McHarg mean machine takes to water. Alastair's girl set to make big impression

''Another of those English people coming up here, trying to be

Scottish,'' muttered the starter.

Miss McHarg, 13 years old, admonished the official verbally: ''My

mother is Scottish. My father is Scottish. And I was born in Scotland. I

am Scottish.''

She could probably have demolished the offending official physically,

with about as much ease as her father, Alastair, demolished opponents

during a career in which he earned 44 rugby caps for Scotland.

Even then, at 13, Joanne McHarg measured 5ft 11in. She is now 6ft 3in.

and still growing, threatening to catch her 6ft 5in. father. Last

Monday, one day after her sixteenth birthday, she was named for the 50

metres free-style at the Commonwealth Games, the youngest competitor in

the swimming team. She is also bigger than all but two of the men in the

Scottish party.

Her selection is all the more remarkable because she has been a

competitive swimmer for less than three years. But there was never any

doubt that Joanne would be Scottish. Alastair had moved south in 1968,

but sent his wife home to give birth to their children, so that there

would never be any doubt as to their nationality. Joanne has clearly

been brought up in the faith.

She even managed to time her Scottish swim debut to exactly 20 years

to the weekend since her father had first appeared in a Scotland rugby

jersey.

Making the grade in swimming has perhaps been even harder for Joanne

than it was in rugby for her father, who helped found Irvine Royal

Academy rugby club (now Irvine) because he did not fancy the eight-mile

bus trip to Ardrossan. Now pere McHarg and his wife drive some 700 miles

every week just to transport Joanne to swim training.

''We've been doing that since a year past September, when Joanne

switched from Rushmoore to her present club, Portsmouth Northsea,'' says

father.

''When Joanne began to show promise as a swimmer she joined the local

club. We knew nothing about the sport. It was a bit like a footballer

from Mars arriving in the West of Scotland and being offered the choice

of Glasgow Rangers or Dumbarton. 'Dumbarton? That sounds like a nice

name,' -- so he joins Dumbarton.'

''We soon realised that Joanne needed the facilities and expertise

offered by a major club, but it meant a lot of travelling. I've driven

100 miles by the time I get to the office every morning, just before

9am. Joanne's mum does the evening shift -- she's down at Portsmouth

four nights a week. Frankly, the whole routine is a nightmare,

especially since I am coaching London Scottish rugby club two evenings a

week. Come Friday night, I'm knackered.

''Joanne being selected for the Commonwealth Games is the best thing

that could have happened. She will be away for four weeks. It means I'll

get a month's decent sleep. I wish the Games took place every other

month.''

Of course, father is delighted at his daughter's international

recognition, but it has taxed the sense of humour that was his hallmark

as a player. In 1980, on Grand National day, he dislocated a leg bone

during a John Player semi-final. The touchline tuned in: ''Must be a

fetlock.''

McHarg's riposte was totally in character: ''I was pleased to see the

doctor come on -- I half-expected the vet. I know that his verdict would

have been a sheet around the patient and a single bullet between the

eyes. But I'm not ready to bow out just yet.''

He gained his last cap in 1979, but a decade on, at the age of 45,

Alastair is still playing, though only in charity matches. ''I turned

out for Children in Need a couple of weeks ago,'' he says. ''By the time

we'd finished it was fathers in need.''

He is certainly in need every morning at 4.15am. That is when the

alarm rings at his home in the village of Alton in Hampshire. Alastair

bundles his daughter into the car and drives the 35 miles to Portsmouth

where she is in the water by 5.15am, churning out up an average of some

40,000 metres a week.

''It's too far for me to go home, so I just wait until the session

ends.'' While Joanne spends some two hours in the water, her father is

having his daily debate -- whether to freeze to death waiting in the car

or sweat it out watching the session in the pool.

Car travel to training amounts to more than 45,000 miles since Joanne

started at Portsmouth a year past September -- enough to make the round

trip from London to Auckland and back twice, while the distance she has

swum in training since then is 1600 miles -- more than enough to swim

from Sydney to Auckland.

But Alastair considers it all very much worthwhile. ''Even once Joanne

is old enough to drive, I doubt if I would let her,'' he says. ''She

goes back to sleep as soon as she is in the car, and falls asleep after

the session as I drive her back. If she were driving to and from

training I would worry myself sick.''

Joanne learned to swim when she was eight -- her mum, Christine worked

in a sports centre -- but she was 13 before beginning any swim training.

Swimming's gain is athletics' loss, for Joanne won the Hampshire 800

metres track title. ''But I found athletics training boring. I used to

do biathlons (swimming and running) but the running was ever so hard.''

That was because she ran with her father, who clearly retains the

competitive edge which made him a major cog in the mean machine that was

the Scottish rugby pack of the seventies. Now the mean machine is in the

water.