The Beard, Botox and muddy boots: Celebrating John Rodger and Ron Morrison – great at 80
John Rodger presents Ron Morrison with UK Athletics award back in 2019 (photo by Bobby Gavin)
By Katy Barden
Aries is one of the most active Zodiac signs. While astrology is not supported by science (and no correlation has been found between birth dates and personality or intelligence), those born between 21 March and 18 April are said to be ambitious, determined, honest and passionate.
Aries individuals are considered pioneering, high-energy trailblazers who lead with action, courage, and speed. They are reported to have excellent organisational skills and they embrace togetherness and teamwork. They possess youthful strength and energy, regardless of their age, and when faced with a challenge they will quickly assess the situation and come to a solution.
Born in April 1946, John Rodger and Ron Morrison recently celebrated their 80th birthdays.
Well-known and respected throughout our sport, the duo continue to have a tremendous impact in Scottish athletics in a variety of roles.
Astrology believers or not, it’s hard to challenge such an accurate description of these two outstanding Aries men.
‘John and Ron are giants of our sport in Scotland,’ says John Mackay of Shettleston Harriers, who has known the pair for decades.
John (Rodger) is the current president of scottishathletics and a former sales and marketing director for a major software development company.
His lifelong interest in the sport began as a 13-year-old when he joined Paisley Harriers, competing in his first National Cross Country Championship at Hamilton Park Racecourse in 1960.
Since 1974 he has been a member of Kilbarchan AAC and in addition to competing for the club, he has been a long-serving committee member and two-time president.
He campaigned successfully to build an all-weather athletics facility within Renfrewshire which was opened in 1991. More recently, he was instrumental in raising funds to construct an indoor athletics facility adjacent to the outdoor track that opened in 2021.
At national level, he has been a selector and team manager for scottishathletics and has served two terms as convenor of the Road and Cross Country Commission.
‘John is also a very good coach,’ says John (Mackay). ‘He is involved in so many other things that a lot of people probably don’t realise he coaches a fantastic group of young athletes including Josh Mungin and Alistair Street.
‘He’s been heavily involved in championships, too. He took the National Cross Country Championships to Linwood in 2003 for the first time, and he still organises the West District Cross Country Championships. We’ve actually been on the West District Committee together forever – once you go on there, you have to die to get off it! – and then John recruited me to the Road Running Commission as well.
Birthday celebrations for John Rodger (photo by Jim Green)
‘I remember when he got asked about the scottishathletics presidency he phoned me and he was a wee bit worried, ‘Do you think I’d be ok doing that John?’, he said.
‘He’s not a showman. He can be quite outspoken at times but I think he’s more of the quiet man who just gets on of the task.
‘He has a real sense of humour, as well, which a lot of people won’t know as they see a more serious aspect to him.
‘I was at his 80th birthday party and there was a great story – one of the barmaids is a bit of a gossip, so he’d told her that he’d taken Botox knowing that she would spread it around the pub.
‘So John’s in there with his pals and this guy comes up and says, ‘Is it true, John, that you’ve got Botox?’. So he’s got a wry kind of humour about him. Maybe he does take Botox, I don’t know, but he certainly doesn’t look 80.
‘He’s also a good friend to lots of people. He’ll always help out and he’s very good at giving advice.’
+++
John and Ron (front) with fellow Presidents Alan Potts and Leslie Roy with Laura Muir at the Lindsays National XC at Falkirk this year
Ron is a former president of scottishathletics and the only member to have served two terms (1997-1999 and 2019-2023). He was also president of the Scottish Cross Country Union in 1985.
Formerly head of the computing science department at the University of St Andrews, he retired in 2008. That same year he refereed the World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh.
Ron says he was ‘born a Shettleston Harrier’ and he was a successful team manager for the west coast team in the early 1970s, but he is best known now as a stalwart of Fife AC.
A club committee member and former president, he is also a well-respected coach, most notably guiding Great Britain international Andrew Lemoncello to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
A excellent and detailed career profile on Ron written by Brian McAusland can be found on Anent Scottish Running at http://www.anentscottishrunning.com/ron-morrison/,
For those who regularly see him at East District and Scottish National events, he is rarely without his partner in crime, Alex Jackson, who has many of his own stories to tell.
Ron and Logan Rees with one of our Lindsays Trophy awards for cross country
‘The thing I think about with Ron is that he really was the architect of scottishathletics,the governing body,’ says Alex.
‘Not only was he the driving force behind it coming about in 1992 (it was previously four separate organisations), but he was the driving force behind making it a professional governing body with staff. This resulted in the appointment of David Joy as the first chief executive in 1998.
‘Ron had always had the idea that that’s how things should happen. The other thing he was very ahead of compared to the other Home Countries was the equalisation of distances and teams. He was also well ahead of everybody else in the UK with the results archive.
‘“He has strong views on things and not everybody agrees with him, but he knows how to get the best out of people. We often have different views.
‘I remember one time going to Scone Palace in Perth to look at a cross country course. We were walking around with a guy from Perth who didn’t know us that well. At the end, he said, ‘Blimey, you two are like the old guys out of Last of the Summer Wine because you just bicker all the time!’.
‘At the 2025 National Cross Country in Falkirk we had to make a whole load of changes – we had a different finish and we couldn’t use the Antonine wall – and Ron came along at the beginning of the day and said, ‘I don’t think this is going to work’, but by the end of the day he admitted, ‘That was quite good!’.
‘Ron does not suffer fools gladly either. I remember being at the East District Cross Country Relays in Dunfermline and we were in the gazebo. He asked for a hanky or something then he says, ‘Can you pull my boots off?’. I said, ‘What did your last servant die of?, and Ron replied, ‘He talked back’.
+++
There is one oft-told story Alex refers to – The Beard Story – that Ron will never be allowed to forget.
It has been told and re-told, but for the purpose of this piece it is lifted as written in McAusland’s profile:
In 1980 there was an athletics film being made in which a scene with runners running along the sand at St Andrews was to be shot. Donald Macgregor was asked to get together a group of runners as possibles for it. His good friend Ron Morrison was put forward as one, he was accepted provided he took off his beard. Ron was fond of his beard, declined and wasn’t in the scene. He thought it was a little film which might not even make general release. It was Chariots of Fire which was nominated for seven Oscars and won four. That scene in particular was described by Paul Gambaccini as ‘One of the iconic moments in world cinema’. If he had known that the beard might well have come off.
Ron with UK Athletics Official award in 2019 (photo by Bobby Gavin)
+++
David Ovens, chair of scottishathletics, knows both men well. David stresses that selfless commitment of volunteers carries athletics in Scotland a long way . . .
‘John and Ron are prime examples of good volunteers – selfless in terms of the time that they devote to the sport,’ concludes David.
‘As a member of Fife AC I’ve known Ron for a long time and I really look to him as a type of mentor. When I first became chair we’d go for a cup of coffee and I’d say, ‘Right, okay, what do I need to be doing here, Ron?’.
‘I’ve got to know John more over the last five years and he’s a sort of wise owl. He’s a sensible head and smart man in business – you can see that in his contributions at the Board meetings.
‘We’re so lucky to have them both. When the time comes for them to take a step back they’re going to be very difficult to replace.
‘But one of the great things about them is that they’re so passionate about the sport and so ingrained in the grassroots and the club system, that they’re already doing what we need to do in terms of encouraging the next generation and managing succession.’
John and Ron are athletics men, but they are, it seems, Aries men too; energetic, bold, and natural born leaders.
We are so fortunate to have them in our sport. But, above all else, we are privileged to be able to call them our friends.
+++
Tags: Features, John Rodger, Ron Morrison
Latest Facebook update
Problem displaying Facebook posts. Backup cache in use.
Click to show error