NO longer unsung. . .husband and wife Ian Mirfin and Janice Eaglesham, whose spectacular contribution to disability sport has resulted in both being honoured with the MBE.
In 1990 they founded Red Star, in Glasgow, Scotland's first specialist club for athletes with a disability. It has since been responsible for nearly 20 Paralympic and World championships medallists, but at least as pertinently it has transformed the lives of hundreds of people with mental and physical impairment.
Four years ago, the Cambuslang couple won the BBC's Unsung Hero award, and have become icons in their field. Yet they are coy about recognition. "For every one person who gets an award like this, there are hundreds of others - coaches and helpers - who turn up week in week out," says Eaglesham. "Sport could not function without all the volunteer coaches and helpers."
When she graduated, she planned to become a PE teacher, but did not feel cut out for teaching. There were no jobs in sport, so she went to work as a storeman driver in an adult training centre. Scottish Disablity Sport then had no chief executive and one part-time administrator. Now she chairs the organisation and it has a staff of 18.
She is also vice chair of the UK Sports Association for People with a Disability.
While still an athlete, she helped as a caller for the late Willie McLeod, the visually impaired world long jump record holder, and Scotland first Paralympic champion. She pinned dozens of bottle tops onto her vest and McLeod would follow the tinkling tops up the slopes of Arthur's Seat.
Mirfin is event lead Paralymic athletes at scottishathletics, one of two specialist disability coaching posts at the track and field body. Several other sports have made similar appointments.
Mirfin was with the GB team at the World Championship in Doha this year, but he and his wife dream of the day there will be no need for Red Star because mainstream sport will have assimilated such clubs. Ultimately, if the club disappeared in our lifetime, it would be progress."
Scottish mainstream internationalists like marathon-runner Derek Rae, and sprinter Allan Stuart, both graduated from disability athletics.
Red Star, however, is a particularly good vehicle for autistic children. "They like predictabilty and can come, do their warm-up, session, and then warm down. Athletics fits perfectly for them," he says.
The couple are driving the inclusion agenda, promoting training for primary teachers. Though this is now improving, Mirfin, who was with the GB team at the World Championships this year, points to Tullibody's Megan Dawson-Farrell who competed in Doha. "She had no PE at all at school, yet four years later was racing in the Commonwealth Games, and was world junior 1500 metres champion. Health and safety is sometimes seen as an issue - there are some misconceptions out there."
Fellow wheelchair racer Sammy Kinghorn, bronze medallist in Doha, and also a 2012 racer, acquired her disability as a result of an accident, but had a lot of sporting opportunity at school.
The couple founded Red Star with just three or four athletes with a learning difficulty. Now there are more than 70, plus a dozen volunteer coaches. Some 35% are now competitors with a physical disability, and come from all over Scotland. "There is clearly a demand," he says.
Libby Clegg, the visually impaired sprinter who won Commonwealth gold in 2012, used to be driven by her mum, a 300-miles round trip, two evenings a week. She is just one of several Scottish athletes who, if they stay healthy, will be medal contenders at the Paralympics in Rio next year.
Other club members who have won World or Paralympic titles include Jim Sands, Karen Lewis- Archer, and Steven Payton.
Lewis-Archer, whom Mirfin coached, was asked for her reaction if there was a cure for spina bifida. If she was able to walk, coming from the community she had come from, she said she would be: "working in an office, pushing a pram, and living in council house." A double Paralympian, she has travelled the world, met heads of state, competing at the highest possible level. She is a home owner, has a degree and a masters, is married with two children, works as a sports development officer, and is in demand as a motivational speaker.
Eaglesham was one of those responsible for convincing this newspaper that the European Special Olympics in 1990 should be covered on our sports pages, and not as a news feature. She and her husband continue to change attitudes, and change lives.
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