WHEN the 35th European Indoor Athletics Championships come to Glasgow for the second time in 2019, the state-of-the-art Emirates Arena will ensure sprinters have no need for soap powder to aid traction. Nor need they fear the ground opening up like an oubliette as they leave the blocks, or face the challenge of an outside lane whose ascent prompted comparison with the North Face of the Eiger.

Cosford had been the home of UK indoor athletics since the 1950s. Peter Radford, 1960 Olympic 100 metres bronze medallist, recalled carrying a carton of soap powder to sprinkle on the unbanked concrete to get a grip, because spikes were impossible.

There were Scottish championships for five years in the 1970s, on a 154-metre track at Perth, and a single edition at Ingliston in 1987. The sprint straight, on wooden boards above the floor, caused havoc. Sprinters launching from the blocks forced a whole section of track backwards and a sink hole opened up before them. Sadly, long before YouTube.

Scotland's climate made an indoor facility imperative, but the authorities proved hard to convince. The Herald played its part, but it was the generosity of former two-time Scottish 440 yards champion Ian Borland that finally tipped the scales. In 1930, Borland had competed in the inaugural Empire Games in Hamilton, where third in his heat narrowly denied him a place in the final. More than half a century on, he made a lasting impact on the sport. He'd followed our campaign to have Kelvin Hall's redevelopment plans include a permanent track, and offered £10,000 to the city if they did so. This twisted councillors' arms. They accepted his gift, and the rock concerts, evangelical crusades, exhibitions and carnivals were over. With the circus elephants they passed into history.

The track was an instant success, staging its inaugural international between Britain and France in February 1988.

Linford Christie set Scottish all-comers records at 60 and 200 metres (6.67sec, 21.11) and Ayr Seaforth's Brian Whittle took the 400m in a Scottish native record which he holds to this day. Britain won the match, and all but two men's events. The European Indoor Championships immediately topped the city's wish-list, but a fifth lane was demanded. It added enhanced crowd-proximity and atmosphere, but it rose so steeply that those drawn in it were doomed. They joked they needed crampons, not spikes.

The following year the match resulted in an even bigger win, against West Germany, but the only Scottish winner was Fifer Karen Hucheson, at 1500m.

The European Indoors in 1990, coming soon after the Commonwealth Games in Auckland, was always going to be a problem. Only four Scots were selected of whom one did not start and one did not finish. Tom McKean, however, following a disappointing Commonwealths, redeemed himself with a front-running display which clinched the 800 metres gold by a full second. It raised the roof, and little wonder. His time, 1min 46.22sec, broke Sebastian Coe's championship record, and was a Scottish indoor native, national, and all-comers' best. It remains so to this day, surpassed in Britain only by Coe's world record.

It was the race which salvaged the Bellshill Bullet's career. He employed the same tactics later that year to win European outdoor gold, and again in 1993 to claim the world indoor crown.

McKean's is one of six Scottish all-comers' records that still survive from that 1990 European event, but 29 of the current Scottish indoor all-comers marks were set at the Kelvin Hall, and just five, thus far, at The Emirates.

There were just five British medals at the Kelvin Hall back in 1990. The only one by a women was 800 metres bronze from the daughter of former Hibernian striker Gerry Baker. She finished fifth in the Los Angeles Olympic final.

The world's very best graced the Kelvin Hall. They included Mike Powell, who took Bob Beamon's long jump world record; Maurice Green, 2000 Olympic champion and world 100m record-holder; and Galina Chistyakova, the Soviet long jumper whose world record is nearing its 28th birthday. They all helped create the climate on which the Emirates legacy chapter was written. Yet so did the dramas: multiple Olympic champion Carl Lewis beaten by drug cheat Jason Livingston; 400m world record-holder Butch Reynolds (disqualified); and Colin Jackson – announced as having broken the world 60m hurdles record, only to be phoned at home and told he'd just equalled it.

The 2019 Emirates event was won on the first ballot despite heavyweight opposition – a sure sign that Glasgow's reputation for successfully hosting major events carries clout.

Now, even greater athletics events are on the agenda. Paul Bush, director of events at EventScotland, confirms three other major athletics competitions are now on Scotland's hit-list: "The Emirates is suitable for the World Indoor Championships, and we will be aiming for that after 2020 – the event won't be back in the UK before then. The European Team Championships is a good event now, particularly with GB in division one in both men's and women's. And after 2020 we will be looking to bring the European outdoor championships to Scotstoun."

Despite current capacity being woefully short, Bush insists: "You could build temporary structures to do it – you have to be a bit brave sometimes, and dream a bit."

The 2019 organisers will look at the world body's evaluation of field event innovations trialled at this year's worlds in Portland before deciding whether to introduce them for Glasgow.