Meet the President (2023-24)

Our President for this year is Rob Mulgrue, below is a brief profile that Rob has provided.

Firstly, many thanks to the League for appointing me League President for 2023/4; it is a great honour. My club is one of the founding members of the League back in 1925 and I am also honoured to be its ninth club member to have received the honour.
Like many of us my involvement in cross-country running started at school, the George Dixon Grammar School for Boys, Edgbaston, Birmingham. My first competitive race was for the school third team against Yardley Grammar School second team in 1964 at Tyseley, Birmingham. History does not record the result or my position but I do recall the course included fording a stream. For the 1964/65 and 1965/66 seasons I made my way up to the dizzying heights of the school second team, competing against other Birmingham secondary schools.
I took up running more seriously at University, Swansea 1966 – 69 and Lancaster 1969/70, competing against other Universities and in the South Wales and Gwent Cross-Country Leagues and the Mid-Lancs Cross-Country League. As I was at Lancaster during the vacations, I joined the local club, Lancaster and Morecambe AC, continuing with them until, having moved back to Birmingham to work, the trek back up the M6 on a Friday night became too much and I joined Dudley & Stourbridge Harriers in 1971. My first Birmingham League match was in November that year at Wombourne (97th in Division 2) and my 59th and last one was February 2007 at Northbrook (146th in Division 2). My running career can best be described as persistent but mediocre. My only outright win in a cross-country race was in February 1968 when Swansea University took on the might of Lampeter University, a race memorable as the second-placed runner and I inadvertently herded a lost and nervous cow down a country lane. Fortunately we were not done for rustling!
I became Secretary of Dudley & Stourbridge from 1973 to 76 and continued to serve on the Committee for a number of years thereafter.
Gradually, as I became more useful to the club as a Technical Official than as a competitor I moved over to the former role, first as a Track Judge in 1995 and with the encouragement of the then club Chairman, Brian Shepherd, himself a former League President, I moved through the grades to national and international level until I officiated at the London Olympics and Paralympics as a Track Umpire in 2012. I also became qualified as an Endurance Event official in 2003 and have, so far, officiated at 53 Birmingham Cross-Country League fixtures.
To my mind (trackies may disagree), cross-country running is the most challenging discipline in the sport of athletics, as the distinctiveness of each course, ground conditions and weather gives such variety to which the runner has to adapt – as I had to when I encountered the stream in 1964 at the Yardley Grammar School course.