Irvine should be given a free run to presidency

JOHN BEATTIE


GEORGE Blackie should stand aside in his election battle with Andy Irvine for SRU president and let one of the game’s greatest players take the post unopposed. Blackie could make no finer comment on the need for unity in Scottish rugby, and it might ensure that he would become Irvine’s successor.

Heriot’s held their annual dinner at Goldenacre on Saturday. While many club dinners struggle to pull in the numbers, I’m told that Heriot’s turned 50 people away. Along one side the players sat at their table, bursting into occasional song, puffing at cigars, chatting during the SRU president’s speech, and ordering drinks. I played for Heriot’s 24 years ago now and the behavioural traits haven’t changed.

I looked along the faces of the great men who had played for Heriot’s and had been capped; legends most of them, from Ken Scotland to Iain Milne. But the most famous of all is, of course, Andy Irvine, and just before I got to my feet I ditched the speech I was going to make and said what it had actually meant to play for a club like Heriot’s.

It meant everything. Well, put yourself in my shoes. When I was 22 years old, Andy Irvine asked me to join his club.

I used to stay behind after Scotland sessions at Murrayfield to catch the ball when he practised kicking, just so that I could be on the same pitch, at the same time, as Andy Irvine. If I ever sat beside him at a meal I would be speechless in that bumbling, hero-worshipping kind of way.

The maddening thing is that things don’t change. I still see him as a hero. At the dinner I explained that I didn’t think that Andy and I got on that well. We are just too different. He is Edinburgh establishment; I was born in Borneo. He plays golf; I play guitar in a rock band. He could pass the ball and run like the wind, I was more into the dodgy stuff up front.

I also believe that he and John Jeffrey should have stayed on rather than resign from the SRU. Received opinion is that their resignations started a relentless chain of events leading to where we are now. I have never agreed. In his business career Irvine reached the top from the inside by bringing people along with him and forcing the kind of change he wanted. He has never been afraid to fight for what is right, and he hasn’t run away from anything.

If Irvine and Jeffrey had stayed in the SRU and fought their enemies from within we would have reached where we are now, but much more quickly. Andy Irvine could have been leading the SRU years ago.

Issues like governance have become core when, actually, Scottish rugby’s core issue should be success on the international pitch, harmony off it, and a healthy grass roots game. But we are where we are, and it’s time to move forward.

The person in Scotland most capable of bringing the game together is Andy Irvine. The good times can only return, however, if it all adds up to more wins for Scotland.

The first step toward getting this sport more credibility is for Irvine to land the post of president unopposed. That would be a massive statement from Scottish rugby and show Blackie to be a truly humble man.

This article was originally posted on 9-May-2005, 18:41 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 9-May-2005, 20:14.