Ron C. told us about the Glenhuntly Track Club as follows.
He said their clubhouse was very primitive, a bit of a run down old building, with 1 shower. And yet they produced many great runners from that club.
At one stage, a German coach came for a visit. He wanted to see where all these great Aussie distance runners trained. They showed him the clubhouse, and he refused to believe it. He thought they were "having him on" in typical Aussie fashion. He left thinking they only met there that one day just to have a joke on the German coach.
Ron didn't have much use for Percy - in fact, he called him just a funny old man, although admitting that he was great for Herb Elliott. Clarke went over to see him once, and Percy started making fun of Clarke's very short stride length (by the way, I think this was one of Clarke's strengths, but that's another story). Percy said look, I am just a little guy and I have a much longer stride than you. So he had Clarke run by, and put some marks down to measure Ron's stride. Then it was Percy's turn. Ron said Percy went way down the track to start his runup, you could hardly see him apparently, he was so far away. Then he sprinted like mad, and then went he got to Clarke's mark, Percy took a long jump...
And then he came back with a big grin on his face, and said "see"! If you had a stride length like mine, you could be a champion.
Ron went over to his father who had accompanied him to the training session, and said he thoughtthe man was a fraud and a trickster and he had no use for that. And that was the end of any possible Cerutty/Clarke relationship. Clarkey told us that he thought that at that time, Cerrutty was somewhere between "running like a hen" and "running like a primitive man with a spear in your hand". :) His thought was that, with the exception of Herb Elliott, athletes were better to stay away from him and the further the better. .
On Elliott, Clarke called him the most phenomenally talented runner he had seen to that point. Apparently he saw Elliott as a Junior, before he had even really started to train, run a 1:52 800 on a grass track, in a casual sort of run. Clarkey said his grandmother could have coached Elliott, and she would have become "the World's greatest distance Coach".