When St Peters’s track became available we were all almost ecstatic – we had been without a home track since Whitecrook had been taken from us and our coaches had to use a variety of venues – Crown Point, Scotstoun, Linwood, East Kilbride, Kelvin Hall were all used. Sveral coaches agreed to use Kelvin Hall on a Thursday night – Davie Gibson did his pole vault work, Billy had his sprinters on the middle lane, Scott Govan had the high jumpers and I had middle distance runners there on the outside track. It worked well. But it was not a home and all clubs need a home – whether for social purposes or for club get togethers on training nights or whatever.
What were the first comments at the new facility? There were lots of complementary remarks – good surface, water jump there too, we were upsides with many other clubs – but some early criticism was voiced. (1) There was no perimeter round which trhe runners could warm up or do long reps; (2) There were np throws facilities – no circle for discus or shot or hammer and no approach for the javelin; (3) The long jump was in a corner which would be open to whatever weather there was and sand would be thrown about; (4) The track was very narrow and it would be difficult to get squads of sprinters and distance runners training on it at the same time. Imagine sprinters doing relay practice or even 200m reps while the distance guys were doing repetition 400s. These were all valid criticisms
To which can be added the cost of hiring the whole thing. The question that really needs to be answered is – does it meet the needs of our club as a whole? It seems to me that the only thing it offers is a track. We still need to go elsewhere for field events training – throws or jumps – and the track itself has some serious difficulties when it comes to groups doing different training on the same night at different speeds and distances. Maybe the new committee should think about this one.
