TRIBUTE TO ALF

Like any athlete coming off a big season—big for me, anyway—I felt recharged, hungry, and convinced I could go better again. I’d achieved my dream: PBs, a Scottish title, Scottish representation, and a return to form after time away. But the real catalyst behind my resurgence was my coach, Alf McMeekin.

Alf turned everything around for me. Working with him was the first time I truly understood the importance of the right coach and the right coaching process. His methods were fresh, precise, and brave. He told me I’d be training for the 60m hurdles that winter season. I couldn’t believe it. The 400m hurdles is a brutal endurance event—what good could 60 metres possibly do?

But Alf had Ireland’s best hurdlers, and the Commonwealth champion, in his stable. He knew exactly what he was doing. I trusted him. And he proved me right—he took a staggering 1.7 seconds off my 400m hurdles best.

Gone were the endless reps, the long runs, the grinding miles. Alf stripped everything back to quality, rhythm, speed, and purpose. It was transformative.

After that season I couldn’t wait to return to full training under his guidance. Driving up through England, my mind was already turning to the months ahead—fresh sessions, new goals, higher standards. I got home late, collapsed into bed, and didn’t check my messages until the next morning.

Back then, before everyone had mobile phones, you’d often come home to several waiting on your machine. One was from my old girlfriend and fiancée, Olympic hurdler Elaine McLaughlin. Her voice was shaking. She told me Alf had passed away. A brain haemorrhage. I was stunned—numb, in disbelief. He was only 42.

Elaine, was devastated. She had been preparing for the 1988 Olympics under Alf’s guidance, and her training had been going beautifully. She and the whole stable of hurdlers—from Northern Ireland, the Republic, and me from Scotland—were shattered. His funeral had already taken place.

I don’t think any of us ever really quite performed the same again.

The following year my form dipped sharply. I felt off—flat, disconnected. I opened the season in Cyprus while at warm weather training with my training partner, Dougie. We travelled up to Nicosia, the divided capital, separated at the time by a wall between the Greek south and Turkish north. (Walls don’t work—I can assure you.)

The heat was suffocating. We weren’t acclimatised. I was dripping with sweat before I even warmed up. But I was determined. The local athletes welcomed me warmly—something true of every Cypriot we met—and I lined up against their national champion and a Russian.

I ran hard. At halfway the Cypriot and I were ahead, stride for stride. On the second bend he stole a metre. The Russian hammered a hurdle behind us but recovered well. I attacked hurdle ten, but a tiny stutter cost me the win by a metre. It burned—but we shook hands, swapped words, and respected each other’s efforts. That part of athletics never leaves you.

Back home, my club races in Scotland and the British leagues were worrying. My legs didn’t feel like my legs. Nothing felt right. I went for blood tests at the Heriot-Watt sports med unit—ironically the same university where I’d later be accepted into the UK’s leading coaching programmes. Everything came back normal. In hindsight the real problem was simple: I no longer had Alf.

But I’m a fighter. Despite everything, I wanted to defend my Scottish title. A few people suggested I skip it. Not a chance. I wanted to face the music.

I scraped into the final on a bitter, wet, cold, dark Glasgow day—the complete opposite of the blazing heat of Cyprus. The next day in the final I ran terribly. Next to last. The contrast with the previous year was heartbreaking.

When you’re truly prepared, the race comes to you. My two fastest runs ever—the Scottish Championships and the British League meet two weeks later—are almost blank in my mind. That’s the zone. Psychologists talk about it, athletes chase it, but only rarely does it appear: the pure clarity, the silence, the total absorption.

In the national final, I remember only two moments: at hurdle seven I sensed I might be ahead; and just before hurdle ten, realising nobody was in front of me. Everything else was silence. When I “woke up” in the last 20 metres the crowd noise crashed back in and I threw myself over the line in case someone was closing.

Two weeks later in the British League Division 2, against English hurdlers I’d never beaten, I won again. And ran even faster. Another blank race. Another zone.

All because of Alf McMeekin.

We spoke on the phone before he passed. He was so happy with what I’d achieved. So proud. And I had no idea he only had three months left to live.

Great coaches do more than plan sessions and fix technique. Many sadly struggle even with this. They unlock something inside you—confidence, belief, fearlessness. They see the best in you long before you see it in yourself. Alf had that gift. Year after year, athlete after athlete, personal bests rolled in. He built us, shaped us, lifted us.

And then, suddenly, he was gone.

I still carry Alf’s lessons with me—every session I coach, every athlete I guide, every time I talk about the power of good coaching. His influence didn’t end with his passing. It lives on in the athletes he shaped, and in those we’ve since gone on to shape in his memory.

Alf taught me how to run fast.
But more than that, he taught me how to believe.
And for any athlete—past, present, or future—there is no greater gift a coach can give.

This is my tribute to Coach Alf McMeekin.
A coach, a mentor, and a man whose legacy still runs on.