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Gillon ~ or Rasputin?

Doug in the course of his journalistic career covered 34 years of the history of Scottish athletics and it would be a foolish and negligent historian of Scottish athletics who did not make use of this treasure trove of information.    It should not however be assumed that this did not happen without a lot of hard work and sleepless nights.   Sure, it was fun and he enjoyed doing it, easy it was not.   The information below had to be specifically requested and it tells tales that we would not otherwise hear.

How long before the event do you know that you are going?   One has to accredit with organisations like the British Olympic Association, IAAF, Commonwealth Games Federation/CGS Scotland months in advance (a process of around 18 in the case of the British Olympic Association for Olympics)

The first step in this process is the sports ed/editor convincing management the paper can afford it.  They often baulked at  it, and it was almost invariably a fight, but usually not involving me, rather others going in to bat for me.  So when it was agreed I should go, it was always on very tight budgets – can we do this on the cheap?   And despite agreements with NUJ chapel, re upgrades for flights lasting more than four hours, I have yet to experience one!

They always attempted to get hotels on the cheap, but were obliged to use media hotels at events, because the transport system is linked to them. There were constant rows about this: “You can get a cheaper hotel in Sydney.”

Despite it apparently being a doddle, there were huge financial and time pressures. The sports desk secy and I would spend hours finding the cheapest options before a package was agreed. Meanwhile trying to do the normal day’s work.

What sort of preparation did you need to do beforehand?   One builds up dossiers and background on competitors as part of one’s normal daily routine, but that would broaden and intensify before major events – particularly multi-sport events, eg I would not spend too much time normally on judo or fencing, for example, but pre OG or CG, that would change. The work-load became silly, but I knew I’d need all the facts at my fingertips when deadlines loomed, and some unknown (not necessarily British) had won Olympic gold.

I can imagine there were problems with communications?    The advent of computers reduced costs (by removing hours spent dictating copy and replacing it with a one-second call to transmit data).  In Moscow, for example, one would queue to use a phone for up to an hour. An apparatchik would call your name and a phone box number, and you would be connected.  It might take 30 mins to dictate 1000 words, longer if foreign names were involved. People monitored your calls. You could tell from the hollow echo on lines, and more pertinently that if one dictated something contentious or regime-critical, they would censor you by pulling the plug, and you’d have to start the queuing process again. On one occasion, when I was trying to send a report on a gay rights demo in Red Square, the line was disconnected five or six times. I placed a call to our communications people and got instructions on how to use a teleprinter. There was a battery of them lying unused. You had to hand your copy to the telex operator, and they could then vet it, but they were mostly unused because everyone wanted to phone, discus things with the sports ed, etc. I was able to commandeer one printer and batter out the rest of the story before they knew what I was doing. It may have helped that I had a bushy black beard then, and looked like Rasputin. One security guard look at my accreditation photo and burst out laughing, bellowing: “Rasputin! Rasputin!”

Post lap tops, it became easier, although initially the weight of kit to be carried was incredible. And still fraught, even though less time was spent on the phone. The kit included  a big pair of acoustic muffs into which you attached around the earpiece and mouthpiece of the phone. This transmitted fine from one’s hotel room, but in a stadium with 80,000 to 100,000 people, the noise corrupted the signal. So we learned to snaffle two bath towels from the hotel, and wrap them round the muffs and phone, to deaden the noise. Then we discovered that if you went into the phone wiring, and connected the cables, perhaps using crocodile clips, you could eliminate the muffs.

Comms links got steadily better, so that the likes of Sydney, Bejing, Delhi, Melbourne, London etc, were relatively simple, and the advent of the Internet speeded research. But beware the curse of unreliable Wiki.

The problem with Sydney is that it’s UK plus 10 hours ie 10pm in Sydney is noon the same day in Glasgow.

I’d go around all day in Sydney from event to event, swimming in the morning (expecting Brits to be eliminated) and track at night. You would shoe-horn in other events wherever a Scot or Brit was in action – lots of home-work to check who was on where and when, and the travel logistics. I’d go around all day watching events and hoovering up interviews (ie in the mixed zone where competitors leave the poolside or track, or in the judo hall or boxing, etc, and batter quotes into my laptop, transcribing in transit (buses, trains, taxis). When the live action finished, around 10pm, I’d phone the desk, tell them what the headline Scottish/UK stories were, and we’d agree a schedule of reports with word counts. Because I could file until almost 8am (Sydney) the following morning (10pm UK), there were days when I would write and file 6000-ish words of considered writing. That’s the equivalent of six page leads (c800 each) and 3-5 sidebars of 250-400 words. (In Beijing it was more, because blogs had arrived). This means that some days the only sleep I got was at my work station between filing by 8am and being in my press seat at whatever was first venue of the day, usually by 10am.

What actual reporting problems were associated with the different time zones? It’s no use reporting from Beijing that Usain Bolt broke the world 100m record here tonight to take the Olympic title in a  time of 9.69 seconds. By the time the Herald is on the breakfast table perhaps 10 hours after the race, everyone has seen the race several times, and heard the factual news. It’s no use talking about the margin and manner of his win, arms up 20 metres out, and easing off, etc

The report has to be analytical, eg:   

“Usain Bolt’s remarkable Olympic 100m title last night in Beijing, shaving 0.3 sec from his own world record with 9.69sec, cements his place in the pantheon of global sprinting. Of the 10 fastest times in history four are his, yet he has run the distance only 13 times. Five of the quickest 10 belong to his Jamaican compatriot, former world record-holder Asafa Powell, but Bolt, with his classic lightning pose, heralds a new era. Few would bet against the 200m world best, and the 4 x 100m record, falling to him in the coming days.

Yet Bolt, with his long levers, was second slowest out of the blocks (0.165).

Three men broke 10.00 in the quarters, seven in the semis, and six in the final where 10.01 and 10.03 were the fastest times ever recorded for the last two places.

Powell was eclipsed with 9.95 in fifth, again buckling under pressure. Yet Bolt dropped his arms at 80 metres, appearing to ease off before raising them at the line”.

Text book, it was not.

… Then proceed to analyse him, and take in the quotes from his coach and team management which would not be available until later in the evening, and consequently missing from immediate live reports.

So there’s a lot of research which has to be teed up in advance. And with the volume of copy required, even with the extra time available, there’s no time to relax. Most meals are snatched sandwiches and constant coffees, and plenty water.

With perhaps 12 first-round heats in the 100, and all the Brits and potential finalists to be covered, I’d be up and down six or eight flights from high in the stand to the mixed zone just for the opening day of the 100. And all the time one is trying to keep tabs on the Scot in the modern pentathlon, or the two Scots in the coxless pairs, or whatever.

You need to know exactly who is in action, where, and when, and what their chances are. Can you afford not to be there? What are the priorities?

Still with time differences: The problems are very different West of the UK, eg LA, Atlanta, Victoria, Montreal, Edmonton.

In Los Angeles, the 3000m started at 2.50 UK time. I had to dictate a run of the race piece on Decker v Budd as it happened (in the same way as one would do a Saturday evening paper football report) and then add a paragraph of intro saying who had won, and their time (from the finish clock), and be off the line by 3.00 – my ultimate deadline, or it would not make the paper. Given it was won in 8.35, that gave 125 seconds to dictate the intro on top, that Puica had won from Wendy Sly, and stitch in that Decker had been carried off in tears by her fiance, and that Budd had placed seventh. And hopefully make it all read seamlessly.

We were, I believe the only UK morning paper with a live report on the race. As much adrenaline as one wants for a day at the office, but hugely rewarding and professionally satisfying!

In London or Glasgow, one is in real time, so the amount of copy one can file daily is reduced – no more than 2500-3000 per day, and some of that might be a preview feature party composed in advance.   [In overseas locations you also try to have features part researched and written in advance.]

Accommodation, facilities, contacts – what difficulties could  be encountered when you arrived?    Accommodation was just standard and often very spartan but over-priced hotel rooms.   The Kuala Lumpur press hotel rented rooms by the hour until shortly before our arrival!   At least the sheets had been changed, and the walls painted.

Food was generally OK, but often snatched on the hoof.  One had an advance and reclaimed costs against receipts on return. There was a modest per diem for taxis, phone charges, food, occasional translation costs, but all had to be receipted and accounted for.

One is very much reliant on personal contacts, and building trust.   In the mixed zone, one is separated from athletes by a chest -high barrier, and  the athlete naturally will  immediately go to a known face.    It’s an ill-disciplined scrum, and  the noise is intense. If you are not close enough to get your recorder under his/her nose, you will have nothing, and though one can pick up on quotes from colleagues later, if the deadline is tight you have missed it. (one would not share quotes from an exclusive interview).

After the Games start, what are the problems with access to individuals, work space, etc?   The BOA and CGS increasingly want to control the media. Unless you have a relationship with a competitor, coach, or official, you can’t get past that. I prided myself on having an unrivaled contacts book (ie phone numbers and addresses), and a decent memory. Knowing the names of wives, children, parents (and their phone numbers), coaches & even family pets, is a huge asset. Likewise the background of injuries, allergies, previous competitive history – highs and lows. Often, not always, one would keep little electronic files on athletes. In the old days you’d have an envelope full of press cuttings on the bigger celebs, so that if asked for an 800-word feature on somebody, you could deliver.

Knowing team managers and coaches was also important.

Building trust and confidence is vital, and sometimes that is obtained by not publishing. To me, it was worth sacrificing one racey story (not necessarily in the public interest) because it would gain you much more in the future. But I would never be party to covering up doping, cheating, etc.

Press work rooms were generally large, well equipped, with conference rooms for big interviews which might have 300 journalists, 30+ TV stations, and several dozen radio ones.

As stated above, occasionally (eg Beijing and Sydney) I sometimes did not get to bed.

I was fortunate that my desk would tell me “You’re the expert.   Just go where you think the story is.” In my early career, they’d perhaps ask me for a feature on Olga Korbut, or Ron Clarke.

How do local conditions affect you?  Humidity and heat in Atlanta, etc?   You just have to get on with the job, whatever the heat or humidity, make sure you drink plenty fluids. I usually kept my watch on UK time, to remind me of deadlines. There’s never time to acquire a hangover, which would in any event have been a very dangerous indulgence. The ultimate sin for a journalist is failing to hit deadline.

Bureaucracy could drive you mad: queuing three time for a sandwich or bottle of water in the likes of Moscow of Delhi.

Often I would be asked to pass on a message to athletes by their family or coaches, especially pre-mobile. I’d often let them use my phone in the stadium to call home in the days before mobiles.

What particular memories do you have of  separate Games?  Every major Games is memorable in its own way.    For many athletes (most of whom only do one OG or CG) it is often the defining experience of their lives. I count myself exceptionally privileged to have been part of that. I guess they are defining moments of mine. Curiously, like competitors, hacks also appear to rise to the championship challenge.   Almost all of the awards I have been lucky enough to win, and many of the winning works of others, have been filed from major events, or linked to them.   It was once pointed out to me that there were fewer Scottish journalists at the Olympics than there were Scottish athletes, and more GB Olympic competitors than there were GB journos. It was very competitive in journalism to get to the OG.

Are the Commonwealth Games really different from the others – ie ‘The Friendly Games’?The 1970 CG stand out, not just because they were my first, but because we did so well, and with athletes I knew or had competed with (Alder, Lachie, McCafferty, Ian Stewart, etc). It was a unique experience, wonderfully well-organised, even by today’s standards. ’86 was desperate by comparison, due to the boycott.    Melbourne and KL were outstanding, and Glasgow 2014 is right up there. There is a different, less frantic, gentler, attitude to the CG. They are friendlier, I guess.

Every Olympics has had something special, highlight moments, the bleak and the brilliant, from the 1972 Munich massacre and ’96 Centennial  Park bombing (Atlanta was my least favourite Olympics, and very badly organised) to watching Wells and Hoy, both of whom I knew well, win gold. The contrast between Moscow and LA, ideologically and indeed in every respect, made both magically fascinating. Barcelona, more for the Spanish culture than our results, I really enjoyed. Seoul for similar reasons. Sydney was the best, until matched by the GB success of London.

I actually enjoyed the World and Euro Athletics Champs more than almost OG and CG – able to focus without distraction on the sport that meant most to me.

I twice served as an assistant to the Press Liaison chap at Meadowbank, taking messages from the Press box to the control room and vice versa.   It was most revealing and altered my opinion of some of the gentlemen of the Press.   I would in all good faith take a Press release up to them in the box and among the generally civil greetings there would almost always be someone who would say something like “This is no good to me!   What I want to know is …. ”    Apart from the content it was at times said in a most unfriendly, condescending fashion.   Guys like Doug, Sandy Sutherland and Bill Melville have always been a pleasure to deal with.   It is easy to believe Doug when he says:

Doug at Work

Doug Gillon started out as a runner, a pretty good runner, before becoming one of Scotland’s best and most respected athletics journalists.   He attended three, four or ten times more Olympics than any athlete did, he covered more sports than any other journalist that I can think of has done, and still managed to keep his allegiance to his roots in the country’s athletics.   It is appropriate though to start where he started – and Colin Youngson covers his career as a runner.   

Eric Fisher (born 1946) became a good cross-country and marathon runner and a very good coach, as well as being a key figure on the Edinburgh Boys Brigade scene. He first got into the sport through Sunday School picnics where all the races were short sprints which he could never win. He wanted longer distance races, as did another youngster by the name of Douglas F. Gillon (born on the 12^th of July 1946) the subject of this profile. These picnics were all held at Dalkeith Country Park and when such races were introduced, these two used to beat everybody else easily.

Later on, in 1966, Eric Fisher became involved properly in the sport when he was 19 years old and Claude Jones of Edinburgh AC who worked in Ferranti’s asked if there were any runners in the factory who were not involved in the sport. Eric was pointed out to him and he was invited along.   The first night there he was involved in a 2.5 mile race: it was a handicap race but all athletes started at the same time.  He saw one guy he knew and told the handicapper he could beat him.  It turned out that it was Doug Gillon (again) who had been attending George Watson’s College and was ranked number 3 in the United Kingdom for the steeplechase in his age group.   Eric kept up with them for about 100 yards, fell away and finished between two and three minutes behind them.   That wasn’t bad for a youngster on his first night though.

Doug Gillon features in the Scottish Athletics Yearbook which lists statistics from the 1965 season. With a time of 4.24.2 for 1500 metres Steeplechase, he was fastest Junior in Scotland, in front of his EAC team-mate John Fairgrieve. Doug produced this time in the Schools International fixture in Brighton on the 24^th of July, when he was narrowly beaten into second place after a bold front-running bid for victory. He had earned selection for the Scottish team by becoming Scottish Schools champion by winning the 1500m Steeplechase title at Meadowbank. His time that day, 2.25.7, was only 0.3 of a second slower than Alistair Blamire’s record, set in 1964. This was after Doug had finished third in the Schools mile at Goldenacre. The race was won by Jack MacFie of Daniel Stewart’s, who went on to finish third in the Brighton international mile. Doug and Jack trained together; and Jack was to run well for Edinburgh University, Scottish Universities, EAC and Victoria Park. His most successful event was probably 880 yards. He won many contests with a strong sprint finish and had a best time of 1.53.3.

(A really unusual feat was when Jack MacFie broke the outright record for racing up umpteen steps to the top of London’s Post Office Tower! This challenge took place in April 1968, shortly after Edinburgh University had won both the British Universities Cross Country and Scottish National XC team titles. He clocked a rapid 4 minutes 46 seconds and was 2nd to go up in the EU team of 6: Hugh Stevenson, Jack MacFie, Ian Hathorn, Andy McKean, John Exley and Ken Fife. All the EU runners were better than London University’s best. As an extra guest for EU, Sheila Duncan set a women’s record.)

Doug Gillon also made the 1965 Scottish Senior lists with 10 minutes 10 seconds for the gruelling 3000m Steeplechase.

In November 1965, Doug made the EAC team for the prestigious Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay – and what a successful debut it was. Doug took over from the great Jim Alder in 4^th place on the 7^th Stage and managed to hold this position. Although EAC ended up 5^th after the final 8^th Stage, they were presented with the Most Improved team medals.

There was further improvement for Doug in 1966: 9.46.0 for 3000m Steeplechase, run in London (14^th in the Scottish rankings). This was to be his fastest ever in this event.

The Scottish Universities Track Championships took place at Westerlands in Glasgow on June 3^rd 1967. Spectators watched Doug Gillon racing around indefatigably completing several events for the new Heriot-Watt University, a team that was short of numbers. The Scottish Association of Track Statisticians Archive makes clear about two of his best runs that summer: 58.1 for the 440 yards Hurdles (8^th in the Scottish rankings) and 10 minutes 0.2 seconds in the 3000m Steeplechase, when he won at Grangemouth on 6^th August (14^th).

In the 1967 E to G, Doug ran Stage 7 once more and improved his team’s position from 7^th to 6^th, which turned out to be their place at the finish.

In Summer 1968 Doug ended up 21st in the Scottish rankings for 3000m Steeplechase with 10.11.6. After he left university, his journalistic career took precedence.

Hugh Stevenson has been a member of Victoria Park AAC for many years. In his day a talented hurdler, who won the SAAA Junior 120 yards Hurdles title in 1965, he is notorious for satirical ‘imitations’ of athletics friends and foes. Doug Gillon featured frequently in Hugo’s humorous repertoire as ‘The Expert’, and was treated with fond derision as Gillon became Scotland’s finest Athletics Journalist. Doug’s friends at VP also included ‘The Doc’ (John Baird), ‘Jake the Snake’ (Jack MacFie) and ‘The Boss’ (Roddie Campbell).

Then in 1977, racing for Victoria Park AAC, Doug Gillon produced a surprise personal best time of 57.19 for 400 metres Hurdles (16^th in the Scottish Rankings). (Many years later, Doug was awarded Life Membership of VPAAC, for services to athletics journalism.)

Doug Gillon himself emailed a colourful series of memories from these early days. Inevitably these are much more entertaining than the previous paragraphs, which had to be sourced mainly from cold statistics!

“ I was born in Edinburgh on 12.7.1946, and attended George Watson’s College in Edinburgh where I tried almost every sport imaginable: athletics, rugby, squash, badminton, cricket in which I represented the school; learned to ski at Aviemore, and canoe in Loch Lomond and the Hebrides. I dabbled enthusiastically in basketball, hockey and volleyball, plus football (which we had to arrange for ourselves, being a “rugby school”). And tennis and golf at which I was abysmal. In fact not even as good as that. 

I was obsessed with sport from an early age and remember beating Eric Fisher who was in the same Sunday school class, probably before we were 10. It was a cross-country race of, of maybe .75 of a mile. I recall winning in a sprint finish (first race I ever won) I’m not sure if it was from Eric. Later, he trained for cross-country with the BB, and always beat me comfortably, as did another BB lad who gave Eric some competition. His name (McMahon, I think, but Eric could confirm) never featured in athletics in future, and whenever I recalled these days in the future, I always considered him a talent lost to the sport. Especially once Eric developed in the marathon. 

In the coronation summer of 1953 I remember reading the report of the first ascent of Everest. I was six and transfixed. I still have the newspaper with its souvenir pictures . . . Hillary, an alien figure against an impossibly blue sky. And who had taken this photograph, I remember thinking. Tensing, of course, but perhaps this was the first evidence of an enquiring sporting mind. The next was being summoned by my father to hear news of  Bannister, Brasher and Chataway, and the first sub four-minute mile. And I recall creeping out of bed at 3.00am on a spring morning in 1955, to tune in to Eamonn Andrews’ boxing commentary on the Don Cockell v Rocky Marciano world heavyweight title fight. Cockell got his head boxed off in nine rounds. I devoured every line of all the newspaper reports. I wanted to know all about these icons. Reading about them inspired me, and while doing the greatest job in the world, I’ve since been privileged to meet and interview many of them, including Chataway, Brasher, and Bannister. 

From an early age I had a dream . . . that I might be a good enough athlete to represent my country, to go to the Commonwealth Games, and perhaps even the Olympics. Well, it didn’t quite work out like that. There were a few injuries, the pre-lottery dilemma of carving a career, paying a mortgage, and raising a family. Not to mention insufficient talent. But life took odd twists which resulted in me covering 11 Olympics. Thanks primarily to having defied my parents’ wishes that I study law – a decision that caused a fair bit of domestic aggro. 

My father was a public relations consultant, involved in the then fledgling sport sponsorship industry. Many early such events in Scotland were his creation, including the first national awards dinner (Usher Vaux). This brought him into routine contact with the likes of Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart, because his clients sponsored motor racing at Charterhall when these future F1 champions were young drivers. Winnie Shaw, Bobby Macgregor, Harvey Smith, Dick McTaggart, Ming Campbell, and a host of other celebrities were household topics of conversation. My dad brought home their autographs, and even that of Muhammad Ali. 

So sporting excellence was a step closer for me than just reading about it in the papers. My old man was on first-name terms with them. Yet when I announced that I wanted to write about sport rather than read law, he went ape. There was a lecture about sports writers, with whom he worked daily: how advancement relied on luck, and not necessarily talent, that there were many very good journalists earning a pittance on local papers, because they’d never had a lucky break. It was a hard-drinking, cynical and unpleasant profession. But he let slip some Damon Runyonesque tales about Scotland’s sports scribes, which only whetted my ambition. 

My eclectic sports participation meant I did no real athletics until I was 17. I discovered latent cardiovascular fitness by chance, thanks to a knee ligament injury sustained at rugby. I ran every day to recover strength (straight lines, no side-stepping), and was persuaded to do some track races. I discovered the long-standing school mile record was in reach, and beat it with 4:24.1 on a five-lap-to-the-mile grass track at Myreside. I was briefly coached by John Anderson whose rep sessions at Meadowbank (in some illustrious company) frequently made me ill. I’d have run over broken glass for him, but quickly learned he could cause a row in an empty house. I retain the greatest regard and affection for him – a truly iconic coach, and we remain friends. I’d never have become a journalist but for John and the life lessons which I did not even realise I was learning until decades later. 

I joined Edinburgh AC, and recall running a mile, 3k chase, and six miles “for the point” in one evening during a club match at Ayr. It was my first ‘chase and first time over a water jump. Not for the last time, I fell in, but managed to finish, in second or third, I think. 

Barrier technique was clearly lacking; as were facilities. So having decided to do the #chase at the Scottish schools, I took the wooden bench seats from the Myreside stand, and stacked them three-feet high on the track, to practise hurdling, knowing that if I hit these benches I would go down, to focus the mind. So just like the real thing.

 I also recall a 3k chase at Westerlands (Aug ’65, I think) in which Lachie Stewart and John Linaker had a ding-dong battle. Approaching the bell, I heard them closing on me and just managed to avoid the humiliation of beng lapped as Lachie broke the Scottish record. 

EAC clubmates Jack MacFie, John Fairgrieve and I took 1, 2, 3 in the mile at the 1965 Scottish Schools Championships at Goldenacre. It seems significant, looking back, that we’d done regular very competitive weekly track rep sessions (eg 10×400, 6×600) together at Ford’s Road. As Goldenacre had no waterjump, the schools steeplechase (1500m) was held over to the Scottish Junior champs the following weekend, on cinders at Meadowbank. I won relatively unchallenged and was disappointed to learn I’d missed the national record by less than a second. I was told that medalling in both mile and 1500m SC was a first. I was more interested in it getting me selected for Scottish Schools. 

At Brighton I had a lead of 50 metres in the Schools International, but got caught right on the line by a guy called Barry Davies who was unbeaten in Britain that year. He later became a cyclo-cross international, I believe. 

There was no coach, and no advice at Brighton. I was then selected for an SAAA Junior team against the Army, a 2k chase, at Pitreavie. I managed to slip right under the water jump barrier for total immersion while warming up, but won the race in the same time as the runner-up. Definitely fuelled by how I’d felt when I lost on the line at Brighton. 

I briefly worked in London as an executive officer with HM Customs & Excise, sharing a flat with Northern Ireland 800m internationalist Les Jones, later to become GB athletics team manager. When Les died, sadly most prematurely, I found myself shoulder to shoulder with Linford Christie, carrying one end of the coffin at his funeral in Portadown. 

I joined Thames Valley where Ron Roddan was a young sprint coach. Did sessions with John Bicourt among others, and sometimes with a group which included Lillian Board. 

I took a sabbatical from C&E to study for a BA in Commerce at Heriot Watt University where Adrian Weatherhead was then star athlete and Bill Walker the leading coaching light, team manager, and factotum. I recall a uni cross-country at Caird Park where Adrian was leading by about 100 yards when he shot off course. I had to resist the temptation not to shout him back (I was second) but we were team mates, after all! And he won comfortably. But the general standard of athletics was so poor that I won the 400h, 880, mile, and 3 miles in one afternoon at the University championships. My times were so dire that I carefully expunged them from my memory. 

There were a few false starts before I became a journalist. I wrote the odd snippet for the school magazine at Watson’s. Malcolm Rifkind was a classmate, and before he moved at a young age, so was Mike McLean (800m CG 1970). Peter Burgess, who later won three Scottish decathlon titles, was also a contemporary and we were in the same team at the Schools international in Brighton (he did LJ then). So were my mates Jack MacFie and John Fairgrieve. 

England’s World Cup win in 1966 quite spoiled my day. I’d hitched overnight from London, got a lift from Edinburgh to Ayr, and won the Land o’ Burns steeplechase. Then came off the track to learn England, drawing 2-2 when I lined up, had won. I took silver in the Civil Service 3k SC in 9.46. Can’t recall who won. Weeks later, I fell on an escalator, damaging ankle ligaments which took months to heal in my early time at Uni. This caused me to drop the ‘chase and try various events including 400 hurdles, with little success. Eilidh Doyle would have beaten me by nearly 30 metres! I guess in league matches over the years I tried every event bar the pole vault, “just for the point”. 

Scotland’s big athletics hero was Jim Alder who had won the marathon at the 1966 Commonwealth Games in Kingston (and was to fight his way to silver in the 1970 Edinburgh CG). Jim was a cult figure, hard as nails. The Victor’s fictional comic strip hero, Alf Tupper, aka Tough of the Track, was a wimp by comparison.

 I’d run in the same Edinburgh-to-Glasgow team as Jim (my most terrifying moment as a young athlete was Jim Alder handing me the baton in the lead, at Airdrie War Memorial). I knew all his backround. I was in awe of him, of course, but he was friendly and gave advice. No arrogance, although he was among the best in the world. I could not help comparing him with some of the very one-dimensional footballers I queued to speak to outside Ibrox or Parkhead after reporting Old Firm matches. And Lachie Stewart was from the same cloth.”

Doug later added the following reminiscences:

“AT EAC a large group would go out on Sunday mornings. For me, those peaked briefly at a max of around 2 hours 10min which, eyeballs out for me, would be no more than 19-20 miles. These would be hilly: from Fords Road, out to Colinton, Redford, Balerno, and past the reservoirs. Finlay Steele was the top junior (around 51mins, I think in the Tom Scott in 1964 or 65). I recall finishing second junior to him on a very hot day on the Law to Motherwell course. I only just broke the hour but was well out of my comfort zone – completely wasted.

Bert Carse (later emigrated to Western Australia) would slaughter everyone bar Finlay on these Sunday runs. They started very friendly, everyone chatting. Silence would gradually descend, and then the boot would go in, and we’d fragment into little competitive groups.

Carse was the class act over three miles on the track, and Neil Donnachie, Bob Greenoak, and Barry Craighead were still competing for the club. Barry, who was then a joiner, would often give me a lift home in his van, which I recall once contained a coffin, or panels thereof!

I enjoyed handicap races at Highland Games, and on reflection they taught pace-judgement which sometimes seems lacking today, as a consequence of the decline of HG.

When I joined the Sunday Post (1968) I went out at lunchtimes, jogging from Port Dundas to Westerlands where I’d join a few others in a track rep session, then jog back. Lachie was often training there, and I recall Myra Nimmo too, training in the early 70s, prior to the ’76 Olympics where she did the long jump.

My training was indiscriminate, lacking structure as well as motivation because I could not race. Athletics contests in the late 60s were almost always on Saturdays – and I worked on Saturdays, focusing on my career, which caused me to abandon competitive aspirations. With a young family, serious commitment to training would have been a huge indulgence – unfair to my long-suffering wife, Mary. My job was disruptive enough to normal family life and she was hugely supportive of my work.

Nevertheless, I did attempt to keep in some shape. I’d go down to VP on Tuesday evenings. Jack MacFie put me to shame, travelling every week from Edinburgh despite being a GP. Our sessions were always competitive, whether track reps or round the Scotstoun area, or along The Boulevard. I’d also attempt to go out from home, perhaps once a week, and perhaps twice from the office at lunchtime but would only run a total of about 35 miles per week.

I’d various trails ranging from two to a maximum of seven miles, such as out to Mugdock reservoir  or round Dougalston.

League athletics opened some Sunday options in the mid ’70s, and briefly rekindled competiive juices. They did so again with the marathon boom in the early ’80s. I got quite fit prior to the Glasgow marathon in either ’81 or ’82, while working for the Sunday Standard, going out every day through Glasgow Green for about 35-40 mins and also from home. I got up to around 60mpw then. On marathon day I promised to run with Bobby Watson (Airdrie manager) in the early stages, until he settled down. I left him about five miles, and stupidly got sucked into the race. I reached 19 miles in a couple of minutes over two hours, and was really chuffed – felt I should break three hours. Within two miles I’d strained my groin. I dragged my right leg to the finish – passed by Bobby in Pollok Park! I finished in 3:45. I never ran another marathon, and about three years there was a Damascene moment: my 11-year-old son, Gregor, beat me over two miles when we jogged on holiday in Cornwall.

 I continued to jog two or three times a week into my 60s, but the knees are now paying for all those times I stepped over the door and onto the road or pavement. If I knew then what I know now, a lot more would have been done on grass. The last five years I have been able to do little more vigorous than a walk.”

It is important that we started with Doug as a runner and club man because it indicates that he knows the sport from the inside, is happy with the participants, and is, indeed, happy to be a participant.   How can one who mixes with The Boss, The Doc and Jake the Snake ever be accused of being out of touch?   Now read on for Doug’s journalistic career.

As we said, Iain knew when to stop: too many athletes and coaches would be ‘lost’ if they left the sport.   Indeed there are courses for the ‘de-training’ of athletes when they retire and the same could be true of coaches.   Iain is proof that there is a good life to be had after athletics.   But what he did  in the sport and for the sport has not been forgotten and below some of the people who worked for him and with him look back at Iain as a coach as well as a friend.

Val Smith winning the WAAA Junior 100m in 1973

I first joined Maryhill Ladies Athletic Club as as twelve year old in 1972. Coached by Ian Robertson (Rab), the next year I gained success in winning most domestic titles for my age group, culminating in the British Junior 100 metres title at Kirby in 1973.

Training was always enjoyable and varied – club sessions at Scotstoun on Monday and Wednesday nights, all day sessions at Bellahouston on a Sunday, starting with weight training, then a track session, finishing with hill runs-both uphill for strength and stamina and downhill for leg speed and acceleration.   Winter training included Friday nights in the gym at Westbourne, with circuit training and gym work, followed by hill runs on the pavements outside!   The club regularly had a day out to Prestwick, where I remember running along the beach dragging a tyre behind my back for resistance training, and also running up hill dunes.   Co-ordination drills, hopping, bounding up sets of stairs were also common in training, along with running with weighted jackets.

Training was meticulously planned by Iain well in advance, and we all kept training diaries which were regularly discussed.

Iain was highly intelligent and extremely knowledgeable about the latest training techniques, and was very innovative for his time.

I remember competing at Cosford in the British Indoor Championships 60 metres in 1975, where I was using a one-handed start, pioneered by my namesake, the Olympic 100 metre Champion, Valery Borzov. I won my heat, and there was a rumour afterwards that I may be disqualified, as the officials were not sure if this start was legal, as they had not seen it used before in this country.   Luckily I was allowed to progress, and I won a silver medal!   Eventually the one-handed start became quite popular, before the current IAAF ruling of a down start with both hands in contact with the track!

It was not long before Iain was coaching a very talented squad of athletes.  He turned up at training one night wearing a red hooded sweatshirt with the words ‘Rab’s Rockets’ printed on the back, so from then on, the squad was known as Rab’s Rockets!

His commitment and contribution to his athletes was second to none, and he was always well respected by his peers. He encouraged the best from his athletes, and was an extremely dynamic and motivational coach.   It was an absolute privilege to be coached by him.

Angela Bridgeman Baxter

 I first joined Rab’s training group when I was about 13  years old. I came to Glasgow AC when Western AC joined with the women who trained with Maryhill and we all started training at Scotstoun. Up until that point athletics was a fun hobby for me and I didn’t know another level existed really. I am not sure how it happened but I ended up in Rab’s group and soon realized that this was serious business and that he was a very knowledgeable coach. We did drills and technique runs and he explained how to do them and more importantly why. He kept detailed records and had a yearly periodized plan and he was very interested in the whole person. He was meticulous and organized. He had us monitor all of our vitals like sleep/food we ate and daily pulse rate while recommending vitamins for us to take.  I coached for several years and this knowledge and approach served me well.

     Val Smith and others were the older athletes in the group were all successful and I soon found out why. We trained very hard. Rab had a no nonsense approach at the club although we did have fun.  He would also meet us on other days once we reached the level where we needed to train more which came with more sacrifice of his time. There was no elitism in that anyone who came to the group was welcomed. Most did not stay long as the hard training weeded people out. I believe he came from a soccer background which a lot of the coaches did. He would always come with a sheet of notepaper with the session on it and there was many butterflies in the stomach as we waited to hear what we would be running that night. He rarely told us ahead of time what we would be doing. Then as we tired he would urge us to “get the finger out”(laughs) His dedication to the sport and his athletes was amazing. When we would go to meetings he would mostly be found in the press box announcing! He travelled to Brisbane in 1982 to support the Scottish team and myself and Sandra Whittaker who were competing. He arranged for us to run around Celtic park before a big game so we could get used to big crowds before going to Brisbane! He thought of it all. I probably did not have the intense competitive drive that matched his expertise and coaching and I was somewhat injury prone which limited my progression.

I have read the bios of some of the other Scottish coaches on this site and I think Iain  walks alongside all of the great ones- Frank Dick, John Anderson and others. He was more than a “just a coach” he was a mentor and good friend. I basically grew up under his influence. I learned many lessons from him that have helped me be successful in my life.

Angela is academic advisor for men’s and women’s cross country and men’s and women’s track and field

Brigham Young University Utah

Sandra Whittaker was a quite superb athlete whose running, especially in the 1983 world championships in Helsinki, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the 1986 Commonwealth Games, was right up there with the best in the wold.   She has this to say about Iain.

When I joined Glasgow Athletic Club I was fortunate enough to be placed in the sprints training group which Iain Robertson coached.

Within the first year Iain had quickly recognised my potential and approached my parents to ask if they could bring me to training more than once a week as he said he felt he could really make something of me.  After discussion, my parents committed to taking me out to Scotstoun 3 times a week and Bellahouston 1 day a week.  This was the start of great things to come.

Iain was the most committed coach I had the pleasure of training with.  He put everything into every single person who was in our training group regardless of ability.

His training methods, I feel, were well advanced of the time and many other coaches from other clubs followed his training schedules with their athletes.

Our training programmes were very challenging, but with Iain’s support and encouragement we got through them, sometimes on our knees by the end of a session.  Iain also travelled the country and beyond to competitions abroad, paying his own way, to make sure he provided the support I needed, one of these being the Olympic Games where I needed all the support I could get.  Always a man to go above and beyond. It was here that I broke the Scottish Record and ran 22.98 seconds which stood for 34 years until 2 years ago. He was the proudest coach at that time.

*

Alastair Shaw adds to what he says in the profile: “Although quick with the quips, and not always suffering fools gladly, Iain had a great moral sense and an understanding that coaches don’t just work on physical improvements with athletes but, wittingly or unwittingly, also set a role model for them. In that regard you might want to speak to Leslie Roy. Partly for stories from the many club trips down south when Ian was club Team Manager and she still an active athlete, and partly as I suspect she may have learnt quite a bit from him about how to go about team management.”

Lynne MacDougall

Lynne MacDougall has this to add:

“Three things I remember vividly about Rab: One was his passion and dedication to the club. He was at every UK league match. He would distribute a small piece of paper with the time of your event to each girl in the bus before the match started. This would be followed by a motivational speech to entreat you to perform your best. The bus was silent as we all listened intently. I am sure that most of us did get PBs in these matches!

The second was his approach to his training group. At the time I was in the club he had a really talented group, including Sandra Whittaker, Yvonne Anderson and Angela Bridgeman. They all worked very hard on that Scotstoun track which was just ash at the time, but also seemed to have a lot of fun.

The third was his sense of fun and humour. He was very serious and professional in his approach to coaching but also loved to kid on the athletes and of course we enjoyed the banter as well. “

 Iain’s picture of Sandra and Angela in Brisbane, 1982

Back to the profile

There are so many pictures of the distance runners that it will take several pages to show them all.   We start with a wonderful runner, a Garscube Harrier who was based in England and ran for Birchfield Harriers and the Army:   Sergeant RR Sutherland.

PETER ADDISON

JOHN PATERSON

ROBERT R SUTHERLAND

1930 ICCU Cross Country Race: Evanston beats Sutherland to the line

PETER  J  ALLWELL

Lanark, 1939:  Archie Craig, Emmett Farrell, Allwell, Archie Dow and Willie Sutherland

Allwell, Farrell and Dow

GM CARSTAIRS

Carstairs in 1938

ALEX DOW

1937 Scottish ICCU Team

This [age has mainly milers – of course since so many of  the runners featured ran a wide range of distances, it does not include all the mile champions.   For instance Duncan McPhee and WR Seagrove are featured on the half milers page.     There are more to come here too.

Willie Robertson

Inaugural ICCU International, Hamilton Park.   Robertson arrowed.

JOHN McGOUGH

Scottish Mile Champion 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1910

John McGough

McGough, Stockholm, 1907

McGough (1) with the 1912 Olympic Team

McGough beats McNicol, 1907

HT JAMIESON

SAAA Mile Champion 1908, 1909

The Edinburgh University team of 1908 – just look at the names.

DOUGLAS McNICOL

Scottish Mile Champion 1911, 1912

Douglas McNicol

TOM RIDDELL

SAAA Mile Champion 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935

THE GEORGE FOX CLASSIC

15th October

Jim comments on the races: What a day- races were moved up 2 hours which meant we had to scramble to get across the mountains in time to race.   Reason – big storm in the pacific which blew in while our kids were racing – great xc weather – winds gusting to 50mph, rain and mud – we lost 2 tents.

Like many runners of whatever generation, Hugh had his heroes – in this case he and I agree that Herb Elliott was top of the list.   Any list, any time, Herb was The Man.   His coach Percy Cerutty was/is a legendary figure.   The picture below needs no caption.  Herb watches as Perce works on the bar.

All coaches have their wee sayings to motivate their athletes: don’t know how some of today’s athletes would take this challenge!

Percy conducts a ‘warm up’ wrestling match!

Coach and athlete enjoying each other’s company.

Lennart Strand with Herb Elliott and Percy Cerutty.

A remarkable photograph: the six athletes pictured set 50 world records and won 19 Olympic medals between them.

Standing:   Paavo Nurmi, 16 world records and 9 Olympic medals; Hannes Kolehmainen 6 and 5; Ron Clarke 19 and 1; Marcel Hansenne 1 and 1; Laurie Lehtinen 2 and 2; Robert Pariente (journalist).

In front: Robert Bodin – Jazy’s coach, Michel Jazy 6 and 1.

Although Scotland’s records do not go as far back as the Tailtean Games in Ireland, yet what we have prove the love of athletics among the Picts, Scots and the gregarious Celts.   From the chief downwards, athletics was the joy of the Gael, indeed the chief was often the most accomplished.   At his door lay the ‘clachneart’, literally the stone of strength or the putting stone and on the arrival of a guest he was asked as a compliment to throw it.   The chief’s followers, and those of his guests engaged in all manly sports, and as the honour of the clan was at stake, it is surmised that in the strenuous contests more heads than records were broken.   The Fraser chiefs were noted athletes, and the father of the late Lord Lovat – an excellent sportsman – was an expert stone and hammer thrower.

In a manuscript lately come to light entitled: ‘Ane breve cronicle of the Erles of Ross’, an account is given of how an earldom was gained by prowess in wrestling.   At the coronation of Edward I there was among those attached to his court in London a famous French wrestler from Normandy who was considered invincible.   But during the gay doings, he was challenged by Farquhar Ross from the North of Scotland, a vassal to the Scottish king Alexander II, and to the amazement and delight of the Scottish king, his wife and a sister of Edward , and the Scottish guests, Farquhar overthrew and signally vanquished the unbeaten champion.   So delighted was King Alexander over his countryman’s ‘notabill vassalage’, as he called it,  that he conferred the Earldom of Ross upon him.   To celebrate his victory and to carry out a vow that he had made, Farquhar erected an abbey, now no longer in existence, but its successor in Kincardine, Ross-shire is still used as the Parish Church.

At the great royal hunts which took place at Braemar and which often lasted for a fortnight, many chiefs with their followers took part.   Malcolm II started at one of these ‘hunts’ the first recorded ‘Games’ by offering as a prize a sword and a purse of gold to the first man to reach, in a race, the summit of Craig Choinneach.   Two McGregor brothers were favourites, but a third and younger brother, who was late in starting won after a terrific struggle.

It was not however till 1832 that the first organised Braemar Gathering took place.   Queen Victoria was keenly interested in these sports, and in 1889 invited society to Balmoral.   Later the Duke of Fife gave the present Princess Royal Park where the meeting is now held.   The clansmen gather at the spot where the Jacobite standard was unfurled in 1715 – which event is commemorated in ‘The Standard on the Braes o’Mar’ – and march to the sports ground.

Since the year 1314 without a break, except during the Great War, the Ceres Games, founded to celebrate the return of the victorious Fife villagers from the Battle of Bannockburn, have been held annually.   It is remarkable that the name of the Fife agricultural village, Ceres, is that of the Latin goddess, Ceres, the protectress of agriculture and in whose honour great sports were instituted.

Carnwath in Lanarkshire holds annually a meeting of great antiquity.   The Red Hose race is the principal event, and local and popular tradition has it that in the event of the Carnwath estate becoming heir-less, the latest winner of the ‘Hose’ would become proprietor!

Under the shadow of the Duke of Argyll’s stately castle at Inveraray, a gathering of the western clans’ representative pipers, strong men and runners has been held for centuries.   Running was a feature of this meeting, for the chiefs of old encouraged their ‘gille-ruith’, or running footmen, to excel in the Geal-ruith, or running and leaping  games.

Among great athletes in Scotland, the two whose names were, and still are, in the mouths of everyone, were Captain Barclay of Ury and Donald Dinnie.   The former was a great and up-to-date land proprietor in Kincardineshire.   Sprung from an ancient and physically powerful family, he lived during the later part of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth.   Educated at Cambridge, he early joined the army and served as ADC to the GOC of the ill-fated Walcheren Expedition.   He was though of little more than average size, possessed of a great strength, speed and remarkable powers of endurance.   Of the latter his great feat of walking 1000 miles in 1000 hours – that is one mile for every hour, was a record to his stamina.   Others who tried this feat broke down at an early stage, but he continued for a period of 42 days and though he lost much weight was at the finish wonderfully fit.   He was a great runner, walker, wrestler and stone-thrower,  and thus resembled Dinnie, who was born in Aberdeenshire in 1837.   Strange to say, Dinnie’s best performances were done when he was approaching forty years of age, and when fifty eight years old was the recognised all-round champion of New Zealand.   Dinnie was undoubtedly the best athlete of his time, and in addition to being heavy-weight champion, excelled in wrestling, leaping, vaulting, running and dancing.

Over a century ago, the Borders had a remarkable man, Will o’Phaup, so called for his farm in the Ettrick valley.   Like Dinnie in the North his name was a household word.   His tombstone at Ettrick Kirk records that for feats of strength and agility, he was not excelled in the kingdom.

In pre-amateur days Scotland was famous for its distance runners, and many feats of endurance are recorded in books dealing with origins and history of Scottish Highland Gatherings.”

Historical Survey