Published: 10 September, 2015
by STEVE BARNETT

A LOT has changed in sports journalism since I first started almost 20 years ago. 

There’s no more running up and down the high street to get camera films developed, Wikipedia has become all too popular in newsrooms across the country, and interviews seem to start and end on Twitter – all within a 140 characters. 

There is one thing that is still very much the same, however. 

I come in to the office on a Monday morning and sitting in my inbox is an email from Highgate Harriers press secretary, Alastair Aitken, bringing us up to speed with all of the athletic club’s latest news and results. 

A Harrier since 1957

The 75-year-old has been a Harrier for almost six decades, during which time his love for the sport has only got stronger. He’s travelled all over the world not just watching the sport, but going behind the scenes to interview all the biggest stars. 

“I always had an interest in running, more so than any other sport by a long chalk, because my father was a friend of the manager of White City Stadium so I would go there and get inspired by all the stars,” recalled Alastair, who grew up in Hampstead Garden Suburb after moving to London from Edinburgh with his family. 

“I went around the world writing about athletics, including Tokyo in 1964, Mexico in ’68 and Munich in ’72. I wasn’t a journalist and didn’t have any official ID or papers, but that didn’t stop me. 

“Sir William Emsley Carr, who was a big fellow in athletics and editor of the News of the World, told me I couldn’t do it. And that was the challenge. I always managed to get in.” 

Alastair spent most of his adult life working as an insurance broker, but boasted a CV that any sports journalist would be proud of. “I bet a fellow £5 that I could interview Ron Clarke after he broke the three-mile world record, which I did,” he said. “Among the top interviews I did was Don Quarrie, the Jamaican runner, Clarke, the day after he broke the three-mile world record, and double-gold winning Olympian Seb Coe. 

“I still remember the first article I wrote that was professionally published in 1962,” Alastair added. “It was entitled ‘The Qualities that Make a Star’ and included an interview with Bruce Tulloh, the bare-footed runner. I got £9, or £6 for it, something like that.” 

There’s a popular view that a sports journalist is someone who simply wasn’t good enough to actually take part in the sport that they cover – and that’s why they write about it. 

That can’t be said about Alastair. He regularly competed for Highgate Harriers over 880-yards, but it was clear he was craving longer, more testing distances. It was a hunger he could only fill by pounding the pavements, all 26 miles of them. 

“I did the very first 19 London Marathons,” he said. “I was also going to do the 20th but just a few days before I got hit by a motorbike, and broke ribs and all sorts of things so I couldn’t do it. 

“What I did do – when I was 42 in 1982 – was complete the marathon in 2.47.58, which is my fastest-ever time. I was always crazy about running.”

And in the light of recent news stories, Alastair said: “There’s no drugs below the international level, and that means that it’s very honest and real below that. It’s all about the glory of running.”