Last weekend it was good to see incoming SRU President Eddie Crozier at the Hawks Presentation Night at the Grosvenor Hilton
Eddie will take over office just before the World Cup campaign commences

When you browse Eddie's CV there appears to be a small but notable omission namely his athletics career
Some may see this is as irrelevant but maybe not when you consider the long relationship the two sports have enjoyed
By coincidence two of the rugby clubs Eddie once represented when in a previous role West of Scotland FC and Glasgow Accies were both founder members of the Scottish Amateur Athletic Association in 1883

The thread that began back then continues to this day at Scotstoun Stadium where Warriors share a home with Victoria Park Glasgow AAC on Danes Dr and is consolidated by the fact that Rugby Sevens and Athletics are both Commonwealth Games core sports as we witnessed in the summer of 2014 at Hampden and Ibrox
This particular link was personified by one Ming Campbell who began his track career at Scotstoun went on to captain the GB Athletics Olympic Team and win a Twickenham Sevens runners up medal with Edinburgh Wanderers

The iconic link between the two sports is of course The Chariot of Fire and Scottish winger Eric Liddell capped after a trial held at Anniesland who then won Olympic Gold over 400m the same distance that Eddie performed over although maybe not quite at the same level.In more recent times we have had Olympian 400m athlete Brian Whittle playing with GHK and sprinter Derek Stark on the wing for Hawks

Dumbarton AAC was Eddie's club and one of his mentors was Jim McInnes who played in the same Glasgow High School back division as Bill Dunlop(Scottish Junior long jump champion ) Jim went on to become president of the Scottish AAA

In athletics you are judged in a harsher light than rugby because a watch stops and the unforgiving minute is read and worse recorded so no room for a selective memory

So to Eddie the watch and the record book where the attached result sheet records one of Ed's athletics moments when he held off Alistair Currie to win a 2 miles race not bad when you consider that Alistair is a member of an elite group namely Scots who have broken the 4 minute mile

When reminded of with his past athletics endeavours Ed responded modestly
"I can remember that day one of the Adams brothers wound me up re being a sprinter ! I thought my lungs were going to come through my throat ! - "

Don't worry Ed there will be few on committee at HQ who can hold off a sub 4 man in fact not many on the playing side could either