Category: Runners

Donald McLean in 1938

Donald McLean, also known as Don McLean, was a Greenock Policeman who was also a distinguished member of Maryhill Harriers   When the photograph above was taken, after the National Cross-Country Championship in 1948, he was 46 years old.   The race was won that day by his team mate John Emmett Farrell, and one of the counting runners was Gordon Porteous, both of who were still running and racing in their 90’s.  Maryhill did have a lot of older athletes – Alex Wilson reminds me of George Barber (who ran in the 1912 Olympic marathon trial also ran in the Polytechnic Marathon in 1939 when he was 48) and Jimmy McNamara who was still active after the war (McNamara had a rousing reception when finishing the Drymen to Firhill road race at the age of 60).   Had the veteran athletics scene existed then, no doubt Donald would also have been an enthusiastic veteran.   Emmet Farrell in his autobiography speaks quite often about Donald and his respect and admiration shine through.   He tells one story about the policeman who had to ask the way though –

“THE POLICEMAN WHO LOST HIS WAY

Although I have indicated how modest our training methods were in those far-off days compared with the moderns we did by our own standards have some really hard sessions on occasion.   Our club Maryhill Harriers trained from the public-baths wash-house at Gairbraid Avenue and often on a Tuesday there were perhaps twenty runners all ready to start a real hard 7 or 8 miles run.   Champions of the class of Dunky Wright, Donald Robertson, Tom Blakely, the 3 mile Scottish champion and Greenock policeman Donald McLean whose versatility ranged from half-mile to two miles on the track and even in the veteran stage provided a strong tail on cross-country team events.

When Donald made the special journey from Greenock we knew that there were going to be firworks and when pace-man Willie Nelson shouted in stentorian tones “Right lads” and left like a greyhound in the slips it was easy to lose contact with the pack if one was dilatory.   It was a clear moonlight evening crisp and exhilarating, and so was the pace.   Donald was in rampant form and none of us could hold him.   Unfortunately he wasn’t too familiar with the trail and failed to take a left turn and arrived at Charing Cross over two miles away and had to ask his way home to the Baths.   The red-faced policeman eventually arrived but it was a long time before we let him forget about this incident.   It’s not every day that a policeman has to ask the way home.   Donald blamed Dunky for not shouting left turn as the latter was well-known as a jokester but the latter countered by saying that he was too far ahead to hear instructions.”

Donald McLean first appears in the results columns in 1924 as a member of Greenock Wellpark Harriers who ran mainly in mile races.   On 7th June he was second in the open mile handicap at Queens Park FC Sports, a week later he ran in the SAAA Championships but was merely noted as ‘also competed’, in the Glasgow Police Sports on 28th June he won the confined 880 yards in 2:07.6 and in the Greenock Glenpark Harriers Sports  on 26th July he won the half-mile very easily in 1:58 off a mark of 42 yards.   He was clearly already a very good runner although he does not appear in any results for the principal meetings in 1923.   An interesting aside is the prize winning habits of his Wellpark Harrier team mate, Duncan McSwein, who was picking up several prizes a year, albeit from big handicaps, at grounds around the West of Scotland.   Duncan went on to become a very long-serving Treasurer of the SCCU.  

In 1925 he started his season at the Kilmarnock Sports on 23rd May in the Mile where he was third behind James Mitchell of Kilmarnock Harriers and P Nichol also Kilmarnock Harriers – two very able athletes who started well behind his 140 yard handicap.   The next outing was on 6 June in the Queen’s Park FC Sports at Hampden, where he was timed at 9:42.0 to be a close second in 2 miles team race against Tom Riddell.   This was his first run in a Maryhill Harriers vest, and the race report read: “From the spectacular point of view the tit-bit of the meeting was the finish of the Two Miles race.   Not since Johnston and McIntyre fought out their memorable duel in the championship last June has there been so thrilling a struggle as as that which took place between T Riddell and D McLean, the Greenock policeman, who runs with Maryhill Harriers.   The resemblance between the two races was further accentuated by the fact that Riddell, the winner of Saturday’s race, collapsed, like Johnston, after passing the tape.   There was nothing between the pair from the moment the bell sounded until the finishing post was reached , and as an exhibition of splendid courage on the party of both runners it could scarcely be surpassed.”    He might have been running well, but at this point he could not get into his club’s Mile relay team – WH Calderwood was running too well for that – nor did the 23 year old McLean pick up any medals at the SAAA Championships that year.   He did compete in the latter but was not among the first three who were Riddell, Mackie and Johnston.    He remedied the latter the following summer.

 Donald started the 1926 season as he did on the last Saturday in May when he turned out on 25th May at Hampden and won the Mile in 4:366.4.   In the Glasgow Police Sports on 19th June he won the confined in 2:04, described in the ‘Herald’ as ‘won easily’.   This led nicely into the SAAA Championships the following week when he was entered in the Mile.   This turned into a race between himself and Tom Riddell which Riddell won by 7 yards with McLean being timed at 4:27.4.    This gained him selection for the Triangular International at Hampden Park on the Second Saturday in July.   The Mile was won by Tom Riddell  but McLean was not in the first three in the race.  It was back to the domestic round after this and the Mile Relay which had been traditionally run in Scotland with the 880 yards first, then the two furlongs and ending with the quarter-mile had been changed to one where the race began with the two furlongs, then there came the quarter and finally the half-mile which made it a totally different race.   McLean’s next place was in the Celtic FC Sports, held on Tuesday, 10th August.   Nor was it in the half-mile or Mile that he appeared – it was the Three Miles flat handicap which he won with  a handicap allowance of 145 yards from WH Calderwood (125) and FL Stevenson (145).   This finished the domestic athletic season as the football started the very next Saturday.

McLean is not reported as running in too many cross-country races but at the end of the winter of 1926-27 he was sixth in the National Cross-Country Championship and second scoring runner for Maryhill behind Dunky Wright who won it.   The Maryhill team won the gold medals.

He started 1927 on  23rd May, in the Maryhill Harriers Sports at Ibrox Park.   He was timed at 9.31.8, in second place to Walter Beavers in 2 miles.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ report read:   “The Two Miles Team Race proved an interesting struggle with a surprise caused by the prominent running of Donald McLean, Maryhill Harriers, who in finishing second to W Beavers, of York, created a new Native record for the distance.   His time of 9:31 is 1 2-5th sec better than the previous figures set up by J McGough in 1904.”   Beavers’s winning time was 9:29 3-5th.   Two weeks later on 4th June, at Hampden in the Queen’s Park FC Sports, Donald won the Three Miles Team Race in 15.30.0, with the Maryhill squad of McLean, T Blakely 4, D Wright 6) winning from Monkland Harriers.   On 11th June on a meeting organised jointly by West of Scotland Harriers and Shettleston Harriers at Celtic Park, McLean ran in the Mile Relay for his club which finished second to West of Scotland.

The traditional prelude to the SAAA Championships was the Glasgow Police Sports held one week before the big day.  They fell on 18 June this year (1927) and were held at Ibrox.    McLean was first in the mile (first class) handicap in 4.27.8, where he was virtual backmarker off 25 yards.   He followed up with first in the half mile handicap, which was a race confined to policemen, off scratch, in 2.03.6.   It had often the case in the past that there were two mile races – a first class race with the faster me running, and the second class race with those off bigger handicaps contesting it, and it was revived as ‘an experiment’.   He was also the half-miler in the relay team which won the day.  The ‘Sunday Post’ commented that “Donald McLean of Maryhill made the meeting memorable by scoring a double win, and also by finishing first in the relay race”   The ‘Glasgow Herald’s take on it was “The experiment of dividing the mile handicap into two classes was a success, and this reduced size of field gave D McLean an opportunity of registering a success from his virtual scratch mark of 35 yards in good time.   It was rather curious that in both first class and second class the winners’ times should have only shown a difference of one-fifth of a second which indicates how little chance the back-marker has of getting through the huge fields which are usually found in these events.   McLean had a successful afternoon as, in addition to his victory in the mile, he won the confined half-mile and laid the foundation of his club’s victory in the relay race.”  

Clearly in very good form, he headed for the SAAA Championships on the 25th.   He contested the mile and won his first SAAA gold.   The report read: “In the mile the Greenock man had little or no serious opposition and was forced to make all of his own running in the last lap.   The impression grows that the best has not been seen of McLean yet, and certainly this season the better the opposition, the better he has been, witness his appearances in the team races with Birchfield Harriers and York Harriers at his own club meeting in May.   He has entered for the AAA Championships and it will be interesting to see how he fares.   A natural easy style, he only wants opportunity to be a real top-notcher.”   His winning time in a day of heavy rain throughout the meeting was 4:28.8.   He also ran the half mile leg of the relay and was first at the change-over for the winning team to receive his second gold medal of the afternoon.

Whatever the ‘Herald’ said about entering the AAA’s, McLean avoided the London meeting, preferring to attempt a Two Miles record at the Celtic Sports (2 July).   The report was that he had run a badly judged race and after taking the lead a lap from the finish ‘ran himself out’ and placed third in the event.    He did redeem himself somewhat in the Triangular international at Manchester on 16th July.   The Scots were soundly thrashed.   England won with 23.5 points, Ireland had 8.5 points and Scotland had only 1 point which was won for them by McLean.   He was the solitary points winner when he was second in the Mile in 4:25.8, three yards behind JW Moore of England.   Continuing the representative matches on Friday, 4th August he turned out at Craiglockhart, in a  Scotland v Achilles match.   There was some pre-race haggling over events.   Achilles had competed against Atalanta at Hampden the previous evening and they turned up in Edinburgh wanting to alter the programme.   “The Mile and Four Mile were deleted to suit the Englishmen and a Two Miles race substituted.   It was unfortunate that J Suttie Smith, the Four Miles champion, was unable to compete.    But Donald McLean filled the gap in the revised distance events, and WH Calderwood took McLean’s place in the half-mile.   McLean ran a well-judged race, and, after being content to run third behind FL Stevenson and VE Morgan went in the lead at the bell and resisted the stout challenge by the Englishman to get home by about 20 yards.”      His winning time was  9.35.0.

Not content with that, he was out the very next afternoon at Ibrox in the Rangers Sports where he ran in the Open Mile and finished third in the first class event which was won by C Ellis from scratch, with WH Calderwood second(125), and McLean was racing from 25 yards.   The winner was clocked at 4:18.8.   And that was the finish of his 1927 season

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In the St Peter’s Sports at the beginning of June, 1928, Maryhill Harriers were tied with Plebeian Harriers at the start of the last race of the afternoon, the Three Miles but McLean came to the rescue with a final burst to the tape that won the race and the match for his club.  At the Glasgow Police Sports on 16th June, McLean won the confined half-mile from Scratch in 2:03.2 and ran the half-mile leg of the mile relay “The Maryhill man handed over with fully four yards in advance of the current half-mile champion and it may be with weak opposition promised at his own distance, the mile, that McLean will have a cut at the half-mile also.   With HC Maingay added to the field this will be an event worth seeing.”   He also ran in the Mile but, as the report said, having run two fast half miles already, he contented himself with having a view of the leaders at the finish.   The reporter was correct – McLean did ‘have a cut at the half-mile’ and cut it well enough to finish second to Maingay who won in 2:01.4.  He also won his speciality, the Mile, in 4:34.8 before running the half-mile leg of the relay for the winning Maryhill team.    There were mixed reports of the two races – “The half-mile found HC Maingay justify all the good things that have been expected of him by his performances at the University meetings.   His time – 2 min 1 3-5th sec – was much below his best, but his defeat of Donald McLean was emphatic.   The conditions suited the Maryhill man, but his judgment in allowing Maingay to get too far ahead in the earlier stages of the race was not of the best.   McLean had a very easy task in the mile against a moderate field.”    One week later he was at Tynecastle, on a six-laps-to-the-mile track, in a meeting organised by Hearts FC, Edinburgh Harriers and Edinburgh Northern Harriers for a two miles race.   Suffering from a cold he was no match for JF Wood of Heriot’s to whom he was conceding 80 yards.   He withdrew from the relay with Calderwood unsuccessfully taking on Maingay in the half-mile leg.

On 11th August there was what was billed as the first athletic festival of the police of the United Kingdom and which took place at Liverpool.   All the athletic events were contested and Donald McLean was second in the half-mile which had 21 entries, and won the mile title in 4 min  35 sec to bring the 1928 season to a successful close.       It had been a fairly good season.   There had been no triangular international since it was an Olympic year but he had three medals from the Scottish championships and run some good races.   Doubts were however expressed about his judgment and tactics – not for the first time either.   But unlike the previous year, with no cross-country form to show how he was progressing over the winter it was into 1929.

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His first real race that year was at Hampden.   The Queen’s Park sports were on 1st June in 1929, and and Suttie Smith attempted to break McLean’s Two Miles record there but failed to do so in a race won by WJ Gunn of Plebeian who, running from 85 yards, won in 9:32.2.   McLean himself ran in the Mile but’ran indifferently’ and failed to finish in the first three.    At the St Peter’s AAC  Meeting at Scotstoun on 8th June 1929, McLean ran a Mile – this meeting was well known as ‘the unofficial club championship of Scotland’ as it involved relays over 440 yards, 880 yards, One, Two and Four Miles relays plus a 440 yards hurdles relay as well as a Three Mile team race.  The Four Miles relay was later removed from the programme and the ThreeMiles Team Race became a Two Miles.    He was timed, unofficially at 4:41.6 fr his stretch of the Four Miles Relay and the comment was that he moved more freely than at any time that season so far.   It is interesting that there have been some attempts to organise purely relay meetings at other times in Britain – notably the Bracknell Relays in the 60’s – but they have never taken off,  although there are many such meetings in the USA which are perennial favourites.   Certainly the St Peter’s meeting which moved around the various grounds in Glasgow were popular with the athletes and spectators.

 At the Glasgow Police Sports the week before the SAAA Championships, McLean won the confined half-mile but according to the ‘Herald’ journalist, ‘in the opinion of many McLean was favoured in getting the decision of the judges.’   The Championships on 22nd June at Hampden saw McLean second in the Mile to his team mate WH Calderwood who won in 4:29.8.  The Glasgow Herald report: “His previous performances this season had shown that McLean had lost much of his form, but it is questionable that if at his best, he could have given anything to WH Calderwood, the victor in Saturday’s mile.   Calderwood not only ran with better judgment, but carried the stronger finish and his time, 4 min 29 4-5th sec, represented good running.”   

After the championships, McLean missed the Partick Thistle  Sports but ran at Lochwinnoch on 6th July where he finished second in the invitation half-mile on the same day that Cyril Ellis won both half-mile and mile at the AAA Championships in London.   Two weeks later on July 20th, the Beith Games were held and Maryhill Harriers won the relay “thanks to the early superiority of Donald McLean and AD Turner.”   On 3 August at the Rangers Sports McLean ran in and won the  3/4 mile handicap in 3.08.6 off 30 yards.   (He ran out full distance in 3.13.4 which was only 1.2 secs. outside Duncan McPhee’s Scottish record.   The journalist was enthusiastic: “McLEAN’S REVIVAL.   The feature of the three-quarter mile was the form shown by Donald McLean .   Prior to the Championships he was running indifferently without an ounce of reserve for his finishes.   He is stated to have altered his training methods since losing his title, and if that is the reason for the decided improvement that was reflected in his work on Saturday it has been a wise move.   Not only did he run with more judgment than usual, but he carried a powerful finish to the tape – too powerful for Ellis who looked a winner coming down the back straight, but could get no better than fourth place.   It was a fast run race in the earlier stages, and McLean’s winning time from 30 yards was 3 mins 8 3-5th sec, and and for the full distance 3 min 13 2-5th sec.   This was the first defeat sustained by Ellis in Scotland this season.”    It was a good way to end the season after a disappointing start and he must have gone into the winter training in good heart.

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His first race in 1930 was not a track race at all, nor was it cross-country.   It was as part of the Maryhill team in the first ever Edinburgh-Glasgow relay.   McLean was to run in three of them and get a medal in each one. This one was run on 26th April, and he was on the seventh stage.   Taking over from Tom Blakely and handing over to Dunky Wright it was a remarkably strong finish for the team.   On the stage from Airdrie-Barrachnie, 5 ½ miles 31.11, he was fifth quickest on the leg but held thrid place which was their finishing position.

On the track he ran in the Tynecastle meeting on 31st May in the Two Miles Team race, won by Suttie Smith, as part of the winning Maryhill Harriers team in which WH Calderwood was fourth, McLean fifth and DT Muir seventh.   At the Queen’s Park meeting the following week, he again ran in the Two Miles team race which he won in 9:39.6, and with Calderwood third and Blakely seventh, Maryhill won the team event from Plebeian Harriers.    The following week, 14th June 1930, was the St Peter’s AAC meeting with all the relays.   McLean was part of the Two Miles (4 x 880 yards) Relay team and the Mile Team Race.   “The finest race of the afternoon was the Two Miles Relay , and it was brought about by the fact that here Donald McLean and HC Maingay were in opposition over the last half-mile of the race.   In the earlier stages of the race it looked as if the Edinburgh University team would not be concerned with the finish but CM Wells put up an excellent race in the third section and made up a lot of ground.   In the burst for the line however he could not hold Calderwood and as a result Donald McLean set out on the final half-mile with a lead over Maingay of about 30 yards.   The Scottish champion, however, was not dismayed.   He went after McLean in fine style, caught him in the back straight of the concluding lap, and entered the straight a yard or two ahead.   The effort, however, had taken too much out of him, while McLean had something in reserve, and Maingay was beaten in the final burst by about three yards.    

Maingay  was timed as doing 57 1-5th for the quarter, and 1 min 58 1-5th for the full distance.   The reserve which McLean has found since the Tynecastle meeting a fortnight ago was again in evidence in the mile team race in which he resisted a stout challenge from Neil Morison of Glasgow University.   McLean’s time in winning this race was 4 min 37 4-5th sec.”   
In the Glasgow Police Sports on 21st June. McLean again won the confined 880 yards from scratch in 2:01.6 and then headed for the SAAA Championships at Hampden on 28th June where he tackled the mile and Tom Riddell, who had been living and working in Ireland for the previous two years.   At the championships ‘heavy rain and blustery showers made the conditions none too favourable’.   In the race itself, McLean ran a good time of 4:29 to be second to Riddell and defeated by fully 20 yards.  “AS GOOD AS EVER.   Tom Riddell’s victory in the mile was decisive, and the form he exhibited indicated clearly that, despite his comparative inaction during the past two seasons, he is just as good a runner as when he lived amongst us.    He cut out the pace himself from the start, and only on one occasion did Donald McLean get on terms with him.”
After missing the Partick Thistle meeting on the following Saturday he travelled to Luton on 12th June for the third annual Police Championships and won the Mile by 60 yards in 4:30.4.   Some members of Maryhill Harriers – including WH Calderwood – had travelled to the Birchfield Harriers Sports and the English team was expected to send some of their top men, including Scotsman RR Sutherland, to the Largs Sports on Monday, 21st July.  The sports were to celebrate the opening of the new Barrfield Park.  However it worked out, there was not a single Burchfield runner in the first three at any event and it is maybe fair to assume that they just did not turn up.   On a sunny afternoon in front of 3000 spectators McLean ran in the one and a half mile scratch race where he finished second to WH Calderwood and in front of Frank Stevenson (Monkland Harriers).   The winning time was 7:05.4.

Celtic FC had been having problems with the date of their annual sports.   They had traditionally used the second Saturday in August, the week after the Rangers Sports, and it was the traditional end to the big summer athletics meetings.   Then the SFA decided to start their new season on that date, the club had nowhere to go.   At this point they were trying to get a good turn out on the Tuesday after the Rangers Sports and they would go on to attempt to hold the event on the second Saturday in July, but after one year, the SAAA, AAA and NIAAA switched the triangular international – to the second weekend in July.   It was a continuing problem.   In 1930 the event was held on Tuesday 5th August and attracted 5000 spectators on a fine evening.   McLean’s event was the Two Miles Team Race.   Not only did McLean win the race from Calderwood but DT Muir was sixth and they won the team race.   This ended the track season for him and a mixed kind of season it had been: starting fairly well there had been no real highlights for him but at least that season there were no complaints from the writers about his judgment!

On 9th March in the National Cross-Country Championship, Maryhill won the team race with McLean seventeenth.   The second Edinburgh to Glasgow eight stage relay was on 25th April and Maryhill was second.   The same men ran on the last three stages but in different order – Dunky Wright on the long sixth stage, Tom Blakely on the seventh and Don McLean on the eighth.  That the selection was the right one was shown by the fact that each of them ran the fastest time on his stage.   Track rival and team mate WH Calderwood was second on the first stage.

When it came to the track season in 1931, the first meeting was at Coatbridge on 23rd May and McLean was third in the Two Miles team race behind Gunn of Plebeian and Calderwood of Maryhill: the race report gave Gunn great credit for the way in which he ran the race – at the bell he was leading but McLean shot into the lead and when he eased slightly Gunn made his move which was decisive.   The race was almost exactly repeated the following Monday at Firhill in the Maryhill Harriers meeting, Gunn again won the Two Miles team race, and again Calderwood was second and McLean was third.

All three would meet up again on 30th May, at Hampden.   It was part of a big weekend in the city – called the Glasgow Civic and Empire week with two ships-of-war  –  HMS Basilisk and HMS Beagle  –  being visited by 25,000 people and special events all around the city and a parade of massed bands in George Square.   The Queen’s Park FC Sports was on that weekend before a crowd of 5000 and Gunn, Calderwood and McLean ran in the Two Miles Team Race for the third time in eight days.   The report is quite interesting, dealing as it does of the rivalry of the two teams.  “The keen rivalry that exists at the moment between the two evenly matched teams of the Maryhill and Plebeian clubs is tending to elevate the two mile scratch races for Harrier clubs into the chief events of the meetings in which they appear.  At the Monkland Harriers meeting last Saturday, at Firhill Park on Monday, and again at Hampden Park on Saturday, the racing in this event transcended anything else in the programme.

This was due as much to the personal duel between WJ Gunn of Plebeian on the one hand, and WH Calderwood and Donald McLean of Maryhill on the other, as to the struggle for supremacy between the clubs.   In all three runs during the past ten days Gunn has had the measure of the ex-Scottish champions, and as each has been run through in different fashion, the Plebeian Harrier can claim that, both in the matter of tactics and in the matter of pace, that he is the best man in the district at the moment over the distance.”   Gunn’s winning time was 9:38.8  and McLean’s was 9:41.   Just over 2 seconds between first and third!

The St Peter’s AAC meeting was held on 13th June at Celtic Park.   With club reputation on the line, all hands were on deck.    McLean ran in two events – he was in the winning team in the two mile (4 x 880y) relay with Calderwood, J Wilson and A McNiven,  and Calderwood and McLean ran on the last two stages; he was also in the winning team in the mile team race where he was second in 4:33.6 with Calderwood (4) and Blakely (6)  –   and the race winner was Walter Gunn of Plebeian in 4:33.2.    The winning margin was only two yards.    In the Glasgow Police Sports on 20th June, McLean again won the confined 880 yards, this time in 2:02.2.    McLean did turn out in the mile at the SAAA Championships at the end of June but was simply noted as ‘also ran’.   His season had effectively ended at this point and he was maybe suffering ant from the rather hectic start with three races in eight days and then almost a race a week thereafter.

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There was no record of him running in District or National Championships over the country, and there was no Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay in 1932, so it was straight into the Track season.   There was no record of him in the Monkland Sports, at the Maryhill Harriers Meeting (where the team race was won by Salford Harriers) or at the Queen’s Park Sports on 28th May.    His first outing was at the St Peter’s meeting on 4th June where, running on the third stage, he just held his place and left Calderwood too much to do on the last stage, and he was fourth in the Mile team race which was won by Calderwood and wth Muir in fifth, Maryhill Harriers won the team race.   On the 18th June, 1932, at Ibrox in the  Glasgow Police Sports, although out of the medals, and consequently out of the report, McLean finished fourth in the handicap half mile off scratch, although he was only third in the confined half-mile this year.   The two events were probably very close together on the programme and that may have accounted for the poor run in the latter.    Regardless of the reason for that, he did run in the Mile at the SAAA again but was listed this time as ‘also competed.’      McLean was now 30 years old and was maybe feeling the pace a bit because he either did not run fr the rest of the summer or did run but fail to make the prize lists.   Whatever the reason, his 1932 season was over.

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Although he was not a counting runner in the 1933 National and he may not have raced at all, on 8th April,McLean ran the last leg of the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay for the Maryhill team that finished third behind  Plebeian and Dundee Thistle.   He had run the second fastest time of the day on that final stage.   He started the summer at the Monkland Sports on 20th May when he was eighth finisher and third counter for the Maryhill Harriers team in the Two Miles team race where they were second to Edinburgh Southern Harriers.   Missing the Queen’s Park Sports, he was out again at the St Peter’s meeting at Celtic Park on 3rd June where he ran in the 2 miles relay for the team that finished third, and then won the One Mile Team Race in 4:33.8 by 15 yards from W Sutherland of Shettleston Harriers.   At the Glasgow Police Sports on 17th June, McLean passed up on the confined half mile and the open events to run in the invitation where, running from 35 yards, he finished fourth in a race won by Tom Riddell in 4:26.   The first three in that race – Riddell, Laidlaw and Gifford – were also the first three in a thrilling SAAA Mile seven days later with McLean also in the final field.   The British Police Championships were held at Rugby on 15th July and Donald McLean was noted in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ as being runner-up in the Mile.   The trio mentioned above dominated the mile at virtually all the major sports meetings for the rest of the season and it had been a disappointing season for Donald McLean.

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McLean was not a member of the Maryhill team that was third in the Edinburgh to Glasgow at the start of 1934,  nor was he in the National Cross-Country Championship squad.   When the Glasgow Police Sports were held on the first Saturday in June, earlier than usual, Donald McLean was there and running well.   Held at Ibrox on 2nd June, the sports featured the usual confined events and the report on McLean’s race read, “The performance which Donald McLean set up in the Police half-mile was in a way the best at the meeting for the Greenock man has been running for a long time and he was fresh from night duty.   At Helenvale last month he gave some indication that he had recaptured some of the form that gained him his championship, and that was fully borne out in Saturday’s race as, from the five yards mark, he won in the easiest fashion in 1 min 58 3-5th sec.   All the way he was timed at doing a shade inside 1:59, not bad time for a veteran.”   The St Peter’s AAC meeting was held at Celtic Park on 16th June and McLean ran in the Two Miles relay which Maryhill won by three yards from Glasgow University and finished second in the One Mile team race behind his old rival, Walter Gunn of Plebeian Harriers.   Well though he seemed to be running, he did not go in the SAAA Championships where Gunn won the Two Miles Steeplechase.   However, at the Partick Thistle Sports on 30th June he ran in the Invitation Half-Mile and finished third off 12 yards behind Graham of Maryhill (3 yards) and Deas of Motherwell (30 yards).   The seventh annual championship of the Police Assciation was held at Hampden Park on 7th July 1934 and a great occasion it was.   Twenty four police forces from all over the UK took part but, it was sadly remarked, only four out of forty Scottish forces were represented.   “A new record was created by Donald McLean in the Mile where he returned 4 min 29 1-5th sec in defeating the holder, RD Clapp.    McLean’s time was also 3-5th sec better than the previous record set by WC Houseman three years ago.   So long has McLean been competing that we have come to regard him as approaching the veteran stage.   There was no suggestion of the veteran in Saturday’s running.   With his experience of his West Sussex opponent he made the pace from the bell a hot one and left Clapp with no reserve at the finish.   McLean’s victory was enhanced by the fact that he came off duty only at six o’clock on Saturday morning.”

Approaching the veteran stage?   The man was only 32, although I suppose that by the standards of the day he was a bit long in the tooth.   Veteran or no, that was effectively the end of his 1934 summer season.

After another winter when he was not a counting runner in any major cross-country championship, there was the 1935 summer season to look forward to.   The summer started for him on the 1st June in the Queen’s Park Sports when he lined up again with Tom Riddell in the invitation mile race.   It was a fairly comfortable win for Riddell as the report indicates.   “Tom Riddell made his first appearance of the season on a Scottish track in the special mile and, while there was one period in the final lap when he did not look too happy, his winning time of 4 min 18 2-5th sec was distinctly good with the wind conditions which prevailed.   Riddell must be the most consistent distance champion Scotland has ever hadfor not once in the past 10 years has he served up a bad race in public.

It is a coincidence that it was 10 years ago at the same meeting that Riddell and Donald McLean served up a thrilling duel in the two mile team race.   McLean ran in Saturday’s race also, but was not concerned in the finish.”       It should also be noted that 10 years earlier McLean was a bit older than Riddell.   Age was really starting to be noted by journalists if not by other runners.   Nevertheless he was still getting the invitations to the best races.

The second Saturday in June, the 8th this year, was when athletes in the West of Scotland in particular prepared for the inter-club contest at the St Peter’s AAC Sports at Celtic Park.   McLean again ran in two events.   He ran the first stage of the Two Miles Relay Race with Calderwood on the final leg, and Maryhill won the event.   He then turned out in the Mile team race where he was first in 4:39.8 and with L Osborne 7th and Calderwood 8th, they won that one too.   In the Glasgow Police Sports on 17th June, he won the confined half-mile in 2 min 03 4-5th sec.    Those who thought that McLean’s days of winning SAAA medals were over, were forced to think again on 22nd June at the SAAA Championships at Hampden where he finished third behind Riddell and Gifford.   The British Police Championships were held at New Brighton on 6th July but this time there was no Donald McLean of Greenock Police taking part – there was a Donald McLean of Glasgow Police competing but since he won the Hammer Throw with 143 feet, I don’t think it was the same fellow!    Thereafter, despite several very interesting meetings being on the programme, Donald McLean was not among the prize winners.   One particularly interesting meeting was held at Shawfield where Clyde FC reverted to the amateur code of athletics.   Their meeting had, in the beginning been amateur but switched to being a professional meeting probably in an attempt to be ‘different’ and attract their own crowd.   On 27th July 1935, they reverted to the amateur ranks with a star-studded meeting featuring Americans from Harvard and Yale as well as several home-grown champions.

McLean receiving the trophy in 1936

McLean finished 18th in the National Cross-Country Championship of 1936 and third scoring runner for the Maryhill team that finished second, so he was in good shape f0r the start of the summer season.   The first run of note was at Queen’s Park Sports at Hampden on 6th June where McLean was third in the Three Miles Team Race behind J Gifford (Bellahouston Harriers) and JC Flockhart (Shettleston Harriers) the winning time being 14:49.6.   Withe Emmet Farrell fourth and W Nelson eighth Maryhill won the team race.   On 13th June, Babcock and Wilcox held their sports meeting at the opening of a new pavilion at Moorcroft Park in Renfrew and McLean was third in the open half-mile running off 24 yards.   On 20th June, in the Glasgow Police Sports, McLean won the confined 880 yards off 9 yards in 1:58.6 to set a quite daunting record.   “Donald McLean (Greenock Police) the well-known Maryhill Harrier, was the hero in the confined police half-mile, which he won from nine yards in 1 min 58 6-10th sec.   Incidentally, this proved to be the eleventh win for McLean, surely a record never likely to be equalled, far less excelled.”    

As ever, the SAAA Championships took place the following week.   Held in excellent weather with many fast times recorded, Donald McLean moved up another distance and competed in the three miles.   He finished second behind Jack Gifford of Bellahouston Harriers and one place ahead of his young club mate Emmet Farrell.   Standard medals were won by JC Flockhart and A Dow among others.   Several notable scalps taken there by the ‘near veteran’  in a good race described as follows:   “A fine spectacular race was the Three Miles won by J Gifford (Victoria Park).   It was the veteran Donald McLean (Maryhill Harriers) who made it a great race by compelling the favourite of Victoria Park to pull out all he knew to head the big smiling Greenock policeman in the good time of 14 min 54 sec.”   McLean’s time was 14:55.

Helenvale Track on the south east of Glasgow, was a good track in a nice compact arena which was the traditional home of the Glasgow Transport Sports which continued right through to the 1960’s and were a popular event.   Perhaps the fact that they were held on a mid-week evening contributed to their lack of notice in the press generally but times were usually very good there.   It was there on 30th June, 1936, that Donald McLean won a two miles invitation race in 9:34.8 from his club mate Emmet Farrell.  “Donald McLean’s two-miles win was the finest individual effort. The stalwart Greenock policeman – he is thirty-four years of age and held the S.A.A.A. mile championship in 1927 and 1928 – ran with any amount of fire, and after being seemingly beaten by clubmate Farrell he staged a great finish to get home by a yard“

McLean did not compete in the British Police Championships at Bradford on 4th July, but at Dunoon on 18th July he gave his cluib a two yard lead at the first hand-over on the relay – a lead they kept until the finish.   An unusual event was at the Clyde FC Sports on 25th July at Shawfield.   Some of the English Olympic team had come up to Glasgow for the event and one of them was the quarter-miler Roberts who took to the track first of all in the 440 special handicap where, despite running his hardest, he finished second to CF Campbell of Springburn Harriers who ran from the 22 yard mark.   Campbell was timed at 48.9 and Roberts, from scratch, at 50.3 seconds.   Then came the mile medley relay where McLean had a role to play:   “The other event in which Roberts played a part was the invitation relay race, and if his task in the handicap was severe, he had only to canter round the last lap of the relay after his colleagues had given him an overwhelming lead.   It was FR Handley who finished second to JV Powell in the AAA half-mile who set Salford on the way to success in this race.   Running against Donald McLean, Maryhill Harriers, Handley cut out a fast pace, and handed over the baton to Rangeley 20 yards ahead of the Scot.   Rangeley and Dignam increased this advantage and Roberts had an easy task in the final quarter-mile to beat Maryhill Harriers by 30 yards with Shettleston Harriers only a yard behind the runner-up.    It was a pity that Bellahouston Harriers, Scottish champions and record holders could not field a team.”    With the football season starting just two weeks later, there was only the Rangers Sports left and McLean does not seem to have run there and it was into the winter cross-country programme before the 1937 track season.  

His first race in June, 1937,  was on the 5th at the Queen’s Park FC Sports in the three mile team race which Maryhill Harriers won with Emmet Farrell in second place as their first counter with McLean in sixth and Nelson tenth.   The race was won by J Laidlaw in 14:50.4: he had followed Farrell until 60 yards from the tape when he moved away to win by five yards.   He was next seen in the results on 29th June when he was back at the Transport Sports at Helenvale running in the two miles.   The race was won fairly comfortably by F Close, an English internationalist from Emmet Farrell with McLean third.    The winning time was 9:30 and McLean was clocked at 9:36.2.   The British Police Sports had been a happy hunting ground for Donald McLean and he travelled down to Molesey in Surrey on 3rd July in 1937 to contest the Mile which he had won four times before.    The report read: “Donald McLean (Greenock Burgh), four times holder of the one mile title – he also achieved the best time in the championship in 1934 – was rather disappointing on Saturday.   It may have been that the strong cross breeze which prevailed unsettled him, but he never really found his stride.   KJN Neagle (London Metropolitan) not only won the race as he liked, but set up a new police record of 4 min 27.5 sec.” 

Cowal Six Miles Road Race, 24th July, 1938: JE Farrell leading the pack and D McLean in the rear behind what looks like Gordon Porteous

1938 was Maryhill Harriers Jubilee year and they celebrated twice in the National Cross-Country Championships: Emmet Farrell won the individual title and the club won the team race.   The sixth counter for the winning team was none other than Donald McLean, 13 years after he had joined the club.    He followed this on 11th April in the Edinburgh-Glasgow relay where he ran on the undulating and exposed 5th stage from Armadale-Forrestfield, 5 ½ miles in distance, in 28:28 (2nd fastest time on stage ), and the club finished second overall.   Two winter team medals, gold and silver, plus the six miles road race at Cowal seem to indicate that at 36 he felt his days of fast track running were behind him.   

There are very few appearances on record for McLean in 1938 – possibly because of his employment becoming more demanding, possibly because his keenness was slightly diminished after 14 years in the sport where he had won so much and represented his country – but he did compete in the British Police Championships on 2nd July at Meadowbank Grounds in Edinburgh.    He competed in the half-mile where he was unplaced.   “Donald McLean, Greenock Police, who finished a good fourth in this race, ran at the initial meeting in 1928, running second to T Hoyland, Bradford Police.”  

He ran in neither National Cross-Country nor Edinburgh to Glasgow in 1939, nor does his name appear at any of the major meetings of the summer, not even at the British Police Sports in Brighton on 1st July.    The intervention of the war in 1939 probably put paid to his racing career – there is no note of him competing any of the championships or major meetings after 1945 – but it had been a remarkable career with SAAA medals at half-mile, mile and three miles, police championships, really good victories over quality athletes in mile, two mile and three mile races, Scottish international and representative matches on the track, team medals over the country and on the road in all three colours, and a longer career than most of his contemporaries.    He should be better known.

Duncan McPhee in 1914

All pictures from Alex Wilson

Duncan McPhee was the dominant 880 yards/1 Mile runner in Scotland in the 1920’s.   He won the SAAA  880 yards in 1914, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, the mile in 1913, 1914, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923; AAA’s Mile Champion 1922, and represented Britain in the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp in the 1500m and 3000m team race.   A considerably good record.   He came from a good athletics background.   His father was a noted runner as was his brother (both called Alex).   Big brother Alex won two Scottish cross-country titles (1909, 1910) and three Scottish Cross-Country International vests – in 1909, 1910 and 1911.   Alex Wilson looked into the family background and found some interesting information:

“I found Duncan in the 1901 census. He was at the time the second youngest of 9 children of Flora and Alexander McPhee, a blacksmith of Nethercraigs, Paisley.  The smithy was on Corsebar Road next to the toll house. His brother Alex (b. 1887) was six years his senior. All his elder brothers including Alex were evidently in the  blacksmith trade.   But the 1911 census reveals that Duncan was earning his crust as a clerk in a threadmill, the Ferguslie Mills Thread Works of J&P Coats being just a few streets away. Anyhow, I`ve discovered that he had a bit of pedigree as it were. His dad, Alex, was himself a well-known runner in his day and competed against the likes of Robert Hindle, Cutty Smith and William Park; some of the biggest names in Scottish pedestrianism.”    

Alex also pointed out an article in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ of 8th April, 1872, of a race involving Alex McPhee, Snr.    KILMARNOCK ATHLETIC SPORTS.   On Saturday a number of foot-races took place in the Cattle Market.  The weather being very favourable, there was a large turnout of people, the majority of whom were from the neighbourhood.   …   The chief feature of the meeting was a Six Mile race which was very well contested, and excited considerable interest.   The following were the prize-takers:   Six Mile Race:   1st William Smith, Paisley;   2nd Alex McPhee, Paisley;  3rd Allan Strachan, Galston.    Two Mile Race:  1st Robert Hindle, Paisley;   2nd William Smith;   3rd Alex McPhee.

So Duncan had a very good background in the sport and a family with a record of long involvement and success.   Like brother Alex, he started out as a member of Clydesdale Harriers and the first mention in the club’s annual handbook was in the 1912/13 edition when he had been a member of the team that was second in the West District Championship – he had been third counter, finishing 8th.   The club at that time tended to use the top men for the National and the ‘second string’ for the District and sure enough, big brother Alex was noted as finishing twentieth in the National Championships.   In June 1913 in the Clydesdale Harriers Sports held in Clydebank, he won the One and a Half Mile Handicap from a mark of 65 yards in 7 mins 11  3-5th secs.   Two weeks later he won his first SAAA Championship in 4:34 by inches from DF McNicol of West of Scotland eliciting the comment from the ‘Glasgow Herald’ that “McPhee is a young runner who has come rapidly to the front.”  This victory earned him selection for the international with Ireland at Celtic Park, Belfast, where he won the Mile in 4:34.6 from another Scot, WM Crabbie.   His next outing was on the first Saturday in August at the Rangers Sports where he competed in the half-mile.   “The half-mile handicap was notable for the fine running of Duncan McPhee, the Scottish mile champion.   Starting from 23 yards he won his heat easily, and in the final he beat E Owen, Broughton Harriers, who was on the 8 yards mark, by about his start, and going on for the full distance he was timed to do 1 min 58 4-5th sec – only 2-5th sec outside the Scottish native record.”   The ability of runners in a handicap race to go beyond the finishing line to a mark equal to their handicap so that they could get an accurate time for the distance, while having the incentive of a handicap race with a series of ‘hares’ was one of the positives in the handicap racing which was typical of the time.   The alternative of a scratch race in which  the best runner had no opposition was not as conducive to good times.  Duncan’s reward for this was to run off scratch himself in the 880 yards the following week at the Celtic FC Sports, organised by Willie Maley.   He could only finish second in a race won by G Kitson of Shettleston, running off 50 yards, who only won by about 3 yards.   It had been a good season with victory in the SAAA Championships and in the International with a flourish at the finish with two good runs in the Rangers and Celtic Sports.

The following winter (1913/14) Clydesdale Harriers handbook reported that D McPhee won the Mile in 1913 when he competed for the first time in a championship event, and that he had been second in the club 5 miles handicap, third in the West District championship where the team was placed fourth.   He was also on the club committee as Vice-Captain and a member of the handicapping sub-committee.   And then, for a reason as yet unclear, both Alex and Duncan moved allegiance from Clydesdale Harriers across the city to West of Scotland Harriers.

In the “Glasgow Herald” of May 11th, 1914 the columnist reported that “Duncan McPhee is running for the West of Scotland Harriers in the relay race at Parkhead on Saturday.   His main opponent will be E Owen of Broughton Harriers who is bringing a team north for this event.   The tussle between these two will be worth witnessing Owen has been discarding cross-country work this winter and confining his attention to shorter distances.   He has the English championship mile in view and to gain that honour one has to cultivate half-mile running, so we are likely to have a good performance from him at Parkhead.   The open handicap will also bring together McPhee and Owen, and this double ‘turn’ should add greatly to the attractiveness of the coming meeting of the Celtic FC and the West of Scotland Harriers.”    Came the race and the report read:   “There were large entries for most of the events with the half-mile having no fewer than 107, necessitating three Heats and a Final.   …. Duncan McPhee of West of Scotland Harriers won his Heat but in the Final, he and E Owen, Broughton Harriers, delayed their effort too long and at the finish they were too far in the rear.   West of Scotland Harriers secured a meritorious win the Mile relay race, Duncan McPhee finishing the half-mile with a commanding lead  and George Dallas leading by 10 yards at the tape.”  

The Medley Relay Race (880 yards, 220, 220 and 440) was a real favourite of Scottish spectators and reporters and it was often the highlight of a meeting.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ of 25th May, 1914 had a piece that read:   “RELAY RACING.   Anglo Scots Needed.   Relay Racing should receive more recognition from sports promoters.   It is an excellent substitute for scratch events, which are practically unknown in connection with track athletics.   Besides it is a departure from conventionalism, and anything removed from the beaten track is always acceptable.   The relay race at Parkhead the other day was the most arresting event in the day’s proceedings, inasmuch as it brought to the surface qualities of judgment and speed which are not often seen in handicap running.   Unfortunately, West of Scotland Harriers are much stronger in this department than other clubs, but by way of encouraging relay racing we would suggest that the handicapping principle be introduced, as it was by the Rangers at their meeting last August , when Polytechnic Harriers were asked to concede a handicap to the Rest of Scotland.   The race on that occasion was strenuously contested, and there is no reason why the same principle should not be introduced at all our sports functions.   Hawick are putting up a relay race in connection with the Common Riding celebrations, and West of Scotland will be represented by their famous quartette, Messrs McPhee, Dallas, Hamilton and Christie.”  

On 27th June he won his second SAAA Mile title in 4 min 37 1-5th sec and the half mile in 2 min 3 1-5th sec from former club mate Ralph Erskine (Clydesdale and GUAC) with George Dallas third.   Erskine is a very interesting character: his father was a founding member of the club and his brother T Barrie Erskine was one of the joint secretaries at the outbreak of war.   Ralph himself won a world lightweight boxing title – amateur of course – in New York and unfortunately, like his brother, was killed in the War.   After the championship Duncan was selected for the international to be held later in the summer.

In the ‘Glasgow Herald’ of 29th June, 1914 appears this paragraph: “Possibly others may go South for the English championships this weekend but we know of three – Duncan McPhee (West of Scotland Harriers), George Cummings (Bellahouston Harriers) and TR Nicolson (West of Scotland Harriers) – who will represent this corner of Scotland.   All have specialised in their respective events.   …   Duncan McPhee has never performed in London, and his visit to London this week marks a step forward in his career.   We will not be disappointed should he fail in the two events for which he is entered, not because we have not the greatest admiration for his pedestrian talent; but it is a very severe test for a runner of McPhee’s years to take part in the English championships.   The experience, however, will equip him all the more for the Triangular match the following week at Hampden Park, and with an environment more encouraging than Stamford Bridge is likely to be, we mat find him unfolding unsuspected powers.   McPhee is looking forward to his visit to London hopefully and this is the proper spirit in which to face the undertaking of this week.”

McPhee ran well enough to be third in the AAA’s championship in his first venture south of the border before heading to Hampden for the match against England and Ireland on 11th July in which England won 6 events, Scotland 3 events and Ireland 2 events.   McPhee won the Mile in 4:30.8 from Alexander of Ireland and E Owen of England.   He travelled to Celtic Park for the Maryhill Harriers meeting on the 18th but missed the start as ‘the race was well in progress before he was called by the steward.’   In the Greenock Glenpark Harriers meeting on 27th July, McPhee was the lead-off man for the West of Scotland relay team which won comfortably and he also ran in the handicap mile off scratch and finished third.   Entered for the three miles team race, he decided not to run after  the other two events.

On Monday August 3rd at a meeting promoted by Rangers FC, there was a special mile with the 22 entries including the following:   AG Hill (Polytechnic Harriers) 10 yards,  E Owen (Broughton Harriers) 30 yards, SS Stevenson (Clydesdale Harriers) 40 yards, D McPhee (West of Scotland) 20 yards,   CR Robertson (Auckland Harriers, NZ) , Alex McPhee (West of Scotland) 80  yards, and the limit man (T Barrie Erskine, Clydesdale Harriers) had 140 yards.   The result at the Monday evening race was a win for Hill in 4 min 25 3-5th sec, from McPhee.

The season drew to a close with McPhee having ‘done the double’ at the SAAA  Championships for the first time, won the international and won a medal at the AAA’s in London.   A successful season full of promise – unfortunately on the world  political scene, there were events taking place that would put more careers on hold than his and the next SAAA championships was to be in 1919.

McPhee in the 4:30.8 Mile in the International at Hampden in July 1914

As with many others, the 1914-18 War must have caused significant disruption but few could have won three SAAA titles, including a double in 1914, missed the War years and not restarted his career properly until 1920 and then gone on to more honours in Scotland, England and internationally.

In the preview of the 1919 championships, the ‘Glasgow Herald’ correspondent noted that “D McPhee, the half-mile and mile champion, is still on service abroad” and he did not contest the championships that year. By 1920 he had lost more than five years of his athletic career.   He was home and back in athletics harness in 1920 however and he was to become the best Scottish middle distance runner of the early 1920′ s before Tom Riddell came along.

On May 22nd, 1920, McPhee turned out in the Kilmarnock Harriers Open Sports Meeting where the ‘Herald’ merely notes that none of the fancied runners reached the prize list, including McPhee in this.   At the start of June, the fifth, he avoided the Queen’s Park Sports at Hampden preferring to run in the joint Bellahouston Harriers and Dumbarton FC Meeting at Dumbarton where he was back-marker in the Mile.   He ran ‘a grand race but was unable to get through the large field of 69.’  Not surprising – 69 runners on a track round, or possibly on, a football pitch would have been a bit of a crowd!

On 12th June, 1920, there was an Olympic Trials meeting at Ibrox and of course all men with pretensions at 100 and 1500m were there.  It was an ordinary meeting organised by West of Scotland Harriers and Pollokshaws Royal Arch Lodge No 153 which included Olympic trials at the distances mentioned.   The ‘Notes’ read: “McPhee showed a fine turn of speed and staying power in the 1500 metres.   McPhee has lost none of his old-time ability and should give a good account of himself in the championships towards the end of the month.    He had not a little to do with the winning of the relay race for his club, the West of Scotland Harriers, who thus checked the victorious career of Maryhill Harriers”.  McPhee won the race in  4 min 16 4-5th secs from James Wilson by a distance of 10 yards.   He was back at Ibrox the following week for the Clydesdale Harriers meeting and finished second in the half-mile, running from scratch    One week later was the SAAA Championships, for him the first since the War.

The ‘Glasgow Herald’ sporting notes comments on his running in the championships read,

“McPHEE’S RETURN TO FORM.   Duncan McPhee justified the optimism of those who have watched his return to form by regaining the two titles which he won in 1914, and which he was unable to defend last year.   In the Mile he displaced the holder of the title, WB Ross, who was far in the rear at the tape, while in the half-mile he had another comfortable win from a fancied candidate, WR Milligan of Oxford University AC.”     His times were 2:0.6 and 4:26 and the performances gained him selection for the triangular international at Crewe on 10th July.

The week after the SAAA was the AAA’s championship and McPhee travelled south to compete – and finished second to the Frenchman, A Burtin, and was first Briton to finish.   Then came the International at Crewe where he won the Mile in 4:30.2.   This concluded five races in five weeks including Olympic Trial, SAAA and AAA Championships and the international!    He made it six weeks in a row when he competed in the new meeting at Rothesay promoted by  West of Scotland Harriers.   There he was third in the 880 yards, running from scratch, and first in the Mile, again running from scratch.   After a week out, he was back in action on the last Saturday in July at the Greenock Glenpark Harriers Sports where, running from scratch, he was third behind JG McIntyre (Dumbarton – 95  yards) and CE Blewitt (Birchfield Harriers – 20 yards).    The first Saturday in August meant only one thing – The Rangers Sports at Ibrox.   McPhee was running in the invitation 100 yards against the ex-AAA Champion AG Hill who set a new all-comers record of 2:15 and behind him McPhee set a new Scottish native record of 2:16.   This was said to have affected him adversely because, after winning his heat in the handicap half-mile, he retired in the final and did not start in the Mile.   For most Scots, and indeed for McPhee himself, the summer usually finished in the first or second week of August.   But Duncan McPhee was not yet finished for the season.    There was the matter of the Olympics to come.

The first post-war Olympics were held in Antwerp between August 14th and September 12th and there were 22 sports being contested.   Invitations were not sent to Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey or Hungary although they were not forbidden to come.   29 countries were represented.   The 27 year old McPhee was taking part in two events, the first of which was the 1500m with heats on 18th August.   He ran very well to finish second in the second of four heats in a time of 4:07.2 – two tenths behind Lundgren of Sweden and two tenths ahead of Shields of the USA.   The English champion, Burtin, was fourth and did not qualify for the final.   The final was held the next day.   Run in the rain,  the 1500m final was pronounced the race of the day with Ray of the USA making the pace right from the start but Hill and Baker held back before coming through to take first and second.   McPhee did not finish in this fast race.    He was also a member of the British four-man 3000m team race with Hill, Blewitt and Seagrove.   The heats for this race were on 21st August, and McPhee led the GB team home when he was second in 8:59.1, again behind Lundgren, but ahead of Zander (also Sweden) with Blewitt and Seagrove fourth and fifth.   The British team won their way through to the Final.   But again McPhee dropped out but he did get a team silver since he was part of the GB six-man team.

His season was now really at an end and it had been a good one too, could 1921 be as good, was the question.

The start of the Olympic 1500m final, 1920.

McPhee second left: note the crouch starts!

On the last Saturday in May, 1921, McPhee was running in the Shettleston Harriers meeting at Celtic Park.    The attendance was poor and the scribe for the ‘Glasgow Herald’ remarked that “In some events the crowds were embarrassingly large, the half-mile with an entry of 113 having to be run in four heats.   Five half-mile races are too many for one afternoon, especially at this season when men of outstanding ability are hard to find.   D McPhee, the champion, did much to redeem the race of dullness by his judgment in the heat and success in the final, and the runner-up, D Massey, is to be complimented on drawing out McPhee all the way to the tape.”   Running from scratch, he won in 2:01.

June was championship month and McPhee began on 5th June in the Inter-City Mile Relay between Glasgow and Edinburgh at the Queen’s Park FC Sports by running the first 880 yards stage for the winning Glasgow team.   He followed this with a victory at the Corporation Tramworks and West of Scotland Sports meeting at Ibrox against 100 opponents in the Mile, and a fine ‘win’ over George Dallas on the first stage of the relay -“the most interesting race on the programme.”  He won the Mile by half a yard in 4:32 from club mate JG Scott (135 yards).   On to the SAAA Championship on the last Saturday in the month and the comment on the middle-distance races was: “Duncan McPhee retained his two championships, the half-mile and the mile.   The latter, through no fault of the winner, was a somewhat hollow victory.   Though there was an entry of eight, only one turned out and it is to the credit of I Dobbie that he made a race of it, knowing that he had a very slender chance of winning.”      The half-mile was won by three yards in 1:58.6 and the Mile in 4:45.4, also by three yards.

The AAA’s championship was the following week but McPhee chose to run at Tynecastle in Edinburgh in a meeting organised by the Heart of Mid-Lothian FC.  He ran in the medley relay and West of Scotland won, “Thanks to McPhee’s brilliancy”.   He also won the Mile Handicap from scratch in 4 min 23.4.   He did however miss a particularly fine Mile race at the AAA’s where AG Hill and Hyla Stallard fought  out a hard race with Hill winning in a record time of  4:14.2 .    As winner of the SAAA titles, McPhee was selected for the international match in Belfast on 9th July in which Scotland was victorious, winning 6 events to England’s 3 and Ireland’s 2.   He duly won the Mile in 4:32.2.   He next ran the Mile in the West Kilbride Sports a week later which he won from scratch in 4:42.   His next outing was not so successful – at the Greenock Glenpark Harriers meeting where the entire event was held under a real downpour, he could only finish second in the Invitation 1000 yards.   In the Rangers Sports the following week, “McPhee romped home in the half-mile and again in the three-quarter-mile.   In the latter event he received 20 yards from AG Hill, the one mile champion of England, who did not seem to run to anything approaching the form he disclosed at Stamford Bridge last month.   In the finishing straight McPhee travelled faster than the Englishman and secured his second win of the day.”   Times were 1:59.8 and 3:09.   The Celtic FC Sports were held the following week and although there was an invitation mile handicap but there was no Duncan McPhee and the race was the poorer for it since there was no one to ‘pull out’ AG Hill.

It had been a good season for Hill and although there was no Olympic Games to target, he was clearly the best middle-distance runner in Scotland and one of the best in Britain.

Duncan McPhee, Olympic 3000m, Antwerp, 1920

1922 had its own problems for Scottish athletics.   We have all read of the great depression of the 20’s but little has been written of its effect on sport, especially as far as the Scottish situation is concerned.   There was a paragraph in the ‘Cricket and Athletics’ column of the ‘Glasgow Herald’ of 8th May of that year which should be taken into account as far as the season is concerned.

“The first open athletic meeting of the season will be that of St Mary’s AC on Saturday next, and from that date until the middle of August there will be amateur athletic gatherings every Saturday.   The list is, however, somewhat smaller than in previous years, and already several intended meetings have been abandoned.   The Vale of Leven Football Club did not take up their date as the industrial depression in the district is so widespread that a sports meeting would almost certainly incur serious loss to the promoters.”  

The sport was not immune from the political situation – there was a note in the ‘Clydebank Press’ a few years later, for instance which reported that a runner had had the good fortune to get a job but “unfortunately for us [the club] it is of the Saturday variety’ and he would not be available for racing.    This is the context in which McPhee was racing in 1922.

His season started on the first Saturday in June at the Queens Park FC Sports where he was in the Inter-City Mile Relay running the half-mile in a running order which did not start with the 880 runner.   Eric Liddell ran for Edinburgh on the 440 yards leg and the report is taken up there.  “He (Liddell) ran better in the inter-city race, which would have been won by Edinburgh, but for the fine half-mile by D McPhee, the champion of the distance.   On starting McPhee was some 15 yards behind CB Mein; at the finish he was two yards in front, the Edinburgh runner being harassed by the strong by the strong adverse wind in the straight.”    The following week at the joint West of Scotland Harriers and Glasgow Corporation Tramways meeting he again ran in the relay for the winning team but appeared nowhere else either in the prize list or in the comments elsewhere.   In the joint sports organised by Edinburgh Southern Harriers and Hibernian Football Club,  McPhee ran in the mile but was unplaced.   Thereafter it was the SAAA Championships at Powderhall on the 23rd June.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ commented that his running the previous week had given some cause for some anxiety but he had shown his accustomed judgment and won both half-mile and mile.   The former was timed at 2 min 2 sec from CB Mein, and the latter at 4 min 31 1-5th sec from CS Brown.   In both cases the runner-up was representing Edinburgh University and in both cases he won by two yards.

The SAAA’s was followed a week later by the AAA’s championships on 1st July at Stamford Bridge.   This time McPhee did travel to the big event.   “There was a great surprise in the Mile, the Glasgow runner, D McPhee, beating HB Stallard.   Without grudging the winner his success, it was a disappointment to everyone to see Stallard go down in such moderate time as 4 min 27 2-5th sec.  He cannot be nearly as good as he was a year ago, but apart from this he ran with bad judgment, hanging behind in a very slow second lap instead of going to the front and ensuring a good pace.   He trusted to a sustained effort in the last quarter of a mile, but he could not keep it up to the end, McPhee passing him in the straight and winning by three yards.”   McPhee now had English gold to add to the bronze won in the half mile in 1914.   Two weekends, three gold medals.

As ever McPhee had been chosen for the triangular international to be held at Hampden the week after the AAA’s championship.   The race was run at an even slower pace but Stallard had his revenge on a miserable day and in front of an 8000 crowd.   “ It may be assumed that no inconsiderable portion of the crowd were attracted chiefly by the meeting in the Mile race of D McPhee and HB Stallard.   The previous week, it will be recalled, McPhee beat Stallard in the Mile at Stamford Bridge, and some curiosity was felt regarding his ability to repeat the performance  at the International Meeting.   The Cambridge University man, however, refused to be beaten again.   In a field of only five – Ireland having only one representative – the occasion was provided for the best man to win and unquestionably Stallard was the best of the five on the day’s form.   McPhee first, and later CB Brown, made the pace, the Englishman lying immediately behind until 220 yards from home when he suddenly flashed past McPhee who was quite unable to accept the challenge.   In the last 220 yards Stallard had matters all his own way, finishing fully ten yards in front of the Scottish and English champion.   It was a magnificent sprint and earned the applause of the crowd, though it meant the defeat of their favourite.   Incidentally, the defeat deprives McPhee of the honour of being the only winner of any one event at all the international meetings.”

 The last remark refers to the fact that the triangular match had started in 1914 when McPhee won the Mile, a feat he  had repeated in 1920 and 1921.

His next outing was at the Greenock Glenpark Sports at Cappielow Park where he disappointed the spectators by not running in the half-mile, reserving himself for the invitation 1000 yards – where he retired 40 yards from the tape ‘when he realised that any further progress was impossible.’   The Rangers Sports at the start of August took place in the finest of weather before a crowd of 30,000.  What more could an athlete ask but it was another disappointing week-end for McPhee’s supporters.   He did not run in the handicap half-mile which would have meant two races (heat and final) but went instead in the invitation half-mile where he could only finish fifth.   He redeemed himself in the Mile which he won from scratch by four yards in 4 min 23 4-5th sec from McIntyre of Shettleston Harriers.   In the Celtic FC Sports seven days later he won the half-mile fairly comfortably in 1:58 which was faster than the native record but he had started from the six yards mark.   He also ran the open mile where he finished second to Copeland of Motherwell (off 120) and ahead of JG McIntyre of Shettleston (off 60) in 4:28.   McPhee was running at a time when there were several very good athletes around but one of the very best was Eric Liddell and the two often turned out for Scotland together in the triangular international: on this day at the Celtic Sports Liddell won the 120 yards scratch race in an astounding 12.2 on a track not known for being one of the fastest.

It had been a good season with the victory in the AAA’s over Stallard probably being the high point.

McPhee in 1920 in West of Scotland colours

1923 – McPhee’s last year at the top – started out on 4th June with a run in the Inter-City Relay at the Queen’s Park FC Sports.   Glasgow won and the comment was that “as long as Glasgow are able to call on the services of D McPhee they are likely to win.”   On 9th June in the relay for the prestigious Wyoming Cup, McPhee running the relay brought the club home first on the 880 yards stage, despite the fine running of a young opponent in George Malcolm from Edinburgh Southern, for their fourth consecutive victory.   The following Saturday saw a return of the Edinburgh Southern Harriers and Hibernian Football Club Sports at the football club’s ground.   McPhee ran in both mile (‘D McPhee ran a strong race but was unplaced.’) and half-mile (‘McPhee again ran strongly but was unable to take his full field.’) but with no material success.   In the SAAA Championships on 23rd June, McPhee won both half-mile and mile for the fourth consecutive year.   “McPHEE’S FINE RUNNING.   The one mile race was somewhat disappointing, only three men turning out to challenge the champion.   G Malcolm was his most formidable opponent, and for some time it looked as if McPhee’s title was in danger.   His finishing sprnt however was one of the features of the meeting, redeeming the race to some extent from the dullness caused by the poor field.   In the half-mile the champion was strongly challenged by C Brown but here again he showed, as he has often done before, that a challenge only serves to provide him with the speed necessary to shake it off.    Great things will be expected of McPhee at the international next month, as well as at the AAA’s championships.”    The half-mile was won by a yard in 2:01, and the mile by 30 yards in 4:34.6.

In the Glasgow Police Sports seven days later, McPhee ran disappointingly in the half-mile and did not turn out in the Mile “having left for Edinburgh” before the event started.   He then travelled to the AAA’s the following week but the report tells us that “It was hoped rather than expected that D McPhee would retain his title in the mile championship.   The Scotsman appears to have gone somewhat stale since the Scottish championships, and, moreover, the winner’s time was considerably faster than any he has ever done, and in fact equals the Scottish native record.”   Stallard won the race by 150 yards in 4:21.6 and ‘the Scotsman was never in the running’.   The triangular international was McPhee’s chance for revenge over Stallard  but it was not to be and Stallard made the score 3-1 in his favour when he won from McPhee in second place in 4:23.2.   At Glengarnock on 21st July, he ran in both half-mile and mile but without getting far enough through the field to feature on the prize list, it was the same story at  the Greenock Glenpark Harriers race at Cappielow the following week and the tale at Ibrox at the start of August was no happier.   “D McPhee’s running at no time made its usual appeal.   In the one and a half mile invitation handicap he decided to forgo his start of 16 yards, and along with CE Blewitt got off from the scratch mark.  Neither the West of Scotland man nor the Birchfield Harrier had a say in the finish.   McPhee dropped out from the race with little more than a quarter to go.   T Riddell of Glasgow High School almost provided a rich surprise here, but the reserve power behind the Maryhill man, WH Calderwood, was too much for this youthful runner.   In the mile handicap McPhee introduced more  spirit into his effort but at no time did he look like challenging the placed men.”   Not a good spell for McPhee but note the young Tom Riddell mentioned who would soon take over McPhee’s pre-eminence in the mile.  His name does not appear at the Celtic Sports the following week although Tom Riddell had another good run, finishing third in the open mile.

Into Olympic year and like every other athlete in the kingdom, McPhee must have been hoping for the team selection.   Unfortunately his name was not only missing from the results, but it was noted several times that ‘had Duncan McPhee been running …’   Came the SAAA National Championships on 14th June Duncan McPhee had to miss them because of injury ‘and had he done so the old brigade might have made a better appearance.’   Nor does he seem to have raced at all in season 1924 and to all intents and purposes, his athletics career had come to an end.

It had been a marvellous career with nine Scottish championships, one AAA’s championship, three wins in the International Mile and selection for the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp.  The only honour missing was the lack of a Scottish record at either 880 yards or One Mile – although he did set records at 1000 yards (2:16.0 in 1920) and three-quarters of a mile (3:12.2 in 1921).   The SAT website at www.scotstats.net also refers to his 1920 3000m time of 8:59.1 as an inaugural Scottish record which would give him another record.  Bearing in mind that military service took him out of competition from 1915 to 1919  between the ages of 23 and 26 inclusive it has to be believed that he could have done and won so much more.

1923 International: McIntyre Number 28, on right, winner Blewitt is number 1 with

Belgian van der Broele in front was third, and the Frenchman Huest, No 50, was fourth

Photo from Alex Wilson

All through the history of athletics there are runners who have wonderful careers that just suddenly stop.   Sometimes it is because of the demands of their career, sometimes because of  injury or illness and many of course had their careers in the sport terminated by the start of one of the two great wars.   James G McIntyre seemed to have had such a career – between 1921 and 1924 he won three 10 miles championships, had three wins and one second in the 4 miles championship, ran in two international cross-country championships in one of which he only lost first place in the last few strides and of course he ran many very good races at home.   But as far as athletics historians were concerned, his career just stopped at the end of the 1924 track season.  Right when he should have been at his peak.   The question of why he stopped intrigued me.   Then after this profile was published, his son made contact and filled in several of the gaps and provided more photographs.

Special Prize Gold Medal awarded to McIntyre in 1919

JG McIntyre  began his athletic career with the newly formed Dumbarton AAC, founded immediately after the 1914 – 18 War, and the first time he was mentioned in Colin Shields’s excellent “Whatever The Weather” is after the 1921 Clydesdale Harriers Open Cross-Country race at Rouken Glen Park.   This race is notable for the fact that 200 runners had to turn up to run the race twice after a farmer lifted the paper marking the trail and many of the competitors  went off course, but it was won the second time round by JG McIntyre “then running for the newly formed Dumbarton AAC”    Shields then goes on to point out that “his success in this and other events caused Shettleston Harriers to sign him to strengthen their team.”   

Three of the trophies won by McIntyre in 1919

The summer of 1921 saw James McIntyre win the first of his three consecutive SAAA Four Miles titles when at Celtic Park on 25th June he defeated FC Watt to win in 20:59.   The ‘Glasgow Herald described the victory – “The second surprise of the day was the victory of James McIntyre in the Four Miles, or to put it another way, the non-success of several more fancied men –  WB Ross, John Cuthbert, the ten miles champion, and JH Motion, the cross-country champion, for example.   McIntyre set a fast pace, and doubtless the sweltering conditions were responsible for the numerous retirements, as was the case in the ten miles two months ago.”   Earlier in the season, on 4th June at Queen’s Park FC Sports, he had won the Mile in Dumbarton colours in 4 min 27 4-5th seconds from a mark of 60 yards by 20 yards from Russell of Paisley.  The week before the SAAA win at Celtic Park, he won the Two miles race from Jimmy Wilson on the line – fantastic form to take into the Championships.   His first appearance in the results columns after the SAAA Championship was on 30th July when he was placed third in the  Open Two Miles race on a rainy afternoon at the Greenock Glenpark Harriers meeting at Cappielow Park off a mark of 35 yards.   The longest race at Ibrox in the Rangers Sports the following Saturday was the Three Quarter Mile which was probably a bit short for him.   More likely he was resting up because in the Celtic Sports the following week  he not only ran in the Invitation Mile but actually won it by eight yards from a mark of 60 yards from no less a personality than A Hill (Polytechnic Harriers), scratch man, in 4 min 25 sec.   The Celtic meeting was the end of the summer and the ‘Glasgow Herald’ listed all the meetin gs that year that had been cancelled due to the ‘industrial strife’.   These included Kilmarnock Harriers, Vale of Leven FC, the Dumbarton AAC v Bellahouston Harriers at Dumbarton, Dumbarton Harp FC Sports and the St Vincent meeting at Celtic Park.   ‘The blighting effect of industrial unrest’ on the sport was blamed for these and other meetings not going ahead.   The programme below has him listed as ‘James McIntyre’ – apparently the ‘G’ was added to differentiate him from another talented runner from Garscube Harriers also called James McIntyre: they both ran in the same Scottish team in the internationals of 1923 in Maison-Lafitte, near Paris, and 1924 in Gosforth Park, Newcastle.

1921 SAAA Programme

The unrest continued into the next summer season but McIntyre’s membership of Dumbarton did not – when he won his first SAAA 10 Miles Championship on 22nd April 1922, it was in the colours of Shettleston Harriers.   “Held at Celtic Park on Saturday, by the favour of the directors of Celtic FC, distinction was lent to the the first of the season’s SAAA athletic championships by a record entry of 30 drawn from all parts of the country and including the cream of the devotees of cross-country running.   Of the entrants only J Strain (Shettleston Harriers),  T Hamilton (Bothwell Harriers), and H McLeod (Paisley YMCA) failed to answer to their names , and the runners had perforce to be drawn up in two rows.   When the pistol was fired AB Lawrie (Garscube Harriers) at once dashed to the front but was soon displaced by JG McIntyre (Shettleston Harriers), the Scottish Four Miles Champion, who set  such a fast pace that he was soon in possession of a clear advantage with JG Scott (West of Scotland Harriers) as his nearest attendant.    The veteran A Craig (Bellahouston Harriers) from whom much was expected was soon tailed off, and after his retirement at one mile, it transpired that he was far from well.   J Cuthbert (Garscube Harriers), who won last year, cracked before going two miles, and left the track in the eleventh lap.   Meantime McIntyre had been advancing from strength to strength and he had the issue in safe keeping thus early.   DM Wright (Clydesdale Harriers) forged into second place in the third circuit, closely followed by P Martin (Maryhill Harriers), and their positions were never disturbed.   In the end McIntyre who put in a strong finish beat Wright by 250 yards with Martin third 150 yards behind the last named, being the only other competitor to gain a standard medal for beating 57 minutes.   The winner’s time was 54 min 59 secs, Wright’s 55 min 55 1-5th sec and Martin’s 56 min 21 3-5th secs.   The others to complete the course were:- D Farmer (Clydesdale Harriers)  58:02; AB Lawrie (Garscube Harriers) 58:30; B Dawson (Greenock Glenpark Harriers) 58:34.8; JG Scott (West of Scotland Harriers) 59:52.8; J Spence (Falkirk Victoria Harriers) 60:23.6; J Stronach (Grange Harriers) 63:01.   

The winner’s mile times were as follows:- One Mile: 4 mins 56 sec; Two Miles: 10:19; Three Miles: 15:41.4; Four Miles: 21:10.6;  Five Miles: 26:45; Six Miles: 32:21; Seven Miles: 38:00.8; Eight Miles: 43:41.2; Nine Miles: 49:23.2; Ten Miles: 54:59. “

 He followed this up with a win from Dunky Wright (Clydesdale Harriers) in the 10 Miles Marathon at St Mary’s Charity Sports at Barrhead on May 15th for which no time was given.   (It’s maybe of interest to note that third place was won by P Martin of Maryhill Harriers – Dunky in the course of his career represented all three clubs (Shettleston, Clydesdale and Maryhill) at one time or another).   He did not appear in any other prize list – not even at the favoured Queen’s Park or Glasgow Police meetings – until the SAAA Championships at Powderhall on 24th June where he won the Four Miles from FC Watt in 20 minutes 0 4-5th seconds.   This gained him selection for the Triangular International against England and Wales at Hampden on 8th July.   Unfortunately he was suffering from a leg injury on the day and had to retire at three miles.   In the Rangers Sports on the first Saturday in August, McIntyre was second in the Open Mile, four yards behind Duncan McPhee.

McIntyre’s best two cross-country seasons were to be 1922-3, and 1923-4.   In the first of these he started the winter with first place in the Clydesdale Harriers Open Cross-Country race at Rouken Glen with the team finishing second to Garscube and followed this with a team victory at Maryhill.   In January 1923, he was third in the West District Championships and then it was in to the National at Bothwell Castle where he was second to Dunky Wright.   Twenty teams were forward for the race – 15 from the West and 5 from the East, to cover  a three lap course.   McIntyre was about 100 yards behind Clydesdale’s Wright and his efforts not only gained him selection for the international to be held at Maison-Lafitte near Paris, but also the National Junior title.   The international that year was possibly the best race that he ever ran.  The ‘Glasgow Herald’ report however ran to all of 14 lines. The winner of the race was CE Blewitt, the English champion who was ‘always up with the leading bunch’  and ‘sprinting he managed to beat McIntyre in the last 50 yards’      Among the other Scots to finish, W Nelson (WoS) was 23rd, Dunky Wright was 24th,  AB Lawrie (Garscube) was 30th, J McIntyre (Garscube) was 32nd.   It had been a very good winter’s work.

McIntyre with English champion Blewitt

In 1922 he had won the SAAA Four Miles and Ten Miles double, could he do it again and make it three Four Miles titles in succession?   The international had been on the last Saturday in March and the Ten Miles was held at Hampden Park on the 21st April – almost exactly a month later.   “Among the 18 competitors for the 10 Miles flat event appeared JG McIntyre (Shettleston Harriers) the holder of the title.   At half distance the field was reduced to 12 runners, but all the interest was centred on McIntyre and P Martin (Maryhill Harriers), who held a commanding lead and in a spirited finish McIntyre retained the honour, beating Martin in the final sprint to the tape.   The time recorded for the champion was 56 min 48 sec and Martin was the only other competitor to finish within the standard time of 57 min.”   And that’s the report in its entirety.   Nevertheless – 2 runs in the event, 2 wins.   The Four Miles was to come up on 23rd June at Celtic Park, but there were races to be run before then.   On 12th May, McIntyre was out at the St Peter’s AAC Sports at Celtic Park where he was second in the Open Mile where he was running from 30 yards, being defeated by Duncan McLean the Greenock policeman, running for Wellpark Harriers, off 75 yards who won in a time of 4 minutes 38 seconds.   On 26th May, he ran in the Shettleston Harriers Open Sports Two Miles race where, ‘he was not concerned in the finish’ as the report had it.   This was the meeting where schoolboy T Riddell made his appearance in the half mile and coming through 440 in 57 seconds, finishing in 2:04.4: taking this in conjunction with his running over a Mile the previous week, the reporter reckoned he was ‘a potential champion.’   The Queens Park Sports were always on the first Saturday in June, this was no exception and McIntyre was in action again.   McIntyre and Shettleston won the Two Miles Inter-Harriers clubs individual and team race.   His time was 9 minutes 33 4-5th seconds but he did not win without a battle against WGS Moor of Edinburgh University who ‘in the dash at the finish, could not live with the champion who won by 50 yards.’   Then all was quiet until the SAAA meeting where McIntyre duly won the Four Miles to make it three-in-a-row winning a grand race from WD Patterson of Edinburgh Southern and WH Calderwood of Maryhill in 20:55.4.    There was virtually no report on the race although there was a comment that it was his best championship win.   Again he was selected for the International to be held on July 14th at Stoke FC ground.   Unfortunately he did not figure in the results which only extended to the first three runners and no reason was give.  A pity because Scotland won the competition largely because of three victories by Eric Liddell.

Two weeks later he turned out in the Greenock Glenpark Sports in the Three Miles race where he ran from the scratch mark and was accordingly run out of the first three – he was giving the winner, Dunky Wright 88 yards, and the second placed W Nelson 150 yards – he could not give his two fellow internationalists such distances at that point when they were both featuring in the prize lists most weeks.   Missing the Rangers Sports the following week he turned out in the Celtic Sports on the second Saturday in August and was in a ferocious race over two miles in front of an 18,000 crowd.   The report read: “The most thrilling event was the two miles invitation,the finish of which will live in the memory of all present as the most thrilling of the season.   JG McIntyre, CE Blewitt and CH Johnston virtually hurled themselves at the tape almost simultaneously, the judges placing these runners in the order named.”    The result was 1.   JG McIntyre (Shettleston)  60 yards;   2.   CE Blewitt (Birchfield H) scratch;  3.   CH Johnston (Glasgow University) 60 yards.   Time 9 mins 35.4.   Blewitt was of course the English champion and the man who had just out-sprinted McIntyre in the International in France in March so it must have been rewarding for him to gain that particular scalp.

That was where McIntyre ended the summer season of 1923 and it was on to the cross-country for winter 1923-4.   Dunky Wright moved from Clydesdale Harriers that same winter and immediately became the top man in the club.   McIntyre ran less than the previous winter, missing even the District championship,  but turned out in the National where Dunky Wright won and McIntyre was second Shettleston runner home in sixth place which again earned him selection for the International, to be held that year at Newcastle.   He was second scoring runner for his country in the international as he had been for his club in the national – finishing position 17th.

The Ten Miles was back at Celtic Park on 19th April, 1924, and McIntyre won his third successive championship – this time in 54:57.8.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ report read: “Of the 20 entrants for this race there were 16 starters.   The four absentees were J McIntyre (Garscube), HFC Watt (West of Scotland), D Henderson (Edinburgh H) and JB Storrar (Edinburgh Southern Harriers).   Right away the holder of the title took the lead, which he retained, with WH Calderwood at his elbow for 6.5 miles.   At this point D McL Wright, the cross-country champion, who had been having a bad time, made a fine recovery and took the lead.   Thereafter ensued a great duel between Wright and McIntyre for Calderwood tailed off,    Just as the leaders were completing the ninth mile, McIntyre stumbled and fell heavily.   Wright who was running alongside at the time stopped and assisted the champion to his feet.   This fine sporting action, which was loudly cheered, possibly cost Wright the championship, for in the final straight McIntyre’s superior finishing powers carried him home by about 20 yards.  

The intermediate times were:  One Mile: 4 mins 59 3-5th sec;   Two Miles: 10 min 21 sec;   Three Miles: 15  mins 46 3-5th secs;   Four Miles: 21 mins 14 2-5th secs;   Five Miles: 26 min 50 sec;   Six Miles: 32 min 30 4-5th secs;  Seven Miles: 38 min 15 secs;   Eight Miles: 43 min 50 sec;   Nine Miles: 49 mins 29 4-5th sec;  Ten Miles: 54 mins 57 4-5th sec.

Results: 1.   J McIntyre (Shettleston Harriers);   2.   D Wright (Shettleston Harriers);   3.   WH Calderwood (Maryhill Harriers).   Won by 20 yards, fully 100 yards between second and third.   The standard time was 57 minutes and J Gardner (Edinburgh Harriers) and D Quinn (Garscube Harriers) qualified for standard medals.   The form showed was above the average, for the conditions were against fast times.   A feature was the number of competitors who completed the distance.”

McIntyre did not appear too often in the results and the press report on the Civil Service Championships at the end of May commented on his absence making the race a comfortable one for J Gardner of ESH who won the Mile in 4:49, and although the Shettleston Harriers Sports were held the following week, he did not appear in the results there either.   He did appear on 7th June however in the Two Miles team race at the Queen’s Park Sports and won by three yards in 9 minutes 57 seconds.   The SAAA Championships were held on 14th June at Hampden Park and after three wins in the Four Miles, the best that he could do was finish second to CH Johnston (Edinburgh University) who won in 20 min 32 1-5th secs.   This was the last race for which JG McIntyre was noted in the published results – not the Greenock Glenpark Sports, not the Rangers Sports nor in any other meeting that summer.

With Trophies and Trainer

Where had  he gone?   The Shettleston Harriers history rather churlishly surmises –

“The club would be without one of its key runners for the 1924-5 season.   James McIntyre had decided that his talents merited more than the regular medal, shield or canteen of cutlery.   As ‘The News’ put it, “he has forsaken the amateur for the professional track.”    The professionals regarded him as a ‘decided acquisition’ but he had a very short career.   After a few successes in minor events, he retired from athletics.   His best recorded performance at a pro event was 9:37 from scratch position in a two mile race at Powderhall in October 1924.”

That was not quite how the rest of the Scottish athletics saw his move from the amateur ranks.   Page 200 of “Powderhall and Pedestrianism” says that he turned pro in a fit of pique after the decision went against him in that last SAAA Four Miles Championship.   Apparently the race ended in a near dead-heat between himself and Johnston with both men being given the same time of 20:32.5.   Alex Wilson, an authority on the period, checked this out with ‘The Scotsman’, and it says that Johnston was given the nod, all judges being in agreement on the matter.   McIntyre was not satisfied with this and left the amateur ranks while Johnston was later selected to run in the Paris Olympics where he ran in the 5000m.    This is borne out in comments by his son, James, who says:

“My sister was born at the end of 1923, so he held both four and ten titles during her first year and was no doubt looking forward to holding on to them as the selection for the 1924 olympics in Paris would rest on them and other results.    The race is well documented in the newspapers of the day and ended in a tight finish which my dad always insisted he had won although the verdict of the judges eventually went against him after several had changed their minds.   My father always insisted that there was no winning tape put across. (This would be important to him for I have seen a photo of another dead heat finish between him, English champion Blewitt and a French champion.   On that occasion the verdict went in favour of my father because in the photo he was holding the tape).   Following the race and the uproar that followed, there were several conflicting newspaper reports.    Some said that, because of the dispute neither would by considered for the Olympics but, by the Monday evening papers, it was declared that BOTH would be in the frame.    He never went to Paris and, in the end, turned his back on the sport. It must be remembered that his rival was a university student who would have had a leisurely approach to the big day while my father was a working postman (the press called him the running Cardross postman) who had been up at four am and done a full day’s work prior to the race.   So what made him go?   Class differences….new born first child….grievance at verdict on his most important race…lure of big money? Who knows?”

So there you have it: he turned pro at the very top of his game.   He was not mentioned in the ‘Fifty Years of Athletics’ published in 1933 other than as winner of the six championships; there was no mention of him in the text.   For the SAAA, the amateur code was sacrosanct, to turn pro was to be cast into the outer darkness.   From his point of view, he may have been promised something to make the burning of his boats worth while, or he had not done his homework since it was clear that no one save for a few heavies could make a living from the sport.   It may be of course that any money earned in the dark days of the Twenties Depression was essential.   We know nothing about his personal circumstances at the time and it would be wrong to judge his action.   We must surely regret the loss of this talent from the sport.

His son James tells us that  “His professional career was brief but not without its triumphs.   He is still the only runner ever to win a distance race from a scratch position in the history of Powderhall.   And he once won a prize money of £75 during the depression him mid 1920s.   The runner up only got a couple on quid.   I believe he used his share of the money, after expenses, to buy a home for his parents.”

Wounded near the end of WW1

He goes on to tell us that “I believe his greatest ever day came about five years earlier in 1919 while he was still serving in Germany in the Machine Gun Corps.  On that one day towards the end of the year he won three…and probably four…events.   I have the silver cups he won at the half mile, the mile and the cross country all on the same day at the MGC sports.   There was also a silver rose bowl which went elsewhere in the family and, on my sister’s death in 2013 her daughter produced a solid gold medallion engraved “BAAA special prize December 27, 1919” which may refer collectively to that day’s achievements.”

His father, despite having left the amateur ranks behind, never really lost the friends and contacts made – I find it inconceivable on a personal level that that could happen.   But in McIntyre’s case, he retained many friend ships, most notably with Eric Liddell and his son remembers Liddell visiting the family home on one of his last home leaves from China.   He also recalls sitting with his Dad and McDonald Bailey at the top table at a Highland Games dinner.  The athletics friendships remained.

James McIntyre married twice and both his wives died in their early forties.    He continued to work for the post office and, having started out at a telegram boy he ended up as Chief Postal Inspector of the county of Dunbartonshire.    He died in 1970, aged 73, leaving a son and a daughter and four grand-children.

JP Laidlaw, a member of Edinburgh Northern Harriers, was a very versatile track runner throughout the 1930’s with SAAA Medals at 880 yards, 1 Mile and Three Miles and the winner of Scottish representative honours.   Running the Mile at the same time as Tom Riddell and the Three Miles alongside GM Carstairs he did not have it easy, and his career merits closer scrutiny that it has received so far in athletics histories.    A comprehensive list of his racing, courtesy Alex Wilson, is on the accompanying page of ‘Jackie Laidlaw’s Racing’

First appearing in the SAAA Championships on 27 June 1931,  Laidlaw was the focus of some attention, and not because he won a silver medal either.  He  was second to Tom Riddell in the mile being 30 yards behind the winner who was timed at 4:29.    It was in the half mile however that the real drama was to be found.   Laidlaw had won his heat in 2 minutes 3 – 4-5th secs from CM Wells, the second heat being won by Hood of Shettleston Harriers from Calderwood of Maryhill.    The ‘Glasgow Herald’ on the following Monday reported as follows on the final.   “The necessity of having stewards at the bends was emphasised in the half-mile final.   From the stand it was observed that there was much unnecessary jostlin taking place and it was culminated when JP Laidlaw was brought down: it was a slow run race this, the slowest in twelve years.   The first quarter was covered in 64 seconds and the whole in 2 mins 4 1-5th secs.   But the final, fought out between James Hood of Shettleston and CM Wells was the keenest for a long time.   Wells was in front entering the straight, but after a stirring finish Hood managed to get on terms 20 yards from the tape and won by inches.”   

Despite the excitement, the reporter in commenting on the Mile had this to say “JP Laidlaw of Edinburgh Northern Harriers was second man home.   Still a Youth, he has made a big advance since last season and looks like developing into a front rank man.”   

The SAAA Championships on 27 June 1932 were better than those of 1931 in that Laidlaw came away with two medals rather than one – but they were both silver,   In the Mile it was Tom Riddell who beat him for the second year in succession and the inning time was 4:29, while one place behind him was Bobby Graham.   In the half mile he was second to Maryhill’s WH Calderwood who won in  1:58 1-5th.   The half-mile winning time was the third fastest ever and was attributed to the hard front running of TJ McAlister who eventually finished third.   The report on the mile read: “In the Mile TM Riddell achieved, as expected, an easy win and the fact that his time showed an advance of 3 secs upon last year was due to the urge of the youthful R Graham of Motherwell.   This youth and JP Laidlaw of Edinburgh Northern had an interesting duel for second place, although neither was near the winner at the finish.”   The winning distance was given as 20 yards.

 Laidlaw was then selected for the half mile in the International against Ireland at Powderhall on 16th July where he was given a time of  2:03 when he finished three yards behind the winner.   The Scottish champion was unpolaced and was only one of several other Scottish champions who performed poorly on the gras track.   Ireland won the match comprehensively but Laidlaw ran well.

*

On May 20th, 1933, Laidlaw took part in what seemed to be an over-distance race for him when he competed in the Monkland Harriers sports.   In the Two Miles team race he not only competed but he won the race from such notables as Suttie Smith (second), Jim Flockhart (third) and Tom Blakely of Maryhill in 9 mins 43 2-5th secs.

A week later in the Queen’s Park FC Sports (on 27th May) Laidlaw created another bit of an upset.    The cause?    He defeated TM Riddell over 1000 yards.    The main headline for the report was ‘Another Scottish Record for Blakely’ but just below the sub-head read ‘Laidlaw defeats Riddell’ and the actual race report read,   “The first appearance on a Scottish track this season of TM Riddell, the mile champion, was awaited with interest.   Riddell as usual served up a good race in the 1000 yards special event but was eclipsed on the afternoon by JP Laidlaw who, while running from 10 yds, not only won the race with comfort but actually returned better time over the distance than did the champion.   Last Saturday he he secured first place in the Monkland Harriers two miles, and then on Saturday he again broke the tape.   He has then amply realised the promise of last season and in addition to pace he possesses a high sense of track tactics.  He was content to let Riddell do the forcing work in Saturday’s race, but never allowed himself to be far away.   When the champion went to the front in the back straight, Laidlaw was only a couple of yards behind, and when he made his effort 100 yards from the tape, Riddell could not hold him and was beaten by a good five yards.

Laidlaw’s convincing time for the race was 2 mins 15 3-5th secs, and running out the full distance, he was returned as doing 2 mins 16 4-5th secs, 4-5th secs outside Duncan McPhee’s record.   Riddell’s time was returned as 2 mins 17 secs.   If, as has been hinted, Laidlaw’s ambition is to secure the Scottish mile honour, a stern struggle is promised in the championships between the pair and possibly another record breaking performance.   Riddell will be fitter then and will not accept defeat lightly.”   

It should be noted that Riddell ran off scratch.   Later in the same meeting Laidlaw ‘won’ the first half mile stage of the inter-city relay from WH Calderwood by five yards.

Hopes were probably high after the Monklands and Queen’s Park races – Monklands over distance and QPFC under distance – but in the Scottish championships held at Hampden he was again second in the mile – for the third successive year in 4:20.6 on 24th June.   Praise was fulsome from the Glasgow Herald reporter.   “The best running of the meeting was seen in the Mile where TM Riddell, JP Laidlaw and J Gifford put up an exhibition that has never been bettered in the history of the race.   Riddell’s winning time was 4 min 18 3-5th secs, only 3-5th secs outside his own Scottish record made at the Rangers Sports two years ago.   Laidlaw was times ta 4 min 21 secs and Gifford at 4 mins 24 secs and the merit of the performances lies in the fact that Gifford’s time was actually faster than any of the previous winners of the event.   What enhances the running is that the conditions were none too good: a strong breeze is always a deterrent rather than a help in distance races.

A month ago at the Queen’s Park meeting Riddell was surprised and beaten by Laidlaw’s pace at the finish of the 1000 yards.   On Saturday the champion showed that he had profited by the experience, as after his clubmate W Sutherland had led the field for the first quarter in 61 secs Riddell went to the front and set a pace that proved too strong for his eastern opponent.    Laidlaw ran a very fine race nevertheless while Gifford enhanced a growing reputation.   Had Riddell not been there either would have been a worthy champion.”

*

1934 did not start as well for Laidlaw and he could only finish fifth in the half-mile at Monklands although the reporter hinted that he was holding himself back.   Came the SAAA Championships in June 1934, Laidlaw concentrated on the Mile but again finished second to Riddell who won in 4 mins 22 2-5th secs but the race was not what it had been a year earlier.   Despite finishing 35 yards down on the winner, Laidlaw nevertheless defeated some good men including WH Calderwood, W Struthers and JN Lapraik.

*

1935 season saw Laidlaw tackle the two miles handicap race at the Monkland Sports.   His participation was commented on thus: The distance races at this meeting have always been a feature and Saturday’s two mile handicap proved no exception.   In this, JP Laidlaw ran from virtual scratch, off 25 yards, in a good field which included W Sutherland the 10 miles champion.   Sutherland who had 220 yards concession from the back marker, and Laidlaw boith ran to form and at one time seemed to dominate the race, but their task in the closing stages was made very difficult by the surprising virility of H McPhee of Springburn Harriers who was on the 145 yards mark.    In the last three or four laps McPhee opened out and finally wn by 10 yards from Sutherland in 9 mins 17 4-5th secs – remarkably good time when it is noted- that there were 13 laps in the distance and that Blakely’s Scottish record is 9 mins 10 4-5th secs.   This track evidently suits McPhee as it was in this race a year ago that he achieved his initial success in track racing.”   McPhee won by 20 yards.

One week later at the Queens Park sports, the sub-headline read ‘Laidlaw Wins Again’ and the account of the race was as follows:

“In the three miles JP Laidlaw defeated W Sutherland once again and it is evident that at this distance he is superior to the Shettleston man.   It is understood that this season Laidlaw is concentrating on the three miles in the Scottish championship.   It looks like being his for the taking as it was year ago that he dropped his chance to challenge Riddell in the mile.”  The winning time was14 mins 59 2-5th secs.   On 8th June, Laidlaw dropped down a distance when he won the mile easily in 4 mins 40 1-5th secs in an inter-club contest at Penicuik.   The following week, Laidlaw did not race anywhere – it was the week before the championships.

The SAAA Championships were held again at Hampden and Lailaw won his first Scottish title in 14:46.4.    The report read, JP Laidlaw won his first title in the three miles in emphatic fashion.   His only challenge came from WC Wylie but the national cross-country champion’s effort faded out before the finishing pace of the Edinburgh Northern runner.”   Laidlaw won by 10 yards.

He ran slightly quicker the following week (29th June) when representing Britain in an international match against Finland at Hampden, he finished third and first GB runner in 14:44.8.   He competed in the Three Miles at the AAA’s championships on 13th July but according to the ‘Glasgow Herald’ JP Laidlaw was outclassed in the Three Miles, just as JC Flockhart had been in the Six Miles the previous evening.’   On 3rd August, having done his best running of the season, having followed a prolific racing programme, Laidlaw won the second Mile race at the Rangers sports in 4 minutes 40 4-10th secs.

*

After all the successful racing in 1935, Laidlaw did not defend his title in the SAAA Championships in June 1936  in fact there was no sign of him in any of the meetings that he usually graced.   Meetings such as Monkland, Glasgow Police, Queens Park, Penicuik.   However he reappeared in 1937 and turned in a time of 14:59.4 for Three Miles on 5th June at the Queen’s Park Sports.   The headline in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ read “LAIDLAW’S FINE EFFORT” and the paragraph below read as follows:

“The Three Miles was also a keen race and the lead fluctuated many times.   First JC Flockhart, the International Cross-Country champion, set the pace and others took their turn in leading the field, but the actual winner, JP Laidlaw (Edinburgh Northern Harriers), waited until 60 yards from the tape and challenged JE Farrell (Maryhill Harriers).   Running on strongly Laidlaw won with five yards to spare.   He held the Three Miles championship two years ago but sustained a serious injury last year and could not defend his title, which was won by Jack Gifford (Bellahouston Harriers).   Gifford never showed any signs of winning Saturday’s race and was a poor fourth although he will doubtless do better on championship day.”   Laidlaw won by five yards.

His next recorded race was at Goldenacre in Edinburgh on 15th June when he again raced over three miles and was slightly quicker with 14:57.5.   A week later he ran in the SAAA Championships against such as GM Carstairs, the winner, JE Farrell and J Gifford and indeed Carstairs did win from Farrell with SK Tombe of Plebeian Harriers third.   On the 30th June, Laidlaw made it three races in a row on the east coast when he raced another three miles at Craiglockhart this time, and was timed at 14:51.4.

The season was not yet finished for him however, and his next race was at a ‘four-cornered meeting’ at Craiglockhart on 8th July.  Four cornered?   It was a competition between Edinburgh University & Former Pupils Union, Glasgow University & Former Pupils Union, Edinburgh Open Clubs and Glasgow Open Clubs.    Laidlaw had his revenge over Carstairs that night and the report read, “GM Carstairs (Edinburgh University) another SAAA title-holder was 10 yards behind JP Laidlaw in the three mile race.   Laidlaw’s time was only four seconds outside the Scottish record.”    The race result was 1.   JP Laidlaw   (Edinburgh Open Clubs);   2.  GM Carstairs (Edinburgh University);   3.   WG Black (Glasgow Open Clubs).   Time: 14 mins 37 1/2 secs.     Then on 17th July at Shettleston he was timed at 9:38.0 for two miles, a time that he bettered by no less than nine seconds at Shawfield on 31st July.    Running in the Clyde FC Sports, Laidlaw won by 15 yards from Emmet Farrell in 9:29 with WC Wylie of Darlington third.      With the furthest race at the Rangers Sports on the first Saturday in August, Laidlaw’s season was over for 1937.   It had been a very good season with the only gap being at the SAAA Championships where he would almost certainly been among the medals.

1938 would be another good season, at least initially, which started at Hampden Park track on 31st May over three miles.   The event was a Tuesday evening meeting between Glasgow and Edinburgh and Laidlaw was ‘master of the distance runners’ – he won by 40 yards from JE Farrell in 15 mins 00.8 secs.   It was a good start to the season and he next competed on 7th June at Goldenacre, again over three miles but was a little slower with 15:06.6.    The big improvement came on 14th June at Craiglockhart when he took over 25 seconds from that time when he recorded 14:41.2.

In the championships there were hopes that he might defeat GM Carstairs for the title, but he had to yield first place when he finished over 100 yards behind the champion in 15:06.0 – Carstairs ran 14:40.8.      Laidlaw came down a distance at the Dundee Police Sports at Dens Park on 9th July when he won the invitation Mile from the in-form PJ Allwell in 4 mins 20 6-10th.   Although an invitation event it was also a handicap race with Laidlaw off 90 yards and Allwell off 100.   There were no more races reported that summer but given that his best three miles time of the season – 14:41.2 at Craiglockhart two weeks before the SAAA championships was less than half a seond behind Carstairs’ winning time, it is a pity that he did not contest the event.    

*

The only track result that we have found for 1939 was after the SAAA Championships which he did not run and it was for 27th June 1939 when Laidlaw ran  6:58.0 at Helenvale track in Glasgow for the seldom run mile and a half distance.

It should be noted that although he is mainly known as a track runner he was no mean cross-country exponent and even represented Scotland in the international cross-country race in Wales in 1934.   He first ran in the National in 1930/31 when he finished eighteenth and was second counter for the Edinburgh Northern team that finished seventh.   There was a team that finished thirteenth the following year but no Laidlaw.   In 1932/33 the team finished fifth with H McIntosh 4th, W Hinde 5th and Laidlaw thirteenth – he had run well but faded towards the finish.   There was no repeat the next year when he was third with the team also third.   The team was helped by the presence of J Suttie Smith who had added Edinburgh Northern to his list of clubs for the next two years.   In the international itself he finished 27th to be a scoring runner for the Scots team.   Suttie Smith had finished ninth that year but in 1935 he was second and the team won the championship with Laidlaw back in thirty second.   He did not run the following year and Suttie Smith had moved on so the team could do no better than tenth.   In 1936/37 the club finished seventh and was led home by WQ Hinde in sixth and JP Laidlaw in eighteenth.   Missong 1937/38, he turned out in the 1938/39 event and finished twelfth for the team that was ninth.

He excelled not only on the track and country. but he was also a better than average road runner if his performances in the eight stage Edinburgh to Glasgow relay are an indicator.   In the very first race in 1930, he was eighth on the first stage for the team that finished thirteenth.   In 1931 he was third on the same stage for the team that finished fourth and out of the medals but in 1933 (there was no race in 1932) he was first on the opening leg of the race and the team picked up third place medals.   In 1934 he moved to the seventh stage and moved the team up from third to second when he ran the fastest time of the day for the stage.   He did not run again in the race.    Nevertheless ‘winning’ the first leg and having fastest time in another represented good running.

Jackie Laidlaw’s career included medalson the track over 880 yards, Mile and Three Miles with an SAAA Championship and international recognition and the collection of many good ‘scalps’,  over the country there were team and individual medals plus international honours and his running on the road has been noted.   He was clearly a talented athlete running at a time when the standard in Scotland was possibly as high as in any other decade.   He would have done well at any time.

Tom Blakely of Maryhill Harriers was born in Glasgow 11th July 1904 and in the course of his career set two records for the Three Miles, one for Two Miles, and won a Scottish title over Four Miles as well as being a good cross country and road runner.   Unlike some others, he did not spring immediately to prominence.   Despite winning team gold in the National in 1926, he was by no means a fixture in club teams either cross-country or on the track – indeed in the St Peter’s inter-club championship which featured relays over One Mile, Two Miles and Four Miles with a Two Miles Team Race he seldom featured for most f his career.   He took  his time to mature.

Not among the prize-winners over the 1926 summer season, his first run in the National Cross-Country Championships was in season 1926-27 when he was fifth counter for the winning Maryhill Harriers team having finished in 14th.  The following summer his name appeared several times in the results (eg Maryhill Harriers championships mile which he won) but not in any major meeting.   Although he ran well the following summer, he did not appear too often in the Press: possibly because although there were many two mile team races, only the first three across the line plus the three counters for the winning squad were listed.   Given that J Suttie Smith, D McLean, F Stevenson and Dunky Wright were among the top men of the time, it was perfectly possible for Blakely to be fourth in such a and not have his result reported.

On 4th June 1927, Blakely was fourth in the invitation three miles team race at the Queen’s Park Sports.   Maryhill won with the counting men being McLean first, Blakely and Dunky Wright eighth and a total of 13 points to Monkland’s 14.    After missing the SAAA Championships in June, Blakely won the Four Miles at the Ayrshire Championships at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock, in late July in 21:24.   He was not a prize winner at any recorded meeting subequently in summer 1927.

Winter 1927/28 and with Maryhill not in the first six at the District Relay and Blakely not in their scoring runners in the National, it was on to the summer of ’28.   Maryhill Harriers was a very strong club at that time as the comment in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ of 4th June makes clear: “It was generally exected that with the strength at their command Maryhill Harriers would take pride of place at the inter-club contest organised by that enterprising young club, St Peter’s AAC.   In the mid-distances with D McLean, WH Calderwood, W  McRoberts, G Inglis and A Maer, they have a string that no other club can compete with at the moment.”   Blakely was given time to mature as an athlete without demands being made upon him – although he might have liked some team competition to help the process along.   The first mention of Blakely in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ that summer was on 23rd July at Beith where he contested the Four Miles Ayrshire Championship – he is reported to have had little difficulty in retaining the title and finished the race alone.   It is intriguing to realise that with all the events contested by members of his club, this is his first noted victory of the season.

That cross-country season there was no sign of Blakely in the club team in the District Relays on 25th November, nor was he in the winning national team, which was made up of DT Muir, D Wright, WH Calderwood, AW Adams, Kellas and D McNab Robertson.   No shortage of talent over the longer distances either.  Summer 1929, and again no sign of Blakely among the team membership or prize winners.

We next see him at the end of season 1929-30, when Maryhill Harriers team won the National championship and Tom Blakely in sixteenth place was the team’s third counting runner.  In the Edinburgh to Glasgow – the first of its kind – held on 26th April, Tom ran on the sixth stage and maintained third place for the team that would finish third.   He had not run in either of the Maryhill teams in the Midland Relays in November 1929 but these were two very good races for a relative newcomer.  There was no place for him in the scoring six in the National and his name did not appear among the prizes all summer of 1929, not even being named as an ‘also ran’ in the SAAA Championships.   His best running however was just about to begin.

In the winter of 1929-30, he was not a member of either A or B teams in the first Midlands Relay at Bothwell.    By the National however, he was racing well enough to be sixteenth and third club counter for the winning Maryhill team to pick up his second team gold.   The first ever Edinburgh to Glasgow eight man relay was held on 26th April  and Blakely was fastest runner on Stage 7 where he maintained third place for the team that finished in that position.   Straight into the summer programme after that.   On 7th June 1930 he was in action again as third team counter in the Maryhill team which won the two miles team race at the Queen’s Park FC meeting at Hampden, with McLean winning the race, Calderwood being third and Blakely finishing in seventh.   But again, he was not to be seen in the SAAA Championships, the Rangers Sports, any of the Ayrshire meetings or indeed anywhere for the rest of the season.

In the West District Relays in November 1930, he was only in Maryhill Harriers B Team, running on the fourth stage but running faster than one of the A Team.   Missing the Districts, he was 15th in the National to be the Maryhill last counter for the winning team to take his third National team gold.   In the Edinburgh to Glasgow in April, he had fastest time and set a new record on the seventh stage as part of the silver medal winning team.

On 13th June, 1931, Blakely was part of the squads for the Mile team race with D McLean and WH Calderwood and also of the Three Miles Team race at the St Peter’s inter-club event at Celtic Park.   His next outing was in the SAAA Championships on the 27th of the month where he is noted as among the also rans in the Four Miles, won by RR Sutherland.   At the popular West Kilbride Sports on 18th July, Blakely was third in the One Mile championship of Ayrshire which was won by clubmate WH Calderwood.

His biggest moment of his career so far was at Ibrox on 1st August when he won the Four Miles from W Beavers of York and JF Wood of Heriots.   Behind him Paavo Nurmi ran 19 minutes 20 2-5th seconds, a new all-comers record.   Blakely was running from 400 yards, Beavers from 190 and Wood from 200 yards and he won by 15 yards.    Then on  August 15th at Springburn Harriers meeting, he was third in the Mile off 60.  One week later at  Darvel Week Sports, he was second in the Mile off 55 yards.    Regardless of the Ibrox race, it had ben his most successful season yet but next summer would be even better.

In November 1931 at the District Relays  Maryhill Harriers finished  6th.   Blakely ran second for the first team and had second fastest time for the club.   The club won the National in March, 1932,   Tom Blakely was 21st and  fifth counter .   There was no Edinburgh tro Glasgow in 1932 so it was into the summer season.

He set his first 3 Miles record of 14:38.2 at the St Peter’s meeting at Celtic Park in 1932.   After the run on 4th June the Glasgow Herald on June 6th said: “T BLAKELY’S TRIUMPH.    The 3 Mile record of 14:41 1-5th which J Suttie Smith created at Hampden Park has not had a long life, as in Saturday’s race over the same distance T Blakely of Maryhill clipped another three seconds off it.    Another instance of the now commonplace that Scottish distance running is better at the moment than ever it was.   It was prophesied after the Rangers meeting last August that this Maryhill Youth would go far.   He runs so easily and with his confidence in his own running power growing with each outing may soon reach the very top.   His was not the only good performance in the race as SK Tombe of Plebeian Harriers was only 30 yards away when the tape was broken and this must represent time that Tombe has never touched in previous races.”     

Later that month, after the SAAA’s championships on 25th June, the headline read “BLAKELY’S FIRST HONOUR.”  and read “RR Sutherland did not defend his Four Mile title, and JF Wood, who has been cognisant of feeling of staleness for several weeks, also did not turn out, preferring to give himself a chance for the AAA’s championships.   This dual absence robbed the race of much of its interest and with J Suttie Smith moving much below his best, T Blakely earned his first honour in comfortable fashion.   Blakely’s advance during the present season has been rapid and in view of the manner of his victory it is remarkable that his entry was made only in the nature of an afterthought.   He knew his powers over Three Miles, but was scared of that extra mile.   He need not be in future as his time of 20 min 15 sec has only twice been bettered – by Stewart Duffus in 1906, the year of the split, and by RR Sutherland last year.   JR Wilson, the Army champion, ran a good race here and finished well, but left too much to the last two laps.”   

It had been a very good season for Blakely with a record and a national title and the remarks of the press reporters on the ‘rapid rise’ are interesting.

In winter 1932-33, Blakely he again ran the second stage of the Midland District relay and was fastest Maryhill runner but in the top ten overall.   When it came to the National  the club was 3rd but  Blakely did not run and in fact, he had run his last National cross-country.   On 8th April he ran on the first stage of the Edinburgh finishing second, four seconds behind Walter Gunn of Plebeian Harriers.   The team was third.   On to the track and the headline in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ on Tuesday, May 22nd read “BLAKELY SETS RECORD.” and the article read: “The annual sports meeting of Maryhill Harriers was held last night at Hampden Park in wet weather.   Despite the rain the track was in excellent condition and there were several notable performances.   Tom Blakely, the Scottish Four Mile champion, ran a magnificent race in the Two Miles and created a new native record by returning 9 min 19 4-5th sec – actually 11 1-5th sec inside Donald McLean’s time of 9 min 31 sec made at Ibrox Park in 1927.   Blakely was with his men at the end of the first mile, run in 4 min 36 sec, he took the lead at a mile and a half in 6 min 59 sec and from this point there ensued a struggle with J Gifford, the youthful Victoria Park runner which lased until the tape.  Blakely apparently had the race won entering the straight, but Gifford challenged boldly and in the end was only beaten by inches.   He ran from the 45 yard mark  so he must have smashed the old record had he run the distance set.”

One week later at the Queen’s Park FC Sports, he set yet another record, in the three miles this time.

“ANOTHER SCOTTISH RECORD FOR BLAKELY.   The conditions which prevailed at Hampden Park, Glasgow, on Saturday during the course of one of the most successful sports meetings ever held by the Queen’s Park Football Club were conducive to good performances.    The track was fast, there was little or no wind, and the temperature was of a level that brings the best out of a runner.   The somewhat moderate crowd that graced the terracing was not disappointed, for in almost every race the times ruled fast and one new Scottish record was created.    This was by Tom Blakely in the Three Miles which he covered in 14 min 33 sec, 5 1-5th sec faster than his own time set up at Celtic Park a year ago.   This was his second record of the week as he had set up fresh figures of 9 min 19 4-5th sec for the Two Miles.    These two performances within six days of each other stamp the Scottish Champion as a really good runner.   Saturday’s time was only 5 4-5th sec outside Alfred Shrubb’s all-comers record for the distance.   Blakely is a stylist and gets his effects with such apparent ease that the future holds distinct possibilities of more records.   His chief drawback so far has been a modesty that bred a distrust in his own capabilities.   These two performances should have improved his confidence.   He took the lead at the end of the first mile and remained there until the end.   The first mile was covered in 4 min 45 sec and the second in 9 min 42 sec.   JC Flockhart was second, 100 yards behind.”  

The SAAA Championships were at the end of June 1933, and the results reported ‘Holder T Blakely did not compete.’    In fact I can’t find him among the prize winners for the remainder of that year, nor was he in any of the Maryhill teams that won a few races.   Their dominance was being challenged by Shettleston and Plebeian in a way that it had not at the start of the 30’s and Maryhill was changing from the middle distance dominated club of Calderwood and McLean to the distance orientation of Wright, Robertson and Farrell.   Given the form that he had displayed, the chances that Blakely was handicapped out of the prizes are high.   In winter 1933-34, he ran the third stage of the District relay and was fastest Maryhill Harrier again but did not run in the Edinburgh to Glasgow.   As has been noted, did not run in the National, or at least was not in the counting six men.

He did not appear again in any championship race, and as far as can be ascertained was never again among the prize winners.    His had been a very interesting career – a long slow burn over four or five years then another four years or so of brilliance with two Scottish Three Miles records and one Two Miles record, a Scottish championship, gold, silver and bronze medals from the Scottish cross country championships, the West and Midlands cross-country relays, and the Edinburgh to Glasgow relay.   Tom Blakely died in Glasgow on 3rd September 1980.

Walter J Gunn

Walter J Gunn, who was to win gold, silver and bronze medals in road and cross-country championships and win no fewer than six international vests at a time when the standard was very high turned out in his first Scottish National Championships in March 1926 when he finished 22nd to lead his club, Plebeian Harriers to fifth place.   The club had also performed creditably in November, 1925, when they were second in the first ever West District Relays for the Struthers Shield, held at Paisley, behind Shettleston with a team of Clark, Gunn, Allan and Tombe.   Allan was fastest club runner on the day with sixth fastest time overall.

The team was fourth in the District Relays in November 1926 with W Allan fastest Plebeian and equal third fastest on the day.  In the national in March 1927 two of the Plebeians best men – Allan and Gunn – were absent and this maybe accounted for the team, led home by Sammy Tombe in eleventh place, finishing sixth.

In the District Relays in November 1927, Plebeian had their first championship victory when they won over a course that was either very fast or a bit short!   The team consisted of SK Tombe (14:18), E James 15:28, M Rayne (14:47) and WJ Gunn (14:39).   In the National at Hamilton in March, Gunn finished  fifth (behind team mate Sam Tombe in fourth for the team that finished second) and was selected for the international where he finished 29th and a counting runner for the Scottish team.

November 1928 and the District Relay was won by Plebeian Harriers.   Sammy Tombe, their fastest man on the day with a time of 12:35 was third at the changeover but “by half distance Plebeian Harriers were in the lead thanks to a good effort by E James (12:49).   Monkland were now second and Shettleston third.   Garscube had moved up from seventh to fourth while the University had lost one place.   On coming round the third time, Plebeian (M Rayne) had doubled their lead while Shettleston were now lying second and Monkland third.  Maryhill (WH Calderwood) were now fourth, 45 seconds behind the leaders with Garscube fifth.   Chief interest now centred on the running of Maryhill’s final string, D McLean, the SAAA Mile champion.   but the task was beyond him.

The fourth Plebeian representative, WJ Gunn, continued the good work of his mates to win with something in hand by 150 yards.   Thus for the second successive year, Plebeian have won with the same four representatives running in the same order.   It was a striking victory for a quartet of young runners who were the only team in which each member finished inside 13 minutes.”    With Sammy Tombe missing the National in March 1929, Walter Gunn finished third (behind Suttie Smith and Tom Whitton and was selected to represent Scotland in the international for the second year in succession.    He finished 77th and for the only time in his six runs in the event was a non-scoring runner for his country

In the District relays in November 1929, the Districts had been rearranged and was now the Midland District.   However it was, Plebeian won for the third successive year despite the absence of their fastest man in the two preceding events, Sammy Tombe was absent.   In his absence, Walter Gunn ran the opening stage.   Let the ‘Record’ tell the tale.   “Plebeian Harriers A Team ran in brilliant style throughout to win a race which by no means provided the classic contest generally expected.   Right from the start Plebeian showed that they were not going to give any quarter and, despite the opposition from Frankie Stevenson, Monkland, and Donald McLean, Maryhill, WJ Gunn gave them a lead of thirty yards over the first circuit.   Over the next lap sped E James for Plebeian and he extended his club’s lead to a margin of 160 yards.   Monkland were still second but Motherwell YMCA made excellent progress by moving up from fifth to third place due to the fine effort of WH Gardiner.    Shettleston remained in fourth place.   During the third lap, Plebeian continued to open up the gap; Maxwell Rayne having no mercy on his rivals finished strongly to give A Ingram a long lead  over Garscube who came into the picture for the first time through RM Roxburgh.   The contest was now all over bar the shouting and Ingram got home to win a brilliant race by 53 seconds from Garscube.”      Gunn had the fastest time of the day (14:19), Frank Stevenson was second quickest (14:24) and Maxie Rayne was third with 14:24.   The question of where SK Tombe had got to was answered when we looked at the West of Scotland team where SK Tombe ran the last leg in 15:08 for the team which finished 14th.

The 1930 National was held on  1st March at Hamilton and after a hard race. Gunn was fourth behind Suttie Smith, RR Sutherland and F Stevenson.    The Plebeian team was third.  In the international, held that year in Royal Leamington S[a in England and he finished 20th.   The Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay had started in April that year and Gunn too his club from third to first on the fifth stage with the fastest time of the day and a course record.    The team won of course.

In the District Relay at Hamilton, Plebeian “had to relinquish their title to Motherwell YMCA” but the news was that Sammy Tombe was back in the ranks.   Staying with Gunn for the first stage which he had won the previous year, Plebeian were in the lead at the end of the first stage, Tombe dropped one place to Motherwell on the second, R Clark was the slowest man in the side and dropped a bit further behind and Ingram kept the position to the finish.   Gunn had the fastest time of the afternoon and Tombe was eleventh overall.   The National for season 1930/31 was also at Hamilton and after a hard race, Gunn was third behind Suttie Smith and RR Sutherland.   That earned him his third international vest, this time in Ireland at Baldoyle Racecourse.   Gunn was 21 and a counting runner in the team which finished second, so taking a silver medal to go with his two bronzes from the Scottish Championships.      He then completed the set with gold in the Edinburgh to Glasgow in April when Plebeian won the race and he had fastest time on the 6th stage.

Gunn had the day’s fastest time in November 1931’s Midland District Relay.   On the same trail at Hamilton he was four seconds faster than the next man and the club won by 51 seconds from Shettleston.   Gunn went in front on the first lap (13:38), Alex Armstrong, the former Clydesdale Harrier, extended the lead (14:08), Sammy Tombe extended it still further (14:00) and finally Max Rayne had no problems to cross the line well clear of the chasing runner.   There was a second Edinburgh to Glasgow in 1931 and Plebeian Harriers won that one two to make it

The national in 1932 was held on 5 March at Hamilton and Maxie Rayne led the team home when he finished fifth.   Sammy tombe was outside the first ten and Alex Armstrong was their third counter.   Where was their star man?   The Daily Record tells us that “Plebeian felt the loss of WJ Gunn who who was compelled to retire fairly early owing to the aftermath of ‘flu”      He was nevertheless selected on form and ran in the International in Brussels where he was 24th  and a member of the team that finished third.   Rayne was 33rd and the Scots last scoring runner.

Walter Gunn took the lead-off leg in the Midlands relays for the fourth successive year and came home second, one place behind McDonald of St Peter’s AC to hand over to Alex Armstrong.   Armstrong was ahead of Jim Flockhart of Shettleston who had a very good run indeed to come from 13 seconds behind the leader to 13 seconds in front at the end of the stage.   Then came SK Tombe who ‘was the only runner to offer any challenge’ to Shettleston’s men.   He had a great run but O McGhee could not make any further impression on the Shettleston team who ran out winners.   Tombe had fastest time of the day, 11 seconds clear of McDonald of Plebeian with Flockhart a further three seconds down and Gunn fourth swiftest just two seconds down on Flockhart.   Gunn and Tombe were fast becoming a formidable double act.    In the National on 4th March 1933 at Hamilton, the team was fourth and Gunn was twenty sixth.   Onm 8th April, though, the team won the first of two Edinburgh to Glasgow races to be held that year.   Walter Gun ran on the first stage and was first man to pass the baton on – four seconds ahead of Tom Blakely of Maryhill.   The team was never headed and won by almost three minutes from Dundee Thistle.   Of Gunn’s run, the Glasgow Herald had this to say at the start of its report: “EDINBURGH TO GLASGOW ROAD RACE.   PLEBEIANS FINE VICTORY.   The Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Race was run on Saturday in favourable conditions.   The runners, however, were faced by a headwind.   Thirteen teams took part and all finished Plebeian Harriers as in the previous two races, proved good winners.   They led from the first changeover at Maybury Cross until the finish, and each man pulled his full weight.   Max Rayne, opposed to D McN Robertson, the mrathon champion, on the section to Broxburn showed that he has got back to his best form, and WJ Gunn defeated T Blakely, the four miles AAA champion, in the first sector.”

Although the race was run again in November that year they had to win it without Gunn who did not run.   In the Midland Relay, he won his gold medal as part of the Plebeian team which won at Hamilton Park.   He ran on the last stage where he just sat on the leader, Littlejohn of Shettleston, and sprinted clear in the finishing straight.   The National in 1934 was held on 3rd March and the unusual result was a dead heat for first between Plebeian and Dundee Thistle.   Tombe was the first club runner home in fourth, McGregor was eighth and Gunn finished twelfth.

The Edinburgh to Glasgow that year was held at the start of November and Plebeian was fourth.   Walter Gunn ran on the fourth stage and pulled the club from fifth to fourth when he ran the second fastest time of the afternoon, only Adams of Dundee Thistle being faster.    In the District relay, the team was third and Gunn was third quickest individual.   Came the National in March 1935, and Gunn finished thirteenth to be first Plebeian home with the team third.

In the 1935 Edinburgh to Glasgow in November, Gunn did not run in the third placed team.   He did run in the District Relay, though, on the first stage where he was third on the first stage for the winning team.   In the National at the end of the cross-country season, he finished seventh and booked his trip to the international for the sixth time at Squires Gate in Birmingham where he was 48th.

In the Edinburgh to Glasgow, 1936, Gunn ran on the sixth stage where he took over in third, handed over in third for the team which finished third .    He missed the Midlands relay where the ‘new man’ in the team, running last, faded badly for the club to finish seventhe – their lowest ever in the race.   In the National at Redford Barracks in March 1937, he was back in fifty fourth position for the team which finished fourth.         He did not run in the National ever again.    Or in any other country or road relay either.

Of course, Walter Gunn ran on the track as well as over the country.   If we look at some of the high spots of his career from mid-1928 it will illustrate that his talent here was as great as over the less predictable surfaces of grass and mud.

The first time his name appeared in the SAAA Championships was in June 1927 when he was noted as an ‘also ran’ in the Mile where team mate SK Tombe was thgird.  At the beginning of June, 1928, Walter Gunn finished third behind club mate D McLean and his Plebeian clubmate H Combe  in the Three Miles Team Race.   And then on 16th June, at the Glasgow Police Sports at Shawfield, Gunn won the One Mile (First Class) race from club mate SK Tombe in 4 min 27 3-th sec.   Running off 65 yards with Tombe off 70 yards, he only won by two yards.

On 1st June 1929, he won a race that he was maybe not expected to win.   The report on the Two Miles handicap race at the Queen’s Park Sports, read, “Chief interest in the meeting arranged by Queen’s Park FC lay in the attempt made by J Suttie Smith upon the existing Scottish record for the two miles.   A special handicap had been framed for the occasion and had the champion been able to head WJ Gunn, who ran off 85 yards, he might have accomplished it, the Plebeian runner’s winning time being 9 min 32 1-5th sec.   As it was, Smith failed to do this, his time for the distance being 2 3-5th sec worse than McLean’s existing figures 9 min 31 sec.   The winning margin was noted as only 3 yards.   On 8th June, Gunn, referred to as ‘that improving runner WJ Gunn’,  was first across the finishing line in the Invitation Two Miles Team race at the GUAC and Maryhill Inter-Club meeting in 15:31.8.   In the Glasgow Police Sports at Ibrox on 15th June, he was second finisher in the three miles: “In the Mile, WJ Gunn of Plebeian Harriers, was the most prominent back-marker.   He ran into second place and may give just give some of  the more fancied candidates something to think about when it comes to the championships.”  He was only five yards behind the winner, TJ Goldie of Shettleston Harriers, who was timed at 4 min 25 2-5th sec.   Unfortunately when it came to the SAAA Championships a week later, he may have chosen  the wrong event since he was unplaced in the Four Miles.

His first race in 1930 was the Two Miles team race for Harrier clubs at the Edinburgh University Championships on June 2nd.   The report in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ read: The tit-bit of the three club meeting held at Tynecastle was undoubtedly the Two Miles Team Race for Harrier clubs.   This was the first race of the kind on the track this year and, as expected, turned out to be a keen contest between  our leading teams, Maryhill, Dundee Thistle and Plebeian, who finished in the order named.   Maryhill finished in fourth, fifth and seventh  places, an indication of their strength in distance races.   The Scottish distance champion, Suttie Smith, was in excellent form.   He forced the pace throughout and although his great rival, Frank Stevenson, disputed with him the leading place in the early stages, Smith gradually drew away from the Monkland man in the final stages to win by 30 yards.   There was a very interesting race within a race in the struggle between WJ Gunn of Plebeian and WH Calderwood, the former just beating the mile champion in the sprint for the tape.   Should Gunn, Calderwood, TM Riddell, RR Sutherland and D Mclean all compete in the Mile at the Scottish championships, it will be a race worth seeing.”

At the Queen’s Park FC Sports the following week, he was second to D McLean in the Two Miles Team race, one place in front of Calderwood.

In the SAAA in June, Riddell won from McLean and Calderwood after a very fast start which ‘spread eagled ‘ the field, and among the also rans were WJ Gunn and his clubmate SK Tombe.   By the way, ‘also rans’ is not a put down on my part – the results of the time always gave the first three runners and the listed the others under the title ‘also ran:’

In 1931 he had a series of three two mile races in eight days which resulted in the following report on the Queen’s Park FC Sports:

“The keen rivalry which exists at the moment between the evenly matched teams of the Maryhill and Plebeian clubs is tending to elevate the two mile scratch races for Harrier clubs into the chief events of each programme in which they appear.   At the Monkland Harriers Sports last Saturday, at Firhill Park on Monday and again at Hampden Park on Saturday, the racing in this event transcended everything else on the programme.   

This was due as much to the personal duel between WJ Gunn of Plebeian Harriers on the one hand, and WH Calderwood and D McLean on the other, as to the struggle for supremacy between the two club sides.  In all three races run during the past ten days, Gunn has had the measure of the ex-champions and as each of the three has been run through in  different fashion, the Plebeian Harrier can claim that both in the matter of tactics and of pace he is the best man in the district at the moment over the distance.   His victories at Coatbridge and Firhill were of the narrowest, but on Saturday he defeated Calderwood by a good five yards  and at the finish was travelling as fast as at the beginning, a tribute to his stamina as his opponent carries as powerful a finish as any of our distance runners.   Gunn’s time, 9 min 38 4-5th sec is the best he has done in public so far.Under something of a cloud last season because of a physical handicap he is improving with each appearance.    The result of the team race was Maryhill winning by 11 pts to 13 and they now two victories to one over their rivals.”    For Plebeians, Tombe was fourth and Rayne eighth.

Although this report was at the start of June, there was no mention of Gunn in either of the two big meetings to follow, ie the SAAA Championships at the end of the month, and the Rangers Sports at the start of August.

In 1932, Gunn did not run at Monkland and both Gunn and Rayne were absent from the team to contest the two miles event which ‘reduced the team race to a struggle between Shettleston and Maryhill in which Maryhill won by 21 points to 23.     Gunn was also absent from the SAAA Championships.   It may be that the reference above to his missing a season ‘because of a physical handicap’ was a reference to a chronic injury or a recurring illness: whether it did or not, he certainly missed several championship races on the country as well as on the track.

1934 was a much better year for him.   At the Atalanta v SAAA match at the end of May he was second in the Mile behind GA Smith of Atalanta and ahead of old rival WH Calderwood. On 26th May at Hampden he was second to Tom Riddell in an estimated 4:25, on the heels of Riddell until the final straight and finished 25 yards down.   Then at Celtic Park on 16th June, he won the one mile team race in 4:33.     How would he do in the SAAA?    Would he go for the Mile again?   In fact he won the first ever SAAA Steeplechase championship in June 1934.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ report read: “In the other new event, the steeplechase, WJ Gunn (Plebeian) won comfortably.”    His winning time was 11 min 0 sec.   In 1937  he again contested the event and finished second to RR Sutherland.

Alex Wilson says of the steeplechase event:

Given that the first Scottish 2  miles steeplechase championship was held in 1934 and won by Gunn, it`s  interesting to note a handicap 2 miles steeplechase run in conjunction with the  Queens Park FC Sports at Hampden on 26 May. Backmarker John Suttie-Smith of  Edinburgh H. (20 yards) won by 50 yards in 11:15.4 from C.T. Thompson of Garscube (180 yards). The Scotsman wrote “he was the only real fencer on view”. The handicap eight lap steeplechase (about 3000 metres) had been a  feature of the Rangers Sports  since its introduction in 1926. Suttie won  it in 1933 in 9:23.6 off 130 yards, his third win after 1929 and in 1931.
I  have no idea why it took so long to introduce the steeplechase, not to mention  the marathon, as after all it had been Olympic event since 1900 and was certainly one of the most spectator-friendly events. The powers-that-be within  the SAAA were evidently administrators, not visionaries.
I found this  link to a pic on Getty
http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/competitors-leaping-over-the-water-jump-in-an-eight-lap-news-photo/3424831
The report in the Scotsman on the 1934 Scottish 2 miles s/c championship states  simply that “Six turned out, Suttie Smith giving way at the end of five laps to  Gunn who won by 40 yards”.  1. W J Gunn (Plebs) 11:05.0; 2. J. Gillies  (Shawfield H.); 3. J.T. Suttie Smith (Edin. H.)

On the back of this victory he was chosen to run in the 1934 Empire Games in London where he finished sixth of six competitors.

Gunn’s absence in 1935 was noted in reports (reigning champion did not run, etc) and he didn’t run in any more SAAA Championships.

Walter J Gunn was clearly a very good and talented athlete on the road, over the country and on the track where he performed well at the Mile, Two Miles and his victory in the first ever steeplechase championship has earned him his place in history.

Plebeian Harriers was a wonderful club for team performances, winning gold, silver and bronze in almost every championship for which they were eligible although it is fair to say that they performed best of all in the Edinburgh to Glasgow eight-stage road relay.   There were however some very good individual athletes among them including such as Walter J Gunn, Maxie Rayne and SK Tombe.

Known as Sam or Sammy Tombe and occasionally as Sergeant Tombe, he almost always got both initials in reports and results – SK Tombe.   Samuel Kennedy Tombe was born in 1906 and died in 2001 at the age of 95.    He won medals of every shade as a team member and many as an individual and represented Scotland three times in the Cross-Country International.   For the profile, I will measure cross-country running looking at the Western/Midland District Relays, the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay and the National Championships.   Although there was a District Championship, it tended to feature the Plebeian ‘B’ team and such as SK Tombe, WJ Gunn and Max Rayne never ever ran in it.   Some of the top men built it into their winter training and racing schedule and athletes like JC Flockhart turned out in it but the Plebeians seemed to have a definite policy of not running their best men in it.

Tombe first appeared on the National scene when he won the Novice Championship in 1925 and then in the Scottish National results in March, 1926 he finished fifty seventh in the team which, led by WJ Gunn in 22nd,  finished fifth.    The high team placing should have been no surprise to anyone: had not the team finished second in the inaugural West District relays at Paisley in November 1925?   In fact the Daily Record commented that “A pleasing feature of the race was the sound performance put up by that fast improving club, Plebeian Harriers.”   The team consisted of Clark, Gunn, Allan and Tombe.

In the District Relays in November 1926, Plebeian Harriers were fifth with Tombe running on the first stage.   The ‘Glasgow Herald’ puts him in good company.   “In the first section of the journey notable men like T Riddell, Shettleston;  CH Johnston, Glasgow University; P Nicol, Kilmarnock; D McLean, Paisley; F Stevenson, Monkland and SK Tombe, Plebeian, all lined up.   As expected, a great race ensued between Riddell (he had come up specially from London) and CH Johnston  they drew clear from the field but Johnston could not hold Riddell in the run in: time 14 min 03 sec.   Don McLean, Maryhill, Peter Nicol, Frank Stevenson, CH Blue, Garscube, and SK Tombe were next in that order.”   Tombe’s time was 14:35, Allan Ferguson and Gunn were the others in the team with Allan fastest, five seconds up on Tombe.   Came the National in March, 1927, and a Plebeian team minus Allan and Gunn were led home by Tombe in eleventh with the team position sixth.   A good run from our man, but not enough for international selection.

The club improved four places to be first in the District Relays in November with Tombe on the first stage their fastest man.   All times were quick that day and the ‘Daily Record’ suggested that this could have been because (a) The course was short; (b) The course conditions favoured faster running; or (c) the standard of competition brought out faster racing.   However that may have been, the relative positions of the runners would have been pretty constant, and Tombe was fastest Plebeian Harrier and second fastest on the course ahead of such good men as Frank Stevenson and CH Blue.   In the National Championships in March, the club was second – by far their best National performance.   The runners in finishing order were Tombe (4), Gunn (5), Rayne (10), Connelly (26), McCallum (36), James (41).   The Daily Record said: “To the surprise of many, Plebeian Harriers came up trump, defeating more fancied clubs for the minor honour of runners-up.”   The Glasgow Herald phrased things a bit more felicitously when they said: “The Plebeian must have surprised themselves by an exhibition of good team work.   SK Tombe and WJ Gunn – but particularly Gunn – laid the foundation of a very fine effort.   Maxwell Rayne who ran tenth and third for Plebeian is also a first year runner who has thus made his mark.”   Tombe was selected for and  ran in the International for the first time and finished 39th.

In the District Relays in November, 1928, the headlines read “Plebeian First Again.   Relay Champions Great Running.”   And the article read, “Plebeian Harriers more than justified the good opinion held of their chances to retain the Western District 10 Mile Relay Championship at Thornliebank on Saturday.   The manner of their victory over Shettleston Harriers left no doubt of their merit.   The conditions were not at all propitious and the course was all the more trying on that account.   Thirty one teams out of an entry of 32 made a start.   Wellpark B was the absent team.

Monkland Harriers through Frank Stevenson led all the way through the first lap, returning the fast time of 12 min 29 sec.   WT Anderson Shettleston did very well to chase Stevenson to a 13 sec margin.   SK Tombe, Plebeian, occupied third place a further 3 sec behind Anderson.”    Tombe’s time was 12:35 and E James on the second stage took them into the lead with 12:49, Max Rayne kept the position with 12:56 and Walter Gunn brought them home first by 22 seconds with his time of 12:50.   Sammy Tombe was fifth fastest overall with James sixth.   with only 21 seconds between their fastest man and their fourth runner it was indeed a magnificent performance.    Unfortunately he did not run in the National championship in March 1929 where his team mate Walter Gunn finished third and was selected for the international.

1929’s District Relays had Plebeian Harriers going for a three-in-a-row in the new in the new Midland District.   They achieved it but with one change in the team from previous years and an altered order of running.   In the absence of Sammy Tombe, Walter Gunn took the opening stage and … “Plebeian Harriers A Team ran a brilliant race throughout to win a race which by no means provided the classic contest generally expected.”   Gunn ‘won’ the first stage by 30 yards and was followed by James, Rayne and Ingram to win by 53 seconds from Garscube.    Why wasn’t Tombe racing for the team?   He was running on the day but for West of Scotland rather than for Plebeian.   He was on the fourth stage for the team which finished 14th in a time of 15:08: the Plebeian times were, in running order, 14:19, 14:54, 14:30 and 14:45.

Came the Nationals in March and there was no note of Tombe at the top end of the field, nor was he in the Plebeian team.

The following season however saw him run for Plebeian Harriers again in the District Relays in November 193o.   They were second team to Motherwell and their runners were Gunn (14:45), Tombe (15:06), Clark (15:52) and Ingram (15:26).   Gunn led the first stage home and Tombe dropped a place to Motherwell and that was the order at the finish.   Gunn had fastest time of the afternoon with Tombe 11th quickest over the course.   He was fifth scorer for his club in the National that year finishing thirty fourth and the team was third behind Maryhill and Garscube.   He had better luck in the Edinburgh to Glasgow relay in April when, running on the fourth stage, he not only had quickest time of the afternoon but also set a new course record.   The club had gone into the lead on the first stage and just stayed there for the duration of the race.   It was a gold medal to go with the bronze from the national and silver from the midland relay.   A full set!

Into winter 1931 and the Midland Relays in November and the story was that Plebeian Harriers had again won the event.   Their new opening runner Walter Gunn repeated the previous year’s feat of turning in the fastest time of the day and Tombe on the third stage, was tenth fastest.   The other two runners were Maxie Rayne and Alex Armstrong the former Clydesdale Harrier, who ran the eleventh fastest time of the day.   The Edinburgh to Glasgow was for some reason absent from the calendar in 1932 – it would return in 1933 – and the next major test was the National in March 1932.   The surprise of the day was the running of Max Rayne who finished fifth with Tombe, twelfth,  the second Plebeian finisher in the team that was third.   Unfortunately Walter Gunn had to drop out suffering the after effects of a bout of flu.    He was nevertheless selected for the international with Rayne and the unfortunate Tombe had to miss out yet again.

Gunn was again the lead off runner for the team at the Midlands relays and was second at the end of the first stage to hand over to Armstrong who had the misfortune to start just ahead of Flockhart of Shettleston who had only just taken up the sport.   Flockhart started 13 seconds down on the leader and handed over 13 seconds ahead of Armstrong.   Next up was SK Tombe who was the only man to offer any challenge to the  Shettleston runners: it was such a challenge that he turned in the fastest time of the day which was 11 seconds faster the McDonald of St Peter’s who ad won the first stage and 14 seconds quicker than Flockhart.    Gunn was two seconds slower than Flockhart in fourth fastest.

Into the National in 1933 and SK Tombe finished fifth to win his second international vest.  The story of the day was Flockhart’s victory after only six months in athletics.   The Daily Record described the progress of the race thus.   “JK Hewitt (Edinburgh University) was in the van at the end of the first circuit of the racecourse followed by H McIntosh, W Hinde and JP Laidlaw, J Wilson, JC Flockhart, JR Smith and RR Sutherland were lying handy.   At the five mile stage, Smith and Flockhart were running shoulder to shoulder while Wilson came behind the pair.  SK Tombe and RR Sutherland came next, 150 yards behind, then followed JC Ross, H McIntosh, JP Laidlaw, JK Hewitt and J Girvin.   When three-quarters of the course was covered, Flockhart had opened up a gap leading Wilson by 200 yards.   Smith was 50 yards behind and the time was 32 min 30 sec.   RR Sutherland and SK Tombe were still together 50 yards in the rear.   It was while Flockhart took the drop down to the lower reaches of the banks of the Clyde that he got further away from Wilson.   Though the soldier and Smith regained some of the lost ground, it did not prevent Flockhart from racing home in spanking form.”

 SK Tombe and Sutherland had the same time of 60 min 17 sec which was 31 seconds behind Suttie Smith and 72 behind Flockhart.    This was Tombe’s second International, the first having been in 1928.   Plebeian was fourth in the team race with Walter Gunn being their third counter in twenty sixth.    The International was held at Caerleon Racecourse in Wales and Colin Shields describes it as Scotland’s most successful team ever in the international Competition.   Running in heatwave conditions, Flockhart injured his ankle but the top six were Sutherland, second; Suttie Smith, third; Harry McIntosh, eleventh;  Flockhart, twelfth; WD Slidders sixteenth and SK Tombe eighteenth with the points total of 62 placing them second in the team race.   The Edinburgh to Glasgow eight man relay was run twice in 1933, the first one being on 8th April.   Plebeian’s form in relay racing had been quite outstanding and this race ended up with another set of gold medals for the club.   There were also three stage records set.   On the first stage, Walter Gunn, on the second Maxie Rayne, on the third Alex McGregor, and on the seventh stage Alex Armstrong all did the job and the team had led from the first stage to the Glasgow City Centre.   Tombe ran the long sixth stage where he was only 4 seconds slower than Flockhart and 56 seconds faster than Dunky Wright.

The 1933/34 season started with the Midlands Relay on November 27th at Hamilton where the defeated the holders Shettleston by 60 yards.   The report read:

“The outstanding competitor of the race was JC Flockhart (Shettleston) who easily established the fastest time for the two and a half mile course.   The holders started well through the agency of JC Ross who kept in front of SK Tombe (Plebeian) with Jackie Campbell, Bellahouston, third.   During the second lap A McGregor Plebeian, the novice champion, passed H McCubbin, Shettleston, for the lead.   Flockhart took over for Shettleston, 35 seconds behind M Rayne, Plebeian, and when little more than a mile had been traversed, was actually on the heels of the leader.   The Shettleston man handed over to T Littlejohn and advantage of 15 yards against WJ Gunn.   Gunn was content to wait until the finishing straight to beat his rivals comfortably.”   Tombe had the third fastest time of the day (13:44) with Flockhart and Ross of Shettleston recording 13:34 and 13:42.   McGregor (13:52 was fourth fastest and Rayne was tenth equal with 14:12.    Gunn on 14:45 was the slowest but his job on the last lap was clear and he did it well with no reason for heroics required.   The second  1933 Edinburgh to Glasgow was held in November and the Plebeians again took first place.   After running second at the end of the first and second stages, the went into a lead that they never lost.   Tombe was again on the sixth stage and extended the lead from 46 seconds when he took over the baton to two minutes 04 seconds when he handed over to A Ingram at Barrachnie.

In the 1934 Scottish Championship, Tombe finished seventh being preceded over the finishing line by Flockhart, RR Sutherland, Laidlaw, Hinde, Wilson and Dow.   The race resulted in a tie for first team between Plebeians and Dundee Thistle with two sets of gold medals being issued.   Had current tie-breaking rules been in place, Dundee would have won but the rules then said two sets of gold.   Tombe won his third and last international vest that year and although the Scottish team finished third he was unfortunately not in the squad.   The gold medals from District Relays, Edinburgh to Glasgow and the National might have been some consolation.

The best that the club could do in the District Relay in 1934 was third with a team of Gunn, McGregor, Tombe and Connelly in which only Gunn distinguished himself with a place in the fastest times sheet.   he was third fastest behind Flockhart and T Lamb of Bellahouston.   Edinburgh to Glasgow had been a happy hunting ground in the past but all good things come to an end and the best that the 1934 squad could do was fourth.   The only Plebeian to distinguish himself here was SK Tombe who on the sixth stage ran the fastest time of the day when pulling the team from fifth to fourth.  36 seconds faster than the next man and 68 seconds ahead of Dunky Wright was not a bad run at all.

The team in the National in 1935 was well down the field in their own terms – sixth – with first finisher being WJ Gunn in 13th.   SK Tombe was only fifth scoring man when he was 43rd.  No international vests for the Plebeians that year then.

In the District Relay in 1935, Plebeian regained their title with a team of Gunn, McGregor Tombe and Black with Tombe and Gunn fourth and sixth fastest over the course on the day and the entire team inside 14 minutes for their respective stages.   Two weeks earlier they had been third in the Edinburgh to Glasgow with Duff on the third leg and Tombe on the long leg setting fastest times on the day.   Tombe was 20 seconds faster than the next runner – W Hinde of Edinburgh Northern.   In the National at the end of the season,  Gunn was first club man home when he was seventh.   The team was out of the medals in fourth, equal placed with Shettleston, and Tombe was second counter when he finished nineteenth.

Sam Tombe did a very good job for the club in the Midland Relay in 1936 when he brought them from third to a lead of 10 yards on the second stage (eleventh fastest of the day) but their man on the third stage had to yield to Flockhart at the end of the third stage before the last runner dropped well back and the team finished seventh.   In the Edinburgh to Glasgow in 1936, the team minus Tombe was third behind Bellahouston and Shettleston.   In the National of 1937, Plebeian was led home by J Wilkie in twelfth with SK Tombe third club runner in twenty fifth and WJ Gunn their last scoring man in fifty fourth.   The team was third however to add a bronze to their medal collection.

The 1937/8 cross country season saw the last of Plebeian’s relay supremacy before the war stared in 1939.   In the District Relays,  SK Tombe was second on the first stage and the team finished fifth; in the E-G  Plebeians  Minus SK Tombe finished  6th and again out of the medals.   In the 1938 National the team was eighth.   With no Sam Tombe or Walter Gunn, and with Max Rayne long gone, there was a completely new team representing the club.   They had all three been great runners for the club with 6 international vests for Gunn, 3 for Tombe and 1 for Rayne – and maybe Tombe and Rayne were just unlucky not to get more – at a time when the standard of Scottish cross-country running was at its highest.

Tombe also ran on the track and picked up more medals to show for his efforts.

In 1927  at the SAAA Championships at Hampden Park he was third in the Mile behind D Maclean and RJ Patience: the winning time was 4:28.8,    Reports indicated that Donald McLean from Greenock ‘had little or no opposition’ but nevertheless it was Tombe’s first SAAA championdhip medal, and at a distance below his recognised best.   In the Glasgow Police Sports Mile on 16th May 1928, the event was won by Walter Gunn with Tombe second.   Gunn was off 65 yards and Tombe off 70 yards and victory was only gained by a margin of three yards!    It must have been some battle between the two Plebeians!

There were of course many meetings where the featured event was a two or even three miles team race and the Plebeian Team had some hard battles with Maryhill and Shettleston for supremacy.   Walter Gunn tended to be the main runner for the club but Sammy Tombe did his share.   He also competed in the Mile at the various sports meetings held as well as in the SAAA Championships.   On 7th June 1930 for instance he ran in the Mile at Queen’s Park FC Sports at Hampden and won in 4:25.3, and although he competed in the Mile at the championships he was unplaced.

in 1932 he was second in the ten miles at Hampden Park in April, behind JF Wood but in front of D McNab Robertson: the winning time was 52:31 and the times at 5 and 6 miles  were new Scottish records.   “Wood’s victory in the 10 mile was emphatic.   He was his own pacemaker from start to finish and finally breasted the tape 600 yards ahead of SK Tombe of Plebeian Harriers.   Setting a fast pace from the outset, Wood spurted after one and a quarter miles and gained a lead of 30 yards from Suttie Smith.   At two miles he had increased his advantage to 90 yards, at three miles to 150 yards, at four miles to 220 yards, and when the National Cross-Country champion retired after five miles had been covered, he was fully 300 yards behind Wood and had been passed shortly before by Tombe.   Wood tapered off considerably in the seventh and eighth miles but finished strongly in 52 mins 31 sec – 1 min 44 sec faster than his winning time of a year ago.   Twenty six of the twenty eight entrants started and 16 finished; nine runners apart from Wood and Tombe, receiving medals for finishing inside the standard time of 57 min.”   Tombe’s time was 54:20 and McNab Robertson’s was 54:58.   He was still doing all the two mile team races – in 1931 in particular the Plebeian team performed very  well indeed – and at Monkland at the end of May he was second.   In the Scottish Championships in June 1932, Tom Blakely of Maryhill set a new 3 miles record and Tombe was only 30 yards down as he crossed the finishing line.  The ‘Glasgow Herald’ correspondent thought that this was the best running Tombe had done over the distance – Blakely’s record was 14:38 1-5th.

Also credited with 15:11.6 for three miles in Glasgow on the 23rd June 1933,  on the following day  in the SAAA Championships, he was fourth in the Four Miles behind RR Sutherland, J Wilson and JF Wood.

On 15th April, 1934, in the SAAA championships he ran 53:40.4 for 10 miles to finish second to Alex Dow but defeating Jim Flockhart..    Times were 53:12 for Dow and 53:49 for Flockhart with JF Wood fourth in 54:34.6.  He followed this up with a good second in the two miles at the Atalanta v SAAA match at the end of May at Westerlands.   On 26th May, 1934, at Hampden in the Queen’s Park FC sports, Tombe won by the three miles team race by 10 yards from W Sutherland and Alex Dow in 14:55.8.   Later in 1934 he was third in the SAAA 6 Miles, 5 yards behind James Wilson in 31:06.2.    The Glasgow Herald report read: “There was a great race in the Six Miles between J Wilson and SK Tombe.    A Dow, the ten miles champion, led all the way but 300 yards from the tape, Wilson shot out in front.   The 5 yards he gained from the soldier held in a most rousing finish. ”     Alex Dow was third.   He did not appear at the SAAA Championships again until June 1937 when he was third in the three miles behind GM Carstairs and JE Farrell.   Carstairs was 150 yards ahead of Farrell who was 60 yards up on Tombe.   His club mate WJ Gunn who had won the inaugural Two Miles Steeplechase championship finished second in that event behind RR Sutherland.

Tombe also ran for his regiment in many Army events – championships from regimental to national – and performed well in them too.   Gold, silver and bronze came his way over the country and on the road, on the track in National Championships he won silver and bronze at distances from the Mile to Ten Miles giving many of the best runners in a decade full of good athletes a serious run for their money.   SK Tombe was a runner to be reckoned with.