John Anderson, no-nonsense Glaswegian who coached Olympians and refereed ITV’s Gladiators – obituary
John Anderson, who has died aged 92, was best known as the no-nonsense referee of Gladiators, ITV’s preposterously enjoyable Saturday-night show of the 1990s; before coming to wider fame, however, he had been one of Britain’s leading athletics coaches, whose protégés included the long-distance runners David Moorcroft and Liz McColgan.
A man of strong views, and a teetotaller – there was perhaps some connection between the two qualities – Anderson was initially hired by ITV in 1992 to put potential male and female gladiators through their paces before filming began. The programme, based on an American format, pitted pumped-up, perma-tanned gym types, clad in Spandex and given butch stage names such as Hunter, Trojan and Rhino, against a different quartet each week of keep-fit enthusiasts.
The contestants would seek to avoid elimination in a series of trials of speed and endurance. These were essentially Army-style assault courses, with higher production values – or alternatively, for the duels conducted with batons resembling oversized cotton swabs, pillow fights. The show was originally presented by Ulrika Jonsson and the former footballer John Fashanu.
As Anderson noted, the gladiators of both sexes were “very fit for bodybuilding, but not for running marathons”. His brief was to see how agile they were and, as a former PE teacher, he quickly discovered that few could climb a rope as well as he. “So, there I was,” he recalled, “standing at the top, shouting abuse at these big guys because I had made it, and they were struggling!”
It was Anderson who recommended to the producer, “Nasty” Nigel Lythgoe, one of the gladiators, Michael Van Wijk, who as Wolf would become the series’ pantomime villain.
Just two days before shooting began in that modern colosseum, the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham, Anderson was asked to stay on as the programme’s on-screen umpire, efforts to secure a football referee having fallen through.
In his teaching days, Anderson had used gymnastics to put discipline into unruly Glaswegian lads. On Gladiators his irascibility and lack of tolerance for big egos provided a much-needed anchor in an ocean of camp. His ave imperator phrases – “Contender, ready! Gladiator, ready!” and “On my first whistle…” – soon became playground catchphrases and helped the programme to run for eight years until 2000.
By then, Anderson had been involved in athletics for more than four decades, across a range of track and field events. Between 1964 and 2000 he attended every Olympic Games in a coaching capacity, working during his career with five world record holders and some 170 British international athletes. His innovative if demanding training methods focused on repetitions over short distances instead of long runs, instilling speed rather than stamina.
Without ever seeking payment in what was still an amateur sport, Anderson began coaching Moorcroft in 1966. A dozen years later, the athlete won the 1500m title at the Commonwealth Games. Then, in 1982, he shattered the mark for 5000m, taking almost six seconds off the world record time at the Bislett Games in Oslo.
Moorcroft was the last runner not from Africa to hold the record (his British 3000m time stood until Mo Farah bettered it in 2016). He credited Anderson with instilling in him self-belief and turning “water into wine”.
The trainer also worked with David Jenkins, who won silver over 400m at the 1972 Olympics, Sheila Carey, the middle-distance runner, and the heptathlete Judy Simpson (later cast as the gladiator Nightshade).
His athletes acknowledged that Anderson could be voluble and volatile – he was banned from driving after a road rage incident in 1994 – but he gave as much as he expected of others in the single-minded pursuit of success.
The runner Lynne MacDougall recalled an incident at a training camp in Spain when Anderson, told that thieves had been spotted in the athletes’ rooms, raced over, grabbed the two suspects and held them against a wall until the police arrived. So loudly did they complain of their treatment by him that Anderson was also arrested, although soon released.
On another occasion, MacDougall saw him galvanise a faltering charity auction. Seizing the microphone from the timid host, Anderson quickly injected the requisite enthusiasm into proceedings, tripling the level of bids.
“He sees opportunities when others might not,” observed MacDougall, “he does not think something is ever a lost cause. He is willing to pull out all the stops to make things happen and he keeps on going until they do.”
In 1988, Anderson helped to guide Liz McColgan to a silver medal at the Seoul Olympics, finishing second to the Soviet runner Olga Bondarenko in the inaugural women’s 10,000m. McColgan also broke the British record for the distance. She would go on to become world champion in 1991, but by then had split with Anderson.
He subsequently sued her for ￡75,000 in lieu of future earnings, and her camp blamed the case for her failure to win a medal at the Olympics in Barcelona. The case was eventually settled out of court.
With Wilf Paish, Anderson was the only recipient of every senior British coaching award. He was acclaimed as trainer of the year by the British Association of National Coaches in 1998 and in 2002 the UK Coaching awards presented him with the coveted Mussabini Medal, named for the trainer of Harold Abrahams at the 1924 Paris Olympics.
John Anderson was born in Govanhill, Glasgow, on November 28 1931. He was educated at Queen’s Park Secondary School, where he was a contemporary of Ally MacLeod, who would become manager of the Scotland football team in 1977. Anderson and MacLeod played at schoolboy level for their country and doubles tennis for Glasgow. The former was also best man at the latter’s wedding.
Anderson was the first Scot to be awarded the Full Coaching Certificate by the Football Association, but he found that clubs north of the border felt they had nothing to learn. He accordingly trained as a PE teacher at Jordanhill College and began to work at schools in the city’s East End.
After becoming involved with athletics, notably helping to found Maryhill Ladies Club in Glasgow, Anderson became national coach for the Amateur Athletic Association in England and then from 1965 the first national coach for Scotland.
Hitherto, coaching had often been rather dilettante and ill-regarded by the administrators of the sport. Anderson made it more of a science, influenced in particular by the methods of Geoff Dyson, his predecessor at the AAA, and his ideas in The Mechanics of Athletics (1962). He was also one of the first coaches to look systematically for future talent in schools.
Anderson was director of physical education at Heriot-Watt University from 1970. He was then a leisure and recreations officer in Nuneaton and from 1983 director of leisure for Southwark Council, managing a staff of 600 while juggling his coaching commitments.
In the 1990s, when his athletes included the hurdler William Sharman, he was living in Dunfermline. His house was on the Pitreavie golf course, but his application for membership was rejected as he had irritated members by walking his dog, Hansy, on the course.
Anderson returned to television in 2008 for a season when Sky revived Gladiators. The referee of the current BBC version of the show, Mark Clattenburg, has acknowledged his inspiration, even affecting a Scots accent.
John Anderson was married, first, to Christine and, secondly, to Dorothy Bonsor.
John Anderson, born November 28 1931, died July 28 2024
