ON YOUR MARKS.. GET SET.. MAYHEM

How McGill went from promising athlete to unleashing chaos on Scotland's crime scene in race to become country's gangland king

- BY NORMAN SILVESTER

FROM promising athlete and football ultra to the Dubai-based crime kingpin at the heart of Scotland's gangland war, today we chart the rise of Ross McGill.

It was an obscure race meeting in front of only a few spectators in the tiny town of Alva, near Stirling, in July 2009 when 15-year-old runner McGill first came to public attention.

As a promising sprinter with the Renfrewshire athletics club Kilbarchan Harriers, the youngster from East Kilbride, in Lanarkshire, came third in a 70-metre race.

Six months later, in early January 2010, he claimed another bronze in an under-17s 60 metres with a time of 7.4 seconds at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow.

McGill's big breakthrough came in 2011 when he finished first in the New Year's Day meet in Musselburgh, winning the 60m handicap race and finishing second in the 90m.

By this point, he had been called into a training group for the Scottish Athletics team coached by Olympian Brian Whittle, now a Tory MSP.

He was picked to represent his country in the Celtic games in Antrim, Northern Ireland, in August 2011 and came second in the 100metres.

McGill also set a highly impressive personal best time of just over 11 seconds.

Despite the prospect of a promising and lucrative athletics career, he seemed to disappear off the radar.

But McGill was embarking on another race... to the top of the criminal ladder.

While he enjoyed some success as a runner, he obviously believed greater success, power and riches were to be found elsewhere.

At the age of 14, in 2008, the keen Rangers fan had joined the Union Bears, an emerging ultras group.