PROBABLY everyone you speak to will say that their love of sport came through being introduced to it at school. For me, that meant football at primary, the rugby at secondary and that was where I also fell in to running, or should I say athletics.

Believe it or not, I was a high jumper first. I won the Scottish Schools title and that got me a trip south to the British Schools Championship where I had been eliminated from the competition by the time Geoff Parsons – who was jumping for English Schools and who would be my team-mate for Scotland and GB – had even taken his first jump. That was a reality check.

I was quick, but I only became a runner because I was frightened some of the other kids in my year, who had joined the Marr Tortoises, would become faster than me – so I joined as well. My real hero at that time was Steve Ovett. There was just something different about him, cool. The first time I sat and watched athletics would have been at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

Ovett was in the 800m but ran a stinker of a race, finished like a train but could only come fifth. The winner was Alberto Juantorena of Cuba, who set a world record and won a 400m/800m double. The only track medal for Britain in those Games came from Brendan Foster. They say never meet your heroes as they’ll only disappoint you. But nothing could be further from the truth with Ovett, who I got to know as a team-mate, and Foster as a commentator. Two fantastic guys. Of course, within a few years, Seb Coe had arrived on the scene as well, and British athletics just exploded.

We had one of the greatest sporting rivalries ever, never mind in middle-distance running, with Coe v Ovett. It just elevated athletics on to a new level. You were either Coe or Ovett, and I was the latter. But growing up it was always like that. Were you Swap Shop or TISWAS, were you World of Sport or Grandstand, Dickie Davies or Frank Bough. I was always a BBC man, only because they showed more athletics – and MotoX. It was noisy, and exciting, and great watching the bikes and riders in the mud in the dead of winter.

I did spend some time with Dickie though, usually when Giant Haystacks met Big Daddy. Again, you were one or the other, although I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it, when one guy advertised Skips and the other was really called Shirley! Watching sport on TV never came close to competing and for me, I went from school and junior ranks to being a full international really quickly. I only ran in one junior international event, captured for ever on a Betamax video, before I started working my way up the ratings very quickly.

I went from the Scotland team in ‘84, to a reserve with the British 4x400m squad, to the Commonwealth Games (where I got it all wrong and finished fifth) to being a gold medal winner in the Europeans. Edinburgh in 1986, pictured above, is something I’ll always remember, but, always regret. I should have done better. But what happened in Stuttgart more than compensated for it.

To be honest, that final and that medal, and the circumstances, made me far more famous than I ever should have been. But how many people can say they are famous across a sport and a country for being remembered as the guy who ran and won with one shoe? It is bizarre, and maybe frustrating to some better athletes who did more and won more, but I’m the one that still gets recognised. “The fastest sock in history.” Not a bad title to carry over the years.

But it is amazing how many people don’t know me or my name. If they are of a certain generation though, mention that race and they’ve never forgotten it. Even now, thanks to YouTube, my nine-year-old has shown that race to their friends. They are impressed, probably more than their parents might be of me as an MSP. But that’s another story, although when I made my first speech at Holyrood, I did acknowledge those who still remembered me by saying they’d made a happy man feel very old! But during a ten-year period, I was just a very lucky guy to find myself training and running in and around some great teammates and friends, like Phil Brown and Kriss Akabusi, who believe it or not, I met on my very first international appearance.

And I’m still going. Maybe it really is all I know. I still run, although it takes a bit longer to warm up now, longer to get there and a lot less time to get stiff. Although while I say I run, I am back high jumping again, British No.1 in the 45-50 age category. I should know better.

Being in the Scottish Parliament, my experiences of health and well-being is something that I will always push, to show the positives that can be achieved from a change in lifestyle. It is something I’m passionate about, possibly even more so as I’ve got older because the benefits are there to see. And it isn’t something I’ll ever stop campaigning about.