David Williams--a personal view

For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost - but how you played the Game."

As president of the Glasgow Academical Club I consider it a singular privilege to write a few inadequate words about a Glasgow High School former pupil --this particular former pupil David Williams

I got to know how David played the game a long time ago strangely on a coal bing between Kirkintilloch and Twechar. You get to know somebody very well when you run in their company on a regular basis and especially when its"eyeballs out"repetitions up a coal bing in the middle of a Sunday afternoon ten miler round the foothills of the Campsies in naive pursuit of athletics success.

Distance running allows you to get beneath the trappings of my first paragraph and to get to know the person "the gowd not the guinea's stamp", .David had joined Victoria Park A.A.C. as an aspiring miler in the early 1960s when this club was a major force in Scottish athletics on track field and road.and this provided a vehicle for Taff's competitive spirit which continued with the Glasgow University Hares and Hounds also allowing him to achieve a level of fitness that was foreign to most club rugby players of that era.

Being of Welsh extraction, Rugby was Taff's main sporting passion, this interest having started at Glasgow High School then situated in Elmbank St and continued throughout his life.David played with Glasgow H.S.F.P then in later years acted as team manager and secretary of GHK.He also played in Africa whilst working abroad and had a non playing involvement with both Clarkston and West of Scotland..David could recall in great detail many matches stretching back too many years like Glasgow High School' F.Ps games against such rugby powerhouses as Coventry and Cardiff and of course the various times they beat Accies.in relation to the latter your writer has somewhat different recollections

Off the field at Old Anniesland he served on the Glasgow High School Club Ltd and supported fund raising initiatives for the new High School that had risen from the ashes of Elmbank St
Calling on his Welsh roots David was a strong advocate of the "open" community club so he could readily agree and identify with the concept of Hawks when it was first mooted in the mid 1990s. From its inception in June 1997 David played a major role in driving Glasgow Hawks to become the most successful club in Scotland in the last decade and the most successful club side to come out of Glasgow for eighty years.In this endeavour David wore many hats director,team manager and major sponsor but at heart he was always a players’ man.and was delighted to be there on that famous April afternoon when Hawks took eighty points out of Hawick at Mansfield Park to retain the Premiership title

Generations of Hawks players from Tommy Hayes and Glenn Metcalfe to Graeme Morrison and British Lion Euan Murray many of whom have gone on to professional contracts and some to international honours owe David a great debt of gratitude for his support during their spell at Anniesland.
David always spoke his mind a quality that at times maybe did not endear him to some in the game but he stood up to be counted when it mattered even during his recent illness.

He continued his involvement with athletics supporting Phyllis who coached for many years with the City of Glasgow Athletic Club .David acted as club treasurer and was involved in the negotiations that brought about the recent amalgamation with his old club Victoria Park.A.A.C.He was also a keen but somewhat erratic golfer having been a member of both Lenzie and Milngavie Clubs.In retirement he had hoped to emulate his old friend Jim Donald and gain his pilot’s licence and embarked on flying lessons at Cumbernauld

David's last run started over two years ago a long race that he eventually lost two weeks ago Runners know the races you lose are often much harder on you than the races you win. During this time David displayed enormous courage and did win, getting back out on the roads of Milngavie in the company of the Allander Auld Runners.but it was not to be.Taff supported by Phyllis gave it his very best shot enduring long spells of treatment in a clinic near Munich.

David has left us with a legacy in the form of the Glasgow Hawks Sports Trust and so now it is up to others to pick up and run with the ball and live up to the ambitions that David has set out for us.

This they all with joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind -
'Play up ! play up ! and play the game !'

This article was posted on 23-Apr-2009, 16:41 by Hugh Barrow.