Jim Brown – top Clyde Valley representative over the period with 14 races.

The Edinburgh to Glasgow – no one who ever ran in it or followed the teams al the way from Edinburgh to Glasgow can forget it, nor do they have anything but praise for the event and its organisation.    The number of guest teams who took part in it included Scandinavians, Americans, Irish and English.   There have even been composite teams like the Northern District squads who turned out over a period of years.     All sorts of statistics have been compiled by athletics anoraks and club historians including such as the club records for each stage, the club’s best ever performance and so on.   Here’s a new one for all Scottish clubs and individual statisticians to look and – it could/should serve as a challenge for them to compile their own clubs performers at various period.

This is table of men who represented their Clyde Valley AC team, and one of their founder clubs Monkland Harriers between 1971 and 1984.   It was compiled by Joe Small who ran for both.   1971, ’72, ’73 were the last years of the Monkland club appearances and Clyde Valley.

If we look at the quality of the runners involved we Scottish and British champions and British and Scottish international representatives as well as very good standard club runners.    27 runners in over the 14 years in question, two athletes were out in all events, three of the top five were among the best Scottish runners of all time at their distances.    The attraction of the event is clear from the range of athletes who represented the club – bear in mind that none of the above were ‘dragooned’ into representing their club in this event – it was an all out struggle for months beforehand to ‘make the team’.   

Just look at the list and draw your own conclusions.   And how did your club do in this wonderful event at any given period?