for Millar’s application, and doesn’t have much time for the theory that Millar sought escape from circumstances, at work or at home, which made him unhappy. ‘Unless you became one of the crowd it could be quite tough, but Robert wouldn’t become one of the crowd – that was his choice. He wouldn’t mix because he was focused on what he wanted to do. He was unique for someone that age in resisting peer pressure.’ Yes, agrees Thomson, Glasgow was a tough place. But the idea that the small, slightly built Millar might have been put upon, or bullied into leaving, doesn’t make sense to him. ‘I’ve got a theory,’ he says, ‘that the smaller the Glaswegian is, the harder he is. Because they’re smaller they have to fight harder. If you ever see a fight, it’s often the wee guy being the most aggressive.’
Unfortunately, the Commonwealth Games did not see Millar at his best. ‘He blew it,’ Thomson recalls. While the big favourite, the Australian Phil Anderson, made it into the break and won the race, Millar was left chasing shadows all day – though torrential rain made shadows unlikely, and turned the circuit into a skating rink. ‘He should have been there with Anderson,’ Thomson adds, ‘but he was still young.’
The Commonwealth Games might have been Millar’s first big international appearance, but his poor performance there doesn’t seem to have troubled him. He was relaxed for the three weeks they were there, according to Thomson. He even had a go at track riding, with a view to taking part in the pursuit – though in the end he didn’t. But it is probable that Millar wouldn’t have been unduly worried by his relative failure in Edmonton, and for two reasons. One was that the Commonwealth Games were unimportant as far as the European racing scene was concerned, and that was where his ambitions lay. His attitude towards the next major gathering, the 1980 Olympics, was even more blasé: ‘Why would I want to go to Moscow?’ he said. Like the Commonwealth Games, the all-amateur Olympics, though meaningful back home in Britain, were of little consequence to the professional road cycling scene. Some riders delayed turning professional until after the 1980 Olympics, but the possibility didn’t even cross Millar’s mind. The second reason was that he already had a clear idea about whom he’d be racing with the following year, even if he kept this information to himself.
Other than the race itself, Thomson has only positive memories of the weeks spent with Millar and the rest of the team. ‘I remember going and playing snooker with him one afternoon. I’d never played before; Robert obviously had. It was good; I never had any trouble with the boy at all. He knew by the time of the Games that he’d be going to France the following year, but he never, ever talked about what he was going to do. Other boys would say, “I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that,” and you thought, “Fuck off! You’ve never even been to the continent!” It’s another world over there, a hard game.’
Millar’s room-mate in Edmonton was Sandy Gilchrist, with whom Millar had travelled to races over the past couple of seasons. Gilchrist was the senior rider in Scotland, and Millar seemed to respect him. Years later, when Gilchrist was national coach, he asked Millar to return to Scotland to help run training camps. Millar, he says, was ‘only too happy to help’. Still, Gilchrist admits that he found Millar hard work at times. He didn’t say much, for a start. He would instead sit and listen to the conversation before ‘coming out with a couple of one-liners’. He could be funny. He had a way with words – his own way, naturally. Gilchrist, like Jimmy Dorward, remembers Millar complaining that he wasn’t a very good climber. ‘He thought he was mediocre,’ says Gilchrist, ‘but, in his words, he could “sprackle” over the top. I always remember him saying that. I think he meant that he would struggle up the climb and make a last desperate effort over the top to stay with the other riders. It was a good word, though, sprackle. Only Robert could come out with that. He would totally refute the idea that he was special. He just thought that he put a lot into his cycling, so he expected to get a lot out.’ And Gilchrist has a theory that his quietness, his reluctance to engage with people, might have been part of a carefully calculated strategy. ‘He put a lot into his mental preparation, and being anti-social, cutting himself off from people, was part of that. He would probably see that as being part and parcel of becoming a good rider.’
After managing only twenty-third in the Commonwealth Games road race, from Edmonton Millar flew to the world championship on West Germany’s motor racing circuit the Nurburgring, in late August. His first world amateur road race championship ended with him as Britain’s best finisher in fifty-ninth.
One of Millar’s last events in a busy season was the Raleigh Dunlop Tour of Ireland, which he rode for a composite ‘All Stars’ team that included Gilchrist and Phil Anderson and was sponsored by British Airways. The revelation of that race was a young Irishman called Stephen Roche. But Millar did well too, finishing fourth overall. A week later he won the Tour of the Peak by more than three minutes – a nice postscript to the previous year’s race, when a poorly timed bike change cost him his place in the leading break. Harry Hall still possesses a picture from Cycling showing Millar out of the saddle and climbing towards victory, resplendent in his British champion’s jersey, which was white with red and blue bands around the chest. Alas, the picture was on the inside pages rather than the cover and therefore would have been worth only £30 rather than £100 to Millar. He finished an outstanding season by winning the Tour of the Trossachs time trial, ending a seven-year run of wins by Sandy Gilchrist, and shattering the course record, set in 1964 by Ian Thomson.
A more significant item appeared in Cycling magazine on 7 October. ‘Millar Gets Paris Call’ read the headline. The story was reputedly prompted by a phone call to the offices of the magazine from Claude Escalon, deputy director of the Paris-based Athlétique Club de Boulogne-Billancourt (ACBB). ‘I’m very interested in taking an Englishman [sic] called Millar,’ Escalon told the staff at Cycling. ‘Have you any idea what kind of a rider he is, and where I could contact him?’
You don’t get anywhere being nice. Not in bike racing.
Claude Escalon was not alone in trying to fix Millar up with a French club. Through his international contacts as a high-ranking UCI official, Arthur Campbell had been sounding out US Créteil, the club with which Billy Bilsland raced before he turned professional, when the call came from Escalon. In fact, his phone call to the offices of Cycling wasn’t quite as coincidental as implied in the magazine. Over the past two seasons a tradition had started whereby the Athlétique Club de Boulogne-Billancourt, based in the western suburbs of Paris, would cherry-pick the best British talent. It was a ritual that started after Paul Sherwen’s move to the Paris club in 1977.
As an English speaker at the ACBB, Sherwen, from Cheshire, was an anomaly, a one-off, but he made such an impact that he was invited, when he left after a year to turn professional, to nominate one of his countrymen. For the 1978 season Sherwen had suggested that his replacement should be another rider from the north-west of England, Graham Jones. With Sherwen and Jones, the ACBB struck gold. And, not surprisingly, the success of these two riders fostered in those running the club a belief that on the other side of the English Channel lay a rich and untapped seam of talent. By the start of 1979, when Millar arrived in Paris, Sherwen had ridden his first Tour de France, with Fiat, and Jones had signed his first professional contract, with Peugeot. Jones had even finished 1978 with the prestigious Merlin Plage Palme d’Or trophy, awarded annually to the best amateur in France. According to the new tradition, he had been asked by the ACBB which British rider should replace him. Jones had responded that there was one outstanding candidate: Robert Millar.
Back in Glasgow, Millar was also doing all that he could to fix himself up with a move to the continent, which would be a step closer to a professional contract. There was a clearly defined pathway to that end. Millar had already worked
