The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
ATHLETES AND FOOTBALLERS ENJOY THE STUART HOGG EFFECT
Across his career Stuart Hogg has worked with world-class athletes and at some of Scotland’s top football clubs.
Now aged 81 he still has the drive to help athletes and footballers succeed.
Here Hogg, who is now fitness coach with Peterhead, reflects on competing as a sprinter, becoming a coach and training Olympians, moving into football and working under the likes of John Greig, Jim McLean and Ebbe Skovdahl.
Growing up in Cardenden, Fife, Hogg started sprinting as a child and competed on the summer games circuit in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
But his hopes of representing Scotland and Great Britain at major championships were dashed at an early age. This was in the era when only amateurs could be selected to represent their country.
Hogg explained: “My father and I didn’t know the situation and I ran in Highland Games.
“I got into that by mistake because myself and my father were both ignorant about the situation.
“The first prize I got was at 13 and I refused it because I wanted to stay amateur and compete for my country.
“But the rules were if you had competed against professionals you were a professional. You didn’t have to accept money, if you’d competed against professionals that was you.
“That rule wasn’t changed until long after I was finished so I had no option.
“If I wanted to be reinstated as an amateur I could have been for a small fee. But even with that you could never compete for your country.
“So from the age of 13 I couldn’t compete in Scotland in anything.
“I thought ‘what’s the point in getting reinstated as an amateur if you can’t compete for your country?’
“So I never did get reinstated and ran on the Highland Games circuit.
“I won the British Professional Sprint Championship at one time (1967), but it wasn’t like competing for your country.
“I was competing for myself. It was an archaic system, but they eventually had an amnesty in 1986.”
Having been self-coached for periods of his own sprinting career Hogg started coaching others from the mid-70s onwards.
During his time in athletics he has helped a number athletes achieve success and been to multiple Olympics, world championships, European championships and Commonwealth Games.
Between 1987 and 1991, along with Tommy Boyle, he coached distance runner Yvonne Murray.
During this period she won a bronze medal in the 3,000m in the 1988 Olympics, gold in the same event in the 1990 European championships and 1989 World Cup and a silver medal in the 1990 Commonwealth Games.
The first senior international Hogg worked with was sprinter Aileen McGillivary.
He helped her win the Scottish 100m title on seven occasions as well as competing at the world indoor championships and Commonwealth Games.
Hurdler Allan Scott is another who Hogg coached at the Olympics, also Irish 400m runner Marian Heffernan.
Hogg worked with the recently retired Eilidh Doyle, in 2009 and 2010, and with Irish 60m, 100m, 200m and 300m recordholder Paul Hession.
He was named Scottish Athletics Coach of the Year three times, as well as receiving the lifetime achievement award from the association.
He said: “There’s a story for every athlete I’ve coached. You do your job. I’m experienced and you get to know your athletes and know what they need.
“The likes of Yvonne, you never had to go and talk to her when she was warming up.
“It’s each individual and what they need. With Paul we had a routine for every meeting we went to.
“We’d get the stadium, put our bags down in the gazebo where the team physio was, walk round the warm-up track and then go back and start reading a book.
“It’s not every athlete that would do that, Allan Scott would be different.
“You’ve got to know what works for them.
“For me the best thing has been the people I’ve met and worked with and being able to help them, that’s the most enjoyable part.
“I got more pleasure from coaching than competing because I was coaching at the highest level at Olympic Games and things like that.”
Although he had worked with individual footballers – such as Dunfermline’s Bert Paton – previously, it was through his day job as an architect that Hogg first started working for a football club. He was part of John Greig’s coaching staff at Rangers between 1978 and 1983.
Hogg explained: “I was friendly with Willie Mathieson and Willie Johnston (who were both from Fife) who played for Rangers.
“Willie Mathieson introduced me to John Greig because I was working as an architect at that time.
“John Greig was wanting an extension put on his kitchen and I became friendly with John through that and he was the one that started me at a club when he was Rangers manager.
“He got the job and about two days after he phoned me and asked me to go to Rangers. I went there parttime and was there for just over five years.”
Coming from an athletics background Hogg says he had to pick up what was best for footballers as he went along.
In those days he was the first specialist fitness coach within Scottish football who hadn’t come from a football background.
Hogg’s next move in football was to Dundee United, working under
legendary Tannadice boss Jim McLean.
McLean had heard about Hogg through his brother Tommy, who had been Greig’s assistant at Rangers.
Hogg says he had to prove himself and his methods to McLean, but recalls how one sprint session changed everything.
He said: “You had to prove yourself. He very rarely gave me any praise and he would challenge you a lot of the time.
“But there was one night where there was a reserve game at Tannadice and I’d gone up early to take Mixu Paatelainen for a session because he wasn’t playing in the reserve game.
“I didn’t know at the time that Jim was sitting in the stand watching.
“When I’d finished I went up into the stand and ended up speaking to him
and he said it was the best sprint session he’d seen and then walked away.
“After that I thought ‘right I’ve made it with him’. And I’ll never forget that and that meant I’d won him over.
“In pre-season he gave me a free hand to do what I wanted and didn’t question it.”
One of Hogg’s innovations during his time with Dundee United, which has stuck, was a properly organised warm-up before games and a warm down after matches.
He added: “I started getting players to do a warm down after the game and we got laughed at.
“We also started doing a proper organised warm-up before the game as well and again we were laughed at.
“I remember being at
Parkhead or Ibrox and the people that were in the stadium would be shouting ‘what the f *** is that?’ But we did it and now everyone does warm-ups like that.
“We were at Tynecastle one day doing the warm down after the game and there was a bit of animosity between Hearts and Dundee United at the time and we got thrown off the pitch during our warm down. It caused a kerfuffle and then Jim McLean got me in front of the press the next week to explain why we were doing it.
“The first time we did there were four Dundee United players who came out to volunteer to do it.
“Jim McLean saw in the training it was beneficial and then made it compulsory and all the players came out after the game for a warm down.”