The Running Kilt
Last updated on 27th May 2009
Official website of Jim Montgomerie "The Running Kilt"

INTRODUCTION

James Jackson Montgomerie was born on the 13 May 1972 at Irvine Central Hospital as it was then known as. At that time most people who stayed in Saltcoats and the local surrounding towns were born in this hospital which included my wife and my 2 daughters a bit later on.

From an early age I took a keen interest in sports and from the age of 3 I was trying to lift my dads’ weights and liked to punch a wooden plank which my dad had out in the garden that he used to toughen up his own hands. At the age of 9 I ran my first half marathon – The Cunninghame Cantor a very popular race at the time, I ran this for the first 5 years of the event. At school I also showed a keen interest in football playing in the primary 7 school team when I was only in primary 3 and then playing for my secondary school team of Ardrossan Academy representing North Ayrshire and Ayrshire school teams.

 

Although I very much enjoyed playing football I had a burning desire to box. My dad Raymond was a boxer at amateur level and he wanted me to start boxing. The Ring magazine was a permanent fixture in the Montgomeries household and then the video was released and as they say that was that. I had videos of many many fights a collection a boxing historian would be proud of.

I knew back then every weight and every weights champion since boxing started. My earliest memory of listening to a fight was with my father lying on the couch at 4 o’clock in the morning with the lights out and the radio on, this was a tradition that he had carried on from doing this with his dad when he was a young boy. The fight was Mohammed Ali versus Leon Spinks, the first fight that Spinks won.

My family were always late to bed due to the unsociable element of my parents business of running the pub. My mum would make us sandwiches with cheese and tomato and cups of coffee for my dad and glasses of juice for me. I loved those nights and these are memories that I treasure of my parents.

Other most memorable times include going to Glasgow at all hours of the morning to watch the live streaming from America in the Kings Theatre, we saw Hagler versus Hearns and Hagler versus Leonard. My mum was okay with this because she knew how enthusiastic I was to go and how much my dad wanted to take me to see these showings.

The theatre was always buzzing, full of men having a drink and a smoke and a good night out. One of the nights I remember seeing Billy Connelly and his friends in watching the fight, they had a box in the theatre where the so called ‘important people’ go to watch.

Between listening to the boxing on the radio and going to watch the live streaming I was hooked and decided to do something about it. I joined my local boxing club Ardeer Recreation Club and later moved to a gym in Sydney Street, Glasgow where I had to fight with a professional to prove myself. I fought 3 rounds with him but I held my own.

I remember to this day I just got my head down and punched, I matched him punch for punch although every time he punched I can only compare it to getting hit with a plank of wood. Inside I knew I had done enough to prove myself and shortly after that they took me on at the gym. Not long after joining I lifted the Strathclyde title, round about that time the Commonwealth Games were going to happen but first it was to be the Scottish Championships, I was supposed to fight in this but I couldn’t get out of Saltcoats that day, we were snowed in, I was absolutely distraught but there was nothing I could do. If I had won the Scottish title that year, and I’m sure I would have, I would have gone to the Commonwealth Games unfortunately it wasn’t to be.

After the terrible disappointment my fiancé Clare and I went to Greece on holiday so that I could decide what path to take in life. The decision I made was to turn professional, I had fights and won them convincingly and was due to fight on my birthday on the Frank Bruno Card but I was injured, I had broken my hand during my last fight. It was most unfortunate as Brendan Ingle was showing an interest in me he was Prince Nazeems trainer at the time and Naz was fighting in Glasgow so I got the chance to spar with him in the run up to the fight and done very well against him. In between all this I got married to my fiancé Clare then I got some of the worst news of my life, my friend James Murray was fighting Drew Docherty for a British title but tragically died after the fight. After this devastating blow my heart was no longer in it, and after speaking to my wife, mum and dad I decided to stop fighting, I had too much to lose.

James had been a great friend and big influence in my boxing especially during my professional debut where he took me under his wing and reassured me that everything would be okay. This led onto two of the biggest events of my life, the birth of my daughters Meghan and Maia which took up a lot of time as Clare went back to work part time. In-between the birth of my girls we got a boxer pup and named him Cus after Cus Damato who was Floyd Paterson and Mike Tysons trainer. I sometimes took the girls up to the boxing gym in Glasgow with me and done some training while the girls slept. To this day Clare doesn’t know this because she would never have wanted them in a boxing gym.

This was around this time that I started doing some TV work including some promotions for BBC Scotland; I have also had roles in a few films and worked alongside Billy Connelly, Paul Nicholls, Daniel Craig, Bob Hoskins and Jet Lee. I sparred with Jet Lee and he is the fastest guy I have ever traded blows with, he was phenomenal.

 

I think the marathon idea started really in 2001 when I entered into the London marathon but was refused, I then entered and was accepted for the Edinburgh marathon in which I was to take a blind person round the course with me, unfortunately I sustained a knee injury before the Edinburgh marathon whilst playing a charity football match for Kilmarnock at Rugby Park and had to withdraw from the marathon.

I also played another couple of charity football matches at Ibrox for Rangers which is probably one of the proudest moments in my life so far, playing alongside legends like McCoist, Gough, Hately, Prytz, and McLaren with Sandy Jardine as our manager.

Being in the changing rooms with my kit hanging up with my name on it, I had McCoist to my left and Gough to my right and Sandy Jardine talking tactics it was amazing. When we ran out onto the pitch all I could hear was Clare, Meghan, Maia and my mum and dad shouting my name and I can remember my mum shouting throughout the whole time I played, she was even more proud than me. These games raise over £60,000 for local charities and that what it was all about.