Having followed the AHCA from its beginnings in 1924 up to the War and then for the 10 years immediately thereafter, it might be right to look at the ‘product’ –  the development of the Association through the careers of some of the runners who were brought into the sport and up to national, and maybe international prominence from 1956.   There were many of them and they performed on track (John Boyd, Tommy Cochrance, Jim McLatchie, etc) on the road (Ian Harris, Danny McFadzean, etc) with distinction.   

Ian Harris (Beith):  Ian, pictured above,  joined Beith Harriers as a Youth (ie Under 17) and his first training run was in a thunderstorm on a dark night.   Then on his first race at West Kilbride he tried to jump one of those Ayrshire barbed wire fences when he came off the road and cut himself badly but surprised everybody by coming in first.  Beith was a strong club at the time and he was a near contemporary of Tommy Cochrane who won the South West District  Cross Country Trophy so often that when the association folded up he was given the trophy to keep.   Incidentally his first Senior victory was in 1960, the year before Ian’s first win in the event.   Ian’s career included a victory in the South West District Cross Country Youth Championships in 1953 and victories in the Senior event in 1961 and 1963.    He had a third place in the Scottish Youth Cross Country Championships behind Peter McPartland (Springburn) and after finishing seventh in the SCCU Championships, ran for Scotland in the 1961 international cross country championships.   Ian joined the British Army and had a wonderful career in athletics there too: read the full story  here.    He appears in the Scottish rankings in the 1960’s as follows:

Jack Boyd (ASAC)   John Robert Boyd was born on 30th July 1933, won gold and silver at the SAAA championships, set a national half-mile record and won in a British vest .

Jack’s story can be read  at this link .

 

Danny McFadzean (Beith):  Danny was a member of Beith Harriers from 1957 who ran well but after joining the Royal Navy he really started to improve – his progression in the marathon was as follows.

Danny ran in the Kosice Marathon where he was sixth in 2:23  and also went to Boston with a Royal Navy team which won the team race in 1969 with the runners being Phil Hampton (9th, 2:23:46), Joe Clare (17th, 2:29:16) and Danny (21st, 2:30:54).   Danny went to the race in 1967 when he was ninth in 2:22:06, then in 1968 when he finished 9th again in 2:32:27; he next went to Boston with a Royal Navy team which won the team race in 1969 with the runners being Phil Hampton (9th, 2:23:46), Joe Clare (17th, 2:29:16) and Danny (21st, 2:30:54).

Tommy Cochrane (Beith): Tommy was a top class runner over the country where he won Scottish international honours and on the track.   His two years National Service were spent mainly in Germany and he did a lot of racing on the continent.   He was a very highly respected athlete on both sides of the Border and eventually settled in the south of England where he was a very successful coach.

Jim McLatchie (Muirkirk, Ayr Seaforth):  Very tall for a distance runner, he ran well on the roads and country but excelled on the track.   He became a top class coach working with Olympic athletes from Europe and the United States.   He has done so much in the sport you need to read his individual profile as a runner  here  and as a coach at  this link.   

Those are just some of the runners  who have started in AHCA races and gone on to really wonderful running careers.   If we look at some of the races organised after 1955, we get 

***   Race run in a blizzard.

If we pause the results there and look back over the scene in Ayrshire, we see that the sport was in very good condition with honours being won by Beith, Kilmarnock, Irvine and Doon  and the first three always challenging at District level.   In the five years just covered, a Boys Championship over a mile and a half had been added to the Senior and Youths Championships and now in 1958 South West District had entered a team in the Inter-District Championship being held in Edinburgh.   First  SW runner to finish was WJ More of Kilmarnock who finished sixth.   More was another very good runner to come from the county: a tall, strong athlete he was fast on the track, often invited to run in short-limit handicap events such as a race at Carluke designed to set up a Scottish record for Graham Stark of Edinburgh, and a good steeplechase athlete.    He also ran for Glasgow University for several years.   A highly respected athlete.