Around our clubs: Greenock Glenpark; Stornoway RAC; Garscube

Sunday 25th September 2022

Greenock Glenpark celebrate 125 years (story from 2020)

Greenock Glenpark Harriers can’t wait for the Great Scottish Run weekend – with a huge turnout of club members lined up to race.

The Greenock club have 103 entrants for next weekend as they work towards having more competitive representation in races as a clear goal for all at the club.

‘In the past we have maybe had 30 members at the Great Scottish Run,’ said coach Alan O’Rourke.

‘I watched a film called ‘Turtles and Hares – Team Carrie Marathon runners’ and it inspired me to try and coax and cajole more members to race. A spin-off benefit has been attendance at weekly adult training sessions increase to over 50 runners.

‘We have also seen female membership rise in the past few years which is great and are now looking to persuade more of those female members to race more regularly.

‘I’m pretty sure we will have the biggest club reprsentation at the Great Scottish Run and the age range is from 17 to 75.’

Greenock Glenpark actually report that in 2004 they had only three female members and now the representation is 46 percent of 300+ membership!

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Short-lists – Volunteer of the Year and Official of the Year

Our 4J Annual Awards short-lists are generating excitement across out clubs – and news reached the Western Isles with Stornoway RAC among the nominees for Volunteer of the Year.

Here’s a post from Stornoway . . .

‘Some very exciting news for the club today as two of our volunteer coaches Maureen Stewart and Annabel Bain have been shortlisted for Scottish Athletics Volunteer of the Year Award!

‘This is testament to their hard work and dedication to the club over many years. Without our hard working volunteers like Maureen and Annabel our club would not exist.’

We would echo those sentiments and sure there are similar feelings at other clubs across the length and breadth of the country (among the nominees and beyond).

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We had our first ever “mob match” this weekend, taking on our good friends and local rivals @WERRinGlasgow at @springburnpark.??????Including runners, volunteers and dogs there were over 60 representatives from the two clubs.??

Read our match report:https://t.co/kEfgKEnDwR pic.twitter.com/uPskBXRyuX

— Garscube Harriers (@rungarscube) September 11, 2022

We’ve noticed a number examples in recent weeks of clubs getting together for friendly competition.

Garscube Harriers and West End Road Runners teamed up to compete at the Springburn parkrun in Glasgow and great to see so many from both clubs out running (pretty sure Bellahouston Harriers/Bellahouston Road Runners ‘patented’ this kind of mob match).

On a similar theme in the West, East Kilbride AC and Whitemoss AAC competed against each other across the age groups at an event which featured Club Championships for both.

And we understand the Ayr Seaforth club champs took place with big support from Kilmarnock Harriers in terms of supplying Officials.

Examples everywhere of #SALtogether approach which works best to grow out sport – and pretty certain many others around the country in the past few weeks as the track and field season drew to a close and a number of traditional club champs events were staged.

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Tags: Garscube Harriers, Greenock Glenpark Harriers, Stornoway RAc