Today's Herald features George McNeil who was the guest speaker at this years Hawks Supporters Dinner


Former professional sprinter George McNeill recalls his dalliance with the oval ball
Published on 29 Apr 2010


Alasdair Reid

The late Chris Brasher once described George McNeill as “one of those rare men who lift sport into the realms of art”.

His assessment was presumably based on McNeill’s abilities as a sprinter, a prowess that once earned the Scot his billing as the fastest man on earth. What Brasher might have said had he watched McNeill play rugby league is another matter entirely.

As the Engage Super League rolls into Edinburgh for its Magic Weekend – a full fixture card of seven games over two days at Murrayfield – McNeilll, now 63 and a celebrated after-dinner speaker, can watch the northern invasion with the same sort of bemused detachment he experienced back in 1972 when, in one of the unlikelier excursions in Scottish sporting history, he found himself pressed into improbable service as a winger for Barrow Rugby League Football Club.

When McNeill pitched up at Barrow’s Craven Park in September of that year, the expectations of home fans had been raised by his recent victory over Tommie Smith, the American sprinter famed for his ‘black power’ salute after winning the 200 metres at the 1968 Olympics. McNeill’s own expectations were rather different.

“I remember getting into the dressing room and being given a set of leather shoulder pads,” he laughs. “The other players all seemed to have broken noses and they were taking out their teeth. I thought ‘Oh God, what have I got into here’. It certainly wasn’t a game for wee boys.”

McNeill had been invited to try his hand at rugby league by the Barrow chairman. The club had a rich and successful tradition of bringing players from the Cumbrian professional sprint circuit, so McNeill’s domination of the Scottish scene – his breakthrough victory had been the 1970 Powderhall Sprint - suggested he had some potential too. And, of course, there was a sweetener on offer as well.

“I think I got £100 for the game, although it might have been £200,” McNeill remembers. “I thought I might as well give it a go as it was late in the year and I wasn’t in training for running at the time. There was no preparation whatsoever. I didn’t even know the rules. I had a basic idea because I used to watch rugby league and Eddie Waring on television and I had played a bit of rugby union at school, but that was all.”

In an age where players are hothoused from infancy to understand attack strategies and defensive systems, and everything they do is analysed to the nth degree by an army of nutritionists, video analysts and sports psychologists, it is almost impossible to imagine that anyone could simply turn up and play a professional sport.

Yet that’s pretty much what McNeill did that day. The match was against Warrington, whose ranks at the time included the legendary Alex Murphy, and McNeill was very much the innocent abroad. For his new team-mates, he might as well have arrived from a distant galaxy, and they were determined that he was going to experience the harsh reality of their game.

“I think they had decided to sort me out in the first half hour, show the so-called flying machine what it was all about,” he explains. “They wanted me to appreciate what I was getting into and understand that I wasn’t just going to waltz down the wing in 10 seconds and make a fool of them. Reality was always going to hit.”

McNeill’s sporting background had also encompassed stints in professional football as a part-timer with Hibs, Morton and Stirling Albion. He could put himself about in a team environment, and he could put himself in a place of safety if he needed. And at Barrow, his instincts suggested that self-preservation should probably be moved to the top of his list of priorities.

“I never got close to scoring a try,” he laughs. “I had a couple of decent runs, but I was well covered. I couldn’t ever say it was a scintillating display. I cottoned on pretty quickly that when I got the ball there was no way I was going to cut inside towards the pack. I was clever enough to know that. If I got the ball I was always heading for the wing.”

McNeill can’t remember the result. However, he can recall that the grizzled and toothless team-mates who had been so cynical about his arrival in their dressing room were far friendlier after the game.

“The thing that endeared me to them was that I had been put up in a hotel. The licensing laws were pretty tight back then, but because I was a hotel resident they could all use me to go back for a late drink. That was a big plus in their eyes, nothing to do with the rugby.”

And yet, McNeill clearly made an impression in his one and only game of rugby league. Before he made his escape for the safety of his home in Tranent, the club made him an offer to prolong his stay. He was briefly tempted, but it was an invitation he was still happy to refuse.

“The thing that surprised me was that I actually did quite well as a tackler,” McNeill recalls.” I got a couple of tackles in on my opposing winger and put him into touch. The crowd seemed to take to me and it must have been because of that, because I certainly didn’t make any amazing runs with the ball.

“The club offered me £2000 to sign, but to be honest I had no intention of staying in Barrow. I had just gone for the experience and to see if I could do it. I had also heard that a Welsh lad had just been signed for something like £15,000. So I knew I was only being offered small fry.

“I politely declined and decided to stick to my running. I thought it would be safer.”

This article was originally posted on 30-Apr-2010, 06:44 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 30-Apr-2010, 06:47.