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By C. D. McCombie-Smith
To those who have followed
the course of athletic sports in Scotland, the name of McCombie-Smith is
probably the most familiar one of all those who have climbed to the top of
the tree. But still the following contribution from the pen of the head of
that family at the present time may not inaptly form the concluding
portion of this work.
W. McCombie-Smith was born
in Aberdeenshire in 1847 and first competed in athletic sports at the age
of nineteen. Up to the end of 187o he confined himself mostly to local
meetings, but in 1871 travelled to other counties, for instance to
Dalbeattie in Kirkcudbrightshire, where he won seven first prizes, and
during that season won sixty-three first, one hundred and sixteen second,
and thirty-seven third prizes, a total of two hundred and sixteen, of
which number ninety-five were won in the fifteen days ending 12th August.
At that time he was 5 feet
7½ inches in height and about 11 stones in weight and was undoubtedly the
best all-round light-weight in Scotland, winning competitions at hammer
and ball-throwing, tossing the caber, wrestling, high leap, long leap,
hop, step and jump, pole leaping and running. He was a first-class
distance runner and hurdler and had no superior at his weight at
caber-tossing, a sport distinctively Scottish, and requiring perhaps a
higher combination of concentrated strength and skill than any other field
sport.
In the summer of 1873 he
won a total of two hundred and thirty-five prizes, including one hundred
and nine firsts, forty-one seconds, and eighty-five thirds.
During the following three
years, he was engaged in fitting himself for his life's work as a teacher,
but competed regularly in the summer months at all the leading meetings.
His first appointment was as English Master at High Harrogate College,
Yorkshire, but he disliked the work, and soon returned to Scotland where
he was appointed Headmaster of Blackwater School in Perthshire, at which
he spent the remainder of his life.
For the long period of
thirty-five years he was a successful competitor at various meetings, and
in 1901 had won one thousand and twenty-six prizes in athletics. Good as
his athletic record was, it was as an author and supporter of Highland
games that he was best known in Scotland and beyond it.
Besides contributing
endless articles to various newspapers and periodicals, he published
during his residence in Perthshire, "Landowners and Landowners' Laws,"
"Memoirs of the Family of McCombie and Thorns," "The Athletes and Athletic
Sports of Scotland," "The Romance of Poaching," and "Men or Deer in the
Scottish Glens." The last named book caused something of a sensation at
the time, and has been quoted in the House of Commons within recent years,
although published in 1901. As an authority on Scottish games, he had no
equal, and deserves to be remembered by all athletes for his efforts to
push the cause of real Scottish sports.
For many years he
endeavoured to obtain what no one had troubled to get previously, viz.,
genuine records of distances accomplished by the best athletes with
hammers and balls of certified weight on ground certified level.
Dinnie, Davidson, Tait,
Fleming and other great athletes of the past laid claim to various
records, some of them of astonishing magnitude, but none of which could be
substantiated.
With the aid of several
games' committees, notably Pitlochry, Aberfeldy, and Fortwilliam, and the
able assistance of Mr. T. Michie of Cluneskea in Perthshire, himself a
notable athlete and a capable judge, he eventually succeeded in obtaining
records of performances which are undoubtedly genuine and cannot be
confuted.
G. H. Johnstone was the
first to set up a genuine record of 119 feet 2 inch with 16 lb. hammer on
level ground, and a few years later A. A. Cameron had the chance at
Pitlochry to set up records which still stand unbeaten.
Unfortunately, so far as
the writer knows, there is at present no games ground in Scotland where an
athlete has the opportunity to set up a genuine record at any event, and
this is the more unfortunate as we have an athlete, in James Maitland, of
Deskford, Cullen, who is as good a hammer-thrower as ever lived.
Mr. McCombie-Smith married
the youngest sister of the world-famous Donald Dinnie, and in 1880 his son
Cuthbert Dinnie was born. From infancy he came in contact with the best
athletes, such as Davidson, MacRae, Johnstone, Anderson, etc., and
naturally his earliest ambition was to be an athlete.
He first competed against
all comers in 1902 after returning from the South African War, and was
fairly successful against perhaps the strongest opposition ever known in
Scotland. From 1902 till the Great War, there was an unusual number of
first-class competitors at all branches of sport.
In 1910 C. D. McCombie-Smith
putted the ball on level ground at Alloa 43 feet 10 inches, and the same
week tied for first at high leap with 5 feet 52 inches, besides getting
well over 100 feet with the 16 lb. hammer and about 10 feet with the pole.
He was also a successful
competitor in Cumberland wrestling both before and after the Great War.
Since the war he has thrown
a hammer over 114 feet, and won the all-weights wrestling at Bridge of
Allan, the caber at Oban, and hammer, ball, and caber at Glenisla, besides
putting up a good fight against men such as Starkey, Nicholson, and Graham
at various meetings.
He has been competing in
open competition for twenty-five years, and has, like his father, won over
one thousand prizes. So far as the writer knows, no other family can claim
a like record.
"The land o' heather, hill,
and glen,
The bagpipe and the bonnet,
The country o' the kilted clans
A blessing be upon it.
And, friend, my toast this festive time
Is ' Health to thee and thine,
Long life and all prosperity,
For the days o' Auld Lang Syne.' " |
