Category: Uncategorized

“Undoubtedly, the SAAA Marathon was started because of pressure from the Scottish Marathon Club.”

‘A Hardy Race’ by Clyne and Youngson

Result:   1.   D McNab Robertson   2:45:39; 2.   D Wright   2:46:00; 3.   A Burnside   2:54:15.

There are separate articles about the careers of Robertson and Wright in the ‘Marathon Stars’ section of the website.

The article below appeared in the June 1985 edition of the SMC magazine and is another example of how the club capitalised on events to have its name and Scottish Marathon running generally to gain valuable publicity and, incidentally, to strengthen the bonds of friendship within the club.    The article was written by Bob Donald of Garscube Harriers who also provided the illustrations.  Incidentally Bob told me that to start with the crosses would not light at the top, so they ended up turning them up the other way and lighting the ‘wrong’ end.   Hence the positions in the photograph below!

Leaving Edinburgh Castle

Bob had a letter in the next SMC Magazine as follows:

Dear Alistair, Further to my article in the June 1985 edition of the magazine on the Fiery Cross Relay, I have come across a copy of the ‘Scots Athlete’ dated Oct/Nov 1947 in which there was an article on the same subject by team manager W Carmichael.   This article ended by listing the distances covered by each runner and gave each runner’s club so I am now able to complete the blanks in my article:

Yours sincerely

R Donald

The Arrival in London – Led by Duncan McLeod Wright!

(and the crosses are the right way up!)

The April 1984 issue of the Magazine contained an article with the above title by Alistair McFarlane and the story is indeed a fascinating one.   Although the two main figures in the club were Dunky Wright and Jimmy Scott there were others as will become apparent.   Now, on to Alistair’s story.

“This year sees the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Scottish Marathon Club so it is perhaps an opportune time to recount the story of the birth of the club.   The SMC has grown numerically from a handful of enthusiasts in 1944 to around 500 members at the present time and I am sure that many newcomers will be interested to hear of the environment in which the club was conceived and the problems of being a distance runner during the War. This article has been based on one written by John Softley in 1978 and on more recent material supplied by founder member Alex McDonald.

But first let’s hear how the late Joe Walker remembered the early days as he wrote in 1978 – ‘the first meeting of the Scottish Marathon Club was held on 14th February 1944 in the Central Halls, Bath Street, Glasgow.   My recollection of the important occasion was that I travelled by train from Stirling to Glasgow and because of the war, the black out restrictions and the dim light in the railway carriage it was impossible to read.   Travelling in the evening from places outside Glasgow was difficult and this affected the attendance.   There was no difficulty in deciding to form a club but there was considerable discussion of the conditions of membership.   It was finally agreed that all applications for membership must be first claim members of other clubs and must have experience of running in road races over 10 miles. The objective of the club was very quickly decided – to foster marathon running throughout Scotland – thus the name of the club followed logically – the Scottish Marathon Club as against the Scottish Road Runners Club.   As a consequence of the club’s objective it followed that the club would bring pressure to bear on the SAAA to organise a Scottish Championship Marathon Race.   This was done when the first of the annual championship races was held in 1946 from Falkirk to Old Meadowbank, Edinburgh.   The race was won by Donald MacNab Robertson (Maryhill Harriers) with a time of 2: 46:02.   At the first meeting of the Marathon Club Duncan McLeod Wright, Maryhill Harriers was appointed Chairman and Roddy Devon,  Motherwell YMCA, Secretary and all others present were members of the Committee.   Unfortunately the Minutes of the very early meetings of the club no longer exist nevertheless they would not tell of the background to the club’s formation, something which I hope will interest younger members.   Duncan McLeod Wright, one of Britain’s outstanding marathon runners, competitor at the 1924, 1928 and 1932 Olympic Games (finishing fourth at the latter Games), winner of the first Empire Games Marathon in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, in 1930, won one of the qualifying marathon races  to be used for selection for the 1936 Olympic Games and was advised that it would not be necessary to compete in any of the other selection races to gain his place in the British team.   Because of his age he decided to retire from competitive athletics.

When the Second World War began in 1939 he was appointed Sports Officer to a Home Guard Battalion and as a consequence became interested in keeping himself fit.   One of the ways of doing this was to gather together persons who were interested in cross country running in the winter and road running in the summer.   The enthusiasts for road running came from all over the West of Scotland and muster runs were held in Glasgow, Stirling, Greenock, West Kilbride, etc.   From his business contacts he knew many persons responsible for campaigns to collect savings for the war effort in different parts of the country and he was able to coax the organisers of these campaigns to have a road race incorporated into their publicity arrangements.   eg Stirling, Hamilton, Bridge of Allan or encourage sports promoters to incorporate a road race in their Sports Programme.   eg Shotts, Lennoxtown, Kilbarchan, Milngavie and Port Glasgow  or help to have road races such as Perth to Dundee revived.

The heavy programme of muster runs  and races each year soon wore out the soles of our sandshoes (gym shoes) which were the athlete’s normal footwear.   The replacement of these shoes required the purchase of new ones but the biggest problem was that one was required to surrended in addition clothing coupons.   Each person’s annual supply of clothing coupons was very limited and it was difficult to spread them over the normal clothing requirements without having to allocate some for additional needs.   As the War wore on it became more and more difficult for each athlete to allocate coupons for sandshoes and thus road running would soon have ceased for the duration of the War.   However Duncan managed to obtain for us replacements for our worn out sandshoes – the standard issue having brown canvas uppers with a very thin rubber or composite sole and heel.   To protect the heel Jimmy McNamara who was the oldest member of the group and a full time member of the A.R.P. obtained a supply of the pads used to reinforce the worn by Fire Brigade personnel.   The pads had to be amply smeared with vaseline otherwise the friction between the heel and the pad generated so much heat that the heel became badly blistered and if the blister burst the material of the pad adhered to the skin with very painful results.

From the foregoing it can be readily appreciated that the friendship which existed amongst the group of road running enthusiasts during the War years had naturally a desire to form a club which would enable road runners of the future to have the same kind of friendship.   As you will have gathered the late Dunky Wright was a man much admired by all and Alex McDonald takes up the story in the same vein….”there is no doubt that the resuscitation of athletics in Scotland in the middle war years was due to the dynamic enthusiasm and drive of the one and only Dunky Wright.   In 1943 he chaired a meeting to be called in Glasgow for representatives from all clubs which were still operative in the Midland and South Western Districts and, as a result, the ‘temporary’ Scottish Cross Country Association was ‘constitutionally’ formed.   ‘Temporary’ because it had pledged itself to disband as soon as the SAAA and NCCU resumed command and ‘constitutionally’ because its chief constitutional aim was to present Scottish Athletics in a healthy a state as possible to the post war era.   Perhaps the most positive indication of its success lies in the fact that in 1946 Scotland was in a position to host the first post war international cross country championships at Ayr Racecourse.

Let me make it clear that the SCCA did not of itself give birth to the Scottish Marathon Club but it was the members of that Association – again with Duncan Wright in the driving seat – who created the SMC on February 14th, 1944.   The first muster run was held from Pollokshaws Baths on 7th April 1944 and the second from Auchmountain Harriers’ (my club) pavilion in Greenock on 28th April 1944.

When I joined Auchmountain Harriers aged 17 in the 1929/1930 cross country season the ‘old timers’ of the club declared that if a runner trained oftener than three times a week he was in grave danger of going ‘stale’.    This theory had of course been exploded in the outer world and Dunky Wright was I think the first Scottish disciple of Paavo Nurmi who pioneered fast even paced running and more – much more – concentrated training but only the great ambitious enthusiasts imbibed in that practice at that time.

During the War most of us were fortunate if we could indulge in three training sessions a week and many were too tired by overtime working to attempt it.   After the War of course the Zatopek standards of dedicated perpetual slogging, the individual study of body building for the job in hand and of artificial film loops with sensible diets, etc, etc became musts for the ambitious athlete whose twice a day, six days a week training became commonplace.

One wonders what one missed?   In ’33 aged 20 I ran 10 miles at Hampden under 55 minutes, took half a minute off that in ’38 and was only 20 seconds slower in ’46.   What might I have done with today’s training and knowledge?

But I thoroughly enjoyed it all the way and met a host of great guys like Duncan Wright, Jim Morton, Joe Walker, Roddy Devon, Jimmy Scott, George Pickering, Jimmy McNamara, Andy Blair to name but a few.   Friendships such as these are far richer prizes than things that glitter.   It would have been nice to have climbed some higher mountains but the Scottish Marathon Club was – and I know still is – as great a friendship club as it is an athletic club and long may it continue that way!

Jimmy as we remember him:   the second official from the left with the clipboard in charge of the race

Jackie Foster as quoted on the front page wasn’t sure whether Jimmy had been a runner or not – well he had been!   As a member of the Glasgow YMCA club (vest: white with a red triangle front and back) and ran for them in many races including the Edinburgh to Glasgow where he ran the last leg in 1938, 1939, 1949, 1951 and 1952.    He was basically a club runner – not a star and not one who would have qualified for the rhinoceros or superman or school girls costumes favoured by many in the London marathon nowadays.   The last race that I have any information for him running was the Goat Fell on Arran in 1955.   He was a prolific racer – eg at the end of 1953 he raced on 25th July in the Ben Nevis race, on the 8th August it was the Carluke 12, 15th August saw him in the Milngavie 10, 22nd August and he was in action in the Bute HG 11 miles, 29th August and it was the Perth to Dundee 22 miles and on the 5th September he raced in the Shotts 15 miler.   Although he is best remembered as an official, he knew what runners went through and understood their needs.

He was a member of the Glasgow YMCA club – there were many YMCA clubs around at the time and some like Irvine YMCA, Motherwell YMCA, Kirkcaldy YMCA and Glasgow YMCA – operated at a fairly high level.   When he became secretary of the SMC there was a bit of friction with the YMCA that he was spending too much time on the SMC business and not enough on theirs.   They were short of members, particularly senior members, and eventually went defunct in 1955.   This solved the problem for him and eventually when he had to join a club he chose Lochaber AC.

Having been in the Army during the War he worked for the BICC in Glasgow (British Insulation Calendar Cables) and then moved to the East of Scotland for a spell before returning to the West and settling in Dalry.   He encouraged many runners such as Bob Donald to take up road running.

We know he was Secretary Treasurer of the club in 1950 because that is as far back as the extant Minute Books go and he held the post until his death in 1977.   He always had room in his car for runners and when he bought the minibus he took many more SMC members to races.   From my own point of view he took me to the Mamore Hill Race in Kinlochleven, to the Edinburgh to North Berwick, to the Dundee ASA 12 Miles and to the Brechin Right of Way race among others.   Always thinking of runners – he never battered straight through to the venue – he knew when the runners needed to eat before the race and stopped for lunch or whatever accordingly.   He had his favourite stopping places as well – the Croit Anna outside Fort William, the Four Ways at Dunblane the Green Kettle at Bridge of Orchy that I knew of.

He filled many positions at races – at some he was the race organiser from the ground up, at others he was marksman and timekeeper, at others he was the feeding stations on the route and the picture below shows him in his kilt administering first aid at the Ben Nevis Race (in which he had competed himself).

He was at the SMC Committee Meeting on 6th September 1976 and contributed as usual to proceedings with reports on races and he even agreed to be on the sub committee to advise on the McNab Robertson Trophy.   Then at the next meeting on 30th March 1977 appears the following announcement   :”Mr J Geddes opened the meeting by speaking of the great loss to the club on the 1st March when our long serving secretary and treasurer Jimmy Scott died.   J Geddes called for a period of silence before proceeding with the business.”   It was strange that his friend and the other main influence on the SMC, Dunky Wright had also died less than nine months before on 21st August 1976.   Duncan had the contacts and the charisma but Jimmy did all the real day to day work that made the club tick and it was a real blow when he died.    It was a month or two before a replacement was found and even then the job had to be split up.   The picture is of Jimmy at the start of the Perth to Dundee in 1951 – he is the one wearing number 11.

(Also in the picture are Joe McGhee (27), Charlie Robertson (3), Harry Howard (21), Gordon Porteous (7), Alex Kidd (6), Duncan McFarlane (10), Bob Donald (9) and Harry Haughie (23) among others.   The Monkland runner in the foreground in Andy Arbuckle.

 

Start of the 1988 race: Picture and article can be seen and read at www.morpethherald.co.uk .    There is also five film clips of the race, four of them of Dunky Wright winning, at http://www.britishpathe.com/workspaces/johnrosling/u6zeQAPF 

One classic road race beloved of Scottish distance runners was in England! (No, not just the London Marathon, which only started in 1981.) This was the Morpeth to Newcastle Road Race, which always took place on 1^st of January, New Year’s Day. This caused a logistical problem for the drouthier runners – how could they endure a temperate Hogmanay? Some restricted themselves to a couple of drams but some carried on as ‘normal’ and used the event as a hangover cure. However many simply deferred the pagan celebrations until after the race. The best arrangement was to drive down the day before and spend two nights in Newcastle……..

The Morpeth was the oldest road running event in the UK. It began in 1904 and attracted serious competition from all over the country. Originally the distance covered was 13.6 miles but this was later changed to 14.1 miles in 1983. Only as late as 2002 was it standardised as a half-marathon. Sadly, finance for safety precautions (i.e. the cost of policing) became a serious issue for the host club Morpeth Harriers. Tragically, the last Morpeth was run in its centenary year of 2004. There had been 90 runnings. Scots had a lot of success in the event. The most victories (seven) were recorded by Dunky Wright. Local hero Jim Alder won five times. Other notable Scottish winners were Donald Robertson, Fergus Murray, Jim Wight, Allister Hutton (the record-holder for the 14.1 mile course in 1.05.38) and Fraser Clyne.

I first competed in this famous race in 1972, running for Victoria Park AAC. We travelled down by train. I remember reading the big build-up for the favourite Jim Alder, the Geordie Scot, in the local newspaper ‘The Journal’. There was an enormous field (for that era) of 209 runners, who had to be entered by 9^th December. Most of us took the free bus from Central Station, Newcastle, out to the start, and then we left our kitbags in a van which departed for the finish, leaving us ‘warming up’ in the rain. The race started at 1.45 p.m. Once the fast men shot off, the rest of us struggled along as well as possible. My training diary noted: “Raining throughout and quite cold. Not 100% effort but legs and feet sore. Tried fairly hard. A reasonable run, considering my fitness.” Jim Wight from EAC outsprinted Jim Alder by seven seconds to win in 1.05.47. My team-mate Alastair Johnston was an excellent third in 1.05.56. I ended up 16^th (1.09.11) and Willie MacDonald was 45^th (1.13.23), well under the standard medal time of 1.14.30. Vicky Park finished third team and each of us won a frying pan worth £1! What I remember most is that the great Jim Alder, Commonwealth Marathon gold and silver medallist, modest, tough, honest and generous, actually walked his fellow Scots more than a mile to the train station, chatting away in his inimitable relentless fashion.

My next participation was in 1988. I had just become a veteran and fancied having a go at making some sort of a mark on the famous race. Aberdeen AAC sent down a decent team of Fraser Clyne, Graham Milne and myself. The start was at 1 p.m. and the route went from Castle Square, uphill along Clifton Bank, through Stanington, up the notoriously long hill of Blagdon Bank, through Gosforth and down to Town Moor, before turning in to the Civic Centre. There were 1400 starters. The leading pack soon receded into the distance, leaving me hanging on to the second group. A real problem was trying to work out if there were any other veterans in the vicinity! I spent many miles trying to spot potential rivals and eventually thought that one guy in a Derby and County vest had significant wrinkles at the back of his neck. When speeding up during the last mile, I made sure that he was behind me. Right enough, he turned out to be Anglo-Scot Alasdair Kean, a former 2.16.51 marathon runner with a PB one second slower than mine! I was delighted to finish first veteran in 19^th place (1.14.40) with Alasdair second vet, one place and ten seconds back. The Road Runners Club 1^st Class Standard was 1 hour 16 minutes, so we both won gold medals. The winner in 1.08.33 was Paul Davies-Hale from Cannock Chase, a 25 year-old Olympic steeplechaser. Fraser Clyne was tenth in 1.10.39 and Graham Milne 40^th in 1.17.42 (fifth vet). Aberdeen AAAC was pipped by four points for the team title by Bridgend Harriers. On this occasion the value of the prizes (for both 1^st Vet and 2^nd team) had gone up, compared to 1972, to £35!

Unsurprisingly, since I love Hogmanay, I did not return to the Morpeth until 1993, having entered the M45 category. I stayed in Newcastle the night before with Jimmy Bell, a friendly M45 rival from Elswick Harriers. 1071 took part. We made a cautious start into a cold headwind and attached ourselves to the third group. Dave Hill, the M40 25k World Vets 25k champion, was well ahead, and Jimmy and I assumed that we would not see him again until Newcastle. However unknown to us he had stayed up drinking until 5 a.m., got a ‘stitch’ and we passed him on the big hill at seven miles! After 13 miles I tried to surge but could not drop Jimmy. The pace increased during the last three-quarters of a mile, I got a few yards on him, made two left turns and gasped over the finish line, three seconds up. Not only 1^st M45 but 1^st veteran again! My place was 16^th, in a gold medal time of 1.15.25. Mark Hudspith of Morpeth Harriers had won the race in 1.10.24. Afterwards I enjoyed a great real ale crawl in Byker at the Ship Inn and the Cumberland Arms, with Archie Jenkins, Gordon Bell, Robin Thomas and Steve Beattie.

In 1995 I was less successful, finishing outside the first class standard in 1.16.50, fourth veteran and only second M45. However the Byker pubs allowed me to drown any fleeting regret in excellent beer.

My last Morpeth to Newcastle was in 1998. The day before I had driven down from Kemnay, near Aberdeen and had a couple of pints at The Keelman and The Bodega with my host Jimmy Bell. On race day I had a good chat with Jim Alder and then took the bus to Morpeth. 750 took part. It was important to start fast up the hill, since there was a very strong headwind in our faces the whole way. In a press photo, my Metro Aberdeen RC vest can be seen, straining to keep up with the fast men! We turned into the gale at one mile and I rested in the shelter of the second pack. Our pace was pretty slow for six miles, although it seemed tough to hang on at roundabouts and on Blagdon Bank. Only two from the group managed to escape. The final mile turned into a big tactical sprint-out, as we took turns to ‘play at Kenyans’. I finished two seconds behind Archie Jenkins (1^st M45) in 15^th place (1.21.23), but only seven seconds behind tenth place, so I was very pleased despite the slow time. 1^st M50 and fourth veteran overall. The winner was Brian Rushworth of Sunderland in 1.15.30. At the presentation, the great Jim Alder called me ‘his old mate’ before handing over my prize! Afterwards, predictably, it was off with Archie and the usual crew to Byker – The Ship, The Free Trade and the Cumberland Arms. The lasting joys of distance running!

Graeme (1) in the SAAA Championships in 1991.   He won in 9:05.5

I first met Graeme in the late 80’s when he was a member of John Radigan’s East Kilbride AAC training group along with several other very good young athletes.   He ran with several good East Kilbride Senior Men’s teams in the Edinburgh to Glasgow and switched clubs to Cambuslang Harriers in 1991 after John left to go to England for business reasons.   Graeme went on to become a very good all-round distance runner but particularly in the steeplechase where his talent stood out and he won several Scottish championships.    Before we go to his story in detail, we can look at Graeme’s replies to the questionnaire.

Name:   Graeme Croll

Club/s:   East Kilbride AAC, Cambuslang Harriers, Wolverhampton and Bilston AAC, Thames Valley Harriers and Giffnock North AAC.

Date of Birth:   1st February, 1966

Occupation:   Firefighter

Personal Bests:

How did you get involved in the sport?   I played football but could always run and run, so at 19 I thought I’d join a club and that was it!   That was in 1985 and I had run my first marathon when I was 18 in 3:16:00.   My best two years  were 1995 and 1996.   I soon found that I had a flair for the steeplechase and my times came down quite quickly winning my first Scottish title in 1988.

Has any individual or group had a marked effect on either your attitude to the sport or to individual performances?   No one in particular: I just liked to watch the top athletes and get inspired.

What exactly did you get out of the sport?   Apart from a fit and healthy lifestyle, I got to international standard and the opportunity to see a lot of countries around the world, and a bity of recognition within the athletics world.

Can you describe your general attitude to the sport?   Very positive and competitive, especially when I was at a high level.   I loved having the feeling that you were flying.   You knew you had to be selfish at times to train and achieve this.   I didn’t drink for 10 years when I was training hard.

What do you consider to be your best ever performance/performances?   I had a lot of great runs in my career and I remember them all.  The one that meant most to me has to be my first ever Scottish steeplechase title in 1988 at Crownpoint.   I had had my first Scottish vest two weeks before that where I came second taking 12 seconds from my pb.   I knew this race was it and I ran it perfectly, not hearing the spectators as I was so focused and, hitting the front with 300m to go, I took another 10 seconds from my pb to 8:51 – the first time under 9 minutes.   My other great one was the Scottish Half Marathon where I came ninth and first Scot in 64:50.   Again another perfect race.

And your worst?   My worst has to be my first London Marathon: having run  25 miles in training in 2:30, I went off too fast and hit the wall.   I still have to master the distance.

What ambitions do you have that are still unfulfilled?   There are a few regrets that I never got to the Commonwealth Games and I wish I had found athletics at an earlier age as I think I could have knocked on the Olympic Door???   Ambitions have changed now with age as I have taken up the triathlon and want to get the pb’s down for that as I’m still competitive.

What did you do apart from running to relax?   Just the usual: out for good food, DIY, sunbathing (when we had sun!)

What did running bring you that you would have wanted not to miss?   A fit and healthy lifestyle, the competition between your club mates and rivals and seeing the world.

Can you give some details of your training?   I was never a high mileage athlete but focused on quality.   During the summer, I would be 35 0 40 miles per week max and would up that to around 50 in the winter months.   When I did marathon training I would go up to 70, any more I found too hard.   I have kept a diary of all my training since 1986 and it is nice to look back over the good and bad times.

Graeme Croll was a first class endurance runner with six Scottish steeplechase championships and one at 10000m to his credit, he was also very good on the road and over the country with many gold medals to prove the point.   He also picked up Scottish representative honours in all three disciplines.    He was unfortunate to be running at the same time as Scotland’s best ever steeplechaser (Tom Hanlon who is still twelve second plus ahead of the second on the all-time list) but Graeme is above Alistair Blamire, John Linaker, Lachie Stewart and Bill Mullett.   With several places in the top ten at the National Cross-Country Championships, he would ten years earlier have run in the World Championships: unfortunately all his best running over the country was done after the four home countries had been merged into a single British team.   His quality is undeniable.

He started his athletics with East Kilbride AAC on the outskirts of Glasgow and quickly proved his worth.   While there he ran in four Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay teams between 1985 and 1988 and there was no East Kilbride team in the 1989 race.   He was selected to run on the very difficult second stage against all the top runners from the top twenty clubs in the country.   At barely twenty years old and totally inexperienced, the first race was a very big task but he ran well enough to maintain fourteenth place for his club.   A year later in 1986 he dropped two places but 1987 was really difficult.   The very good Ian Archibald led the field on the first stage leaving the young Graeme totally exposed just ten seconds clear of runners such as Calum Murray, Ian Hamer, Peter McColgan and Chris Robison.   He dropped to ninth but actually did well in limiting the damage to that extent.   The following year he was bold enough to tackle the second leg for the fourth time and actually improved his club position from thirteenth to eleventh with eighth fastest time of the day and one of the two men he caught was Ian Hamer.   The club was not in the event the following year and his next appearance in the event was to be for Cambuslang Harriers in 1990.   His progress over the country was just as marked.   In February 1987 he ran into thirty sixth place to be third East Kilbride runner (Ian Archibald was fourteenth) in a team which finished nineteenth.   The year later he did not run but in 1989 on that dreadful day at Wilton Lodge in Hawick with snow everywhere and no firm footing anywhere he was sixty ninth but very few ran to their ability that year!   His last run for EKAAC in the National was in 1990 when he was twenty first over the Beach Park Course in Irvine.   His track running also showed signs of improvement and he won his first SAAA steeplechase title in 1988.  He had been asked soon after he joined the club if he would like to run the steeplechase for East Kilbride in the Scottish Men’s League, he did and ran at Wishaw finishing with a time outside 10 minutes but he had enjoyed it.  He moved to Cambuslang Harriers in March 1990 and although he competed for several other clubs (two in England and currently he is running for Giffnock North) that is the club to whom he gave his best years and with which he will always be associated.

*

1990 was a good year for Graeme.   He set a Division Two of the Men’s League record for the steeplechase of 8:52.8 and a week later he won the West District Championships steeplechase with 8:56.7.  He set his personal best for the 800m of 1:56 in June – that remained his personal best despite it being clear to all that he could have been much quicker.   He just did not run mny at all. There were two representative outings in July: on the 24th he was in Vienna where he did not run too well and was seventh in 8:52 but one week later on a trip to Iceland for the match against Iceland and Ireland he won the steeplechase in 9:09.   The [poor time is down to a poor flight over, poor accommodation in a dormitory where some athletes used sleeping bags and not a nice day for the meet itself.   Still, a win is a win.   He was running a series of Sri Chinmoy races on Glasgow Green with Adrian Callan and it was suggested that he turn out for Wolverhampton and Bilston AAC in England in the British League as several other Scots were doing at the time.   He did and turned out for them in August in the GRE Gold Cup Final where he was third in the steeplechase in a new pb of 8:48.9.   That was cut down to 8:48.0 in August at the Inter District match at Grangemouth.   On 29th August he took part in a quite extraordinary paced 3000m at Crown Point where the first eight were between 8:05 and 8:09 with Graeme fifth in 8:07.   Placed runners were David Donnet (1), John MacKay (2), Robert Fitzsimmons (3), Adrian Callan (4), Graeme Croll (5), Peter Fleming (6), Billy Coyle (7), Bobby Quinn (8).   Graeme travelled to Ayr for the half marathon in September where he ran a very good pb of 66:57 for fifth place.   In November 1990 he ran the fourth stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow and taking over in fifth which was his highest ever position in the event, he held the position.      The club, having won the Scottish Championship was invited to the European Clubs Championship in France and finished a quite outstanding sixth.   Graeme was the top Cambuslang man home when he crossed the line in 30th place to be followed by Charlie Thomson (34th), Eddie Stewart (35th), Jim Orr (43rd), Doug Runciman (47th) and Stephen Wyllie (54th).   The race was won by one of the Castro twins in 31:38 with Graeme not far behind in 33:34.    On 23rd March 1991 he ran in the Six Stage Road Relay and running on the fifth stage he moved up from third to second but the team fell back again to fourth and out of the medals.   .In February 1991 he finished in ninth position in the National in a tight finish: it was his first time in the top ten and he was timed at 40:06, Chris Hall (DHH) was 40:07, George Braidwood was 40:08 and Charlie Thomson 40:09!   The team was first and he had a gold team medal for the first time in a National championship.

In summer 1991 Graeme won his second SAAA Steeplechase title in 9:05.50

In the first of the major winter events in 1991 – 1992, the National Cross Country Relay in October, he was not in the A Team but he was clearly the fastest in the B Team and seventh fastest of all the teams in the event that day.  Came  the E-G and Graeme ran the sixth stage on which he again maintained his position: this time he was third at both change-overs and the team picked up to second and he got his second major team medal.   He improved his position in the National yet again and this time he was sixth finisher and the team was first.    Then on 28th March 1992 in the Six Stage Relay, Graeme was fourth fastest long stage of the day and the team finished third.

The national rankings for summer 1992 had Graeme fourth in the 3000m list with a time of 8:00.1 and second in the 3000m steeplechase behind Tom Hanlon with 8:44.4 run at Grangemouth on 30th August.   he also ran 8:51.88 at Meadowbank on 2nd August, 8:52.07 at Meadowbank on 4th July and 9:06.04 at Sheffield on 6th June.   In the SAAA Steeplechase in 1992 he was second to the Englishman Wayne Aylesbury which gave him a silver to add to his two gold medals already won.   His finishing time was 8:52.07 with George Matheson (ESH) third in 8:57.58

In the National Relay in October, 1992, Cambuslang were once again first team with new man Tommy Murray turning in the fastest time of the day on the first stage and Graeme being fourth fastest overall.   In the E-G, it was back to his old favourite from his East Kilbride days – the second stage in the 1992 Edinburgh to Glasgow but this time he moved the club up from third to second but there were to be no medals that year.   He missed the National in 1993 but in the Six Stage Road Relay he ran the third (short) stage and ran the fourth fastest of the day moving the club up to third from sixth and helping it to second place and silver this time.

1993 saw Graeme win the SAAA steeplechase in 8:53.1 and it would be the first of four consecutive championship wins.  The ‘Glasgow Herald’ said  “It was a runaway steeplechase win”  and runaway it was with the second man (Billy Jenkins of Glenpark) finishing in 9:07.07.

Graeme ran on the last stage of the National four-man cross-country relay in October, 1993, and he was asked to run the sixth stage in the E-G when he held on to eighth place and saw the club move up to bronze medal winning position by the finish.  At the end of January 1994 he was second to Tommy Murray in the West Disstrict Championships at Linwood with his club winning the team race.   The National Cross-Country Championships in 1994 saw what might well have been his best ever race when he placed third in 33:13 (behind Chris Robison in 32:45 and Tommy Murray in 33:06) with Cambuslang winning the team race again and adding to his gold collection. Graeme appeared in both British and Scottish ranking lists at the end of another good summer on road and especially track.   His flat 3000m time of 8:10.32i (second in the Scottish Indoor Championship to Chris Robison) ranked him seventh in Scotland and sixteenth in Britain, his best steeplechase was 8:49.00 finishing ninth at Sheffield on 12th June  which ranked him second in Scotland and thirteenth in the UK.    He also had runs at 8:50.30 at at Sheffield when he was second in the second Heat of the AAA’s Championships,8:53.26 when he won his second consecutive steeplechase at Meadowbank 8:54.50 in May when finishing second in the Small Nations international at Istanbul, 8:56.5 when finishing first at Grangemouth and 8:59.10 at Meadowbank on 8th July.   The Statistical Year book said, after commenting n Tom Hanlon’s really excellent steeplechasing,”Graeme Croll was one of the others under 9 minutes but failed to dip under 8:40 as expected.”

In the National Cross Country Championship Relay in 1995, the team finished second but Graeme was still well up the field with fourth fastest time.   It was bronze for Cambuslang in the Edinburgh to Glasgow with Graeme again holding his position – this time he took over in third and handed over in third.   In the National in February 1995 he was again third in the National Cross-Country Championships – this time behind Keith Anderson (an Anglo only recently signed by Cambuslang) and Chris Robison but ahead of Adrian Callan, Tommy Murray and John Robson.   The team was again first to close in.   In the Six Stage in March he ran the second (long) stage and had fourth fastest time of the day moving the team from fourth to first.   Graeme was never a big mileage runner and for the eight weeks from the start of February in 1995 he covered60, 70, 73, 68, 51, 79, 67 and 70 miles.

 On the 26th March he went to Alloa where he was second to Stephen Wyllie in 67:37 – just one week before the London Marathon.   “I was a bit naive!” he said and the result was a 2:46 London Marathon.   He had been going well and had sponsorship from Asics who had put him up in the Tower Hotel in London and he could almost certainly have run better than he did.  Later in the year, Graeme had possibly the best competitive week end of his life at the SAAA Championships in late June..   On the Friday night he ran in and won the SAAA 10000m in 29:50.69, and then he went out in the steeplechase the following afternoon – and won that as well, this time in 9:00.98.    The Statistical Yearbook said of the 10000m victory, “The National Championship race emphasised its position as the most important race of the season when six of the seven fastest times of the season were achieved with with the three medallists all under 29:56.   However when 29 year old steeplechaser Graeme Croll, out on a Friday night warm-up for his speciality the following day, wins the Scottish title from long distance specialists the lack of achievement in this lack-lustre event is cruelly emphasised.”   The truth was probably that the other steeplechasers, knowing how good he was at that point, just showed him too much respect.  One of the men who finished behind him in the Glasgow race said, “We all knew that he had run the night before and we all knew that he couldn’t have fully recovered. But we all sat back and no one would push it out.   We were all waiting for a medal and when Graeme took off we weren’t able to do anything about it.   Someone should have pushed it early on.”   However it worked, he had his third championship in a row!   Doug Gillon wrote it up in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ on 26th June, as follows: “Graeme Croll won the steeplechase for the third successive year, completing a unique championship double and laying claim to the title of the iron man of Scottish athletics.   Less than 19 hours earlier the Cambuslang man had won the 10000m title.   He now plans to run in the ‘chase at the AAA championships so long as he can get time off work.”   For the record he won the 10000m by six seconds from S Wright of Gateshead.    In 23rd July at Sheffield he ran his fastest time of the summer – 8::40.49 when finishing second and that time was enough to make him number seven in the British Rankings.  He also featured in the British rankings for 3000m (8:23.4 for 71st), 5000m (14:17.3 for 43rd) and his winning time in the SAAA event placed him 21st in the 10000m rankings.   At the end of summer of 1995, Graeme was ranked at 21st in the 1500m with a time of 3:52.5 run at Crown Point in August: it was the first time for many a year that he was rated at the shorter (for him) distance.   The 3000m time was again a noteworthy performance – a paced race had been set up at Crown Point with Adrian Callan and himself the intended beneficiaries of the pace to be carried by John MacKay and Billy Coyle of Shettleston.   Adrian, unusually for him, dropped out and Graeme carried on for a time of 8:05 with four-lap splits of 4:26, 4:32 and 4:32 plus that last 200.    Although he had no coach as such, he had been advised that year by Scottish Staff Coach Gordon Crawford.   At ten miles he was ranked eighth with 49:45when winning at Millport on 10th September – not many have broken 50 minutes at Millport and the race at that time was billed as just over 10 miles, so it was a very good mark, with the 5 mile time being 25:35.   As if to emphasise his good form that year, he was second in the Glasgow University Road Race on 12th November when he was second in 22:30.  Glen Stewart equalled the course record with a time of 22:18 and Tommy Murray was third in 22:50.   His best half-marathon was 67:37 when finishing second in the Alloa race in March.   Also in the 1995 Road Race Rankings, he was eighth in the 10K with 29:51 which he ran at Cumbernauld in May.

 Into the winter of 1995-96 and  the good vein of form continued.  Cambuslang was third in the National Relays with Graeme the seventh fastest time overall .   Then on the long sixth stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow he moved up a place from third to second where he had equal fastest time with Phil Mowbray and the team took silver.   In the National there was a slight drop in his finishing position when he was ninth and saw his club finish second to Leslie Deans.  In March 1996 he did not run in the Six Stage Road Relay and the team finished fourth and out of the medals. he did run in the BAF Cross-Country Championships and World Trials at Ashington County Durham on 3rd March where he finished a creditable forty seventh.

 In summer 1996 Graeme was not ranked at 3000m, 5000m or 10000m and his steeplechase time was considerably slower than the year before.   He had the top two times in the rankings ahead of Tom Hanlon (9:00.03) with 8:51.34 at Meadowbank in June and 8:52.2 when winning at Crown Point in August.   In May 1996, Graeme was second in the Polaroid Helensburgh 10K in a pb for the distance of 29:35 which by the end of the season had ranked him fifth fastest in the country: a good start to the year.   He won his fourth SAAA steeplechase title, this time in 9:04.4.   Having won it in 1991, then again in ’93, ’94, ’95 and ’96 and having been second to the Englishman in 1992, he had come very close to six wins in succession.   The statisticians had this to say:Graeme Croll’s best was almost 11 seconds slower than in 1995 but he was the only Scot to better 9:00 for this event.   Croll won his sixth national title, equalling Linaker’s record for the event, with his nearest challenger over 20 seconds behind”   In August he turned in a time of  9:08 for a Sri Chinmoy Two Miles at Glasgow Green when finishing second to Adrian Callan and had good 5Kwith a time of 14:30 when winning at East Kilbride. On August 18th he travelled down to Leyland with Chris Robison for the ten miles and ran 49:38.  He went further up the rankings as the distances increased and he was second fastest half-marathon runner with 64:51 run in the Glasgow event where he was eighth.

This Half Marathon was possibly his best ever run.  Run on 25th August with a huge field he finished first of all the talented Scots who ran and the pictures below show how relaxed he was at the finish – no strain or fatigue obvious from the way he was running.   His father, Hugh, who had run for Victoria Park at one time, was there at the ten miles point and cheered Graeme on, following him down the road to give as much encouragement as he could.

Graeme’s Glasgow Half Marathon, 1996 – almost finished

Picture by Ian Watson

In November 1996 he was out on the long, exposed sixth stage of the relay and pulled the club up from fourth to third and the team was out of the medals in fourth.  At the end of the season in the National he was again in the first ten when he crossed the line in fourth place behind Robison, John Downes (an Irishman from Salford) and Bobby Quinn and immediately ahead of Tommy Murray and Keith Anderson whom he beat in the National for the first time.   The fact that Downes was an Irishman living in the North of England was roundly criticised by the cognoscenti but he was allowed to run.    The following summer (1997) started with the half-marathon at Reading where he was ninth in a time of 66:00 on March 16th and two weeks later on 30th March he won the Alloa Half-Marathon in 66:35.   In April he turned out for Thames Valley Harriers in the 12 Stage Relay, running the fourth stage in 23:05 which was the same time as Olympian and London Marathon winner Eamonn Martin.   Also in April he ran half of the London Marathon in 67:30 and stayed at the front of the race for the first five miles.   Graeme appeared in none of the track ranking lists for the year, not even the steeplechase, and with Tom Hanlon basically out of the event (he only ran one and that was in 9:02), no Scot was under 9 minutes for the event.

Winter 1997/98 saw the National Four Stage Relay in Dundee won by Mizuno with a weakened Cambuslang, minus Graeme Croll, finish down at twelfth.   The Edinburgh – Glasgow in November was also without Graeme and the team was down in fourth place.   Graeme was down in forty sixth place in the National in 1998 – by far his lowest for many years.   He continued to run well again and was anchor man for the team which was third in the Six Stage in March.   In summer 1998, Graeme was again missing from the steeplechase rankings but was at number twenty one in the 5000m with a time of 14:37.5when winning at Grangemouth in May.   He also had a 14:50.2 at Crown Point in Glasgow in June in a BMC Regional Race where he was second.   On the roads he appeared again in the ten limes where he was third with a time of 49:31 at Newry, Ireland in late September, and the half-marathon, ninth with 68:08 at Glasgow in August.

Graeme missed the Four Stage in October, 1998, and the Edinburgh to Glasgow in November, the National in February 1999 and the Six Stage Relay.   That summer he again failed to run in the steeplechase and it was obvious that he had run his lest in the event that he had graced for so long.   He was not even ranked in road races in summer 1999 and the Power of 10 website, which is notoriously incomplete but usually manages to get most of the big things right, does not have a race recorded for him between 1998 and 2004.   That doesn’t tell the whole truth though

Back in cross-country action he ran the fourth stage in the Four Stage National Relays in October 1999 in a team which, although crossing the line in fifth place, was promoted to fourth after Inverclyde was disqualified.   In the Edinburgh to Glasgow, the team finished fourth with Graeme on the fourth stage where he held third place with equal third fastest time.   At the National Championship in February he was placed seventeenth and was a member of the Cambuslang winning team.   In the Six Stage he ran the last leg for the club’s winning team with fifth fastest time on the last stage and in summer 2000 he was ranked twenty fifth for the 10K with a time of 31:26 run at Glasgow on 3rd September and twenty first for the half marathon when he turned in a time of 71:56 for the Alloa race in March..

In the Winter 2000 – 2001, Four Stage Relay, Graeme ran on the fourth stage for the first team which finished fifth at Falkirk; he ran a time of 13:31 which was the fastest for the club but could only lift it up one place.   In the E-G in November he was out on the sixth stage for the second placed Cambuslang, having taken over in second, he held the position with the fifth fastest time on the stage.      In 2001 the Cambuslang team was second in the National Cross-Country Championship behind Hunters Bog Trotters but Graeme was not a member of the winning team.   On the roads in 2001, Graeme was nineteenth in the 10K with 31:35 which he ran at Alexandria in the final Polaroid race, he  ran in the 10 miles at Lytham and was placed sixth with his time of 51:54 and twelfth in the half marathon with 69:21at East Kilbride in June.   The next few years were lean years and Graeme missed more National Championship team races than he started.   The following season started with Graeme absent from both the four-stage cross-country relay and the Edinburgh-Glasgow and into 2002 where he was again missing at the time of the National and also the Six-Stage Road Relay.   Nor is there any record of him running during the summer of 2002.   Graeme was also posted missing at the start of season 2002-2003, being absent from the four-stage national cc relays and from the last ever Edinburgh to Glasgow over a new course that wended its way through country parks and back alleys as well as the occasional piece of road when no better surface could be found.   and after Christmas, he again missed both Championships.    In the winter of 2003 – 2004 he did not run in any of Cambuslang’s five teams in the National Relay Championships in October and of course there was no Edinburgh to Glasgow any more; in February 2004 he missed the National but in April he was out on the first stage of the Six Stage Road Relays where he finished fourth with a time in the first six on the afternoon for the short stage.   The team was third and Graeme had his first National medal for several years.

Summer 2004 saw the return to racing of Graeme Croll.   On 7th March he travelled to St Anne’s for the Firefighters 10 where clocked 55:39 and on 8th May he turned out in the Dick Wedlock Firefighters 10K in Pollock Park with second place in 32:53.   On 17th June in the Greaves Sports Running Festival 10K in Rouken Glen Park in Glasgow he was fifth in 34:46.   IN the World Firefighter Games International Half Marathon in Worksop on 31st August he was third in 72:49.   None of these were great times but he was back and as a V35.

Winter 2004 – 2005 he was not in any of Cambuslang’s five teams in the National Four Stage Cross-Country Relay.   At Christmas he won the Strathclyde Police and Fire Service Christmas Handicap over a 5 mile trail at Lochinch in 25:20.   Again missing the National in February, 2005,    Back in the first team for the Six Stage Relay in March, Graeme was fifth on the first stage but close enough up for the team to be in front by the third stage and eventually win the race. giving him another gold team medal for his collection.   That summer he was again racing on the roads with better times than the previous year.   On 6th March he was again at St Annes for the 10 miler and timed this year at 54:47 (almost a minute up on last year), On 15th May he was in the Firefighters 10K International at Lochinch and won in 32:26 (almost half a minute up).   On 16th June he was in the Greaves Sports 10K in Rouken Glen again and this time he ran 34:13 (half a minute faster).   And on 4th September he tackled the Great Scottish Run Half Marathon in Glasgow where he clocked 76:32.   He came into the 2005 – 2006 cross-country season in better fettle than the previous winter but he seems to have sworn off cross-country, probably as an injury prevention measure.   He was, however, out in the Six Stage, this time running the long stage two and held on to fifth place in the team that finished third giving him another national team medal.   In his final summer as a V35, Graeme was again back on the road.   In March it was the St Annes 10 Miles where he was fifth in 55:25, then in May at The Dick Wedlock International Firefighters 10K he won in 33:08, a month later it was the Greaves Sports 10K in Rouken Glen where he was fourth in 33:48 and in August he ran a Track 5000m in the Scottish Men’s League 16:06.9 .   Although he clearly still had a lot to give, he transferred allegiance to Giffnock North AC in his first year as a V40.

Graeme’s first year as a V40 and as a member of Giffnock North, was his most active on the track for some time, but his first run for his new team was the six-stage road relay in March when he ran on the final (long) stage and pulled them fron ninth to seventh place.   On the 22nd April, 2007, he ran at Grangemouth in the Scottish Men’s League Division One match at Grangemouth in the 5000m where he was first in the B string race in 15:44.2 before going back on to the roads on 12th May for the International Firefighters Dick Wedlock 10K race at Lochinch which he won in 33:29.   Into June and at the Greaves Sports 10K in Rouken Glen he an into second place in 33:34.   On the track there were two more races that summer – both in the Scottish men’s League: on 24th June at Grangemouth he was third in the 5000m in 16:00.26 and on 5th August at East Kilbride in the Central & Southern League he was second in the 3000m in 9:30.04.    In 2008 however his best runs were all on the road he started the year with twelfth (and third vet) in the Jack Crawford Open 10K at Springburn in 34:53 and that set him up for the National Championships a month later where he was seventy fifth finisher over the Falkirk course.   On 12th June it was again the Rouken Glen 10K where he was sixth finisher and first vet in 34:43.   Two weeks later he was back in East Kilbride for the Calderglen Harriers 10K Trail Race where he was third in 36:46.   His summer season ended with the Great Scottish Run Half Marathon in which he was third veteran to finish in the very good time of 76:40.

2009 was his busiest year for a long time with ten races being included in the Power of Ten lists.   He turned out in the Renfrewshire County Five Mile Championships in February where he was fifth and first vet in 26:13.   On 22nd March he ran in a race that he seemed to like, the Alloa Half Marathon, and finished eighth and first vet in 74:11.   On 12th April in the Tom Scott memorial Road Race over ten miles he was fourteenth and, again, first vet in 54:18.   Then there were two races in four days in May – on the sixth he he ran the Troon Tortoises 10K (seventh and first vet) in 33:30 and on the ninth in the International Firefighters Dick Wedlock 10K race he was first in 31:19, and at the end of the month he tackled the Edinburgh Marathon (not known for fast times) where he ran 2:59:29.   On 26th June he returned to the Calderglen Harriers 10K Trail Race where he was third and first vet in 36:56.On 6th September he again raced the Great Scottish Run Half Marathon where he was third vet in 74:16..    Then right at the end of the year he turned out in his club’s Christmas 4.8 miles which he won in 26:23.   Ten races, six first vet prizes, one first outright victory and a third vet’s award.   Seven out of ten isn’t too bad!

There were only two ranked races in 2010 – the Alloa Half marathon where he was eleventh and second vet in 75:15.   That was in March and then the Greaces Sports 10K where he was third and first vet in 34:30.   In 2011 Graeme ran in the Polaroid 10K in Clydebank where he was timed at 44:27 (???) in May and the Polaroid 10K at the Vale of Leven in June where he was timed at 38:51.   In November he ran in the Bellahouston 10K where he was fourth vet with a time of 36:18 and then at the end of November in the Renfrewshire Cross Country Championships he was third vet and fourteenth overall.

UK Championships at Crystal Palace, 1997

Where too now for Graeme Croll?   He’s looking fit and clearly enjoying his sport – which is just turning out to be triathlon.   He just kept getting wee niggly injuries but he could swim (at one point he worked in a swimming pool) and had always been a leisurely cyclist so he looked at the triathlon and did a sprint one in 1911 at Tighnabruaich and found that there were several other runners involved in this event and has decided to carry on with it.   He now has a better running base than he had last year and intends doing three sprint triathlons and two Olympic triathlons this year with the final one being in the World Firefighters Games in Australia.   Watch for the results.   I asked about hill running as an option but he had just run one – at Conic Hill, Balmaha – and hadn’t enjoyed the experience and has no intention of taking it up regularly.

That’s Graeme career so far and when you look at the various times that he ran – well sub-50 minutes for the 10 miles plus at Millport, 66 for the half-marathon and maybe especially the 8:05 for the 3000m – then his times for the steeplechase might have been a bit quicker.   After the enthusiastic John Radigan left East Kilbride and moved to England, Graeme never had a coach although he did some sessions with Alex Naylor’s squad and in 1996 he was mentored or advised by Gordon Crawford, a very good coach and a steeplechaser himself who after a spell as Scottish Staff Coach for the Steeplechase,  moved to other forms of sport including training and fitness work with professional rugby teams including the Scottish National squad.   Friendly, well-liked by those in the sport, Graeme has written himself into the record books and history of the sport.

Alistair Blamire , Number 30, leads with Fergus Murray directly behind

Alistair Blamire was a superbly talented all-round distance runner who is seriously under-rated.   Whether it were on the roads or the track, over the country or the hills, he ran well.   He ran well in individual races and also in team events such as the Edinburgh to Glasgow.   Had he been running in the twenty first century he would have been a real stand out.   As an athlete he came from good stock.   His father, JR Blamire,  had won the Inter-Scholastic Under 14 100 yards in 11.6 seconds and 300 yards in 41.2 in 1928  and his uncle, G Blamire, won the 300 yards in 1930 in 41.6.   For times by 13 year olds these are still very good times.   The following profile has been written by his good friend and rival, Colin Youngson.   Colin writes:

“Athletics Weekly” on January 17^th 1970 included “Who’s Who in British Athletics” featuring a successful steeplechaser. The questionnaire was answered as follows.

Full name: James Robert Alistair Blamire.

Born in Edinburgh on 13^th of July 1946.

Height: 5 feet 10 inches; Weight 130 lbs.

Pulse at rest: 52-55.

Student of architecture.

Clubs: Edinburgh University AC; Shettleston Harriers.

No coach: (advised by Frank Horwill as a junior).

Lives at Kirkconnel (Dumfriesshire).

‘Always had a great interest in athletics as a boy and began training seriously in April 1963.’

tarted at 880 yards and mile; favourite event now is cross-country.

Best marks:

440 yards – 54.1 (1964)

880 yards – 1.57.0 (1965)

1500m – 3.51.1 (1969)

Mile – 4.14.6 (1965)

3000m – 8.10 (1969)

2 miles – 8.53.4 (1969)

3 miles – 13.37.0 (1968)

5000m – 14.07.2 (1969)

6 miles – 29.26 (1968)

marathon – 2.29.47 (1967)

3000m steeplechase – 8.41.4 (1969)

Annual progress at mile, 3 miles and steeplechase:

1962 – 4.50.2

1963 – 4.30.1

1964 – 4.20.9, 15.10.0, 4.23.2 (1500m SC)

1965 – 4.14.6, 14.34, 9.31 (3000m steeplechase)

1966 – 4.14.7, 14.16.8, 9.27.4

1967 – 4.22.7, 14.16.8, 9.32.6

1968 – 4.18.4, 13.37.0, 9.08.6

1969 – 3.51.1 (1500m), 14.07.2 (5000m), 8.41.4

GB International (3000m steeplechase) 1969

A modest looking Scottish Schools champion

Most pleasing performance: “breaking the Scottish Schools 1500m steeplechase record by 12 seconds in 1964”. Most likes: “winning and setting personal bests and also that it is an individual’s sport in which performance is dependent to a large extent on oneself”. Dislikes: “injuries and the mental staleness which seems to affect me every track season”.

Alistair (1) and Ian Gilmour (3)

John Keddie had some more to add in his centenary history of the SAAA. He makes clear that, on 28^th June 1969 at Grangemouth, Alistair Blamire’s SAAA silver medal-winning 8.46.2, (which was the same time recorded by the gold medallist, British champion Gareth Bryan-Jones), was a Scottish Native Record (which lasted for 9 years), since Gareth was Welsh by birth (but Scottish by residence). Earlier in the year Alistair had beaten Gareth’s championship best in the British Universities Championships at Motspur Park, with a time of 8.50.6, which stood for 32 years. In addition, Alistair’s best-ever mark of 8.41.4 on 2^nd August 1969, when fourth in the AAA Championships at the White City, was a Scottish National Record. (Although Blamire defeated Bill Mullett (Brighton and Hove / Shettleston H) on that occasion, and at the SAAA, it was the Anglo-Scot who gained revenge by setting the season’s final Scottish National Record with 8.40.8 on 1st September, when they both competed for GB against France at the White City) Keddie wrote: “In many respects these were palmy days for Scottish steeplechasing, since between 1966 and 1969 Scotland could point to no less than five steeplechasers – Lachie Stewart, John Linaker, Gareth Bryan-Jones, Alistair Blamire and Bill Mullett – who attained full British representation.” In that peak track running year of 1969, Alistair Blamire also raced well in Brno, Czechoslovakia and Verona, Italy; and averaged an impressive 8.46.4 for his eight steeplechases.

Competition for the Scottish team to take part in the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh must have been intense. Sadly, illness affected Alistair Blamire (he was diagnosed with a chronic stomach illness in late 1969, which affected his training and led to inconsistency in his performances for the remainder of his running career) – in the end only Gareth Bryan-Jones was selected. In fact Blamire does not appear in the Scottish Athletics Yearbooks for seasons 1970 and 1971.

However Alistair made a steeplechase comeback in 1972. Despite representing Shettleston Harriers, he became East District champion; and then Scottish Champion (at Meadowbank on 24^th June in 8.58.4); before adding a season’s best by winning at the same venue on 29^th July of 8.56.8. In 1973, Alistair Blamire ran consistently well all season, although he narrowly lost his SAAA title to Bill Mullett. Nevertheless, Alistair’s 8.43.8, achieved at Crystal Palace on 13^th July, was top of the Scottish rankings for the season. Unfortunately, this was not enough to secure selection for the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games.

Subsequently, Alistair’s track form tailed off. Representing ESH, he was third in the 1974 SAAA. In 1975 he tried the Scottish Marathon instead, finishing a distant sixth,  in 2.26.20. This was a considerable disappointment as he had had some success at the half marathon distance, finishing fourth, third and second in three successive attempts at the Morpeth to Newcastle road  race. He seems to have retired after 1978.

Now this section of the website is devoted to Scottish steeplechasers. My opinion is that the key statement in the AW questionnaire above is: “favourite event – cross-country”. Although there is no doubt that Alistair Blamire was a very good steeplechaser, his athletic career was much more varied.

By the time I made his acquaintance, this apparently fragile athlete with steely determination was part of the all-conquering Edinburgh University cross-country squad who annihilated all opposition at Scottish University, British University and Scottish National levels. On the track, I remember watching him engaging in very close 3 mile battles with his EU rival Ian Young (Springburn H); and winning both the 5000m and the steeplechase at the1969 Rowland Shield, which involved runners from 14 Scottish and English Universities at Maiden Castle Sports Centre in Durham.

Alistair Blamire’s cross-country progress had been very impressive. The record book shows that he finished ninth in his first attempt at the Scottish Junior National CC Championships in 1965, third counter in a winning Edinburgh University Hare and Hounds Club. His team-mates were Roger Young, Ian Young and Jim Wight. In 1966 EU could only managed third team, but this time Alistair won individual bronze, behind Ian McCafferty (Motherwell YMCA) and Eddie Knox (Springburn). Finally in 1967 he finished a close second to the brilliant Eddie Knox, who shortly afterwards won gold at the ICCU Junior CC in Barry, Wales. In his centenary history of the SCCU, Colin Shields wrote of the Scottish Junior National race: “This was the closest of the day, with Eddie Knox and Alistair Blamire locked together throughout the five mile race. Neither would give way, whatever the pressure applied by the other until, in the final 100 yards, Knox forced his way ahead for a narrow 1 second victory over Blamire. The Edinburgh student, however, had the satisfaction of leading his team-mates to a win over Shettleston and Springburn, giving Edinburgh University a double triumph (they had also won the Senior team title) only ever achieved in modern times by Victoria Park.” Edinburgh had already won the BUSF team championship that year, when they defeated Oxford, Cambridge and London Universities at Parliament Hill Fields, London, emulating the victory of the 1950 Edinburgh team. Alistair ran for the Scottish Senior team in the ICCU race in Barry.

In 1968, Alistair Blamire produced perhaps his most memorable race – in the Scottish National Senior CC, which was the last to be held at Hamilton Racecourse. Colin Shields summed it up in this way. “With Ian McCafferty’s wedding being held on the same day as the National Championship, Lachie Stewart (Vale of Leven AAC) started favourite to score a repeat victory in the Senior race. But he did not have it all his own way, for Alistair Blamire, runner-up in the 1967 Junior championship and one of the most improved runners of the year, gave him a determined challenge throughout the race. The pair were neck and neck throughout the entire seven and a half mile race, with Stewart gaining his expected win only in the last few strides to finish one second clear of the gallant Blamire……..Edinburgh University won their third team championship in a row by the narrowest possible margin of one point from Aberdeen AAC. The places of the two teams were as follows: 1) EUH&H (Alistair Blamire 2, Gareth Bryan-Jones 10, Dave Logue 13, Ian Hathorn 19, Alex Wight 24, Jim Wight 25) Total 93 points. 2) Aberdeen AAC (Mel Edwards 9, Bill Ewing 14, Peter Stewart 16, Alastair Wood 17, Steve Taylor 18, Joe Clare 20) Total 94 points.” Once again, Alistair Blamire won a Scottish vest for the ICCU Championships, this time in Tunis.

Alistair seemed to peak for the Scottish National CC most years. Recovering from a collapsed lung, he could only manage 18^th in 1969; but was back near his best in 1970, to finish fourth, not long after becoming the East District CC champion. Then in 1971 at Bellahouston he was a close second to the formidable defending champion Jim Alder (EAC) after a race-long battle, with the 1969 winner, Dick Wedlock (of the all-conquering Shettleston Harriers) a distant third.

Although Alistair Blamire had run for EUH&H in the National, having previously won the 1971 Scottish Universities CC individual title, he represented his club, Shettleston Harriers, on one of the greatest days of their long history. A newspaper report from March 1971 has the headline: BLAMIRE LEADS SCOTS TO CROSS-COUNTRY WIN. “Shettleston Harriers won the English National Cross-Country title at Norwich yesterday – the first Scottish club to win the championship since Victoria Park in 1952. The Scottish champions were led home by Alistair Blamire in 11^th place, and had a total of 282 points. Lachie Stewart, the Commonwealth Games 10,000 metres gold medallist finished 19^th. The other Shettleston placings were: Dick Wedlock (24), Norman Morrison (32), Henry Summerhill (65) and Tom Grubb (131). The race was won by David Bedford, a 21 year-old London sales clerk, with a time of 47 minutes 4 seconds for the 9-mile course.”

At the 1971 ICCU event at San Sebastian, rain, hailstones and gales produced heavy mud. Alastair Blamire was fifth Scottish counter in 58^th, ahead of Jim Alder.

Shettleston Harriers retained the National CC team award easily, with Alistair Blamire 3^rd (surging away from Andy McKean towards the end) and Lachie Stewart fifth. Unfortunately their attempt to retain their English title was spoiled by the atrocious weather at Sutton Coldfield. Colin Shields reported: “A freak snow blizzard, which raged throughout the championship, was of such severity that one of the race officials collapsed and died on arrival at the hospital. The conditions ruined the race as a contest, with runners collapsing form exposure and exhaustion. In dreadful conditions of snow, hail and extreme cold, Lachie Stewart and other Shettleston runners dropped out, requiring medical attention, and Shettleston did not finish a team of six runners.” Alistair himself had fought into sixth place, when he was forced to give up. (I remember the event well, since I struggled home in 112^th place, which was never recorded since I refused to risk hypothermia by queuing to hand in my finish number.)

Colin Shields again: “Conditions were totally different at the International Championships at Coldham’s Common, Cambridge. Bright sunshine and dry, firm underfoot conditions made it ideal terrain for Scotland’s team. Unfortunately, Ian McCafferty ran very poorly and did not score. Ian Stewart (3^rd), Jim Alder (20^th), Lachie Stewart (27^th), Alistair Blamire (36^th), Andy McKean (44^th) and Dick Wedlock (71^st) contributed to fourth place in the team contest.

Having missed the 1973 National and moved back east, Alistair ran for Edinburgh Southern Harriers from 1974 onwards – which meant that I became a team-mate at last! ESH finished second team in the National five times in a row from 1974 to 1978, but sadly Alastair had retired before the team victories of 1979 and 1980. Alistair was first team counter in 1974 (fourth), when he went on to gain a Scottish vest for the inaugural World CC Championships at Ghent, Belgium, finishing a team counter in 66^th place. In the 1975 National, Alistair was again first home for ESH, in sixth place. His final three performances in his favourite race were 12^th (1976), 7^th (1977) and 26^th (1978). Overall, Alistair Blamire had an admirably consistent record in the most prestigious Scottish race. He also ran in ESH’s bronze medal team in the very first Scottish CC (4-Man) Relay championship; and was on the anchor leg in the 1975 gold medal triumph (Martin Craven, Ian Elliot, Allister Hutton, Alistair Blamire).

However on the road the most renowned competition was the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay. Edinburgh University Hare & Hounds won silver in 1964, with new student Alistair Blamire finishing fourth on the first stage, before handing over to the redoubtable Fergus Murray who promptly put his team in the lead with the fastest time on the second leg. 1965 was when, defeating previous winners Motherwell YMCA, EU smashed the record in the time of 3 hours 36 minutes 32 seconds, with a much fitter Alistair breaking the first stage record in 27.01, only a second in front of that outspoken old champion, Ian Binnie (Victoria Park AAC). Fergus ran an outstanding new record of 31.07 on the long sixth stage, taking 38 seconds off Ian McCafferty.

Even without Fergus Murray, the Edinburgh students easily retained their title in 1966, with Alistair equalling his stage one record. They won again in 1967, after a harder tussle with Shettleston, with Alistair only ten seconds slower than Mel Edward’s fastest time on stage two. Another medal-winning EU performance was in 1969, when they finished third, with Alistair third-fastest on stage six.

Then in 1972 Alistair Blamire played his part in Shettleston Harriers’ victory, by handing over second, only three seconds slower than Alex Wight’s fastest time on stage four.

In 1974, Alistair was fastest-equal with fellow-steeplechaser Ian Gilmour (Clyde Valley AC) on stage four, keeping the ESH lead which was maintained all the way to George Square. In 1975, when ESH broke EU’s ten year-old course record with 3.33.52, Alistair was handed the unenviable task of holding off the charging Andy McKean on the second stage. Blamire made it by three seconds, which meant that his ESH team led from start to finish. Alistair was the only one of the 1965 record-holders to play his part in setting the new 1975 mark.

Latterly, Alistair dabbled in fell running, breaking the record for the Carnethy Hill Race by one and a half minutes in 1975, and finishing fourth in the Three Peaks classic in Yorkshire the following year, after leading on the final summit.

Throughout his career, Alistair Blamire was plagued with shin splints or knee injuries. He never managed to maintain 100 miles per week despite the influence of the residents of ‘The Zoo’ (see Fergus Murray’s profile in Marathon Stars) but he recalls: “Generally the mileage that suited me best was about 70 miles per week, including a mix of 5 to 15 mile runs and two or three fartleks (total of around 10 sessions a week). I used to run on grass a lot, due to shin soreness, and hated training on the track (except for the odd occasion).

Sessions which I recall include the following.

-12x300m with 100 m jog – this was the suicide session that we did at Westerlands and almost always on grass. I like to think that at our best we (Albie Smith, Dave Logue, Innis Mitchell etc) did it in 15 minutes, although the distances weren’t exact).

– 18 laps (ten miles) on grass at Craiglockhart – bare feet of course!

– Fartleks on the road with Fergus (‘The Beast’) – ten miles usually and also suicidal. Fergus once invited me for a run and dinner at his place – it consisted of eating the tinned potatoes and stew first and then doing a ten mile fartlek on the Braid Hills!”

Ian Binnie once answered the question “Who were the three greatest runners?” He replied, “Emil Zatopek, Filbert Bayi and Alistair Blamire”. His explanation was that Zatopek was an obvious choice; Bayi was a true front runner, like Binnie himself; and Blamire had beaten him on the first stage of the E to G in 1965, when Ian was making a brief comeback! Don Macgregor wrote: “Alistair was 19; Ian Binnie was 38. Binnie accused Alistair of going round the Maybury roundabout (just before the finish) the wrong way!”

You may think that Ian Binnie was being satirical, which was not unusual for him. However there is no doubt that Alistair Blamire, a quiet, modest man, was an outstanding runner on track, road and especially country.

Back to Front Page

Welsh v Tysoe at Powderhall.

It is natural to feel that the best race we have ever seen was the best ever seen.   This feeling is more common now when we have televised races and ‘pundits’ emphasising how good a race has been and the talent of a particular athlete, often a person friend or acquaintance.   It is therefore appropriate that some of the great races of the past are described both as a corrective to this tendency and to give some credit where it is due.   It is in this spirit that the following article from ‘The Scots Athlete’ of August 1947 is reprinted here.

THE STORY OF A FAMOUS RACE

HUGH WELSH V ALF E TYSOE

By DA Jamieson

It affords a certain measure of relief to find a momentary relaxation in the quiet contemplation of the achievements of amateur athletes of past generations , especially in the present age when the increasing tempo of life permeates even the atmosphere of amateur athletes.   It is then with this definite purpose in view that the following narrative of the great race between Hugh Welsh, the famous Scottish athlete of the 1890’s, and his equally celebrated contemporary Alfred E Tysoe, over a distance of one mile, seeks to find a place within the pages of ‘The Scots Athlete’.   Probably a brief detail of both men – by way of introduction – will assist a younger generation to assess more accurately the merits of the contestants, and also appreciate more fully the intense interest which their meeting aroused among the sports-loving public of fifty years ago.

Hugh Welsh was an athlete from his childhood days, being, as it were, to the manner born.   Even in his preparatory school days, as a pupil of |George Watson’s Boys’ College, he was recognised by his companions as a formidable opponent in all their games, and his later achievements on the running track, indeed, at this distance of time are still recalled with pride by all Watsonians.   He really began his brilliant though short athletic career as a lad of 15 years amidst the beauties of the Pentland Hills, on the occasion of Sunday-School picnic by Habbies Howe, a hamlet situated south of Edinburgh.   On this occasion, the suggestion of a teacher, that a foot-race to the top ofa nearby hill (Carnethy) and back be organised for the older scholars, was immediately agreed upon.   Among the starters was Hugh Welsh, and his arrival at the winning post several minutes before his nearest rival was the first visible evidence to his friends of the wonderful gift of stamina and speed which Nature had bestowed upon him.

Whilst yet in his early teens, Welsh was soon competing against more experienced opponents, and by his successes gaining high praise from the athletic pundits of the time.   His many honours upon the track included SAAA, IAAA and AAA titles, International selections, and triumphs in the less exalted sphere of handicap events, adding his name, incidentally, to that dubious category of athletic distinction as a record holder.   It was as a lad of 16 years that he took part in the SAAA One Mile Championship of 1894.   This was an event that has no parallel in the history of Scottish athletics.   There were only two competitors, and it recorded the slowest time of all one mile championship races, either before or since (5 min 36 sec).   Yet in contrast it produced the fastest last quarter-mile time that has ever been clocked in this event.   J Rodgers, of Maybole, Welsh’s solitary opponent, took the youth at a crawl for three-quarters of a mile, and at the bell burst away at a tremendous gait from his youthful opponent.   It is a matter of recorded history, verified by the late DS Duncan, then Hon Secretary of the SAAA and one of the official  timekeepers on that occasion, that the time for the last quarter-mile was 54 sec, and the verdict – an inches decision for Rodgers.

It was in the AAA’s Championships of 1897, whilst competing in the One Mile race at Fallowfield, Manchester, that the incident of the spiking of Welsh occurred, which resulted in his defeat.   Tysoe won the title; but be it laid to his credit, that so dissatisfied was he with the honour he had gained against a disabled opponent, that he indicated his willingness to contest the distance again at a time and place which would be mutually suitable.   Later a match was arranged, and, accordingly, on May 29th, 1898, on the occasion of the Watsonian Athletic Club sports at Powderhall, this memorable one mile race was decided, for which a handsome trophy, weighing 74 ounces and a beautiful specimen of the silversmith’s art, was subscribed for by members of the promoting club.

In his Lancastrian rival – Alfred E Tysoe – Welsh was tackling a worthy opponent – one, moreover, who had had a much wider experience of competitive foot-racing.   Tysoe had graduated quickly from handicap ranks to a national eminence in athletics.   He was a runner of extraordinary versatility, winning races from 220 yards up to 10miles.   His AAA titles included the  880 yards (1899, 1900), 1 Mile (1897), and 10 Miles (1897); and he was also one of the winning six which carried the Salford Harriers colours to victory in the National CC Championships of 1898.   It is related of Tysoe that his appearance in the 10 Miles Flat Championships was merely in the nature of a training run and simply to be regarded as a prelude to his efforts for the season just beginning.   Clad in sweater and a scarf he jogged along for over 5 miles, and only in the latter stages of the race did he become conscious that he had distinct prospects of success.   Doffing his top-sheets en route Tysoe set about confirming his belief, and thanks to the slowish pace of the race throughout, he was able to utilise his turn of speed to run home a comfortable winner.

A frequent visitor to Scotland – and an exceedingly popular one – Tysoe ran some splendid races at Powderhall, on one occasion establishing a Scottish all-comers record for the 880 yards, when winning a handicap event over that distance at the annual sports of the St Bernards FC at Powderhall Grounds in 1 min 57 4/5th sec from scratch.

So much then concerning the principals in this athletic drama.   The following description of the race is from the pen of the late David S Duncan and here acknowledgement is now gratefully made for permisson to print the extract and accompanying illustrations, from the pages of the school publication “The Watsonian” to I Graham Andrew, Esq, Headmaster of George Watson’s Boys’ College.

THE RACE

Welsh was the first to emerge from the stripping-box, and received a tremendous ovation from the assembled thousands, and when Tysoe appeared a few seconds later, his reception was none the less enthusiastic.  Both men looked the picture of health and fitness.   Welsh, who is 5’8″, weighs 10 st 2lb, whilst Tysoe stands 5’7″, scaling at 10st 7lb.   There was a low buzz of excitement as the men toed their mark at the north-west corner of the grounds, the race being run left-hand in at Tysoe’s request.   The Englishman drew the inside position but when Mr John Davidson, the well-known Powderhall handicapper, sent the men on their journey Welsh was the first to forge in front, with Tysoe at his elbow both running free and easy within themselves.   A brisk pace was maintained and when the first lap had been covered, the enemy recorded  62 2/5th sec.  

The second lap was a repetition of the first, except that Tysoe had fallen behind Welsh and given himself more elbow-room; the time returned for this quarter was given as 68 sec.   Excitement was gradually rising as the runners entered into the third lap, and every stride seemed to be followed with eager intensity.    Tysoe seemed to be running well within himself, and there seemed to arise an uneasy suspicion that the Scot had at last found his master.   At the end of the third lap, covered in 71 1/5th sec, Tysoe bounded into the lead, and entered the ‘stand’ straight with a clear margin.   As he passed down that straight he was encouraged with a loud cheer from his Prestonian friends, who were present in large numbers to support their man, not only vocally but financially.   He sustained his burst of speed and entered the home straight with a 10 yards lead, and it seemed, for the moment, that Welsh was outclassed.   Here it was, however, that Welsh made that wonderful effort which can never be forgotten by those who witnessed it.   He came away at sprinting speed – and remember, Tysoe was running at top speed – caught Tysoe some 50 yards from the tape and simply left the Englishman standing.  

Never have I seen such an effort equalled.   As he leaped at the tape, hands held high in the air, yards in front of Tysoe – the crowd was electrified, and the ensuing scene of enthusiasm was a truly remarkable tribute to the runners.   The suspense and pent-up feeling during the four-odd minutes of the race; the agony of a possible defeat; and then the glorious victory!   The time was 4 min 23 3/5th sec, which is a new Scottish record.”

Both athletes have passed from the scenes of their athletic triumphs, but they have left behind them a stirring memory to those who witnessed their gallant efforts, and – let us hope – an inspiration to succeeding generations of youth.

Back to The Milers

Bert McKay running in the Coatbridge 5 in 1973

Bert McKay says that he never considers himself a long distance runner, seeing himself more as a half-miler/miler.   The cross-country was to get fit for the track and also, having Andy Brown as a team-mate there was no way he could escape representing the club in the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay, the National Cross-Country, etc.   Another reason for competing in road and cross-country was that there was no track in Motherwell so the roads and country were their only training facilities.   He does go to say that he grew to love road and cross-country and the rivalry between the various clubs.   I’m including him the ‘Milers’ section because I agree that that is where he should be.   His range was wide from 880 yards to 10 Miles and he competed seriously almost every year in team races at Two and Three miles on the track and in all the cross-country relays and championships.   Nevertheless he did have some very good races against top milers such as Graham Everett and Jim McLatchie – he even paced Graham through the first mile of an attempt on the Scottish Two Miles record in 1965.   Motherwell had a lot of very good middle and long distance runners – men like Alex Brown, Ian McCafferty, John Linaker and others – but like many another, I regarded Bert as the most senior in the club probably with the exception of the legendary Andy Brown.

Bert was among the best respected men in the endurance running world – appearing in the Scottish track ranking lists 26 times between 1961 and 1972, winning four SAAA Championship medals in addition to his honours on other surfaces, he collected the scalps and beat the times of most of the more celebrated runners of the day including Lachie Stewart and Fergus Murray at one time or another as we will see below.   Bert is a runner who must be included n any collection of endurance running profiles.    His personal best track times are in the table below.

Bert McKay (Date of Birth 13/12/35) first appears in the results in 1957 as a Senior athlete.    In the Scottish National Championships at the start of the year he was fifty seventh and the team was tenth.  Although he almost certainly raced during the summer, we next meet him in the winter of 1957.   At the start of the winter, Motherwell were not in the first six at the McAndrew but we note that the following week when Motherwell wn the Scottish YMCA relay title, the team included J Poulton, W Marshall, R McKay and T Scott with McKay being third fastest of the team.   A week later in the Lanarkshire County Championships, the team was third with the same runners but this time Scott and McKay shifted positions and Bert was second fastest of the quartet.   Unfortunately the team was unplaced in the District Championships.   In November that year he ran in his first Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay on the very challenging second stage and, like many excellent runners thrown out cold on to that stage, failed to do himself justice and dropped from second to fifth, but the team was not able to hold that position and finished tenth.   There were few results available after this but after a full winter’s work, Bert was forty ninth in the National of 1958 and this time the team was up to sixth.   On 24th May he won the YMCA half mile championship in 2:01, Andy Brown won the Mile in 4:39.4 and JH Linaker (Kirkcaldy YMCA) won the Junior Mile in 4:40.1.   He then appeared at the West District Championships where the Mile was won by Graham Everett who had been racing all over England as part of his quest to become the first Scot under four minutes for the mile.   The report in the ‘Herald’ said RW McKay (Motherwell YMCA) held Everett for fully three quarters of the distance and recorded 4 minutes 12.2 seconds.”   At the Lanarkshire Police Meeting on 7th June at Shawfield he won the Mile off 30 yards from clubmate AH Brown (25 yards) in 4:18.5.   It is fair to assume that he ran in the SAAA Champiionships and was unplaced and he eventually ended a fairly good summer with second behind Graham Everett in the Invitation Mile at Cowal in late August after Donnie McDonald had towed the field round to half-distance in 2:01.4 before Everett took over to get to three-quarters in 3:04.6.   The wind slowed him thereafter and his time was 4:07.5 with no time being reported for Bert.

The team was sixth in the E-G in November 1959 but unfortunately the records, even on Ron Morrison’s excellent statistical archive on his website, do not give the Motherwell runners but we can safely assume that Bert would have been a key man..  Bert started 1959 with a run in an Invitation Track Race over Two Miles.   Won by Graham Everett with Des Dickson of Bellahouston third, Bert was third to finish and Motherwell finished second team with Andy Brown fourth and John Poulton fourteenth.   When it came to the Nigel Barge four and a half mile road race two days later, the Motherwell team was beaten by Bellahouston and Bert was third counting runner in sixteenth position.   Despite Andy Brown’s second place, the team was unplaced in the District Championships two weeks later at Renton outside Dumbarton.    By the National in 1959, having been out of the results for several weeks, both Bert and the team had improved on 1958’s results – he finished twenty eighth and the club was fifth.   The summer season started in May with lots of triangular matches – Victoria Park v Bellahouston v Shettleston, Shettleston v Garscube v Teviotdale, for example and various permutations of University fixtures.   Then came wee out of the way meetings to warm the runners up and the actual racing started at the end of May with the District Championships.   In 1958 Bert had been second to Graham Everett in the Mile at the Districts and in 1959 his first outing was in the YMCA Championships at Larkhall a week beforehand – he won the 880 yards in 1:58.7.   At the Districts, with Everett racing abroad, he took the lead early on but Bill Kerr of Victoria Park had a real go at catching him.  Didn’t quite manage it and Bert won in a slow 4:22.7 – more than ten seconds slower than the previous year.      One of the frustrating things about looking back at newspaper reports is that they often don’t tell you more than the bare minimum of information about athletics events and although it is certain that Bert raced frequently, the next appearance is in connection with the West v East at the end of June.   I quote from the “Glasgow Herald:   The mile developed into a duel between RW McKay and G Stark.   Stark closely followed McKay for most of the race and showed superior speed down the finishing straight, winning by less than two yards.”   No time was given for Bert in the report and the results only gave the winner’s name.   Nevertheless it was clear by now that Bert was considerably good.   Stark was the National Mile record holder and to lead him for most of the race and then be beaten by only a yard and a half is good running by anyone’s standard.   He met up with Stark again at the start of August and the race report reads as follows: “The principal event at Carluke Rovers open sports meeting was the invitation one mile short limit handicap in which the Scottish record holder G Stark (Edinburgh Southern Harriers) was running from scratch.   At the end of the first lap, Stark was just behind R McKay (Motherwell YMCA) and J More (Kilmarnock) who started from 10 and 15 yards respectively.   In the meantime however, the Scottish steeplechase champion, T O’Reilly, off 35 yards, was setting a good pace over the seven lap course and by half distance it did not look like Stark would catch the leaders.   Soon afterwards, McKay and More left Stark and he had to be content with sixth place – 6.2 seconds behind O’Reilly the winner.”   Unfortunately the report does not say who were second, third, fourth or fifth!    So we don’t know from that where Bert finished or what his time was.   The winner was 4:19.2, and by simple arithmetic we get 4:25.4 for sixth place.

 Bert turned out on the straight head-to-head race that is the first stage and was eleventh in a team that placed fifth.   In the National in 1960 he had dropped from the past year’s position to seventy third but the team had by now moved up to fourth.   Summer 1960 started according to the reports later than usual.   It was not until 11th June at the Glasgow Police Sports at Ibrox that he appeared running in the Mile where he was second, one place ahead of Mike Ryan from St Modan’s.   He did not feature in the National Championships or the District Championships as far as the Press reports were concerned.   A summer best described as quiet.  So it was into the 1960/61 season in October.

On 1st October 1960, Motherwell was third behind the Shettleston winning team with Bert McKay on the first leg running a time of 15:35.    A week later he ran the first stage in the Lanarkshire County Relays and handed over a lead that the club held while turning in the third fastest time of the day.   On 29th October, after David Simpson had a good run on the first stage of the Scottish YMCA Relays Bert ran on the second stage for the club team which won by almost three minutes.   Came the big one, the Edinburgh to Glasgow,, he was again on stage one and this time was eighth with the club again finishing fifth.   In the National at the start of 1961 he did not run and the team did not finish a full six scoring runners.  That summer Bert was almost an ever present in the club team at all the two mile team races and turned out in in the championships without winning a medal.  There were, however, several notable performances in summer, 1961, and the first of these came at the start of May when in what was called a ‘Grading Meeting’ at Seedhill Track in Paisley the result of the Mile was a win for Graham Everett from Bert McKay and Mike Ryan – then later at the same meeting the steeplechase resulted in a win for Bert McKay in 10:48.8.   This was followed by the West District Championships on May 7th where he won the Mile and lifted the scalps of  Jim McLatchie and Mike Ryan when winning in 4:17.3   On 8th July at Pitreavie, running for the SAAA against an Atalanta team, the report for the Mile read R McKay (Motherwell) and KD Ballantyne (Edinburgh Southern Harriers) covered the last 20 yards of the mile almost together and finished in the same time, 4:17.3, but McKay was judged to have won.”  Having shown his strength by the double at Seedhill, he went even further in June.  In the Glasgow Police Sports, Graham Everett set a new Scottish record for the Two Miles on the good cinder track at Ibrox.   I’ll just quote the ‘Glasgow Herald’.   “Everett was taken along at a merry pace by R McKay (Motherwell) and both were well ahead of the field at halfway in in the fast time of 4:14.5, too fast as Everett admitted afterwards.   It was clear that if this pace were to continue the all-comers record would be broken.   Unfortunately McKay was unable to carry on  having fallen out more or less exhausted after one of his best mile times.   Everett was alone thereafter, but his time of 6:31.4 for a mile and a half beat T Riddell’s native record and JJ Barry’s all-comers record.   He slowed over the last half mile and lost his chance of beating the all-comer’s record of 8:45.6 but the time of 8:48.6 beat his own best Scottish record by 1.8 sec.   ……………………  McKay made a fine recovery after his exhaustive effort in the Two Miles and won the mile in 4:08.3 from 40 yards.”    Bert said that it was a deliberate attempt at pace-making for Graham, because he thought he could get the two miles record.   After he dropped out he could hear Andy Brown cursing him as he passed because they could have won the team race.  It had been a quite remarkable season at the end of which he was in the ranking lists for five events:

The McAndrew Relay race on 7th October 1961 had Bert McKay hand over a lead to David Simpson that tea mates John Linaker and Andy Brown saw translated into a good victory.   The same quarter ran in all the short realys that year and Bert handed a lead to the team at the end of the first stage in the Lanarkshire Championshps (won by 600 yards), the Scottish YMCA Championships, the Midlands Championships (won by more than two minutes and then in the Motherwell club time trial for the Edinburgh – Glasgow selection, he tied with Andy Brown and David Simpson for second behind John Linaker.   Five races in the five weeks before the E-G itself on 18th November.    The team in the E-G in November 1961 made up for the poor showing in the National when they finished third to pick up their first medals in the race.   Bert ran on Stage seven for the first time and pulled the team from third to second with the third fastest time of the day.   There was a bit of a hiatus after that until the Lanarkshire Championships where Bert was fourth behind Linaker, Brown and Everett.   Into the New Year and the McAndrew Road Race was run in very tricky conditions – several football matches had been cancelled because of snow.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ said, “AH Brown mastered the rather precarious footing on certain stretches of the road and won the Nigel Barge four and a half mile road race on Saturday at Maryhill by 20 yards from J McLatchie in 23:20 – 30 seconds outside the record for the course.   McLatchie was less than a yard ahead of R McKay who finished very strongly and J Linaker, another Motherwell runner, who finished fourth.”    A hard fought race but Jim McLatchie’s story about it sounds good to me.   “Dunky Wright approached me about running in the Nigel Barge Road Race in 1962 since I did a few training runs from Milngavie to Maryhill and back – he said that was part of the course.   I never ran in road races – so I showed up anyway and was up with the leaders – the Motherwell boys – Andy Brown turned to Bert and said, “What’s McLatchie doing up here? ”   Bert’s reply, “I think he’s going to kick our arses.”   Andy: “He’s not a road runner.”    Bert: Today he is.”    On 3rd February, 1962,   Bert had what the ‘Herald’ writer described as ‘the best cross-country performance of his career.’   It was in an invitation eight mile race at Cleland Estate, Motherwell.  “The invitation eight-mile cross country race within the Cleland Estate on Saturday ended, as expected with AH Brown beating a club-mate, R McKay by 80 yards in 42 min 42 sec.   McKay put up about the best cross-country performance of his career and this win by Brown enhanced his reputation for consistency over the past 12 years.   At the end of the first lap of two miles Brown led the field of 42 runners from J McLaren (Victoria Park, McKay and Everett (Shettleston) and JH Linaker.   Over the next circuit McKay moved into second place, 40 yards behind Brown and at regular intervals came McLaren, Linaker and Everett.   At the end of the third lap, McKay had closed slightly on Brown with McLaren 120 yards behind him, and Everett and Linaker 40 and 50 yards farther behind respectively.   This was the order at the finish but Brown had drawn away from McKay.      Bert did not turn out in the Scottish YMCA championships two weeks later and they were won by Andy Brown from David Simpson.   The winter ended with another fifth place in the National for the team but Bert was not running on the day.

We know Bert ran in the West District Championships in May 1962 because Jim McLatchie tells us so but he didn’t feature in the results or the reports.  Let Jim tell the story: 1962, West Districts Mile race.   I was in pretty good shape and told Bert I was going to run hard and he could hang on.   I came through the first 880 around 2:03 – all I could hear from Bert ‘For ‘goodness’ sake, this is too fast for a beginning of the season race.’   After the race I asked him why he didn’t hang on and he said he was peaking for the Nationals later that year when we both went on to record personal bests.”   He  turned out in the Police Sports at Shawfield on the first Saturday in June where he was off scratch in the invitation three-quarter mile along with Willie Morrison of Larkhall.but they were both beaten by Jim McLatchie running off 5 yards.   A week later and at Ibrox, he was second again, this time to clubmate Andy Brown in the Invitation Two Miles with Calum Laing (Glasgow University) in third.   Another seven days and he was at New Meadowbank for the SAAA Championships where he was third in the Mile behind Mike Berisford of Sale and Jim McLatchie.   Other than team awards, his first individual place after that was at Shotts Highland Games where he was third behind JP Anderson and J Hillen (both Saltwell AC) in the Two Miles.   By the end of the summer (1962) he was ranked in four events the six miles having been dropped from the schedule,  Best times for the year were 1:56.3 (17th), 4:08.7 (3rd), 8:58.6 (1st) and 14:03.2 (5th).

Motherwell won the McAndrew Relay at the start of October, 1962, with Bert again doing sterling service on the first stage.   With one exception it was the team from the previous two years – Alex Brown taking the place of John Linaker – with David Simpson on two and Andy Brown on four.   Andy had the fastest time of the day with Fergus Murray second and Alex Brown third and Bert himself had sixth fastest time.   In the County Relays the following week, Andy Brown relegated himself to the second team, and running the first stage beat team mate David Simpson by 15 seconds.   Nevertheless the team of Simpson, Marshall, McKay and Alex Brown won with Motherwell having the four fastest times of the day with Andy Brown, David Simpson and then McKay and Alex Brown being third equal.   The B team was third behind Shettleston.   Then on 20th October it was the YMCA Relays that they won with Bert McKay, David Simpson and Alex Brown building up a useful lead only to see Andy Brown going off the course because he was mis-directed.   The B team of John Poulton, Willie Marshall, W McKnight and D Young won with the A team being third behind Larkhall.   Bert had the fastest time of the day on that occasion, with Willie Marshall being second fastest and David Simpson third.      On November 3rd the team retained their district title, this time Alex Brown ran the first stage, followed by John Poulton, Bert MacKay and Andy Brown.   They really were an all-conquering squad at this time.   Whatever the permutation, they were winners.   The next week were club trials for almost all clubs involved in the Edinburgh to Glasgow and in the E-G, Bert showed what he had hinted at the previous year when he was third quickest on the seventh stage -this time he ran the fastest time on the stage and also equalled the course record.   The team won with four of the fastest times of the day on stages four (AH Brown), five (AP Brown), six (J Linaker) and seven.  As Colin Shields says in the official history of the Scottish Cross Country Union,“Whatever the Weather” the perils of a November race date were clear in 1962 when there was deep snow and cars were abandoned in Airdrie Main Street.   It was on this occasion that Tom O’Reilly of Springburn said that it was not so much dedication as pure bloody stupidity!  Colin’s comments were maybe more measured but no more accurate when he said “Moving up on sixth from Stage Three, Motherwell improved from then on.   AH Brown improved 23 seconds on the 1957 stage record to finish third, and his young brother Alec and then John Linaker gained further places to to bring Motherwell into a 40 second lead by the end of the sixth stage.   Bert McKay equalled the stage record to open a gap of two minutes over Edinburgh Southern Harriers and it was left to John Poulton to bring Motherwell home to their first ever victory.”   In February Bert did well enough in the National in 1963 to win his first and only cross-country vest for Scotland.  The result of the race was a win for John Linaker of Motherwell in 35:53, followed by Alastair Wood of Aberdeen in second, Andy Brown in third in 35:57 and Bert McKay fourth in 36:33.

That summer, 1963, there is no mention of him in the Western District Championships which was where he normally started the season.   It was perfectly possible that he ran in the team race at Shawfield in the Lanarkshire Police Sports for the first three were Andy Brown, John Linaker and Ian McCafferty!   The Motherwell team competed regularly at venues as far south as Lockerbie as well as all over the Central belt but Bert’s next win was at Babcock’s Sports in Renfrew on 17th June when he won the Two Miles in 9:08.9 with Andy Brown second and Alex Brown third to take the team title – to add to the club’s joy, John Linaker won the Mile and David Simpson won the 14 mile road race!   Bert then won  his second SAAA medal when he was third in the Three Miles behind Fergus Murray and clubmate Andy Brown.   By the end of  ’63 he was ranked in the Mile, Two Miles and Three Miles lists and was third in the SAAA Three Miles championship at Westerlands in a time of 14:26.4 behind Fergus Murray (14:01.6) and clubmate Andy Brown (14:12.8).   His best times for the three events were 4:16.0 for tenth place in the Mile, 9:08.2 when finishing fourth in Glasgow in June which placed him seventh in the ratings, and 13:58.0 for the Three Miles, recorded at Pitreavie in in July.   He went in to the winter running extremely well.

In the McAndrew Relay, Motherwell started off with Alex Brown who ran into third position but Bert McKay running on the second stage, not only gave the club a lead but set a new record for the course with a time four seconds faster than Lachie Stewart..   Ian McCafferty and Andy Brown made sure of the victory and the team had four of the six fastest times!  A week later in the Lanarkshire Relays Motherwell had the first two teams with Bert running for the second team which finished 500 yards behind the first.   Even more amazing was the club’s taking first and second places at the District Relay Championships on 26th October with Bert having second fastest time of the day, only four seconds slower than Ian McCafferty with Alex Brown in third fastest slot another eight seconds back.   The winning quartet was  AP Brown, W Marshall, I McCafferty and R McKay.   Andy was in the second team which consisted of George Henderson, D Young, David Simpson and AH Brown.   Quite remarkable when you consider the standard of the remaining clubs in the race.    In the YMCA Championships a week later they were gallus enough to put Andy Brown and Bert into the second team and still get the first two places.  The ‘Glasgow Herald’ for the result of the E-G said ” Motherwell Again Win Road Relay Race”.   Bert was on the seventh stage of the E-G where he not only set the fastest time of the day but broke his own record for the stage set the previous year.    Again Motherwell won by virtue of the fact that the middle of the relay had fastest times by their members on stages four, five, six and seven with AP Brown, D Simpson, J Linaker and Bert McKay bringing them from sixth to first over the four stages. It is difficult to argue with Colin Shields who said that they won it the hard way – it was not until the end of the sixth stage that they were in front, and he says of Bert’s contribution: “Bert McKay, having equalled the stage record the year before, bettered it by 24 seconds to establish a two minute lead and G Henderson brought them home easy winners.”     In the National in 1964 he finished twenty ninth and the club closed in as third team.

That summer (1964)  Bert started with a good run in the West District Championships at Westerlands, where he lead for much of the race before Lachie Stewart moved off leaving Bert in second with Andy Brown in third.   Not placed in the SAAA Championships, he went on to a comfortable win in the Mile at the Strathallan Gathering in August.    The scene was very different from that of the twenty first century.   Local meetings played a big part of the athletics scene then – local highland gatherings (Dunblane, Strathallan, Shotts, etc), works gala meetings (Dirrans Sports, Babcock’s and Wilcox Sports, Singer’s Sports), community sports meetings, Braw Lads Gatherings, etc, etc.    They were held on a variety of surfaces – good well-tended grass, poor cow-field grass, cinder and sticky-oot brick, ash, etc but these differences were over come by the men and women who ran in them.   The best men raced each other week, week out.   The Two or Three Mile Team race was always well supported – Shettleston Harriers, Victoria Park AAC, Motherwell YMCA, etc all turned out teams in the races and the teams were always the best that they could field.   Lachie Stewart raced Ian McCafferty, Hugh Barrow, Andy Brown, Dick Wedlock, etc all summer.  At the end of May, 1964, the ‘Glasgow Herald’ had the headline “R McKay’s record in the Three Miles” and read “R McKay (Motherwell) was one of the outstanding competitors at the Lanarkshire Championships at Larkhall on Saturday, winning the Three Miles in a new best time of 14 Min 11 Sec from his clubmate AH Brown.   Brown was the previous record holder with a time of 14 min 37 sec, set two years ago over a heavy, wet grass track at Laigh Bent.”   One week later on the last Saturday in May, he defeated Andy again for second place in the Three Miles at the West District Championships at Westerlands in Glasgow with Lachie Stewart first..  Two weeks later in the Lanarkshire Constabulary Sports at Shawfield he was again second to Lachie in the Three Miles and only one week later, he was second to Lachie again at Babcock’s Sports in Renfrew in a Two Mile Team race where he led Motherwell to a team victory.   Next was the National Championships where he was unplaced and it is frustrating that only the first three are published for our reference.   Omitting the whole of July, Bert’s next appearance that year was at Strathallan Highland Gathering where, as backmarker in the half mile, he came through to win.   August finished off with Edinburgh Highland Games, Bute Highland Games (longest event One Mile) and Cowal Highland where he did not figure in the results.  As can be seen, the races were not well spaced either, tending to come one on top of the other all summer.   It may be of course that we have lost a lot in terms of the competitiveness of our runners because of the official demands that runners space their programme.   The Scots who are doing really well just now are largely those who compete on all surfaces, all year against good opposition in the American College circuit.    The surfaces were less good, but the unremitting high level competition maybe gave the runners a hardness that is missing today. He only appeared in the rankings for the Two Miles and Three Miles with times of 9:12.2 and 13:56.6 for ranking places of eighteenth and sixth.    The absence from the rankings should not be taken to mean that he was running badly.

At the start of the winter, 1964,  Motherwell again won the McAndrew Relay at Whiteinch  with Andy Brown finishing second to Hugh Barrow of Victoria Park (fastest time of the afternoon) before Bert brought them into first place which was held by Ian McCafferty and Alex Brown.   On 10th October, the club retained the Lanarkshire title with Bert running the final lap.   In the Districts the club won the title for the fifth consecutive year with Bert on the third stage.  He lined up at the second stage of the E-G  where he dropped from first to third in the team that won thanks to four fastest times on stages four to seven (Brown, Simpson, McCafferty and Wedlock).   The club was undoubtedly the strongest in Scotland and when they won the Nigel Barge team race in January 1965, Bert was not in the counting team who had three in the first six finishers.   In the National in 1965 he was fourteenth with the team in fifth.

In summer 1965 Bert started as usual with the West District Championships, this time at Ayr, and finished third in the Mile behind Hugh Barrow and Ian McCafferty.   Bert did not appear in the results for any of the other competitions in May or June, not even the Scottish Championships in Edinburgh – at least not in the published lists with only the winner being noted in some.  His summer seemed to finish with the Shotts Highland Games at the start of September where he was second to Ian McCafferty in the Two Miles.    However at the end of the summer he again ranked in three events – the Mile, Two Miles and Three Miles with times of 4:11.4, 9:00.6 and 14:13.0 to be ninth, eighth and twenty second respectively.

Season 1965-66, they won the McAndrew (Brown, Brown, McKay, McCafferty), the Lanarkshire (with Andy Brown and Bert McKay in the B team which finished second), the Scottish YMCA Championship relay st Motherwell with their ‘older members’ in the A Team (McKay on the second stage turned a two second deficit into a 500 yard lead!) and the Midland Relay Championship.   The report in the Glasgow Herald is worth repeating here: “Motherwell can never make their lead big enough.   Not content to win, they seem to want to blast the opposition off the course.  They had a better start than usual when AP Brown handed over in second place – two or three places higher than was expected – behind J Brennan (Maryhill) who surprised most by being third fastest throughout the day.   R McKay was not long in going ahead for Motherwell on the second lap, and from that point on interest in Motherwell became academic.   What is worth writing is the magnificent running by I McCafferty through the three fields heavy with mud on the east side of Home Steads Farm.   While all around were floundering, he gave the impression of of skating freely on the surface with his short business-like stride.”   They won from Shettleston by two minutes and nine seconds.   In November he was back on the seventh stage for the fourth time and held his second place in the squad that finished second.     In the National in 1966, he is clearly well placed in a picture in ‘Athletics Weekly’ but does not appear in the results.

Opening his season with a win in the YMCA 880 yards championships in 1:59.5, and in the West District Championships at Ayr Bert finished third behind Hugh Barrow (winner) and Ian McCafferty.   The Motherwell runners took part in most events but the next sighting of Bert McKay in the results columns was at the Lanarkshire Constabulary sports where he was second in the open half mile, no doubt after taking part in the Two Miles invitation.   By the end of the summer of 1966 he was ranked fourteenth in the Mile with 4:11.0 in Glasgow in June but this was his only appearance in the rankings for the year.

The ‘Glasgow Herald’ reported consternation on the faces of Motherwell officials at the McAndrew Relays, in 1966, when Ian McCafferty failed to turn up.   The reshuffle meant Willie Marshall was pulled into the team and sent out on the first stage.   He handed the baton  over to Bert  in twenty first position and the reporter felt all hope of a win evaporated.   Bert pulled the team up to ninth and sent off Alex Brown who picked up to fifth and Andy Brown came home in third place.   A week later and again McCafferty failed to show up while Bert McKay was not able to run either in the Lanarkshire Relays.   The team finished third.   Two weeks later, and still without McCafferty,  but with Bert McKay back in the team they won the YMCA Championships at Irvine with Willie Marshall, Alex Brown, Bert McKay and Andy Brown.  The first paragraph of the ‘Herald’s report on 31st October said it all: “Smiles were back on the faces of Motherwell YMCA camp followers at Stirling on Saturday Their outstanding 4 x 2.5 miles relay team carried out a brutal demolition job of demolishing all who dared take away their Midland District relay title after six years custody.”   McCafferty was back – the team of Alex Brown, Bert McKay, Andy Brown and Ian McCafferty was never headed.   In November 1966 Bert again ran on the seventh stage of the E-G but this time dropped from second to fourth in the team that finished third.

In summer 1967 he recorded a fastest mile of 4:13.3 when finishing fourth  at Ibrox in mid-August which ranked him twenty second, 9:02.6 for the Two Miles at Barrachnie in May to be nineteenth, 14:13.2 at Shawfield in June, finishing one tenth in front of Hugh Barrow, to be ranked twenty second in the Three Miles.  These times and venues tell a story of running in the 1960’s: Ibrox was probably in an invitation race, Barrachnie was the Shettleston Harriers home track and was known to be almost circular and the chances are that it was a league or county match.  The race at Shawfield was in a Lanarkshire Constabulary meeting and run on a softish track inside the dog track for greyhound racing was often held there in midweek. The report in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ said   “AP Brown (Motherwell) at halfway never looked like catching his club 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 minutes 08.6 seconds.”  Incidentally, the previous year he had been second in the open Handicap half mile to Gordon Sinclair of Glasgow University.   He had started the season with second to McCafferty in the YMCA Championships on 20th May at Grangemouth but was unplaced in the very strong West District Championships a week later.   On June 3rd however, he came out on top in a Two Miles race at Airdrie when he beat Alex Brown by 15 yards in 9:23.   Seven days later the positions were reversed when Alex, well behind at halfway, won from Bert in the Lanarkshire Constabulary Sports Three Miles Individual and Team Race at Shawfield in 14:08.6 with Motherwell winning the team event.   .The SAAA Championships at the end of June were of a very high standard and bert’s name did not figure in the first three in any event.   No doubt he was part of the Motherwell team that won Two Miles team races at meetings in Strathallan, Bute, Cowal, and Shotts where the counting men were usually three in the first four or five.

But the big event at the end of summer 1967 was the formation of the new club of Law and District AAC.   Both Brown brothers, David Simpson, Ian McCafferty and some others left Motherwell leaving them seriously bereft.   From a club challenging for, and often winning, high honours, they became a struggling club which had to rebuild.   Bert McKay and Willie Marshall were two who stayed with Motherwell and did more than their bit for the old club.   Willie won the club trial for the McAndrew team from Bert but that was insignificant. With only one team success in October (the YMCA championships at Kirkcaldy where Andy Brown ran for the B team that finished third), Bert ran possibly one of his best ever Edinburgh to Glasgow stages in 1967 where on the very hard second stage he pulled the club from 18th to fourteenth with one of the best runs of the day,   On 17th January Shettleston Harriers had an open meeting at Barrachnie and Bert ran in and won the Mile in 4:23 – not bad on that track and in January!    There was no sign of him in the National Cross Country Championship and the first Motherwell runner was Peter Duffy – a useful new addition to the club.

In 1968 he was second in the West District Mile with a time of 4:20.6 and his season’s best of 4:20.2 when finishing third at Pitreavie in June ranked him only thirty first and  that was his only ranked distance.  The lack of Two and Three Miles times was probably largely down to not having significant teams entered in almost every meeting throughout the summer.   In the West Championships he split Ian McCafferty and Lachie Stewart with the times being 4:17.4, 4:20.7 and 4:21.9.

 With the Motherwell team weakened as it had been, they were not in the top ten in the McAndrew but Bert was clearly in good form judging by subsequent races. On 19th October they won the YMCA Championship Relay with a team that included Andy Brown but Bert had the fastest time with his 11:53 trumping Brown’s 12:15.      The big one of course was the Edinburgh to Glasgow and again Bert was on the second stage.   Taking over from Willie Marshall in fourteenth place, he ran another good race on this stage to move from that position to tenth.   Unfortunately the club could not hold that and finished nineteenth – and they were out of the race.   Bert’s next run in the event would be in 1975 as a member of the Clyde Valley team formed by five clubs, including Motherwell, linking up.   His form in the 1968/69 season continued into the Nigel Barge Road Race on 4th January 1969 when he was fourth in what the ‘Herald’ correspondent described as “McKay moved ahead of Alec Wight on the run-in and his fourth place must be his best run of the season.”    The first four were Lachie Stewart (Shettleston, 22:01), Dick Wedlock (Shettleston, 22:16), Andy Brown (Law) 22:41 and Bert McKay (Motherwell, 22:52)  – only 300 yards behind the winner!   He did not seem to have run in the various races for the remainder of the winter – not the Springburn Cup, the Districts, the YMCA championships or the National.

He must have kept in shape though because summer 1969 was a much better one for him with no fewer than four championship medals.   Bert not only won the West District championship 5000m in 14:40.2, but was third in the Inter-Counties in 15:04.6 behind John Linaker (14:58.2) and Colin Martin (15:00.8) and third in the SAAA with 14:30.4 behind Lachie Stewart ( 14:09.6) and Dick Wedlock (14:24,4).   His best time of the year was 14:24.4 which ranked him fifteenth.   Then in the longest track race that he had run so far, he was third in the SAAA 10 Miles track championship in 51:23.0 behind Jim Brennan of Maryhill (50:41.2) and Bill Stoddart (Wellpark) in 50:55.0.

Summer 1970 was Commonwealth Games year in Scotland and everything was subordinated to that.   Bert was thirty four and not in contention for a place at that point, and there was no Edinburgh to Glasgow in winter to look forward to but he kept training and reappeared in the rankings in 1972 when he was ranked twenty sixth in the 10 miles with a time of 51:23.0.   He had of course run the distance on the road – third in the first ever Tom Scott 10 Miles road race in 51:41 and fourth two years later in 50:50 for example.

Bert did not appear in the ranking lists for any event in 1970 or 1971 but made his final appearance in 1972 when he was ranked at twenty sixth in the 10,000 metres race with a time of 31:30.  The picture above shows a clearly fit Bert McKay racing in 1973.   He was running in 1981 at the age of forty five and was first veteran to finish in the Tom Scott 10 Miles Road Race.    This ten year period will not be covered in the same sort of detail as his running career up to 1971: apart from anything else, the archives for this are sadly lacking in detail.   When it seemed to outsiders that his participation in athletics was starting to decline, it received a boost from an unlikely direction.

It was clear that Motherwell YMCA was not the force it had been, and nor was Monkland Harriers.   There were several other Lanarkshire clubs with fairly small memberships and they came together to form a new club.   So it was that in 1974 Bert appeared in a new vest – it wasn’t that he had left Motherwell, but a new club had been formed from five local Lanarkshire clubs.   Monkland Harriers, Motherwell YMCA, L&L from Lesmahagow, Airdrie Harriers and Bellshill YMCA.   The club was to be called Clyde Valley;  the clubs all trained separately as before and kept club identities within their own area, coming together for racing purposes:  but it meant that many very good runners came together to make a very good team.   Bert was competing seriously again and incidentally passing on his hard-earned wisdom to many talented and ambitious youngsters.   His own training had been reputed to be very hard and the young pretenders such as Jim Brown and John Graham came to be of a similar cast.   If you use the link below, you can see what an influence Bert had on the young John Graham.   The new club also had a beneficial effect on his own running as well.   He had probably thought that his days of running in, and winning medals in, the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay were over – they weren’t!   The club was formed n 1974 and in November 1975 he was back on the seventh stage of the relay, holding the team’s position in third which is where they finished.   Better than that, he even ran the third fastest time on the stage.   In 1966 he had also run the seventh stage and had won a bronze medal with Motherwell.   Missing 1976, he ran in his last E-G in 1977 at the age of forty one, this time on the third stage and saw the team drop from second to third but it finished out of the medals in seventh.   Other than the E-G results it is almost impossible to find where and when he raced as a member of Clyde Valley – with a first team pool of young talented runners such as Ron McDonald, Jim Brown, John Graham, Roy Baillie and others it is not surprising that he was not in the four man teams.   It is highly probable that he was racing in the B or even at times, the C team but this is not reflected in published results.   The National results, almost always published in full on Ron Morrison’s website atwww.salroadrunningandcrosscountrymedalists.co.uk do not show Bert as having run there either.   In addition, the newspapers stopped reporting on most of the Highland Games meetings other than Edinburgh, many of the Sports (Police, Transport, etc)had been abandoned as well.   He is highly spoken of as a motivator, mentor and coach for the Motherwell group of Clyde Valley athletes and his contribution to the success of the new club owes him a debt on that side too.

***

As was said in the opening paragraph, Bert was well-liked by the other athletes and highly respected by all.   For instance, Hugh Barrow who had many a race with him says “Bert was one of the really good runners of that generation, not a star but bloody good when there were a lot of good ones about!  “       Jim McLatchie said, “Bert was a tough competitor, more so when the Motherwell boys were all in the same race.   I enjoyed the tussles and I knew I would have to run hard if Bert was in the race.   It would have been great to have sat down with him after a race and sup a pint and discuss running – but I didn’t drink back then and not sure if Bert did either.”    And of course John Graham elsewhere on this website pays tribute to the training that he did under Bert’s guidance when he was a young athlete.   Look it up.

Finally, although Andy Brown was indisputably Mr Motherwell YMCA, Bert was not far behind in the opinion of many.   Had Bert gone to Law and District AAC, it might have been really formidable, but he didn’t, choosing to stay where he was.   Be that as it may, he has had a good career in the sport and has the respect of all who knew him, raced against him or watched him in action.