

Monday, August 15th:   “Edinburgh Southern Harriers beat Shettleston Harriers by the narrow margin of four points (95 – 91) in their inter-club event at Scotstoun.   Each club won 9 of the 18 events.   K Skilder was a triple winner for Edinburgh Southern in the shot putt, discus and pole vault.   F Davidson (Edinburgh Southern) and R Stephen (Shettleston) each won two events.   Both relay events were won by Shettleston, W Stockton, the Scottish quarter mile champion, paving the way for his club’s win in the 4 x 440 yards.”

Monday, August 22nd:   “Bellahouston Harriers beat Springburn Harriers by 58 points to 32 in their inter-club contest at Nethercraigs.”

From Runners World:

Merv Lincoln, Miler Who Was Always Second Best, Dies at 82 | Runner’s World