LAST weekend he was responsible for assembling the fields which made such a success of the Great Britain v USA international on the Scotstoun track in Glasgow, but 28 years ago this year he was the man succeeding on the track himself.

Ian Stewart beat Ian McCafferty in the greatest 5,000 metre race ever witnessed between Scots to win gold at the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.

Runner-up McCafferty's time that day at Meadowbank, 13min 23.4sec, still stands as the native record. Stewart, a few strides ahead, in 13-22.8, but not born in Scotland, was ineligible. The Olympic 1500m champion, Kenya's Kip Keino, was third.

''I did not even know who had finished second - Keino or McCaff,'' recalled Stewart this week.

''I had to ask Ian where he had finished. Every time I see that race, I am waiting for McCafferty to turn on his sprint finish, but no matter how often I watch, I keep winning it.

''He looked round to see where Keino was, but I could not have cared who was behind me.

''Before the race my brother Peter said there was no way I could beat Keino, because the Kenyan would run 53 seconds for the last lap. I said he would need to, because I would do the same.

''I planned to go from 500 metres out, and make them hurt like hell, and that's what I did. Nobody in the world would have beaten me that day.''

He and his brother both held the Scottish mile record - they were the first brothers to break four minutes in the same race. Ian won the European 5000m title in 1969, and in 1975, on successive weekends, captured the European indoor 3000m and world cross-country titles.

Now Stewart spends his time trying to stage the kind of races which he always ran himself - 100% all-out effort, with no quarter given, or ever expected.

Having done the job for several years with the now-defunct British Athletics Federation, he now operates in a self-employed role as promotions officer for Fast Track, which organises Britain's meetings.

With their thick Birmingham accent, it always mystified the English why the Stewart brothers would want to run for Scotland. Their father's birthplace, Musselburgh, explained it all.

It will be 28 years on Thursday since the biggest prize of all eluded Stewart, as he finished third in the Olympic 5000m final in Munich.

''Bronze was no use to me,'' he said. ''I should have won, because I reckoned I was the best in the world at that time, but two guys (Lasse Viren and Mohamed Gamoudi) were better on the day, and that's all there is to it.

''McCafferty was in that field too (he finished eleventh) and I knew he would do nothing. He was a great talent, but his mind was not on it.

''He travelled to the stadium with his bags packed to go straight home after the race. On the way to the track,he was talking about flying home that night. I knew I would not have to worry about him.

''Do you know, I have never seen McCaff from the time he walked off the finish line that day in September 1972?''

McCafferty was so devastated by the result, he never raced again as an amateur.