DOUG GILLON IN TODAYS HERALD

Yorkshire lad turned Scottish sporting heroDOUG GILLON, Athletics Correspondent June 15 2007
Fifty years ago this morning, Derek Ibbotson took a call in Glasgow's St Enoch hotel. His wife, Madeline, was calling from Surrey, and told him she had just given birth to their first child that morning. "Being the modest Yorkshire lad I was, I said: Right. I'll break t' world record today," he recalled.

Ibbotson was scheduled to run the three miles at the Glasgow Police Sports, but switched to the mile and, before an Ibrox crowd of 18,000, wrote a piece of sporting history.

Running on his own from half distance, he narrowly missed the world best, finishing in 3min 58.4sec. But it was a European, British, and Scottish all-comers record, second fastest time run, after John Landy's then world best of 3:58.0. It was the first time the four-minute barrier had been beaten in Scotland.

advertisementFrom an era when Ibrox hosted the equivalent of today's grands prix, it is now the third oldest stadium record in the world and will never be beaten, because the new arena no longer embraces a track.

Ibbotson, 75 on Sunday and zest for life undimmed, is certain he'd have broken the world mark had it not been so hot. "It was 83 degrees. Roasting. If it had been a bit cooler and somebody had taken the third lap, I'd have smashed it. No doubt."

He hadn't long to wait, however. A month later, with baby Christine in her carry-cot under a table at the White City, he regained the record for Britain. The Australian Landy had taken it from Roger Bannister, but Ibbo reclaimed it with 3:57.2.

A Scot, Alan Gordon, who had also run in Bannister's first sub four-minute mile, helped pace that race in London, finishing sixth in 4:03.4. This was not acknowledged as a Scottish record at the time, but this paper's research has placed it among dozens of similar marks which there are now plans to ratify retroactively.

Gordon was among those who looked bemused as Ibbotson quaffed milk after that record, but the canny Yorkshireman wasn't daft. "It had been arranged with the Milk Market-ing Board that if I drank a pint of milk, I'd get a nice little present: £100. So I gulped it down," he said.

"In those days, Scotland was very generous. The maximum prize in England was seven guineas. In Scotland it was nine or ten. That's why I used to run a lot in Scotland. But the day I broke the world record, they gave me a solid silver plate, worth a lot of money. They got Lord Burleigh 1932 Olympic hurdles champion to present it to me, so that nobody would dare complain that it was over the seven guineas. I think in those days it was worth about £150. I've still got it. I never got rid of any of my stuff."

This was during the first golden age of UK athletics, an era when amteurism was allegedly strictly enforced, but there were ways round this for a working-class Yorkshire lad. "Scot Symon, the Rangers manager, gave me a little present to bring up Brian Hewson European 1500m champion, just a wee one, to make sure we came up in the August, for the Rangers Sports.

"They always used to look after us really well. At Berwick we got nice big salmon to take back home, and there was a dance in the local hall. It was a real good do, and we got good expenses. The top runners used to queue up behind me, see what I claimed, and than asked for the same.

"It was all illegal. There, I've said it . . . but they are not getting my Olympic medal back. They're not getting the world record back either, whatever they do. C'est la vie."

His world best fell the next year, smashed by Australian Herb Elliott, with 3:54.5, at Santry, in Dublin.

"'Erb 'ad been staying at my 'ouse, and I 'eard 'is taxi pull up. I threw 'is bags outside t' door and locked it. He rings the bell and I says: 'Oo's that?' and he says: It's 'Erb'. And I says: There's your f***ing bags then. If you think you can break my f***ing world record, and stay with me as a guest - bollocks.' "Sorry,' 'e says. 'E knew me well enough to know I wouldn't do it. But if I hadn't put his cases outside, he might have thought I was taking the piss, so I got him wondering.

"He was a hell of a competitor. I stayed on the edge of t' Penines, and had a sledge. We used to go down these steep hills, and 'Erb had to get a bloody stop watch to see who could go down fastest. He was competition-mad, he was, on anything. Being used to sledging I was okay. I could beat him at that."

His introduction to athletics was chasing parachute flares on the Yorkshire Moors. His mum made the silk into running shorts in which Derek won county junior titles. He might have graduated to Olympic champion but for the prevailing Oxbridge old-boy nepotism.

In 1956, he'd won the AAA three-mile title, guaranteeing an Olympic 5000m place for Melbourne. But Ibbotson wanted to run the 1500m, and won the race for the third place, after the first two at the AAAs had been selected for the Olympics.

"You'd Jack Crump and the 1924 Olympic sprint champion, 'Arold Abrahams running the sport. They wanted this Oxford chap in - Ian Boyd. He'd finished about 20 yards behind when I won the Emsley Carr Mile - first time it had been run under four minutes - but they picked him and not me. That really hurt. I'd won this bloody race, 3:59.4, yet they wouldn't pick me. Their excuse was, You're in the 5000, so you're okay'. I was fastest in Europe, but they'd already decided Boyd would be British team captain."

Ibbo went to Melbourne and took 5000m bronze behind Vladimir Kuts and Gordon Pirie. Boyd was eighth. "I was robbed of a better medal. It was a sore point, though on the day you never know.

"But we had great times. We went to a meeting in Helsinki. I was world record holder, and Brian Hewson was European champion, so we got a suite with five rooms. At the end of the meet we hosted a party. We got the BBC to buy all the food, and the journalists to buy the drink, and had a dance. There was one room for chatting, one for the piano, to dance in, and one for snogging in, you know.

"We went to the local hospital and asked to see the matron, and told her we were having a big dinner after the Finland-GB meeting: We'd like to invite 30 of your nurses. We'll send a bus for them.' And that was that. What a night."

What a man. What great days. At one time UK athletes and their girlfriends queued up at the White City, trying to break another Ibbo record: of making love and then running sub-four for the mile. He may well still hold that one: 3:59.4, two hours later, in Finland "with my wife".

He became head of sales for Puma, a veteran squash champion, and still jogs on an artificial hip.

There is a joint birthday party in Huddersfield tomorrow: "Celebrating my daughter's 50th, and my 75th on Sunday."

note from Ed
Trained and ran against Ibbo on many occasions-- some guy even did hill reps up Gt George St with him and Graham Everett(British mile champion) who worked in a bookies shop at foot of Gt George St and Byres Rd

This article was originally posted on 15-Jun-2007, 06:58 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 15-Jun-2007, 06:58.