FALKIRK Victoria Harriers will today reveal a new weapon which may
help bring them major honours this season, writes Doug Gillon. Steve
Binns, the 1986 Commonwealth Games 10,000 metres silver medallist, has
joined them and will run in Shettleston's Alan Scally Road Relay.
Falkirk are optimistic that their enhanced quartet this afternoon --
Binns, John Sherban, Gary Grindlay, and Donnie Bain or Mike McQuaid --
can go one better than their runners-up place last year.
''Subject to Scottish Athletics Federation approval of Binns's
transfer from second-claim status at Annan to secondary first-claim with
us, he plans to run with us in the Edinburgh to Glasgow relay in a
fortnight,'' said Falkirk spokesman Doug Gillespie yesterday.
Binns, who recently opened Victoria's new clubrooms, is a first-claim
member of Bingley in England, but lives at Kettleholm in Dumfriesshire,
where he operates a riding stable. Scottish internationalist Grindlay is
also a first-claim member of Bingley, while Sherban is first-claim with
Shaftesbury.
Falkirk spearheaded a campaign this month to have new rules drafted
which make it possible for this trio, as Scottish residents, to compete
for them, and they now stand to reap the benefits.
Cambuslang will be without Scottish champion Tom Murray, who helped
them win the national cross-country relay last weekend, and it is
doubtful whether the Cumnock runners-up, Kilbarchan, or bronze
medallists, Racing Club, can challenge Falkirk.
Racing, particularly, go much better on road, but will also have a
depleted team, minus Ian Brown and Peter Fleming. But ''The Scally''
always brings out the very best, as it operates as most clubs' final
trial for the Barr's Edinburgh-Glasgow race.
So intense is competition that Olympic steeplechaser Tom Hanlon and
Commonwealth marathon man John Graham must run for their places, and are
by no means guaranteed selection. Alan Robson, Racing's founder, reckons
there are six or seven runners chasing the last two places in their
team.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article