West End Mail interviews Hawks Sec

What is your earliest sporting memory

1952 Olympics and Emil Zatopek and also the All Blacks visit to Glasgow in 1953 when they played the Combined Cities at Old Anniesland

What is the best thing you like about your club?

The Hawks have brought pride back into Glasgow club rugby.Before Hawks won the Scottish Premiership Title in 2003/04 the last time a Glasgow club won the title was in 1971 when West of Scotland triumphed. We have now raised the bar for other Glasgow clubs.

To retain the Championship last year at Hawick regarded as the greatest club in the history of Scottish rugby and take 80 points out of them was an exceptional performance.

What changes would you like to see to improve your club and sport as a whole?

Rugby has gone through a period of enormous change since the game went open in the mid 90s thus allowing professionalism and this period of adjustment is`still going on and will no doubt go on for a while longer.

I am a believer in a multisport open club environment where you can share facilities and pool expertise, and the potential to see this develop at Anniesland Old and New together with Balgray is enormous.

You also have to respect the history of the clubs who have come together to form Hawks after all they have been rivals for well over a century and given great service `to Scottish sport on and off the pitch. Remember the Scottish Rugby Union was founded in Glasgow at a meeting held in Glasgow Academy

"When you seek to drink the water remember those who dug the well"

However we are now in a new century with a new agenda and Hawks have to be ready to embrace a rapidly changing sporting environment,

Describe your typical sporting week.

Anybody involved in sports administration will tell you that the paperwork has increased rapidly over recent years even with the assistance of the internet ,and e mail. It is hard to describe a typical week because with the current environment of Scottish rugby nothing is typical-even this week rugby is back at Firhill

Who has had the most influence on your sporting career?

Strangely for a rugby club secretary I spent most of my active sporting career involved in athletics with Victoria Park AAC.The athlete that influenced me most was the great Australian miler Herb Elliott who went through his career undefeated at mile/1500metres winning the Olympic Gold medal in Rome over 1500metres.He inspired me to take up running with the aim of becoming the first Scot to break the 4 minute mile.-I failed by 1 second

Who are your sporting heroes?

A mixture of athletes and rugby players but I suppose bridging both sports I have to go for Eric Liddell capped out of Edinburgh University. who played on the wing for Scotland at rugby and who won the Olympic Gold Medal at 400 metres in 1924 running 47.6 sec.

Imagine a combination of Sean Lamont and Michael Johnson

Apart from your own main sport, which others do you play?

Having had two hip replacements(too many miles on the clock) I kid myself on by going to the gym

What has been your greatest sporting moment?

Setting a World Junior Age Group record for the 1 mile in Santry Stadium Dublin in 1961.I lost it to a young American called Jim Ryun from Kansas who went on to set a World record of 3m 51s and I went on to be secretary for the Glasgow Hawks

What would be your ultimate sporting ambition?

To see Glasgow Hawks play in Europe. Cross Border competition is being presented as something new. One of Hawks founder clubs Glasgow Accies were the first Scottish football team of either code to cross the Border when in 1870 they played Liverpool and Manchester

This article was originally posted on 21-Dec-2005, 12:31 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 21-Dec-2005, 12:36.