The Herald reports


Kevin Ferrie

Proud to be known as "Mr Glasgow", the man who once led his district to long-awaited Championship glory on the field is now excited to have a new role off it that could galvanise the bid to bring in new silverware.

Appointed less than a month ago by Glasgow Warriors to the role of business development manager, Fergus Wallace is well aware that the organisation he is involved with now is very different to the one he played for 20 years and more ago.

A no-nonsense flanker Wallace spent around a decade as a Glasgow regular between the late eighties and nineties, captaining them in six of those seasons which straddled rugby's amateur and professional eras.

"In those days Glasgow were very much the poor relations in Scottish rugby," he recalls.

"We had so many players who were on the fringes of the Scotland team and not getting in.

"I don't know if I'd want to say it was a bias, but it just seemed to be a bit harder for us to get picked at that stage."

There was, too, a rather self-deprecating line in humour among the players in those days.

"When I was appointed captain in 1989 a few of my team-mates consoled me because the five people who had done the job before me had been captain for one match and that had been the end of their District careers," Wallace notes wryly.

The championship win was, then, vital in terms of changing perceptions.

Glasgow's success that year came after an unprecedented spell of Edinburgh domination, the men from the capital having won the District Championship outright in each of the previous three seasons, the only time they ever achieved that, winning 12 matches out of 12 along the way.

"We had a great coach in Richie Dixon who was a superb motivator and I felt it was just reward for the guys when we won that title (in 1989/90).

"Later on a lot of that team went on to play for Scotland though," Wallace noted.

He was not destined to be among them. Scotland A caps were to follow while he captained Scotland on a pre-World Cup tour of Zimbabwe in 1995 but did not make the final squad, gargantuan Geordie back-row man Peter Walton ultimately being preferred.

Wallace believes the closest he came to being capped had been the previous year against South Africa and that the way he missed out caused the then national team management into a re-think.

There is no bitterness, however and he takes solace from the suspicion that what happened to him paved the way for younger brother Murray winning his caps a couple of years later.

"In life you need a bit of luck, a bit of rub of the green. Some get it, some don't," Wallace says.

"Not getting a full cap was disappointing and I think I might have got in if they had selected the team differently in 1994. I was in the Scotland A side that beat South Africa at The Greenyards and had a good game, scoring our try, but strangely they had picked the Scotland team for the Test match before the A game.

"I like to think that helped Murray a year later, because he had a great game against Australia for the A team and was put into the Test side against them on the back of that. He might well see it differently, but I like to think what happened to me helped him."

By that time a shift was taking place in Scottish rugby with players from the North & Midlands also beginning to become more prominent in Scotland selections as a shift took place away from the over-dependence on talent from Edinburgh, the Borders and the Exiles.

Wallace was at GHK when, in collaboration with Glasgow Accies, they formed Glasgow Hawks and he also had a spell in which he revelled in as a semi-professional player with the district side in the early part of the open era.

As the Warriors prepare for next season's move to playing as well as training at Scotstoun Stadium, Wallace can tell the modern players what that is like.

"We played a couple of matches at Scotstoun back then, against the ACT Brumbies and a Heineken Cup tie against Wasps when I think I came off the bench to win my 50th cap for Glasgow," he said.

"It just shows you the difference. I was in the team for about 10 years to make that number of appearances whereas now they can do get to 50 in two or three seasons."

In terms of making the best of a bad situation, however, Wallace is now discovering that the fact that most of his best days were in a Glasgow shirt means he has a special place within the city's rugby community which should only help him in his new job.

"Someone was speaking to me the other day and referred to me as 'Mr Glasgow' and I must say I quite liked that," said Wallace. "I am absolutely thrilled to be here at Scotstoun. I am passionate about Glasgow rugby and it is all about the players so anything I can do to help them get the results they are looking for the better.

"Before and after the game went professional everyone used to refer to Glasgow as the sleeping giant of Scottish rugby.

"On the West of Scotland it is a bit more football-oriented which obviously we're trying to change and I think it's happening.

"What's happening here is fantastic with the players we're bringing in, the attitude of the squad and the whole focus on building the brand.

"We're hoping there are going to be record crowds at both derby matches which will prove that what we are doing is working.

"I wouldn't have taken this job if I didn't believe that it would and I'm very confident about what's going to happen here," he added.

This article was posted on 24-Dec-2011, 07:37 by Hugh Barrow.