I was running a race to try to pick up £650 twenty five years ago which was on the new year and called the new year race which was good money for 2 minutes work and my boss asked me to throw the race so that more money could be made with gambling on this panel better who I knew would never win even if helped as he just wasn't sharp enough and his running was just as an also ran so i told my boss i would do it so I started just taking it easy for the first hundred meters and then pressure was put on me from another stable as their boys were coming up on me so when we reached this guy I just took him with other boys and we ran past him as he couldn't make good with an extra handicap and we pilled past him and someone i had an extra handicap on which meant he was pretty much faster than me and he pulled past me with 200 metres to go so I charged off after him with myself in second place and I got £150 and it wasn't what I hoped but it was good even though I didn't know that guy who came first and had never seen him running on the professional scene so he might have been an amateur.

When I was 15 my mother watched me run in Meadow bank Stadium in the Bells Junior International which was run before the adults and I saw Yvonne Murray as she watched me jump over a railing to slip and land on my arse which I found embarrassing.  My mother was there for a day out and to this day she loves to tell how proud she was as I ran the 800 meters and there was a guy that was tipped to win who was smaller than me and I'm not tall and we came up to 150 meters to 200 meters to go and  I trained in a way to develop a fast finish and I motored past him as most runners are trained to take it steady but this annoyed the also rans like the panel beaters who get angry with this type of training and running as they are journey men who plod and do nothing spectacular but to collect receipts to a level that makes it worthwhile to them.