EXACTLY 100 years ago today, Ibrox Stadium was the scene of one of the most remarkable record-breaking runs in the history of athletics.

Rangers' ground was a Mecca for athletes of the day and a pipe band played Cock Of The North as Alfred Shrubb defied the elements to smash the world's best for the one-hour run (11 miles, 1137 yards).

Along the way, he also improved the world record at six, seven, eight, nine, 10 and 11 miles. This gave him the match set: every world record from 2000 metres to one hour, and 15 different records in total.

''Shrubb's task,'' noted The Glasgow Herald of the day: ''stupendous even under

ordinary weather conditions, was rendered almost hopeless owing to a violent breeze and a sodden track.''

Shrubb set 28 world marks during his career, a portfolio unmatched by any British athlete in history. Indeed, he set more world bests than Seb Coe, Steve Ovett, and Steve Cram combined. He also won the first-ever international cross-country championship, on Hamilton racecourse, in 1903.

When the world body of athletics first came to ratify records in 1921, every linear world best from two to 10 miles, plus one hour, were

listed to his name. The tiny Shrubb was then 41, but still nobody could touch him.

Shrubb is the subject of a delightfully-crafted biography which recounts not just his exploits, but brings alive a

fascinating era of sport.

As Paula Radcliffe pursues salvation in New York this weekend, it is timely to recall the labourer's son whose most dramatic defeat was in his first marathon there, in 1909, victim of the Iroquois, Tom Longboat.

The race would be unthinkable today: indoors, 262 laps

of Madison Square Garden, before a 12,000 crowd comprised mostly of cigar-smokers.

Shrubb led by almost a mile at one point, but finished a limping wreck, his toes ''shrivelled like shrimps . . . taken to his hotel wracked of body and soul, beaten in a great and terrible contest . . . the power to jog along ceaselessly that has been bred into the Indian for centuries prevailed''.

Nevertheless, he collected $3400, equivalent to $66,000 today (that is roughly a quarter of what Radcliffe is expected to receive). Among the crowd was Scottish music hall star Harry Lauder, who cheered him on: ''Go on, Alfie. You're the boy for me.'' Lauder opined that it was the smoke which had done for Shrubb, who lost only a handful of times in 1800 races.

For a while he owned a tobacconist in Horsham, but inevitably was banned from amateur athletics for accepting inflated expenses.

Shrubb emigrated to North America and became coach to Harvard University. He was largely forgotten in Britain, but by 1908 was guaranteed $1000 per race. A US schoolteacher then earned about $800 a year, the same as the cost of the Model T Ford which was launched that year.

Promoters were forced to enlist relay teams to run against Shrubb, in an attempt to make a race of it, but he usually won those, too.

Shrubb was wistful about the 1908 London Olympics. US officialdom had left Longboat's amateur status intact. He did the marathon, but dropped out.

Johnny Hayes, befuddled by strychnine, won after Dorando Pietri was disqualified. The Italian, Pietri, turned pro

and was among Shrubb's

subsequent victims.

Remarkably, considering his life ban by the Amateur Athletics Association, Shrubb eventually became the first paid coach of Oxford University, where he stayed for seven years before returning to Canada.

Popularly believed to have first shown aptitude by keeping pace with a fire engine, Shrubb in fact followed fox hounds on foot as a boy in Sussex and sometimes outran them. He could still manage five hours on foot with the hounds when he was 40. On several occasions he reached the fox first, and was given the brush as a prize.

His finest hour, however, was on November 5, 1904. ''This race will stand as the greatest in the whole history of my running career,'' he said. ''In the last two miles, the help I received from those gallant pipers was greater than anyone can understand. It put gladness in my heart and mettle in my heels.''

The quality of the Ibrox achievement can be gauged

by its durability. The six-mile world record (29:59.4) survived for 26 years. It was the GB best for 32. The 10-mile world record (50:40.6) was an improvement of 39 seconds, and lasted for 24 years, until beaten by the most prolific Olympic champion, Paavo Nurmi. The hour mark survived as the British record until beaten by Ian Binnie at Cowal in 1953.

Binnie, of Victoria Park, was given the freedom of Ibrox

by Bill Struth, the Rangers manager, to train daily on what was still regarded as Scotland's finest track. Binnie lives in the Jordanhill area of Glasgow and still runs eight miles regularly.

The draconian AAA did eventually relent over Shrubb's amateur status . . . restoring it when he was 72. He survived broken ribs and a punctured lung at 81, and otherwise remained in good health until his death aged 84, in 1964.

lThe Little Wonder: The Untold Story of Alfred Shrubb, by Rob Hadgraft (Desert Island, (pounds) 18.99)