On completing his RAF National Service in 1954, Flying Officer McNab returned to the track at Shettleston Harriers, always itching to enhance himself, his colleagues and his club.
He joined the Harriers committee and convinced his secretary to invest in pole-vaulting equipment – his first inadvertent step on the coaching ladder.
“I looked across the track and saw this big skinny guy, Norrie Foster,” he recalls. “The club secretary said, ‘Oh no, no, you can’t have him. He’s a very good runner’.
“I brought him over, swung him over the bar holding the pole myself – he loved that. He asked if he could do it again next week.
“That year, I saw him every Sunday; he won the Scottish Schools title. A couple of years later, he was the British junior champion.
“I didn’t realise I was coaching, but I was. It was just sheer chance looking across the track – if I’d found somebody else, I don’t know whether I could have done it!”
