Heroes of the Era: New sporting heroes light up the stage

As with the previous two decades, most of our heroes excelled in sports where they competed as individuals, with no footballer making it into the top 15 this time. That's not too surprising, perhaps, given the growing influx of foreign players into the Scottish game from the late 1980s onwards. Either we have witnessed a decline in standards of footballing talent or there have been fewer opportunities for Scottish players to shine and develop, or, more probably, both.

The successful court action for freedom of movement by little-known Belgian player Jean-Marc Bosman ushered in a new era where Scottish clubs could no longer count on transfer income from finding and selling on young players.

The top clubs split to form the Scottish Premier League in 1998, but it did nothing to alter the Old Firm's domination of Scottish club football while the national side qualified for the World Cup in France in 1998 but has not appeared at a major finals since. The team did excel however with back-to-back wins against France in European Championship qualifying matches, including that unforgettable victory in Paris courtesy of a stunning James McFadden goal.

Rugby union provides four names in the list, but it should be noted that both of them flourished in the 1990s and no current player made it into our considerations.

Scottish rugby did not enjoy any measure of consistent success, but the 1990s were book-ended with two stunning triumphs – the Grand Slam and historic last Five Nations Championship – and for all that both came with little expectation the ability and performances of figures at the heart of those successes left no-one in any doubt as to their world-class stature.

What this era has produced, however, is a wonderfully greater diversity of sportsmen and women emerging from Scotland as successful international performers, notably in cycling, curling, golf, snooker and tennis. Graeme Obree launched an intriguing affair with success on different forms of bike which unleashed on the world his brilliant, dedicated and unorthodox mind and sheer talent, but it also paved the way for stunning levels of cycling success in the past decade that heralded a golden era of British triumph on two wheels in the Olympic Games and World Championship arenas with Edinburgh's Sir Chris Hoy at its apex.

In the Olympic Games arena, there was also Scottish delight in women's curling as Rhona Martin skipped her all-Scottish GB rink to victory and Shirley Robertson sailed to success, and while Liz McColgan's triumph came in the World Championships in Tokyo, it was no less worthy for that.

The golfing world enjoyed Paul Lawrie's Open win at Carnoustie and Catriona Matthew's British Open success as much as watching Colin Montgomerie take on the world's best and win regularly, dominating the European Tour, even if that major proved elusive.

Stephen Hendry was simply unstoppable in the first part of this era; no player could touch the seven-times world champion as he brought a new global interest to the sport and became a standard- bearer for a new generation of Scottish snooker players.

Now, there comes a young man from Dunblane whose meteoric rise on the tennis court has astounded and delighted Scots seeking a modern sports star to call their own. And the real excitement with Andy Murray is that the 22-year-old is only just beginning.

A glance at some of the names who did not make the final cut – the likes of world rallying champion Louise Aitken-Walker, world boxing champions Scott Harrison and Alex Arthur, Olympic modern pentathlon champion Stephanie Cook, world bowls winners Willie Wood, Richard Corsie and Alex Marshall, Indycar and Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti, world snooker champion John Higgins, world and European curling team skip Hammy McMillan, Olympic silver medallist eventer Ian Stark, world swimming champion Alison Sheppard and track great Yvonne Murray – highlights the incredible array of talent that has emerged from Scotland in the last 20 years.

ANDY MURRAY

Scotland's finest ever tennis player has the sporting world at his feet

AT THE age of 22, Andy Murray is already the greatest Scottish tennis player in history, and looks set to dominate the sport, certainly in British terms, for years to come.

A native of Dunblane, Murray and his brother Jamie were in the local primary school on the day in 1996 that deranged gunman Thomas Hamilton carried out the dreadful massacre of 16 young children and their teacher before killing himself. Neither brother wishes to talk much about the event.

Their mother Judy was a tennis champion who has become a renowned coach and was undoubtedly the biggest influence on her son's career.

A talented footballer, Murray had the chance to join Rangers as a youth player, but tennis has been his obsession since early childhood and he went off to tennis coaching instead, joining a tennis academy in Barcelona.

His career was threatened by an unusual congenital condition, a bifurcated patella or split kneecap, but Murray endured many months of physiotherapy and recovered from the problem.

Murray first sprang to public prominence by winning the US Junior Open in 2004, and also played for Great Britain in the Davis Cup that year.

In his first full season, he shot up the rankings and beat 14th seed Radek Stepanek at Wimbledon before losing an epic five-setter to David Nalbandian.

His first ATP tour title came in 2006 at San Jose, and he was one of only two players to beat Roger Federer that year. His 2007 season was marred by a wrist injury which caused him to miss the French Open and Wimbledon, but in 2008 he reached the final of the US Open, losing to Federer, and his world ranking soared to No 3 – the best ever by a Briton – before 2009 brought victories at Queen's and elsewhere to give him a British record of 14 ATP titles.

Sometimes surly and frustrated on court, in recent times Murray has emerged as much more mature mentally and physically, having dealt with serious injuries and undertaken a gym training regime to become one of the fittest players in the game.

Just four weeks into the new decade, he reached his second grand slam final, only to find Roger Federer in majestic form at the Australian Open. But as Federer said, Murray is "too good a player not to win a grand slam".

SHIRLEY ROBERTSON

Sailor became first ever Scottish woman to win two Olympic golds

SCOTLAND's supreme yachtswoman became the first Scottish woman in history to win two Olympic gold medals when she and her fellow "blondes in a boat" won the Yngling class at the 2004 Games in Athens.

It was a stunning feat by Robertson who had won her first Olympic gold medal in the single-handed Europe class at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. To transfer to a new class of yacht that had only recently been introduced to competition, master many new and different techniques and get together with two other sailors, Sarah Webb and Sarah Ayton, to form a crew, proved that Robertson possessed all the skills of a very great sailor.

Dundee-born Robertson had first ventured out in a Mirror dinghy, built by her father, on Loch Ard in the Trossachs at the age of seven. By her teens she was racing competitively and excelled in the Europe class, though she did race in other types of yacht.

Her triumph in 2000 came as a surprise to the general public but not to the yachting world which was well aware of her talents. Indeed Robertson had finished fourth in the Europe class at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, and had won silver medals at the World Championships of 1998, 1999 and 2000.

Her golden performance at Sydney saw her acclaimed as the sailor of the year by the International Sailing Federation in 2000, but shortly afterwards Robertson made the switch to the three-handed Yngling craft which brought her that further triumph at Athens.

Awarded an MBE after her first gold medal, Robertson was conferred with the higher rank of OBE after winning the second gold.

To her great disappointment, Robertson lost out to former crewmates Sarah Webb and Sarah Ayton plus Pippa Wilson for selection for the 2008 Beijing games where Britain again won the Yngling gold.

Robertson is still sailing and competing as well as being a television commentator. She now lives on the Isle of Wight, home to the famous Cowes Week, with her partner Jamie Boag and her twin children, Killian and Annabel, born in 2006.

DAVID SOLE

Grand Slam captain walked the walk to send England team homewards in 1990

IF ONE moment could be said to sum up Scottish rugby, it was the appearance, from the west stand tunnel, of David Sole and the national XV on 17 March, 1990, at Murrayfield.

The stakes were the biggest in Scottish rugby history. For the first time, Scotland would play England in a winner-takes-all encounter – the Calcutta Cup, Five Nations Championship, Triple Crown, and Grand Slam were all up for grabs over the following 80 minutes.

The bookmakers had made England overwhelming favourites and with players like Will Carling, Jeremy Guscott, Rory Underwood and Brian Moore in their pomp, the English juggernaut had swept aside all opposition in that year's tournament, while Scotland had not been mightily impressive.

On walked Sole, leading his troops in a slow march that roared defiance at the English and fired up the crowd. It was a masterstroke of psychology, and the rest is history, Scotland winning a titanic struggle 13-7 for only the third Grand Slam in Scottish rugby history.

Astonishingly, Sole had with him in dark blue that day the immediate past and future captains of the British and Irish Lions, Finlay Calder and Gavin Hastings respectively. But it was Sole who was preferred as captain of Scotland, and indeed he set a record of 25 appearances as captain during his international career.

Ian McGeechan, Scotland's coach in 1990, once commented: "As captain he was no tub-thumper but he carried so much respect among the players that he had no need to be."

Educated at Glenalmond College, Sole played for Bath and Edinburgh Accies throughout his career, and gained the first of his 44 Scotland caps in the same match as the Hastings brothers made their debut, against France at Murrayfield in 1986.

A mobile, agile and ball-playing prop forward, Sole was criticised early in his career for a perceived lack of bulk and strength in the scrum, but he proved his worth in the set-piece in the 1989 tour of Australia with the British and Irish Lions.

By 1990, he was the complete prop, and under his inspired captaincy, Scotland won its greatest rugby victory.

Like all Scottish rugby fans, Sole was hugely disappointed in the 1991 Rugby World Cup when the national team were knocked out at the semi-final stage by England, and he retired the following year, perhaps somewhat prematurely, after captaining a World Invitation XV to victory over New Zealand. He has since been a regular pundit for several media companies.

GAVIN HASTINGS

Peerless full-back widely recognised as leading player of a talented generation

IF BARRY John was the King of fly halves, then Gavin Hastings was surely the Emperor of full-backs, and the man who captained both Scotland and the British and Irish Lions while setting scoring records galore thoroughly deserves his commonly-accepted place as the finest Scottish rugby player of his generation.

Like his great predecessor Andy Irvine, Hastings was the product of an Edinburgh independent school, in his case George Watson's College, and Cambridge University.

Shortly after a sparkling performance in the Varsity Match, Hastings made his debut for Scotland against France in 1986 along with his younger brother Scott in a match at Murrayfield in which Gavin kicked all of Scotland's points to set a Scottish record for penalty goals in a single match, the Scots winning 18-17.

The two Hastings brothers were possessed of remarkable self-assurance, as Gavin showed in his next home match against England when kicking five penalties and three conversions in a record 33-6 win.

Hastings went on to win 61 Scottish caps, with 20 appearances as captain. It was his kick which set up Tony Stanger's try that won the momentous 1990 Grand Slam match against England, and his try and conversion which won Scotland's first victory in France for 26 years at the Parc des Princes in 1995.

His greatest disappointment was a missed penalty late on in the World Cup semi-final of 1991 at Murrayfield which England won 9-6. Hastings later captained Scotland in the World Cup of 1995, in which he set a new points record for the cup's final stages.

He was a member of the victorious British and Irish Lions squad led by fellow Scot Finlay Calder in Australia in 1989 and captained the unlucky Lions in New Zealand in 1993, where the loss of brother Scott with serious facial injuries proved an insurmountable setback.

Throughout his career, Hastings was a deadly place kicker, twice setting world records for points in a single game only to be overhauled later on the same day. He retired as Scotland and the Lions' record point scorer with an international haul of 733 points.

Added to his safe defence, thunderous clearance kicks and a willingness to attack from anywhere, Hastings also had a cheery personality which has stood him in good stead in his ensuing career in public relations.

GREGOR TOWNSEND

Gifted stand-off whose rich natural talent inspired classic victories

SCOTLAND'S most-capped rugby player at the time of his retirement, Gregor Peter John Townsend was a product of that famous Borders rugby club Gala RFC's youth section, and like the man who now holds the Scottish caps record, Chris Paterson, he was a pupil at Galashiels Academy.

A talented and mercurial back, Townsend played most of his career at stand-off but was also used in the centre and at full-back. He began at Gala, but over the course of 17 years of senior rugby played for Warringah in Sydney, Northampton Saints – where he turned professional – Brive, Castres and Montpellier in France and Natal Sharks in South Africa before finishing his career back at Netherdale, with Border Reivers.

His international career began in 1993, and it was soon clear that, on his game, Townsend was world-class. But he was also prone to errors and his penchant for risk-taking was not always appreciated.

Townsend will forever be remembered for the 'Toony Flip,' an audacious one-handed reverse pass which he most tellingly used late in Scotland's match against France in the Parc de Princes in 1995. Having scored Scotland's first try by wrong-footing the French defence, he outwitted his markers again in the dying seconds of the match by drawing in three tacklers and keeping the ball at arm's length for Gavin Hastings to collect and gallop to the posts for the clinching try and a first Scotland victory in Paris for 26 years.

The 'flip' became iconic and was even used in the opening rugby scene in a major Hollywood movie, The Four Feathers, in 2002.

Townsend then played a key role in the British and Irish Lions Test series win in South Africa in 1997, where Sir Ian McGeechan used his talents in a master game-plan that sealed successive Test victories.

In Scotland's victorious run to the last Five Nations Championship in 1999, Townsend was again a key figure, scoring a try in every match – a feat no Scottish player had achieved since the Grand Slam in 1925.

After being left out of new coach Matt Williams' plans in 2003, he played until 2007 with the Borders. On retirement he joined the Winning Scotland Foundation and has become the coach of Scotland's backs under Andy Robinson.

LIZ McCOLGAN

World gold was 'greatest-ever distance run by a British athlete'

AT the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986, just one track medal was won by Scotland. It was a gold medal lifted a by a slim lass from Dundee whose slight frame hid a strength and determination that would take her to the very top in distance running.

Liz Lynch, later Liz McColgan after she married fellow athlete Peter, won the 10,000m at Edinburgh, but her biggest achievements lay far in the future, including an astonishing performance that was hailed by no less a person than Brendan Foster as the greatest-ever distance run by a British athlete.

In steamy Tokyo in weather most unlike that of her native Dundee, McColgan pounded round the track and destroyed the opposition to win the 1991 Athletics World Championship 10,000m event.

The year before, McColgan had added a second Commonwealth gold medal at the distance in the Games held in Auckland, before taking a break to have her first baby prior to the World Championship win.

In the same year as her success in Tokyo, McColgan made the long-anticipated step up to the marathon and promptly won her first-ever race at the distance, taking the New York Marathon in familiar grind-everyone-down style. Her achievements saw her voted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

In 1996, after two unsuccessful attempts, McColgan finally won the London Marathon, but from then one she was plagued by injury troubles, though she was only pipped at the post in the following year's London race.

Had McColgan and another European and Commonwealth champion, Yvonne Murray-Mooney, stayed clear of injury, Scotland could have dominated women's distance running in the 1990s.

Sadly, however, McColgan succumbed to a series of stress fractures and reluctantly called a halt to her running career in 2001.

Since then her health club business has thrived and she has played a keen part in coaching youngsters and promoting athletics in Scotland, with her daughter Eilish a promising young distance runner.

CHRIS HOY

Track phenomenon is most successful male cyclist in Olympic history

SCOTLAND'S greatest ever Olympian, Chris Hoy's feats on a cycle are already the stuff of legend, and the phenomenon of the track shows no sign of retiring.

Hoy took up BMX bike racing after watching the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and was soon competing internationally in this version of the sport. A talented all-rounder, at George Watson's College in his native Edinburgh he also excelled at rowing and rugby, but in his late teens he concentrated on track cycling using the velodrome at Meadowbank.

After studying sports science at St Andrew's University and Moray House in Edinburgh, Hoy won his first world championship medal in 1999, the year he graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Applied Science, taking a silver in the team sprint. At the 2000 Olympics in Sidney, Hoy was a member of the silver medal-winning British sprint team, and also won in the same event at the World Championships that year where he won his first world title in the 1km time trial, a punishing event in which a cyclist effectively sprints for the whole distance.

Hoy mad it his speciality, and won gold for Britain in the event at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, having previously won it for Scotland at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

Further world titles in various different disciplines followed, but Hoy received a setback when the trial was scrapped from the list of events at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.

Nothing daunted, Hoy switched to the Keirin and individual sprint events, and won both of those and the team sprint in an unforgettable few days at the Beijing velodrome.

Winning those three gold medals made Hoy the first British competitor to do so in a single Olympics since Henry Taylor won three in the swimming events at the London Olympics of 1908. Added to his earlier haul in 2000 and 2004, Hoy's gold in Beijing also made him the most successful male cyclist in Olympic history.

Impressed perhaps as much by his dignified bearing in victory as by his physical prowess, the British public voted him the BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2008, to which her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II added a knighthood in the subsequent New Year's Honours list, making Hoy the first Scottish sporting hero to be so honoured while still a player.

RHONA MARTIN

'Housewife' who led the British curling team to Olympic gold

THE most unlikely Scottish sporting heroine of them all, Rhona Martin in her own words was "just a housewife, a mother of two from Dunlop in Ayrshire" when she became an overnight star as the skip of Britain's all-Scottish curling gold medal-winning team at the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City in 2002.

At the age of 35, Martin surpassed the achievements of all previous Scottish women skips when she led her rink to glory.

She had been a top player for Scotland and Great Britain for several years but her previous best performance was a silver medal in the European Championship in 1998.

Her run to the Olympics also gave no indication that she and her rink of Margaret Morton, Fiona MacDonald, Janice Rankin and Debbie Knox were about to make history – no British women's team had ever won gold at the Olympics or World championships.

Martin had also overcome a serious knee injury the previous year and also a late stomach ailment which threatened her participation in the Olympics.

Despite a couple of early setbacks in the round-robin phase of the tournament, the British rink gradually built up momentum until the final against Switzerland.

With millions staying up late to watch on television, the gold medal came down to the last very stone of the final played by Martin. With complete precision, she curled the stone – duly hailed as the Stone of Destiny – precisely into the middle of the rings to clinch the victory and earn Britain's first gold medal at a Winter Games since 1984.

A few days later, Martin's rink surprisingly lost the Scottish Championship to the team led by Jackie Lockhart, who promptly went on to win the World Championships, giving Scotland's women curlers their first World and Olympic golds in the space of a few weeks.

PAUL LAWRIE

First home-based Scot to win the Open on Scottish soil for 89 years

The scene was the final hole of the Open Championship at Carnoustie in 1999. One of the world's toughest golf courses proved too much for Frenchman Jean Van de Velde who threw away almost certain victory with crazy shot choices, putting him into a play-off with former Open champion Justin Leonard of the USA and Scotland's Paul Lawrie.

No one really gave the Scot a chance, as he had only two professional tour victories to his name and Leonard in particular was a mighty opponent who had experience of the Ryder Cup and had been in the top ten in the world rankings.

Yet in that four hole play-off it was the Scot who prevailed in memorable fashion, with a magnificent iron shot to the last green sealing his victory.

Lawrie had come from ten shots behind the lead at the start of the last day to win, the best final day comeback in the history of the majors. He was also the first home-based Scot to win the Open on Scottish soil since James Braid's 1910 victory at St Andrews.

Many pundits described his win as lucky or a fluke, due to Van de Velde's bizarre antics, but Lawrie duly answered his critics with an excellent performance in that year's Ryder Cup, becoming the joint top individual scorer at the infamous "battle" at Brookline, Massachusetts.

Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Lawrie did not emerge from college golf or the amateur scene. He turned professional as soon as he could at the age of 17, joining club professional Doug Smart at Banchory.

Lawrie, who is known for his pawky humour, quipped: "I arrived for work on that first day. Doug darted into the back of the shop, reappearing with my 'new best friend' for the next three years – a Hoover."

It was a struggle for Lawrie at first, but he made his mark in minor events in Scotland before joining the European Tour, winning his first title, the Catalan Open, in 1996 and adding the Qatar Masters in 1999, not long before his Open victory.

Though successful in several subsequent events, including the Dunhill Links Championship on home soil in 2001, he has not reached the heights of Carnoustie again, but remains hopeful of a revival in fortunes.

GARY ARMSTRONG

Battling Borderer who was pivotal in two of Scotland's greatest triumphs

FOLLOWING in a long line of great scrum-halves from the Borders, and inheriting the mantle of fellow Jed-Forest No9 Roy Laidlaw, Gary Armstrong was pivotal to two of Scotland's biggest rugby successes, the Grand Slam of 1990 and the last Five Nations Championship in 1999.

A tenacious tackler and immensely strong for his size, with a penchant for disrupting opponents' scrum ball, Armstrong developed into an all-round scrum-half, capable of creating spaces for his colleagues and often making penetrating breaks himself.

Armstrong was groomed as successor to Laidlaw for both Jed-Forest and Scotland, and duly stepped into both the respective light blue and dark blue No. 9 shirts, winning his first cap in 1988 against Australia.

He was chosen for the British and Irish Lions squad which toured Australia in 1989 but did not make the Test side. Injury kept him out of later tours and also meant he only earned 51 caps – still beating Laidlaw's record number of caps for a Jed-Forest player.

He formed a useful partnership with fellow Borderer, Craig Chalmers, and on 17 March, 1990, he produced an outstanding performance in Scotland's famous Grand Slam victory over England, including a sharp break to start off the move that led to Tony Stanger's clinching try.

Injuries then beset him for several years, and he also attempted to move to stand-off, before returning to scrum-half.

His playing career straddled the close of the amateur era and the first few years of the professional game. While at Jed-Forest he worked as a lorry driver, but after professionalism arrived in 1995 he moved to take up full-time rugby with Newcastle Falcons.

Armstrong was "the most modest and self-effacing of men, not given to using five words if two would do," in the words of the late Bill McLaren, but such were his battling leadership qualities and the respect in which he was held as a player that he was made Scotland captain in 1998.

The following year he led Scotland to the last Five Nations' title before an emotional retirement from international rugby after World Cup defeat to New Zealand at Murrayfield.

CATRIONA MATTHEW

First Scot to win a major in women's golf – 11 weeks after birth of daughter

IN 2009 there were many contenders for a Scottish Sporting Performance of the Year trophy, if such existed, but few would argue against Catriona Matthew taking the award for her stunning victory in the Ricoh Women's British Open at Royal Lytham and St Annes.

In lifting the coveted trophy, Matthew became the first female player from Scotland to win a major tournament, and the first Scot of either gender to win a major since Paul Lawrie's victory in the Open Championship at Carnoustie a decade earlier.

It can be said without fear of contradiction that Mr Lawrie had not given birth to a daughter just 11 weeks before his triumph, but that's exactly what Matthew did, Sophie arriving in time to let her mother regain full fitness.

Not only that, but her Open victory came just a week or so after she and her husband and caddie, Graham Matthew, had to flee a hotel blaze in which Graham received burns to a foot.

Overcoming all the circumstances and a field of the best women golfers in the world, Matthew crowned a professional career which has seen her gain success across the world with a total of seven career titles on the various tours

After a wonderful amateur career in which she was both Scottish and British champion and played in three Curtis Cups, Matthew, who was born Catriona Lambert in Edinburgh and was raised in North Berwick, turned professional in 1995.

A qualified accountant – as is her husband – after her studies at Stirling University, Matthew has been one of the few golfers able to hold her own on both the European and American tours.

She won her first Tour title, the McDonald's WPGA Championship of Europe, in 1998, and her consistency has seen her run up a string of top-placed finishes, a record which has earned her multiple selections for the Solheim Cup, the women's equivalent of the Ryder Cup.

Those who knew of Matthew's history were not surprised that she was able to come back last season so quickly after Sophie's birth in early May. Two years previously, just three months after first child Katie was born, Matthew finished tied second in another major, the 2007 Kraft Nabisco Championship.

Her great feat saw Matthew awarded an MBE in the recent New Year's Honours list.

COLIN McRAE

Scot became first British and the world's youngest world rally champ

SCOTLAND'S greatest ever rally driver was the first Briton to win the World Rally Championship and the youngest ever to do so. At one time he also held the world record for top-level rally wins.

McRae came from a motor racing background. His father Jimmy was five times the British rally champion, a title also won by McRae and his younger brother Alister.

Starting in moto-cross, where he became Scottish junior champion, McRae progressed to rallying by the age of 18, and in 1991 and '92 he won the British rally championship while driving for Subaru.

Some early incidents had unfairly seen him nicknamed McCrash, but as he matured, McRae became an outstanding driver.

In 1993 he won the Rally of New Zealand as part of the 555 Subaru world rally team. He finished eighth in the championship that year, then moved up to fourth in 1994, in which year he won the Rally of Great Britain.

Victory in the same rally in 1995 clinched his world championship, and he was second in the table in each of the following years, helping Subaru clinch three consecutive constructors' championships.

McRae quickly became a household name both for his appearances in television adverts and the video game named after him.

He left Subaru to drive for the Ford Focus rally team, but in 2001, his best year with them, he could only finish second in the championship again, despite a run of three successive victories in mid-season.

McRae dropped out of rallying but was reportedly trying to re-establish himself in the sport when tragedy struck.

On 15 September, 2007, McRae was piloting his helicopter near his home, Jerviswood House, in Lanarkshire, when it crashed into woodland, killing 39-year-old McRae, his five-year-old son Johnny, and two family friends.

His memorial service drew an estimated 15,000 mourners to Lanark, and he lives on in virtual form as the Colin McRae Rally computer game series remains a best-seller, as it has been since its launch in 1998.

COLIN MONTGOMERIE

Ryder Cup hero and the king of European golf during the 90s

ROUTINELY called the greatest golfer never to win a major, such an epithet disguises the truly awe-inspiring achievements of Colin Stewart Montgomerie, the man who can fairly claim to be the finest Scottish golfer of the modern era.

The statistics are staggering: he has won the European Order of Merit a record eight times, including a run of seven consecutive titles from 1993 to 1999; he is the highest earning player in European tour history with well over 20million pocketed; he has 31 European Tour victories, the fourth-best record of all time; his nine other wins around the world include the Million Dollar Challenge in South Africa in 1996; he spent 400 weeks in the top ten in golf's official rankings.

He was won the World and Dunhill Cups for Scotland and the Seve Trophy for Great Britain and Ireland. Most famously, he has been a stalwart of European success in the Ryder Cup in which he is the most successful singles player in the history of the tournament.

His record in majors is one of finishing second on no less than five occasions, and in all he has ten times finished in the top ten in majors.

His image of being Mr Grumpy on the golf course belies an often charming if driven individual. His first marriage collapsed because of his devotion to the sport, but he is happily remarried to his current wife, Gaynor.

Born in Glasgow and introduced to golf at Royal Troon by his father James, the man universally known as Monty was a sporting all-rounder at Leeds Grammar and Strathallan school in Perthshire. Indeed he might well have opted for a career in cricket, so proficient was he with a bat.

But golf claimed him and after a scholarship at Houston Baptist University in the USA he returned to dominate European golf in the 90s.

Monty will captain Europe in the Ryder Cup this year in Wales, and with his form in decline the fact is that he may never now win that manor. He should not worry about that, for he will always be a golfing hero.

GRAEME OBREE

Maverick innovator who captured world hour record on his home-made bicycle

IF THE bare outlines of Graeme Obree's life were put in front of a Hollywood producer, he or she would immediately think of making a film. And that is indeed what happened to Obree when the film The Flying Scotsman was produced in 2006, capturing the essence of his remarkable story.

Though he was actually born in Nuneaton in 1965, Obree has lived in Scotland almost all his life and competes as a Scot. Troubled by bullying and depression as a teenager, Obree took up cycling and was soon drawn to time trialling in which competitors race over a given distance against the clock, rather than other racers.

The reverse of the time trial is when racers compete in a one hour race, during which time the cyclist simply tries to ride as far as possible, usually in laps round a velodrome, in 60 minutes.

Though he was already a highly talented and dedicated cyclist, Obree was disbelieved when he announced that he was going to break the one hour record, even though that record had been held for nine years by Francesco Moser of Italy and was considered one of the hardest records to beat in any sport.

His bike shop business had failed, but Obree was determined to be a success on the track. But he lacked resources and had to build his own bike, using cannibalised parts of washing machines. The bike was soon called Old Faithful, and had several adaptations from the normal, for Obree had also invented a new physical style for racing.

On 17 July, 1993, despite failing in a bid to beat the record the previous day, Obree took to the velodrome track in Hamar, Norway, and 51.596 km later, broke the world one hour record.

A week later Chris Boardman of England set a new record but in April, 1994, Obree took it back again, recording a distance of 52.713 km. Obree also went after the World Pursuit Championship, and won the 4,000m pursuit in both 1993 and 1995.

The cycling authorities did not take kindly to Obree's innovations both in riding style and bikes, however, and banned him from competing on non-conventional equipment. The death of his brother in a car crash also triggered mental health problems for the Scot.

In late 2009 he was announced as one of the first 50 inductees into the newly founded British Cycling Hall of Fame.

STEPHEN HENDRY

Snooker's youngest ever professional became seven-time world champion

NO SCOT has dominated his sport so completely as Stephen Hendry. Nicknamed the Golden Bairn, the Edinburgh-born snooker prodigy was Scottish amateur champion at 15, and was the youngest ever player in the world amateur championships before turning professional at 16 – the youngest person ever to do so.

In his first season he won the Scottish professional championship and at the age of 18 he won his first ranking events, the British Open and the Grand Prix. In 1990, the youthful-looking pale-faced Hendry became the youngest ever world champion at the age of 21.

The greatest break-builder the sport has ever seen, even as a young man Hendry impressed onlookers with his calm and methodical style, allied to a willingness to take on shots others thought impossible.

Competing at a time when great players such as Steve Davis, Dennis Taylor, and Jimmy White – and latterly Ken Doherty and John Higgins – were his rivals, Hendry won championships galore. He became world No 1 at the end of that 1990 season and did not relinquish that position until 1998.

His run of success in the three biggest tournaments included five consecutive World Championships (1992-96), five consecutive Masters titles (1989-93) and three consecutive UK Championships (1995-97) in a run of five consecutive finals. In those three "majors", for ten years from 1989 to 1998, Hendry was only once knocked out prior to the quarter final stages, exiting in the first round of the World Championship in 1998.

The following year saw Hendry bounce back to clinch his modern-era record seventh World Championship at The Crucible, and though his form has dipped in the Noughties, he retains his high reputation and still holds the record of 36 ranking titles, as well as the record for prize money won and for the number of centuries made in his career – comfortably over 700.

Other records he holds include the highest number of 147 breaks in competition – nine, jointly held with Ronnie O'Sullivan, of which eight were televised, which is also a record. He has also twice led Scotland to team wins.

A Hearts fan and keen golfer, Hendry lives with his young family near Gleneagles.