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Henry Summerhill

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Henry SHenry Summerhill, second from right

Henry Summerhill,  a tall, easy-to-recognise runner with his spectacles and head to one side  running action, was an interesting athlete.    He never served on District or National committees, never held major office within his club but nevertheless was an outstanding clubman.   Henry Summerhill and Shettleston were synonymous.   It is common to assume that good clubmen are automatically also multi-task people.   This is not automatically the story – eg Doc MacPhail was never a top class runner, but he WAS a top class club man.    Henry was a runner, pure and simple but a superb and loyal  member of Shettleston.    He has earned his place in this section.

He spanned at least two generations of Shettleston Harriers and ran with the best of both generations of stars, earning his place with  them both.  He turned up at the club’s Christmas Handicap in 1955 as Eddie  Summerhill’s wee brother and went on to out-do Eddie as a runner.   He was  spoken of above as ‘spanning the generations’; for proof we only have to look at  his record in the Edinburgh to Glasgow where he ran 15 time including a streak  of fourteen right off the reel.

Year

Stage Run

Team Position

  

Year

Stage Run

Team Position

1959

Five

First

  

1967

Eight

Second

1960

Four (Fastest)

First

  

1968

Eight

First

1961

Four

First

  

1969

Seven

Fourth

1962

Two

Fifth

  

1970

Five (Fastest)

First

1963

Six

Fourth

  

1971

Eight (Fastest)

First

1964

Two

Six

  

1973

Eight

Six

1965

Four

Seventh

  

1975

Eight

Fifth

1966

Six

Seventh

        

15 runs; Six gold, One silver; Three fastest times on stage.

Over the country, he was the same reliable, hard working, club runner but it was  1962 before he broke into the top team and finished twelfth and second counter  (behind Joe McGhee) in the winning team.   In 1963 he was first counter when he  was tenth in a team that was fifth; in 1965, he was first counter when he  finished seventeenth in the fourth placed team; in in 1966 he again led the team  home (twenty sixth) into fourth; in 1967 the order was Summerhill 19th, Wedlock  21st … with the team again fourth; 1968, Henry was twenty seventh, third  counter and the team was fifth; 1969, he was twenty third, third counter in the  second placed squad; 1970, he was twenty first, fourth counter in the third  placed team; 1971 he was sixteenth in the winning team;   1972, twenty fourth  and the team won again; 1973, fifty seventh and last counter in the silver medal  team;    1974, nineteenth in the fourth placed team;   1975, twenty fifth in the  third team and in 1976, Henry was fortieth and the team third.   Thirteen races,  three golds, two silvers, three bronzes.   Not a bad haul.   And then there was  the quota of District and County awards.   And the four London to Brighton  relays.   And being in the winning team in the first Allan Scally relay, and in  the winning team in the third Scally Relay.   Oh yes, and he was club champion  five times!   Henry Summerhill was a very valuable member of several Shettleston  teams.

On the track Henry raced in many team and open races and was ranked eleven times  over seven years in the 60’s with best times of 9:20 (2 Miles), 14:29.0 (3  Miles) and 30:38.0  (6 Miles) with a third place in the SAAA Six Miles in 1962,  but it is as a cross-country and road runner that he will be remembered by most  of us.

When I asked around about Henry the word among those who really knew him was the same – a hard running, hard training, good guy.    First  John Wilson, who trained with Henry for a long time before he moved to England said that  Henry worked in a printers office, he thought it was somewhere off St Vincent street (or thereabouts) where he only got something like a 40 minute lunch break so he had a tight schedule if he was to fit a run in.    John worked in Dial House (next to the Kingston Bridge) and would jog down to meet Henry at his work place so that there was no waiting.    Henry would be on pace from the start.   The route was often up Argyle Street, turn at Kelvin Hall and loop back via Sauchiehall Street and finishing with a series of short sprints up several steep hills in the Heron House area.    Henry was relentless and if the streets were busy he’d zig- zag his way through people, cars but not slow up. Once a car nearly ran into them and, so the story goes,  Henry, placid as he was, almost punched the windscreen in to tell the driver off.   This could have been kind of hazardous given that you never knew who the driver was but Henry was undeterred as he was in the right!

John reckons that this gave him an insight into Henry’s commitment to quality training no matter what.   Limited time, traffic and pedestrian congestion, obnoxious drivers or the Glasgow weather as he always finished with the short hill reps even when there was ice or snow – no doubt he would also be running that evening whereas often for John the 3 miles with Henry was like a race and all he could reasonably do that day!

Then there is this comment from Tony McCall who trained with Shettleston Harriers for several years and was an admirer of Bill Scally as well as of Henry.   I reprint it as Tony gave  it to me:

I trained at Shettleston for a couple of years. Henry had been injured and started back a few months after i ahd been there, training with Bill and a few others.

Henry did not mess about; having been injured or no, he was into fast long sessions almost immediately. He  ran a pace I struggled to keep up with but being a gentleman he would wait for me (and others) if a significant gap had developed. From the hut at Barrachanie we covered Lenzie, Steppes, Chryston, Cambuslang, Dechmont, and bits of East Kilbride all at a good pace . Some of it on the road and some of it over the country. Most of time, these runs were at the weekend. Steady but fast; I certainly benefitted from them. The distance would vary  between 13 to 20 miles depending where we went.

During the week normally Tuesday and Thursday the runs would be between 8 an 10 miles and the last few miles were very pacy particularly if Bill was along. I was always blown away no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t live with them nor could anyone else.

Henry talked a fair bit on the run; mainly about running! one of his favourite expressions was – ‘Youv’e got to gut yourself in training to get the best out of yourself – always remember that’. He gutted me a few times.

Sometimes we would do a paarlauf arounf Barrachnie on a Tuesday. It was a mile circuit and there was two teams of half a dozen or so. Bill and Henry headed the teams. If my memory serves me it was 5 or 6 miles pretty well flat out. I was always in Bill’s team. Bill always paced it to keep the team together for as long as possible. Henry being Henry ‘gutted’ it from the start and his team were all over the place within a couple of laps. Some even gave up. ‘He’s murdering me’ was quite common. He never finished with a full team. Some of the boys called him Henry the Horse – but not to his face!

He always believed, like Bill, in a high mileage training regime. Hard sessions were always the order of the day. He took his cue from Andy Brown. He admired Andy a lot. ‘The first guy in Scotland who was running 100 miles a week’.

I remember once at the University race Bill and Henry were warming up around the track together. If they ran a mile they ran 4; the sweat was running off them like a wee stream. The laps got faster the longer they went. I watched this and thought to myself -‘your knocking lumps out of each other on a sort of personal I’m no giving in to you basis’. I thought ‘ Your leaving your effort behind on the warm up track’. But I was wrong I had a decent run that day but they ran a good race and finished pretty high up the field. Theri fitness levels had coped with what I thought was an excessive warm up. Henry was right about his ‘gutting theory’!

I remember the Western District Relays took place at East Kilbride one year in the early 80s. The Shettleston team was Henry, Nat, Laurie Spence and Bill and Shettleston won it with two vets in their team and won it well. Bill ran the last leg I always remember watching it and was really impressed. I was training with these two guys and they had just beaten some of the best runners in the west area and they were vets!

i can’t tell you much more about Henry. He was a very likeable guy, he admired effort from others no matter the level they achieved and gave out encouragement when he thought it was warranted. his attitude like Bill’s was nothing will be achieved without hard work and he certainly knew all about that. He didn’t have time for people with a half hearted approach to training or racing and he probably upset one or two along the way. But he was club man and always wanted the members to do their best for the club.

He never went near the track when I trained with him, neither did Bill. Road and country only. He eventually suffered from internal bruising  in his calves probably caused by his printer’s job as he stood at his machines all day. He never really got back after that; I’m sure he suffered from cramps quite a bit and then he had his heart problems as well. He reckons caused by running the E to G with a virus. ‘ I gutted myself but was 2 minutes slower than I expected’-. Because it was the E to G he ran because he didn’t want to let the team down – that was typical of Henry.”

The picture is of a man who would run anywhere, anytime, no matter how he felt at the time, for his club.    The expression “he would run through a brick wall for his club”  certainly applied to the outstanding Henry Summerhill.

Powderhall

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Also on site: the complete text of the wonderful book  “Powderhall and Pedestrianism”   Just click on the title.

George McCrae 3

George McCrae winning the 10 miles at Powderhall

The great annual professional meeting on 1st January was for many years known simply as ‘Powderhall’ since that was where it took place.   It is now known mainly as the New Year Sprint and although it is deservedly a real festival of sprinting, the programme is much bigger than that and for many years professional runners (‘peds’) have had good races and won lots of prize money there.   A fixture since 1870, it has always attracted the attention of the Press, even when the amateur athletic code dominated the scene: as a child I remember Scottish sports annuals including a bit about the event amidst all the coverage of football, rugby, cricket, motor cycle racing, boxing and athletics.    The event itself is described and its history recounted in two books.   The first is “Powderhall and Pedestrianism” by David A Jamieson, published by W & AK Johnstone, Edinburgh, and takes the event up to 1943 and the other is “Gold at New Year” by John Franklyn, published by Tweedbank Press which covers the sprint up to 1970.    This account of the event has been compiled using two contributions by Shane Fenton to the unofficial sal website and the official New Year Sprint website (www.newyearsprint.com)

Endurance events have been a feature at Powderhall in all of its incarnations with races at half mile, mile, two miles and long distance.    For detailed results for all events over the entire history of the event go to

http://www.sportingworld.co.uk/newyearsprint/rollofhonoursupportingevents_21.html .

   Among the names to feature among the winners are Michael Glen, Alastair Macfarlane, Glen Stewart and George McCrae (seen above winning in 1913) was the 145th running of the event which uninterrupted by war or weather the sprint handicap race has taken place on or around New Years Day every year since it was first won by Jedburgh’s Dan Wight in 1870.   Throughout the years the race has had a few different venues but no matter where it is run, it is always referred to as the ‘Powderhall’.   The race took place at the Powderhall Stadium in Edinburgh up until 1957 with the exception of 1953 when it was held at Old Meadowbank, from 1958 until 1964 venues at Hawick, Tranent and Newtongrange hosted the event before it returned to Powderhall for a further six years culminating in 1970 with Scotland’s greatest ever sprinter George McNeil winning the Centenary running of the race in 1970.

The following year, Meadowbank Stadium in Edinburgh with it’s then novel ‘Tartan Track’ surface played host to the race and that’s where it stayed until 1999 when it moved to it’s current home at Musselburgh Racecourse.   The race has a unique history, only five men have been dual winners with only two retaining the title, there have been a father and son winner and brothers have also won the race, there has also been one ‘dead heat’.

The Mile race has been held since 1870 with only three individual years omitted plus the five years of the second world war.    It has been won off scratch only three times in its history, the first was in 1870 when JS Ridley of Gateshead won the race, in 1975 WS Gray of Livingston was the victor and in 1994 C May of Liverpool was first finisher.   Other than that The only winner off less than 10 yards was Michael Glen of Bathgate in 1953 off 5 yards at Old Meadowbank.    The race has taken various formats but the strangest feature for me is that it has not always been a Mile!   It is listed as over 880 yads/800m up to 1 Mile/1600m and for the first 100 years it was a Mile Open Handicap race.   Then in 1971 there were two races – one a 1600m Open Handicap and the other a 1000m Open Short Limit Handicap.   The first was won by D Minto and the second by RM Cuthbertson.   They were held at Meadowbank and the fast track ensured fast times of 4:08.4 and 2:28.05 off 80m and 10m respectively.   This pattern of two races continued until 1990 whereafter it became a 1600m open handicap and it has remained so.

The Half Mile has, apart from two years – 1871 and 1880 when it was a 660 yards open handicap – stayed as an 880 yards until 1970 when it became an 800m open handicap race.   The race in 1971 was won by RM Cuthbertson off 35 yards in 1:51.05 – the same RM Cuthbertson who won the 1000m that same year at Meadowbank.    There was a gap between 1871 and 1880 when it was not run, and it was then kept at that distance although I note that in 2013, it is a ‘four furlongs race’.

If we go up to Two Miles, which is described as over 1600m/1 mile up to 3200m/2 Miles, it was first run in 1871 and there are only 35 results for the distance listed on the official website of the New Year Sprint.   It jumped from 1871 to 1916 for the second race then to 1923 for the third running.    Thereafter it went to 1924, 1925, then 1946 and then 1972 when (apart from 1993) it continued to date.    The race itself was a Two Miles Open Handicap until 1972 when it was a 3200 open short limit handicap and the following year it was a 3200m open handicap race.   This stayed the case until centenary year of 2000 when it became a ‘One Lap’ race.

Up a distance again, and we get ‘Long Distance (Over two miles)’ races.    These events had a comparatively short life in that the first, a 15 Miles, was in 1913 and the last, a 10 Miles, was in 1942.    These races were all called Marathons.   George McCrae won the first race but no time was given,  The following year, the race was won by J Smith of Peebles in 1:28:43 and no time was given for any winners until 1919 when in the first year that the race was run at 10 miles, the victor was TG Shaw of Edinburgh in 49:49 with a start of 3 laps 350 yards.   A bit daunting for anyone more than three laps behind at the start!    The following year the winner was timed at 50:47 off 4 laps 50 yards.    Thereafter they organisers went back to time handicaps rather than distance handicaps.    No time was given for the winner of the marathon from 1922 to 1942.

One of the attractions of Powderhall has been the fact that it is purely a running meeting.    When I first persuaded the British Milers Club to hold one of their Grand Prix meetings at Scotstoun, I was approached by several who said that they really enjoyed a meeting where there were only middle distance races – 8 x 800m for men, 3 x 800m for women,  5 x 1500m for men, etc, and there is no doubt that track events with the clear-cut immediate winner has a different attraction from the extended and often fascinating field event duels.   The New Year Sprint had only running events.   They were all open handicap races where everyone had a chance to win.    It was also helped by the timing of the event – midwinter has always been a time for festivals of various sorts from the Roman Saturnalia to the Christmas celebrations and in Scotland the New Year was the high spot of the winter.   People in a good mood, with the betting associated there was a chance to win back some of the money spent over the holiday period – so long as you had some spare change to invest with the bookie.

For the professional runners used to running on grass or rough cinder tracks of doubtful measurement, Powderhall was an opportunity to run on a good track.   The Edinburgh track was always a good one – the SAAA Championships were held at Powderhall in 1883, 1884, 1886, 1888, 1890, 1894, 1894, 1896, 1900, 1901, 1904, 1906, 1907, 1910 and 1914 as well as twice after the First World War.   International matches were also held there – 1897, 1899, 1903, 1905, 1913 and 1935 for the Scotland v Ireland internationals.   The size of the purse also attracted the top runners and there were athletes from England, Wales and Ireland coming to Scotland to compete.

Good crowds, good tracks and good athletes – a recipe for a cracking good sports meeting.   The fame spread and in 1903 a Welsh Powderhall Sprint was inaugurated, named after the Edinburgh event!    Wikipedia says: “In 1903, the Welsh Powderhall, named after the famous track in Edinburgh, was established in Pontypridd and held at Taff Vale Park.   The first Welsh Powderhall had a first prize of £100, and the venue became the home of Welsh professional running until its final contest in 1934.”

 

GM Carstairs

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George Morrison Carstairs, was born in  Mussoorie, India on 18th June 1916 where his father the Reverend Doctor George Carstairs was a Church of Scotland missionary.   James Keddie in his excellent centenary history of the SAAA refers to him as Morris but many others use his first name of George while the gbrathletics website calls him Morrison ‘Jack’ Carstairs .   For the sake of convenience he will be referred to here as Carstairs!    He was educated at  George Watson’s College and Edinburgh University.  When he had completed his running career, Carstairs had a brilliant academic career in Medicine and Psychiatry and became Professor of Psychiatry at Edinburgh University from 1961 to 1973, Vice Chancellor of York University from 1974 to 1978, and between 1969 and 1971 was President of the World Federation for Mental Health.  He gave the Reith lectures in 1962 (accessible via youtube), and wrote many academic papers.
The SAAA standard distance up to 1934 was the Four Miles but in that year they changed it to the Three Miles and Carstairs was the outstanding Scottish runner at that distance until the War started in 1939.   He ran well in 1936 winning the Mile by 50 yards in 4:31,1 running for Atalanta against Aberdeen University.
On 15th May 1937 he started his season with a victory in the UAU Championships.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ said: GM Carstairs, of Edinburgh University established one of five new records set at the Universities Athletic Union Championhips at White City, London, yesterday.   With a time of 14 min 36 4-5th sec, Carstairs was a comfortable winner in the three miles event, taking the lead at the end of the first mile-and-a-half and maintaining it right to the finish.”   Eleven days later at Craiglockhart in Edinburgh he won by three yards from his local rival Jack Laidlaw in 14:50.8.    Laidlaw, who had won the SAAA title himself in 1935 in 14:46.4,  had the upper hand next time they met, also in Edinburgh, on 8th July.   Carstairs time was 14:39.5 to Laidlaw’s 14:37.5.   Carstairs went on to win the SAAA title at the distance in in 14:35.6 and in the same year was second in the World University Games.   The Glasgow Herald reported on the SAAA race as follows:  “Indications that GM Carstairs would not be strong enough to stall off Laidlaw, Gifford and Farrell in the Three Miles proved quite groundless.   The Edinburgh student, who holds the titles and the records for British and Scottish Universities, set out – very wisely – to set a pace that proved beyond the powers of his rivals and he succeeded beyond expectations.
It was JE Farrell who showed most fight, but even he was tailed off three laps from the finish and Carstairs ran on without challenge to finish 150 yards in front of Farrell and only 2 8-10th secs outside Tom Blakely’s 1933 record.   Officials spurred him on round the last lap when it was seen the record was within his grasp, but the information was shouted at him rather late.   Carstairs’s improvement has certainly been an outstanding feature of the present athletic season.”
Selected for the Triangular International in Dublin that year he ran 14:29.8 on a grass track in heavy rain, a time that was 17 seconds inside the Irish record.   The photograph below shows him during the race.
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Dublin in the rain, 1937
His best single year was probably 1938.  In the Inter-University contest on 7th May at St Andrews he won the Three Miles in 14:39 to start the season well.   He then stepped down a distance or two to win the half mile at Craiglockhart on 12th May also against St Andrew’s in 1:59. 8.   On May 21st, he retained his UAU Three Miles title at the White City in 14:53.   On 11th June in the Inter-Universities Tests at Aberdeen, he was second to JAM Robertson in the half-mile after leading most of the way: Robertson’s time was 2:09.  In the Three Miles later at the same meeting he won in the slow time of 15:20.5  to ‘make amends for his failure in the half mile’ .   On 18th June he raced a hard half-mile where after leading for most of the race finished fourth, after leading virtually to the home straight.   He repeated his SAAA victory in the Three Miles on 25th June, again at Hampden Park in Glasgow, this time in 14:40.9 .     The Glasgow Herald reported: Expectations of challenges and counter-challenges in the Three Miles were realised for half the distance when PJ Allwell and JP Laidlaw endeavoured to out-manoeuvre GM Carstairs, Edinburgh University.   Neither of his rivals, however, had the pace to equal the champion and when he applied pressure in the third mile, he soon disposed of his challengers.   Running on strongly on his own, he won by 150 yards in excellent time indeed, when the force of the wind in the home straight against him is considered.”    Three weeks later at the White City, Carstairs ran for the only time in his career at the AAA’s Championships.    The ‘Glasgow Herald’ report read: “The best race of the meeting was the Three Miles in which GM Carstairs, the Scottish champion, made a valiant attempt to win.   In the last lap, Carstairs had not the pace to last, but he clocked the fastest time of his career, approximately 14 min 26 secs.”   Fourth finisher, but how close was he?   Well, the winner was CAJ Emery in 14:21.
This running was good enough to see him selected to run for Great Britain three times that year,  winning v Norway at White City over 5000m (14:58.4), 2nd v France at same venue on August 13th behind CAJ Emery over 3 miles (14:45.8), and 6th at the European Championships 5000m on September 5th at Paris (14:51.3), where the ‘Glasgow Herald’merely said “Sixth place in the 5000m went to GM Carstairs, the Scottish Three Miles champion.”   The only Briton ahead  of him was CAJ Emery in 14:46 in fourth place.
Emery’s role as Carstairs nemesis throughout the 1938 season was confirmed on 17th September in Oslo when he defeated him by 20 yards over 5000m.   The report said: EMERY BEATS CARSTAIRS BY 20 YARDS.   CAJ Emery (Achilles) won the 5000m race on the last day of the International Athletics meeting here today.   His time was 15 min 5.4 secs and he beat another British competitor GM Carstairs (Edinburgh University), the Scottish Three Miles champion by 20 yards.   Rain throughout the day had made the track slow, and Rochard of France was the only other competitor.   From the start Rochard took the lead, which he steadily increased during the first six laps, with the British pair constantly changing positions.   In the eighth lap Emery and Carstairs both passed the Frenchman and then it became a duel between the British pair.   Emery however put in a fine burst and won by 4.8 seconds.   Carstairs time was 15 minutes 10.2 seconds and he finished eight yards ahead of Rochard whose time was 15 minutes 12 seconds.”   
Two weeks later, the German troops occupied the Sudetenland, and the Herald tells us the occupation went smoothly.   The possibility of war was discussed at great length throughout the papers, even the women’s page of the paper by Ann Adams made frequent reference to it,  the letters pages were almost single-topic and Air Raid Precautions were being printed.    Nevertheless the Victoria Park McAndrew Relay was held on  October 1st and Bellahouston Harriers won from Shettleston Harriers and Plebeian Harriers.  Runners prepared for the next year – they could do little else – and Carstairs was heading for his biggest title win in 1939.
Right at the start of 1939’s athletics season, Germany and Italy upgraded the Axis into a military alliance.   If ever a season started with an indication of its relative importance in the world, this was it.    In athletics, GM Carstairs began in on 13th May in the annual Edinburgh University v St Andrews by winning the half-mile in 1:59.8 and on 27th May he retained the Three Miles title at EUAC sports in a new record time.   On 10th June, he ‘deserted’ the Three Miles in the Edinburgh v Glasgow University match to win both half mile and mile.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ was fulsome in its praise of the Edinburgh man.
“Most thrilling of all was the half mile, in which JAM Robertson was expected to retain against Carstairs.   In the first lap, JA McGlone, Glasgow, made the pace and down the back straight Carstairs took up the running.   Robertson was obliged to make his effort to pass the Edinburgh leader on the bend, and he overhauled him with 70 yards to go.   From that point the struggle was tense; it seemed that Robertson would prevail but he had run himself out, and Carstairs, making a desperate lunge in the last stride, won with only inches to spare.  
CARSTAIRS IN LIMELIGHT 
Carstairs was the athlete of the meeting, following up this splendid win by dethroning another champion, J Muir, in the Mile.  
The Glasgow runner’s policy was to race all the way and he got clear of his rival before the bell, but Carstairs  finished stronger to set up a record of 4 min 25.5 sec – excellent under the conditions.”   So Carstairs was clearly in good form going in to the championships.
He was winner of the SAAA Three Miles for the third successive year, this time in 14:41.2, but no comment on it appeared in the Glasgow Herald report on the meeting but the results indicate that he won by 60 yards from Tommy Lamb of Bellahouston Harriers with another from Bellahouston Harriers, SA Kennedy, third.   Carstairs also won two titles at the UAU Championships – the Mile and in the Three Miles.
His big moment that year, however, had to be winning the World University Games 5000m title in 14:51.3.   The SAAA race had been at the end of June and after the team for the games had been selected,  there was a ‘try-out’ for the Scottish athletes on Monday 14th August and the report said that “GM Carstairs in the 5000m men’s race finished in better time than has previously recorded at the World Games.”   His winning time was 15:13.   Came the Games themselves on 30th August, his time was slower at 15:20.2 but it was good enough to win the gold.   Unfortunately the political situation was such that there was very little in the way of reporting on sport – the Games started on 30th August which was when the surge to war was reaching a crescendo and the papers were full of the arguments between countries (complete with maps), suggestions for those at home with regard to economising and making the most of rations, the sinking of the Athenia and so on.
He is recorded as having two races at his specialist distance in 1940 – Carstairs ran 15:15.6 at Craiglockhart on May 15th,  and 15:17.3 at Glasgow, in the Inter-Universities Championship on June 8th, where he won the Three Miles by 150 yards as well as the Mile in 4:32.5 where the margin was 35 yards.   However, his career, like that of most athletes at the time, was effectively over.
Many athletes saw their best years missed due to the War, but Carstairs was only 23 when the shooting began and had his last two competitive years over shadowed by the lead in to the hostilities.   The obvious but ultimately futile question of what he might have done could be asked but it is certain that unlike many a top class athlete, he derived tremendous satisfaction from a brilliant medical psychiatric career subsequently.   You can hear him delivering the 1962 Reith lecture on ‘The Vicissitudes of Adolescence’ here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00hbdb5 and several of his papers are available on the internet.
He died in Edinburgh on 17th April 1981.

Paavo Nurmi Comes To Ibrox

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Many of the world’s best athletes have run and raced in Glasgow.   The Rangers Sports attracted stars in all events, the SAAA Championships have had some top stars appearing in the 1990’s when the ‘open’ nature of the event was being emphasised.     We have had our own top runners of course – from Halswell and Liddell  to Wells and McColgan.   But there is one of the very, very best of all time who ran in Scotland and we are by and large ignorant of the fact.   I speak of Paavo Nurmi the famous Finn.    He did come to Glasgow and did run here with distinction – it was not for the appearance money.    Alex Wilson has written the following article about the visit and provided the photographs.   I’d like to thank him for the work done to produce this fascinating piece of memorabilia.   .

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Glaswegians have witnessed some iconic athletic moments down the years, such as at Ibrox in 1904, when Alfred Shrubb, the little Horsham wonder, demolished the world hour record as well as all amateur records from six to eleven miles.

This year (2013) denizens of Glasgow relived some of the excitement of earlier days when the amazing Ethiopian runner Haile Gebreselassie visited a revitalised Glasgow for the first time and won the Great Scottish Run in a new master’s world record for the half marathon.   Altogether Alfred Shrubb set 28 world records during his career, including two world cross-country titles, but unfortunately never had the opportunity to cover himself in Olympic glory.

Haile Gebreselassie, between 1994 and 2009, set 27 world records at distances ranging from 2000 metres to the marathon, not counting the three masters’ world records which he set this year in the 10k (28:00), 10 miles (46:59.9) and half marathon (1:01:09). Many now consider the Ethiopian to be the greatest distance runner who ever lived, and this may be so, but like every generation of distance runners past, present and future, he stands on the shoulders of giants.

Without doubt, Alfred Shrubb and Haile Gebreselassie were the world’s foremost long distance running exponents of their day. They dominated their event like few others have before or since.

One of those few others is, of course, the great “Flying Finn” Paavo Nurmi who, like Haile Gebreselassie, came to Glasgow in the twilight of his career and, like Alfred Shrubb, left an indelible footprint on the cinder track at Ibrox Park.

Athletics is based on facts and figures, and on that basis Nurmi arguably ranks equal to Haile Gebreselassie.

Paavo Nurmi was undoubtedly the most successful of this stellar trio in the Olympic arena at least, amassing an incredible nine gold medals and three silver medals between 1920 and 1928. He might well have increased his unprecedented gold tally in Los Angeles had the IAAF not intervened and prevented him from running on trumped-up charges of professionalism.

Nurmi was no less prolific than Shrubb or Gebreselassie, setting 29 world records at distances racing from the mile to 25 miles between 1921 and 1932.

However neither Shrubb nor Gebreselassie had as profound an impact on racing and training methods as the Finn, who was truly ahead of his time in several respects. Nurmi was the first runner to adopt a scientific and holistic approach to training and race preparation. It is thought that he was the first runner to do interval training as part of a systematic twelve-month training regimen. His easy stride, high arm action and clockwork regularity were the product of years of hard training and meticulous attention to detail. He also pionereed the even-paced approach to racing and was famous for running with a stopwatch in hand. Many of his world records reflect his extraordinary pace judgement. He even had a special diet and practised vegetarianism for a while.

Paavo Nurmi Ibrox 1.8.1931 (5)

Nurmi (centre), Struth (right)

After it was announced in late July 1931 that Nurmi would compete in the Glasgow Rangers Sports on Saturday 1 August, the city was buzzing with excitement. Just the previous weekend he had established a new world outdoor record for two miles in Helsinki, in the process becoming the first man to break the nine-minute barrier. The Rangers’ manager “Billy” Struth had truly surpassed himself by  bringing the world’s greatest distance runner to Ibrox.

Imagine the impact Usain Bolt might have next year if he comes to Glasgow and competes for Jamaica in the Commonwealth Games.

Nurmi arrived in Glasgow on the eve of the Rangers Sports and was suitably impressed by the condition of the track after a two mile canter complete with stopwatch and dressed in a loose fitting sweater and training pants, declaring it the best track had yet set his eyes on in Britain.

A huge crowd of 50,000 spectators – a record for a Scottish meeting – turned out the following day. Afterwards athletics aficionados would be unanimous in agreeing that there had never been a finer meeting in the long and successful history of the Rangers Sports.   Four records went by the board that afternoon.

First, Tommy Riddell, of Shettleston Harriers, broke his own native record for the mile by 3 seconds with a time of 4:18.0 set when winning the handicap off twenty yards, then running on to complete the full distance, while in the same race Cyril Ellis , of Birchfield Harriers, returned 4:15.2, which was three-fifths better than Albert Hill’s all-comers’ record at Parkhead in 1919.

For all that, Paavo Nurmi was undoubtedly the main attraction, his event being a specially framed four mile handicap.   Alfred Shrubb’s British and Scottish all-comers’ four mile record of 19:23.4 was Nurmi’s chief goal, and it was expected that the would probably come close to his own world record of 19:15.6.

The track had been specially prepared for the record attempt  and the weather conditions were ideal.

Nurmi covered his first mile in 4:45.4, during which he failed to made much impression on Jimmy Wood, with 200 yards start, who was busily pounding his way round the track, himself intent on setting a record. The Finn passed the two mile mark in 9:41.6 and on completion of three miles in 14:36.0 had only made up 8.2 seconds on Wood.   The Heriot’s F.P.A.C. runner put up a brilliant performance to take two-fifths of a second off the previous native record for the distance, set in 1904 by John McGough (Bellahouston Harriers), the former Greenock postman and now a farmer in Ireland.

Realising that he was behind record schedule, Nurmi piled on the pace in the last mile, to such effect that he made up twelve seconds on Shrubb, clocking a new British all-comers’ record of 19:20.4.   Meanwhile, Tom Blakely, of Maryhill Harriers, took full advantage of a 400-yard start to win the handicap in 19:11.6, beating Walter Beavers, of York Harriers & AC (200 yds. start), by 15 yards.

Wood, beating 20 minutes for the first time, ran home third in 19:50.4, ten yards ahead of the the fair-haired Finn , but 5.2 seconds outside the Scottish record by Arthur Robertson, of Birchfield Harriers.

Later in the afternoon Nurmi went out for the record at two miles, but was clearly tired after his earlier exertions and never got anywhere near the leaders or the record.

The following year Nurmi elected to do the 10,000 metres and marathon at the Los Angeles Olympics. In late June he smashed the world record for 25 miles in the Finnish trials with a time of 2:22:03.8. He was made a strong favourite for gold in LA, but was denied the opportunity to win a tenth gold medal by a rather dubious and politically motivated eleventh-hour ban passed down by the IAAF on grounds of professionalism.

The Ibrox sports of 1931 were the last time Britons would see Nurmi running in their country.

You never know, maybe there are still a handful of nonagenarian or centenarian Glaswegians around who can still remember when the great “Flying Finn” caused a furore in their city.

Paavo Nurmi Ibrox 1.8.1931 (4)Nurmi signs the drummer’s big drum

Thanks, Alex, for a fascinating report on a great, but virtually forgotten, occasion.

 

Alex Dow

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Alex Dow should be better known than he is.    He ran for Kirkcaldy YMCA in the 1930’s, won the SAAA 10 miles track race, ran for Scotland in five international championships and was always in the first three counters at a time when the Scottish team won more medals than in any other decade.    The fact that his club was never ever right up there in the rankings or championships of course might have contributed to the ignorance of his career – nowadays he might well be recruited one way or another to a more fashionable club, but in his day good runners ran for their own clubs and were happy to do so.   A native of Collessie, he lived in Dysart and died comparatively recently – in 1999 at the age of 92.

A local paper remarks on his start in the sport:  “He had rather an amusing baptism in the sport.    While with the Black Watch at Perth, he was sent out with a squad to the North Inch and told to run a mile.   He won.   After that, Dow won several races in the Army.    After his discharge from the Army, Dow joined Kirkcaldy YMCA and speedily made his mark.”  

He ran cross-country running in the winter of 1933/34 where he did well enough to win the Eastern District title and also took the Scottish Junior title.   Colin Shields in “Whatever the Weather” comments that “Alex Dow (Kirkcaldy YMCA) ran away from his rivals to win the Eastern District title by almost a minute at Musselburgh racecourse, the first of many successes that included an ICCU international bronze medal just two years later.”   Of the National he commented that he ran well to finish fifth and win the National Junior title.   The international that year was held on home soil – at Ayr – and there were hopes for a Scots victory but according to Shields, they were simply ‘run off their feet ‘ after a fast start.   Dow in 12th place was the third Scot to finish behind Flockhart (6th) and Sutherland (11th) to gain a bronze team medal.

He really sprung into prominence, however, on 14th April 1934 when he won the SAAA 10 Miles Track title.   The “Glasgow Herald” reported on the race as follows: “J Suttie Smith, the champion was indisposed and did not defend his honour.   A Dow, Kirkcaldy YMCA Harriers, the Scottish Junior and Eastern District Cross Country Champion, gave further evidence of his capabilities by winning rather easily.   The champion was the only absentee of the 12 entrants for the 10 Mile Race.    Once the runners settled down, it was seen that JC Flockhart, the Scottish Cross-Country Champion, A Dow, SK Tombe and JF Wood had the title in their keeping.   They ran in the above order for seven and a half miles, at which point Dow went to the front for the first time.   Flockhart and Tombe were close up at this stage but Wood had dropped back and seemed out of the running.   Once in the lead Dow drew steadily away.   Running strongly and in effortless style, the Kirkcaldy man went on to win his first SAAA  title by some 200 metres.   Tombe also finished strongly to beat Flockhart by 50 yards.    The intermediate times were:-

One Mile  5 min 11 2-5th sec; Two Miles 10 27 3-5th; Three Miles 15 min 46 2-5th sec; Four Miles 21 min 07 sec; Five Miles 26 min 27 1-5th sec; Six Miles 31 min 32 2-5th sec; Seven Miles 37 min 13 1-5th sec; Eight Miles 42 min 36 sec; Nine Miles 47  min 51 4-5th sec.   

1.   A Dow   53:12;   2.  SK Tombe 53 min 40 2-5th sec;   3.   JC Flockhart 53:49.

Alex Wilson, who gave me a lot of the information for the profile (and who in turn owes a debt of gratitude to Don Macgregor, who is not only a great runner but an athletics historian),  has been good enough to send me a copy of  Dow’s own extract from the race programme with splits taken on the day by one of his entourage.

1934 Scottish 10 miles championship (1)

As Alex says, with splits of 26:27 and 26:54 he wasn’t a bad judge of pace.   When it is borne in mind that his club did not have access to proper track for training, it is remarkable that the pace should be so even – the YMCA trained in the Beveridge Park, on grass, meetings were evidently held in Stark’s Park too in those days, but the harriers obviously didn’t have access to a cinder track.

In the following cross-country season, 1934-35, he won the Scottish YMCA championship, and then Dow was seventh  in the National behind Wylie (Darlington), Flockhart, Suttie Smith, Freeland, C Smith and William Sutherland.   Excellent company to be in.   In the International on 23rd March in Paris, he was second Scot to finish when he crossed the finishing line in tenth place with only Wylie (second overall) ahead of him.   Flockhart, Suttie Smith and the rest were behind him: the “Glasgow Herald” simply said “Alex Dow (Kirkcaldy YMCA and 10-mile champion) again rose to the occasion, gaining ground steadily to finish tenth.”    The local paper described it as a “Splendid, judicious race.”

Into summer 1935 and Alex was again competing in the SAAA 10 Miles track championship: this time he finished third behind Willie Sutherland and Jimmy Flockhart.    He gained another medal in the National Championship at the end of the cross-country season when, according to Shields, he was as far back as thirteenth at one point but came through to be third at the finish.   About the International in Blackpool, we read , “Alex Dow in all his five Scottish international appearances in the 1930’s, was never outside the first three scorers for the Scottish team, displaying a natural ability that gained him many victories without any great training schedule or hard work behind him.   In the 1936 international Dow was at his best over flat fast course with scattered artificial obstacles.   He was part of a team that included three men – J Suttie Smith, RR Sutherland and WC Wylie – who had all finished runner-up in recent years, but the main Scottish hope lay with James C Flockhart who was undefeated all season.   The race was run in blazing hot sunshine and Dow, accustomed toi the torrid heat from his Army service in the Far East,  was more at home with the weather than his colleagues.   Starting in tenth position after the opening rush, he was eighth at half distance, sixth at 6 miles, and a relentless surging finish brought him home third, just six seconds behind Jack Holden, a three times winner, with British 6 and 10 miles record holder William Eaton finishing a clear winner by a 150 yard margin.”

1936 International Cross Country Champinship

1936 International Cross-Country Championship:  Dow is Number 55

A local paper at this time described his training: “Dow trains on Tuesdays and Thursdays over the road varying his distances from three to five miles, and covers seven miles over the country on a Saturday.   Dow does not bother himself unduly about diet, and ha so far failed to set for himself  any special course of training for big events – more proof of his natural ability.   No present day runner covers the ground with less effort.   If one carefully watches his striding methods, it will be observed that his leg lift is of the minimum height, reminiscent of the style of the great Arthur Newton of South Africa who holds many long distance road records.”    

If his selection for international duty so far had been eminently clear cut, this was not the case for 1937.   He finished 102nd in the National at Redford Barracks in Edinburgh and was selected to run for Scotland.   It had been the case that the first six were automatically selected and I don’t know of any runner finishing outside the first 100 to be picked for the International.    Alex Wilson has looked into this carefully and has this to say:   I have found some interesting stuff on Alex Dow’s selection for the 1937 ICCU Championship.   It seems that it was the subject of heated debate.   Many felt that the running order in the national championships should be the sole criterion for selection rather than the, in part, discretionary selection method favoured by the SCCU.   According to Athlon (an athletics journalist) ‘This year the Scottish officials accepted the first three men – Flockhart, Farrell and Sutherland – without discussion, but all the others were put to the vote.’

One item (source unknown) re the Scottish Cross-Country Championships states: ‘The most remarkable failure was that of Alex Dow of Kirkcaldy  YMCA.   During the season Dow has hardly shown the form expected of him, but few looked to see him fail to finish inside the first 100.   The Union, by including him in the team for Brussels, have shown they keep their confidence  in him, and certainly his distinguished service in the past gives a guarantee that his form on Saturday was a temporary lapse.   Dow may make a good recovery at Brussels.’

Another item states: ‘One of the most distracting features of the Redford race was the running of Alex Dow, Kirkcaldy, who finished only 102nd.   His loss of form seems inexplicable, but bearing in mind his brilliant running for Scotland in previous races, the selection committee has given him a place in the team again.’

Athlon wrote re the ICCU selections: ‘I do not think the team is open to much criticism.   the selectors have evidently chosen A Dow on the strength of his last season’s running, when he finished third in both Scottish and International championships.   I believe the Dysart man has been troubled by a leg injury, obviously he was not fit on Saturday, for more than a hundred competitors beat him.   I am not finding fault with the Union selectors in finding a place for Dow, but I think they are being rather inconsistent.   Only a couple of years ago they left out RR Sutherland because he only finished 26th in the national event.   Last year however, they chose WC Wylie after he had run 44th in Lanark, and he did not let them down in Blackpool’.

1937 Scottish ICCU teamThe 1937 International team – Dow on the extreme left

So how did he do in the international after so much ink had been spilt over his selection?    Second Scot across the line, in 17th position, beating RR Sutherland by three places!    The story of the day however was not his return to top form but rather team mate Jim Flockhart’s victory.   Read about it here.   The “Glasgow Herald” after devoting almost all of the report to Jim Flockhart had a paragraph that said: “Alex Dow fully justified the confidence of the Scottish selection committee.   In finishing 17th he was second counting man for his country, beating RR Sutherland by three places.   JE Farrell “stitched” badly at one point of the race but hung on grimly and eventually finished 23rd and fourth for Scotland.” 

Alex Wilson’s comment is that “in the 1930’s at least the Scottish selectors had an uncannily good hand.   These were clearly people with their ears close to the ground.”    My own perspective is that at present selectors find many ways to avoid actually having to select a team – automatic qualifications, rigid trials, etc – and the thought of picking a runner who had been out of the first 100 in the national would be a boldness too far!

1937/38 was Dow’s last year and the 1938 international was his last.   The national was to be held at Ayr in 1938 and 30 prominent runners were invited by Captain WH Dunlop to go for a training run over the course to familiarise themselves with it before the actual race.   The race was on the same day as the English national so RR Sutherland missed it as did WC Wylie.   John Emmet Farrell won the title by 150 yards from ‘a fresh looking Alex Dow‘ and PJ Allwell (Ardeer).    The international was held at the Balmoral Showgrounds in Belfast where the Scots all ran poorly.   Dow was 27th and third Scot.    Some Press reports said that he had been second in the national despite not having trained hard and the Glasgow Herald report on the international, after lamenting the poor form of the Scots generally and the disappointing team performance had this to say of Dow: “A Dow found conditions against him and, in extenuation of his failure, it is remembered that he rarely does well except in fine weather and on firm ground.   The race at Belfast was run in driving rain.”     That is consistent with the reports of his run in 1936 where it was reported that the hot weather and blazing sunshine had suited him after his Army service in the Far East.   He was however third Scot to finish.

He ran in other races – eg two weeks before the international he ran a fast time for his club in the Perth to Kirkcaldy Road Relay – but his international career was finished.   If you look at any of the team photographs you will see that, along with RR Sutherland, he was the tallest in the team – probably over six feet – and it is no surprise to find out that he was a policeman.    He took up a post in Palestine in 1939 his running career, as far as we know it, was at an end.

Like many of his generation, Dow was a very talented athlete who had a short career – the length of which was dictated by his occupation, it was terminated by his occupation too.   If we look back at his ten miles triumph in 1934, the pace judgment was immaculate and in most of his races he tended to run steadily throughout and come through dramatically when others were tiring.    This was done without the assistance of pace training on a track although it is possible that his road runs were what we would today call ‘tempo runs’!    The country was blessed with many fine athletes in the 1930’s – possibly a golden generation?

Some Tributes …

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Lynne track suitLynne McDougall

John Anderson has had many athletes pass through his hands and they almost universally have good memories and entertaining tales to tell,   Some of these tributes are set out here – appreciations of help given and friendships made and maintained.   I await more which will be added once I have seen them.    First of all there is Dave Hislop who has known John since the early 1970’s.   Dave ran for Edinburgh AC and Birchfield Harrierss with pb’s of 53.08 for 400m Hurdles and 49.25 for 400m flat.   He ran for Scotland no fewer than 10 times between 1978 and 2004.   Details of his career can be found  at

 http://www.scotstats.com/sats/uploads/ARCHIVE%202013/Final%20Profile-Men%20G-L.pdf

He says:

John Anderson -A Few Words!     Perhaps a contradiction of terms but here goes…

I have had the privilege of knowing John for some 40 years during which time he has fulfilled a number of role in respect of me and my family ranging from coach, friend, employer, mentor, confidant, advisor, godfather to our son to mention but a few.   He is undoubtedly one of the few people I know who is capable of carrying out all of the above and more…

Without his influence there is no way I would have achieved what I achieved in my sporting career or my professional career. John is the type of person who gives people the skills to enhance their life it is then up to them to take these opportunities.

The sheer number of international athletes John has coached not to mention those who may not have attained international level but who reached heights that they would not have achieved without John’s guidance, speaks for his prowess as a coach.

I could write a book on the experiences, as could the hundreds if not thousands of others, I have shared with him over the years and still continue to do so but this is not the purpose of these words.

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly recognise the impact John Anderson has made on not only my life but the lives of my wife, Kay and son, Jordan. The world of athletics has certainly benefitted from his input to the Nth degree.

To finish then I would just like to say a massive thank you John for all you have done for me and my family and also from those who have been fortunate enough to have been part of John’s life.”

It’s a sound testimonial to John’s ability to inspire and educate in a way that is not narrowly focused on sporting success, but to go a wee bit further than that – or maybe a big bit further!

***

Second up is Lynne MacDougall whose career is documented at www.scottishdistancerunninghistory.co.uk in the section entitled The Milers.

“I first met John in Portugal at an International Athletes’ Club training camp in the spring of 1983. John had organised a paarlauf session on the cross country course for the endurance athletes there. As usual he was very enthusiastic about the session and turned it into a bit of an event. He has a very loud voice and used it to effect to encourage all of the athletes to work hard! John certainly made an impression on me that day. 

At that time my coach, Ronnie Kane had just died and I was looking around for a new coach. Jimmy Campbell got in touch with John and asked if he might take me on.  

John lived in Coventry with his wife Dorothy and I used to travel down to stay with them so that I could train with his group, which at that time included Dave Moorcroft, Judy Livermore, Eugene Gilkes, John Graham and the Australian 1500m runner Pat Scammell.  I have heard critics of John say he only worked with ‘stars’ who came to him fully formed, but that is nonsense as he worked with many people from when they were young and unknown and also with many club athletes who were never going to become international athletes. However, he expected all of his athletes to be committed to training and to take a professional approach to their athletics whatever their standard.  He and Dorothy opened their house to athletes and it was always full of people dropping in for advice or staying over to train.  Dorothy is a wonderful lady who went out of her way to look after all of the athletes and make them feel welcome. I was just 18 when I first met Dorothy and being looked after like this when I was away from home meant a lot to me.  

With John’s guidance I began to get on track with my training after having lost my way a bit after Ronnie’s death.  In my view, John’s training is based around principles of specificity and speed endurance.  There is no periodisation in the strictest sense, but training in the winter and competition seasons are different as in the winter the emphasis is on training and in the summer on competition.  Typical sessions included 4x600m with 5 mins recovery; 8x300m with 3 mins recovery; 150/300m x6 with the same distance jog recovery; 10x400m and 4x1000m for 5k runners.  I also did 10mile runs and ‘stepping stones’: runs which are runs where you run 1mile at, say, 6min per mile followed by a mile at 6.30min per mile for 4 or 6 miles. I also did 20min fast runs.  

With this training schedule and the support from the group I made a lot of progress over the winter of 1983.  John’s encouragement was a significant factor in this. He was always very positive and encouraging of his athletes and has a great belief in them. My belief in myself did not always match John’s and I guess this was the one difficulty we had in our relationship. But I think that the training system works very well and I based my training around it when I was coaching for a short time with good results.  

In 1984 I took around 10 seconds off my pb for 1500m and made the Olympic team.  I remember the Olympic Trials in Gateshead well. It was the first time my parents and sister met John. My 18 year old sister did not have a ticket, but this was no problem for John.  He liked to play a game with himself involving getting into every stadium he ever visited free.  He put his arm round my sister and walked her into the stadium talking intently but every once in a while shouting out hello to passers by.  As he expected no one checked whether they had tickets or accreditation because he looked like he was perfectly entitled to walk through the entrance. Alison got one of the best seats in the stand!  

John was one of the British team’s coaches in LA, with specific responsibility for multi-events.  As a 19 year old it was great to have my coach in the Olympic village with me.  One day I went with John and two of the decathletes in the team for a stroll in Venice Beach. Venice attracts a weird and wonderful crowd of people and it was probably one of the few occasions I spent with John where he was one of the least flamboyant characters around! 

Mostly, though John was the centre of attention!  Gradually all of his athletes got used to this and it was just what they expected of John.  I saw this quality being used to great effect though a number of times.  One night we were at a charity event part of which involved an auction.  The bidding was very sluggish and items were being sold for very small amounts. ‘Watch this’ John said to me getting up and taking over the mike from a timid announcer.  In the next 20 mins John got the whole room so enthused that the bids tripled in value.  The crowning moment was when he convinced someone to pay £250 for a photograph of two gladiators from the show he was working on at the time!  This anecdote highlights some important aspects of John’s character and why he has had such an impact on many athletes and coaches lives: he sees opportunities when others might not, he does not think something is ever a lost cause, he is willing to pull out all of the stops to make things happen and he keeps on going until they do. 

John is also fearless. He made much of his upbringing in the tough and mean streets of Glasgow (which was firmly tongue in cheek to those of us actually from Glasgow!) to develop a certain reputation.  However I did see this toughness on one occasion when we were on a training camp in Spain. One of the girls in our group came running in and told us there were thieves in one of the athletes’ rooms. John was out of the door faster than Usain Bolt heading to the room which was in another building.  He single handedly grabbed the two thieves and held them both against a wall until the police arrived!   The police also took John down to the station to investigate this citizen’s arrest as the thieves complained about his treatment!  However he was released a short time after and the athletes got all of their stuff back.    

I continued to work with John all through the 1980s at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh and Auckland where he was an England Team coach.  I stopped competing for a time in the early 1990s but then in 1995 I decided to start training  again more seriously. I had a couple of people who helped me but eventually I got in touch with John again. He was living in Dunfermline and so I was able to see him again regularly.  As I was older it was a different sort of relationship. It was more about chatting through ideas.  It was great to have John and Dorothy’s support again and to know there were other people I could turn to when I had problems. John helped me train for the 5000m and I had a fairly successful season in 1997.   

My track career did not end very well. I dropped out of the AAA’s 5000m and I felt that I was done with running. However, I started to run more on the roads and began to enjoy it again.  Once again I went to speak to John about coaching.  As I said earlier he does not give up on lost causes and suggested I train for the marathon!  Despite having no background in distance running (I had never even done a half marathon) and my not exactly successful career to date he believed I could make the Olympic team!    

Training for the marathon involved longer runs, but was still built a lot on ‘speedwork’.  For example I did the ‘stepping stones’ sessions – but they were 9 miles long; a common session was 5miles fast/five steady/five fast; track sessions were about 10km in length; long runs were about 15miles to 20miles once a week.   

In the end I ran 3 marathons.  I did not get the Olympic qualifying time but was selected for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. However, I developed a back injury and could get no-one to treat it effectively. I felt I had lost too much training and gave up my place in the team. I think John was disappointed about this decision as he believed I could have competed. I retired soon after.  

I will be ever grateful for the time John gave me and his support over the years. I am glad that through this profile a wider group of people will get to know about and develop a better appreciation of John’s contribution to athletics.  ” 

Hamish Telfer

Hamish Telfer

Early in his career he coached Hamish Telfer and his friend Cameron McNeish.    Cameron went on to become famous as a climber and hill-walker with many books and publications to his name and Hamish became a top class coach in his own right.    If you want a review of his career go to

    http://www.theleisurereview.co.uk/events/HamishTelfer2.pdf

Hamish sent some of his recollections of his time with John and they are presented below, just as he worded them.

 “I understand John was born and brought up in Govanhill, Glasgow.  He attended Queens Park Senior Secondary School which was then in Battlefield before its move to Toryglen.  I think he may have a sister but I am uncertain.  I also understand that he was a fairly competent all-rounder at sport while at school and represented Scottish Schoolboys playing alongside Ally MacLeod.  I believe he played centre forward.  He may also have played for amateur Scotland.  He was also a reasonable gymnast.

He attended the Scottish School of Physical Education at Jordanhill College, Glasgow.  I am uncertain as to how many schools he may have taught at, but I certainly remember him telling me he taught at a pretty tough east end school in Glasgow where, to instil some discipline into his charges, he started a gymnastic club which went on to do well at either the full Nationals or the School nationals (possibly winning something).  It was at this time in his career that his ambitions coincided with track and field athletics and he got involved as you know with Maryhill Ladies (in all its various early forms).  I recall him telling me that in order to realise the ambition of getting to the top of the pile in about 5 years he had a simple dictum.  If a parent brought their kid to be coached, they had to do something for the club.  John had worked out very early on that he couldn’t get to grips with coaching if he was also the club secy., treasurer, dogsbody etc .  He seemed quite ruthless in this demand, as I remember him telling me that there were a number of times that parents took kids elsewhere and he had to watch undoubted talent prosper at other clubs when he would have wished they were with him and his team of coaches.  It was around this time that he applied for and got the Scottish National Coach’s job.   Maryhill went on to develop and prosper further under the fantastic Jimmy Campbell (as did my own coaching career).  [NB: Jimmy had been brought into the sport by John when he was coaching his daughter Mary at Maryhill Ladies AC]

I can’t remember exactly when I first met John but I suspect it was about the time I was 15 (1965).  I trained with Cameron McNeish and we were good friends.  Cameron was a sprinter long jumper as was I, but he was much better and it was in Cameron that John took an interest.  We were members of the now (sadly) defunct West of Scotland Harriers (who also had Ian Walker make it to a Scottish vest at 400 – now a folk singer) and he took over Cameron’s coaching form the coach at the club who was John Todd.  In doing so, he also took on me.  Much later in my life on one of the occasions when I asked John why he took on a ‘good’ but not really talented athlete, he responded by telling me that apart from the fact that he knew I was a committed athlete (more of that later), he knew that to split up the training partnership could be detrimental to both of us. Cameron and I thus joined John’s  ‘National Squad’ at a very tender age.  This being the case, I remember John sitting us both down and ‘telling it like it was’ with regards to conduct.  If we even sniffed any alcohol (John was, and I think still is, an abstainer), we were out on our ears.  Same applied to smoking.  We even got lectured about manners and conduct to others, especially women as well as our appearance.  We were left somewhat traumatised by the experience but left in no doubt who was boss.  I think he did this as he recognised we were very young and he certainly didn’t want anything getting out of hand.  Application and hard work also had to be applied to school too.

 He was very strong in his views about egos.  He encouraged us to believe in ourselves and to feel that there was nothing we couldn’t achieve with hard work and application but he had no truck for big heads (although he did coach David Jenkins which, given David’s ability to appear grandiose on numerous occasions, seemed slightly at odds).  He had numerous ways in which he could deflate athletes who believed their own hype and I saw it in action on a number of occasions.  I later found out, much to my embarrassment, that my mother, concerned that I was spending considerable amounts of time seemingly with a stranger, sought him out ( I have no idea how) and grilled him.  He told me later in life that he could now see the funny side of it but at the time my mother who was a small, slight woman of only 4’10’’, really put him on the spot, especially with regards to training interfering with my school work.

As soon as we joined the squad our training patterns changed under John’s direction.  He arranged for us to train with Maryhill Ladies mainly in the winter and I well remember the Friday night sessions at Westbourne School (Madge Carruthers was head of PE there).  In addition there were the (mainly winter) sessions at the (newish) Grangemouth Stadium.  He also encouraged us to train with the better women sprinters in his charge, and I spent some considerable time training with Avril Beattie and in effect acting as her training partner.  She worked in a bank I think, but would get changed at work and meet me near the Queens Park and we would do rep sessions in the park at least once a week in the dark and having to climb over railings to get in and out again.  Cameron and I also trained with Anne Wilson (a PE teacher) who was a Scottish International at sprints and LJ.  Anne was terrific fun and was the instigator of mischief as well as all of us getting T-shirts bearing the legend ‘Nohj Squad’ (she always addressed John as Nhoj and got away with it).  The squad took great pride in its identity and identification with John.  Some of the other names I remember were Hugh Baillie, Bob Lawrie, Dunky Middleton, Stuart McCallum, both Jenkins brothers, Lindy Carruthers,  Moira Kerr (with whom I did weight training twice weekly at Springburn Sports Centre).  There were undoubtedly others but I am uncertain whether they were the core group or simply joined us: Fergus the steeplechaser from Edinburgh Uni, Dougie Edmondson, Lawrie Bryce, McPherson another thrower, Hugh Barrow, Ruth Watt, Adrian thingymabob who was a miler/1500, John Lyle etc etc.  My memory needs jogging as to who was around at the time.

John held sessions at Springburn Sports Centre every Tuesday in the winter which was a combination of weights and conditioning.  They were hard graft! I remember one occasion when John was called away to the phone at the start of the conditioning session and we wondered what to do as more than 10 mins had elapsed and he hadn’t returned.  We decided to carry on (Dunky Middleton was one of the ones in the session so it was a mixture of senior and youth athletes).  When John came back 50 mins later we were still going!  Knackered but still going.  Cameron and I would walk from our schools in the south side of Glasgow to get to these sessions as we only had enough money for a fare one way, so decided to get the bus for the homeward journey.  We called in to my Gran’s flat in Springburn often after the session where she would feed us both with bacon and eggs.

 

John also used Cameron and myself as ‘athlete demonstrators’ on coaching courses both during the week and at weekends and have particular recollections of him picking me up and taking me to Ayr, Inverclyde and various places around Glasgow and Edinburgh.  Quite exciting for a young, impressionable athlete.  One of the reasons that he was able to do that was he had a firm belief in all-round conditioning for all his young athletes (not the case with the Seniors who he took on).  All youngsters in his squad had to master all decathlon events and when the Scottish Schools Easter Athletics Course was under his control, part of the week was dedicated to two days of decathlon competition.  This was part of his philosophy that although we start out in one event we may of course end up in another.

Other anecdotes stand out.  Cameron and I used to sing in the showers at Grangemouth and this started something of duel between the women in the next changing room who could hear us and the rest of the male squad.  It became a standard feature of sessions for a while as to which changing room could outdo the other and John would join in although not so good with the falsetto part in The Righteous Brothers ‘You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling’.

Three other incidents stand out.

  1. When Cameron and I were about 18 or so, we bought motorbikes to help us get around to training.  This made it easier to get to John’s house too.  We often went over to his place at Hamilton to help him splice films for his Specto analyser which he used on coaching courses.  This allowed us unparalleled access to his knowledge and to quiz him and to see repeated footage of the likes of Eddy Ottoz going over hurdles.  This was without question where I started to chart my career path, as I realised I had a thirst for this and indeed, something of an aptitude.  John must have been a bit sick of never being able to get away from us but never complained and his then wife Christine (who was a lovely young woman) must have felt we were like contraceptives.  In one particular incident however, I remember going to John’s to get picked up to go to Grangemouth early one Sunday morning.  It was in the depths of one the coldest winter spells and it was well under zero in temperature and i was on my small 50cc motorbike.  By the time I had got to John’s from south side Glasgow to Hamilton I was more than a bit cold.  I got off the bike (just) and made it to his back door and then must have collapsed against the door with hypothermia.  I remember nothing until coming round laid flat out in front of the fire in the front room with my head on Christine’s lap.  While she was concerned, John wasn’t!  He got me up as quick as he could, bundled me into his car (a Volvo after his little VW beetle) and with the heaters in his red Volvo going full blast, we made it to Grangemouth where his only concession was to ‘allow me’ to miss the morning track session substituting it for a 10 mile run (to warm me up again) and then into the afternoon track session.

  2. John took Cameron and myself down to Cosford to run indoors when we were about 16 or 17.  While I can remember one visit entailed staying at the student halls in Loughborough sleeping on the floor of the rooms of the likes of Mike McKean, Mike Varah and co., I also remember one trip undertaken in dense fog either on the way there or back.  On the trip with the freezing fog ……. John asked Cammie and me to get all our clothes on; everything we could put on that we had.  Perplexed we obeyed.  He then put me in the back with Cammie and then he instructed us to open the windows (one of us on each side) and lean out a bit and give him instructions as to when he might either cross the white line or hit the verge so he could drive a bit faster.  I remember these trips usually entailed us getting to John’s the night before to sleep over in order to get up at something like 3am to set off.  My life with John always seemed to have theme of ‘cold’.

  3. On which note – John was proud of a particularly vicious session he used to inflict on us called 20 second runs.  Usually reserved for the Grangemouth sessions, it was indiscriminate in its(his) ability to reduce quality athletes to crawling about the track barfing up what was left in their stomachs.  I remember Hugh Baillie being left prostrate on more than one occasion as was Bob Lawrie.  The one that sticks in my mind was the session he sprung on us on Christmas Eve one year (which happened to fall on a Sunday, hence Grangemeouth).  Thinking we would have one of his fun sessions of a continuous relay with all events involved for fun, he sprung the 20 second run session on us.  It was also snowing very heavily.  I still have memories of crawling on to the infield after ‘hitting my mark’ and seeing a pair of snow covered feet in front of me and hearing him bark ‘make or not?’  When I responded ‘only just’, he simply bawled, ‘go again’ and moved on to the next victim.  We never saw him through the snow in that sheepskin trade mark jacket of his, but we heard him.  We were wearing vests and shorts!

Cammie had left athletics by the time he was about 20 as by then he was in the Police Force and the shifts were difficult to fit in and he had also met his future wife and got married at 21.  I got a bad injury at PE College and stopped competing in 1970 too.  However without a doubt John, for all his faults (and he had many – temper, pig headedness, obstinate, argumentative) was a wonderful influence on me and I owe virtually everything in my career to John’s influence.  Indeed it was interesting to hear some people remark that I was a mini version of John when I taught and coached.  I would not have had the career I did without John’s help and encouragement.

Later on when I left PE teaching in Scotland in 1975 to take up the post of National Technical Officer (National Coach) for the Royal Life Saving Society, I was then the youngest full time National Coach in any sport in Great Britain.  I have since been a GB team coach in Wild Water Canoeing (don’t ask) and also back in my own sport of athletics for cross country.  At the top in 3 sports and much of it down to John and his grounding in confidence, learning, knowledge and hard work.

My final ‘memory’ was of the only time John paid me a real complement (this from a man who once described my start from the gun as ‘like watching milk turn’ in terms of ‘response’!) and in true Anderson fashion it came when it mattered; in front of my peers.  I was heavily involved in the British Association of National Coaches in the middle part of my career and was one of the ones charged with considering moving the Association forward from its rather elite membership of past and present National Coaches to meet the demands of widening audience of coaches who needed a ‘Coaches Association’ to get their voices heard (we are still waiting!).  We invited John as a speaker to our annual conference one year.  At this point John and I had not been in contact for some time.  We briefly chatted before his session before he went on to talk to the assembled National Coaches from all sports.  The talk was about the ‘coach athlete relationship’ or something along those lines.  There were just over 100 in the room.

He started his session by saying ‘There is someone in this room who epitomises what a hard working, committed athlete is.  Without such athletes, coaches such as yourselves cannot achieve the highest levels of success since talent alone seldom, in my view, is enough without the ability to work hard.  That person is Hamish Telfer.’  I can remember it almost verbatim and was quite overwhelmed as I knew it was not in his nature to say things like this.  In typical John fashion he had his punch line however.  He continued by saying (I suspect in order to lighten the moment) something like … ‘Without a doubt he was the hardest working athlete I have ever coached but unfortunately for Hamish he possessed not a grain of natural talent.’  I still felt quite chuffed but do remember when the laughter died down saying ‘and it’s taken you 20 years to tell me I was crap then Anderson?’

Despite the flaws he inspires fierce loyalty and when I talked to Cameron that is what he remembers too. “

***

Finally, Eric Simpson from Fife paid a wonderful tribute to John and I simply quote it in its entirety.

John and  I first met when I did my Senior Coaches in London a few years ago  at least 25 years ago.   There were 5/6 of us on the course and from the 1st minute John and I hit it off. There are so many stories but relevant to John ,from the beginning I realised that with John you either loved him or hated him a bit of the MARMITE man.    I loved him because I always felt he was honest , he called it as he saw it,  it might not be politically correct but hell great athletes and coaches are not made by being P.C.
 
I always considered John my mentor and if I needed help he would always be there on the end of  the phone  he was working in London at the time.   I managed to get through to him in his office one day and he started laughing because he wanted to know how I had conned his secretary into putting the call through.    John was the reason I got my chance to work with the G.B. squad in Birmingham and plans were in place for me to be developed in this area.   Then as usual politics got in the way and I think it was B.A.F. went “tits up”  I still was invited to work with Adrian Thomas on the G.B. Junior squad and this gave me a great insight into the working of the sport at the top end. Again John was always there in the back ground.. When Katie Skorupska came on the scene John was the catalyst in getting her sponsorship with Nike, in his house one day (he had moved to Dunfermline by this time,) telling the Nike rep on the phone that he had better get her now because a year down the line he would get no where.   He duly said o.k. a pair of trainers just because it was John . A year later she had a “gold” card with Nike and all that entailed.
Johns 65th Birthday party when he turned up at his house in Dunfermline totally oblivious the people waiting to greet him, some of the top people in the country administrators , athletes and coaches.
John can be an abrasive character but he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. The 1st Senior international that Kt was picked for at 17 caused all sorts of fuss. John was adamant she was going to run and I know he forced it through selection , He had approached me at Birmingham the week before and asked if I thought that Katie was ready for a 5k I said it was planned for at least one that year, and how did I feel about her running the international.   I think people were hoping that it would blow up in his face instead she ran brilliantly to win it and set a mark for the seniors to beat, which they did not. John and I crossed sword occasionally but my respect for him never waned and I missed him badly when he moved back South but will always consider one of the major influences in my life, John never gave you the answer as a young coach , he told you were to go and find it then come back and discuss it with him.    I have used this technique with the young coaches that I mentor now and tell them how lucky I was to have John as my guide.    I travelled  a round trip of over 1000 miles to see John when he lived in London , I learned more in the seven hours I spent with him than I had learned in the previous seven years , an inspiration and a great person in my eyes.  Like few of the coaches now gone we will NOT see his like again because John is very much a ONE OFF: get him and TOM McNAB together and you will have a master class in Bloody minded , single minded fantastic coaches who don’t care for niceties, but get the job done  and the people who matter, the athletes, hold in the highest regard.  
I have more stories but this is turning into a novel. I would be grateful if you could forward Johns e mail  A wee story to finish which shows the man. One day at Meadowbank during a meeting John is walking across the track carrying a bag………” Hi  John, is that you been relegated to carrying the bag” sharp as a tack he replies “Aye, Eric but I’m the BEST bag carrier” Brilliant this is the man to a tee  only the best was good enough.
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