The chap above looking like a journalist checking his story, started the website at the end of 2004 under the title of ardbruach.co.uk and used the Microsoft FrontPage disc. It was all on the disc, now it’s WordPress, and it has grown from there. Colin Youngson came on board after it changed to the current name and format. Reason for the change was that Microsoft stopped supporting an excellent format that was simplicity itself. The first two pages that Colin helped with were the Edinburgh to Glasgow and the Marathon Stars pages.
I had come from a background of club athletics that had started in 1957 and incorporated competing, officiating, administering and coaching and you can read about that at these links.
www.anentscottishrunning.com/brian-mcausland and www.anentscottishrunning.com/brian-mcausland-and-afterwards
I gained so much from the sport that it seemed obvious that I put something back and the two websites were started. The idea was to give a picture of what Scottish endurance running was like between 1945 and 1990 because it had changed so swiftly and so drastically after the SAAA became the SAF and I felt that it should be documented. Hence the coverage of races, venues, clubs, personalities, etc.
But the website would not exist without the work put in by several friends across the country. I would like to thank them publicly for the work that they have been, and are doing, for us all. First there is Colin Youngson whose history as an athlete is well known – 10 Scottish marathon medals, three of them gold, medals of all colours from the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay, which he ran 30 times with five different clubs, many other fastest times and race victories, and a man who raced in Britain, Europe, USA and Australia. Colin, a retired teacher of English with an interest in history and a love of running, has done sterling work for many years on profiles, race descriptions and in fact in most subject areas, using expertise gained from a racing career between 1963 and 2020.
Colin running the last stage of the 1986 E to G for the winning Aberdeen AAC team
Joe Small of Monkland Harriers and Clyde Valley AC, (running third below in the Nigel Barge Road Race) has written several very good pieces on events (the Glasgow Marathon for instance) and several other items covering clubs and international racing. Joe has run in all the major races on the Scottish calendar – track, road, and cross-country.
Hamish Telfer, West of Scotland Harriers, is a highly respected coach and administrator but also an enthusiastic athletics historian with several published works to his name. On this site there is an affectionate look back at the Stanalane Track on Glasgow’s south side but he has several fascinating articles on the anentscottishrunning.com website on the history of the sport, mainly cross-country running http://www.anentscottishrunning.com/hamish-telfers-scottish-harriers-histories/
Denis Bell, Haddington East Lothian Pacemakers (leading in the photograph below), is a ‘new boy’ who is an international hill runner and is our hill running expert with several articles, such as the detailed profiles of Angela Mudge and Finlay Wild.
Alex Wilson, Fife Southern Harriers, below, is a genuine enthusiast for Scottish endurance history. He knows all that there is to know about endurance running by Scots from the days of the peds, the six-day wobbles right up to the present with a marvellous collection of photographs and illustrations. You can get a real flavour of his work from the profiles on this site of Paddy Cannon, Jock Duffy and Norman Nelson but for an overview of his work go to
Alex Wilson’s Gallery: 1 Half Milers – Anent Scottish Running
and have a look at some of the links.
These are the main workers – all writers – but there are others, some mentioned below, who have contributes to the two websites.
There are lots of others who have given us information – guys like Alex Jackson, the wise man of the East who is a real fount of information, Hugh Barrow, who has passed on information and photographs for many items through the years and through the websites, Alastair Macfarlane gave us information on marathons, on people and on professional running, John Mackay, Graham McDonald in Pitreavie (below), and
Bobby Young, Palm Gunstone (above) and Sandra Branney with information and photographs and many others. Of course the Daddy of Then All for photographs is Graham MacIndoe (below) with superb quality pictures of the sport in the 1980’s – men, women, road, country, hills and track races with some very good training photographs in there too. And of course all those who helped with their own profiles. Thanks to them all.
