Saturday Interview: John Frame - "Twice in a week, four times in two years - beating England was easy!"

He’s surprised when I ring him, believing there must be enough more deserving candidates to fill half a dozen lineouts. And John Frame is even more surprised when he learns why I want to speak to him. “Beating England back then was easy,” he laughs.

In a Scotland line-up before taking on the Auld Enemy again

But I’m not having it. Two triumphs in a week, and four in two years, makes the old centre something of a Sassenach specialist. Can we say the S-word anymore? It’s the Gaelic for Saxon and, many reckon, still qualifies as a friendly, banterish greeting for today’s visitors to Murrayfield. There is certainly no offence intended as Framey, in his flat close to the stadium, is persuaded to look back on his 23 caps and reminisce about chums from the oval ball game which must run into three figures.

One such was the late, great Gordon Brown. Now, in these over-sensitive times can our man repeat his favourite Broon frae Troon intro? He decides he can: though the Scotland lock was suffering with the non-Hodgkin lymphoma which would eventually kill him, he’d agreed to speak at a dinner in the capital to fund-raise for Frame’s Sportsman’s Charity. That was typical of Brown, as was him having to dash from a lunch in Dublin as he spread his bonhomie around right to the end.

“Gordon hoped to slip into our venue through a side door, without fuss," remembers Frame. "I had the doorman on alert for his arrival and made sure there was a fuss. The applause was thunderous. And then he began in his usual way: ‘You know … you know … I’m one of three boys but my mother always wanted a girl. Then she found out that every fourth child born in the world was Chinese.’

“There was nobody that didn’t think the world of Gordon. A kind and outstanding man who my four children absolutely adored. Maybe if he was still with us he’d have to write some new gags. But to me that one's as funny as Billy Connolly’s about finding a man without any legs at the bus stop and asking him: ‘How are you getting on?’ You see, Billy insists folk with disabilities always laughed at it.”

Frame – now 75, married to Susie, retired from a career in finance, grandfather – points out that some of his best friends are English and they include David Duckham and John Spencer who were in direct opposition during the fantastic four – between 1970 and 1972, three Calcutta Cups and the clash marking the centenary of the world’s oldest international. "A lot of Scots love to hate the English but that’s not something I feel at all," he stresses. Nevertheless on those occasions when the thistle throttled the red rose and his team emerged victorious, he loved it.

“I think rugby has got something tremendously special about it which other sports recognise. Friends who follow football are envious of two teams being able to knock seven bells out of each other and then share a pint afterwards – and at Murrayfield of two sets of supporters sitting cheerfully side by side.” And, he says, there is no more tremendously special fixture than Scotland vs England.

“It’s more than a fixture, isn’t it? Nationalism is on the rise around the world and then there’s history: William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Bannockburn, the Border Reivers, King Edward, Scottish soldiers fighting on foreign fields. Everything’s tightly intertwined.”

Little wonder, then, that the celebrations can be “tearfully, almost disgracefully joyous” as happened when the Grand Slam was claimed in 1990. That day Frame the fan was sat close to some of the “slightly up-market English social set” who’d been so confident the prize would be theirs that it had been stitched into their pullovers. “At the final whistle one of them hid back inside his camel coat, pulling it over his head.”

For Frame the player it should be said that any kind of win was something to get rapturous about because over the piece there were so few.

You’ll wonder how could this have happened when the regular XV featured such characterful compadres as Broon frae Troon, his brother Peter, Sandy Carmichael and Ian McLauchlan. Well, we could ask the same question of the Scottish football team when it contained Denis Law and Jim Baxter. In the rugby boys’ defence, Wales at that time were out of this world.

First eight games: eight defeats. Apart from England and a 1972 win over France, Frame was on the losing side in every Five Nations. But, while more success would have been welcome, it wasn’t just about that for him. “Like Gordon, I’m philosophical,” he says, and a living-room groaning with books would seem evidence of that. His Scotland pride is unshakeable. Then there’s his Gala pride …

“I came down from Inverness where a little rugby is played, was part of a fine Edinburgh University team but because I hadn’t gone to school in the city couldn’t get a club, and then Jock Turner [Netherdale captain] invited me down. He was the best centre I ever played with and I still miss him.

“It’s a place like Gala where you will appreciate the significance of rugby, the knowledge that exists about the game – and realise that what you knew was next to nothing. I came off one day feeling pretty pleased with myself – probably revoltingly so. Chic Playfair, one of the selectors, took me to one side and pulled my game apart. Why did I do this? Why had I not done that? He told me how the really great players – Gareth Edwards and Barry John back then – knew precisely what they were going to do with the ball before it arrived. Finn Russell has that vision now and Gregor Townsend had it when he played. I can’t say I ever acquired it!”

He continues in this reverie about his time as an adopted braw lad, remembering a gold medal triumph at the Gala Sevens as one of a septet of internationalists for the “intense celebration of community” it engendered.

But let’s get back to Scotland and what a blockbuster start for Frame: 1967, New Zealand at Murrayfield and Colin Meads’ sending off.

“I was terrified. Just 21, part of the Edinburgh Uni side who that season would irritate Hawick by winning the unofficial championship, and I was facing Ian MacRae, the guy who [England’s] Danny Heard tried to tackle and ended up with a broken neck. The debutant is supposedly like the bride, everything passes in a flash. Well, I remember having to go off for stitches and because I was standing next to David Chisholm I remember Meads trying to knock his head off. Pine Tree, as he was called, wasn’t known as a peaceful man. I felt a bit sorry for him but the referee had no option.

“The post-match dinner in those days was at the MacRobert Pavilion at Ingliston. With a few beers inside me I told David Rollo, mainly because my neck hadn’t been broken: ‘I’m feeling tremendous.’ That lovely, laconic big Fifer said: ‘Aye, John, it’s a great thing to play for your country.’ I just burst into tears.”

Frame’s eyes moisten a few times today. “Some old boys have moved to the far side of the world, others I haven’t seen for a thousand years and a few have just pegged out. There are guys you just miss and I wish they could be sitting here right now. It would be such a joy.” But he’s cheered by having met up with Ian Barnes on a recent trip back to Gala and is looking forward to visiting “PC” Brown in Dunbar when “Mighty Mouse” McLauchlan and Alastair McHarg are due to join them via Zoom.

Hoary yarns will tumble forth again, and some of them might even have veracity. Peter Stagg, when I tracked him down to the Dordogne a while back, could not remember trying to get the SRU to pay for his copy of Playboy but Frame maintains he witnessed this momentous negotiation.

“It happened at the Braid Hills Hotel where we stayed pre-match with all these dowager duchesses who were permanent residents, a real antediluvian place but with great food – prawn cocktails and big steaks. Staggy was flown up from Manchester where he played with Sale so he was always submitting chitties. ‘What’s this?’ said John Law, the secretary, a good Presbyterian. ‘My reading material for the flight.’ said Staggy. ‘You can’t claim ten shillings and sixpence for a nudie book.’ ‘It’s not just about the centrefold, John. There are thought-provoking articles about literature, politics, life … ’ Well, the red pencil put a stop to Staggy’s ‘life’.”

Stagg got his own back at Murrayfield the next day. “The great Wilson Shaw, our president, entered the changing-room but Staggy wasn’t ready. No boots, no socks. Then as Wilson was speaking he made a proper ceremony of throwing his bag to the floor and unscrewing the polish – not for his boots but to hide the giant holes in the socks by rubbing it onto his calves. Normally he’d have had to fork out for replacements but Wilson told John he had to find him a new pair. We all cheered.”

Frame has other examples of the SRU’s careful book-keeping in sharp contrast to the creature comforts enjoyed by the Gallic cousins. “France treated its rugby players like gods. There were always tables for them at the [Parisian dancing girls spectacular] Crazy Horse Saloon. Now and again that fine fellow Jo Maso would invite some Scots boys to join them.”

If the All Blacks in ’67 had been notorious on account of that rare-for-the-times early bath then Wales in ’71 was glorious, albeit another failure for Framey. Though there was no shame in losing to the brilliant boyos, and the consolation comes in the 19-18 match being rated by those inside Murrayfield as the greatest-ever, he insists Scotland could, and should, have won. “Before coaches, Bill Dickinson had the title ‘adviser to the captain’. He advocated ten-man rugby and I’d be surprised if he knew any of the centres’ names at [his club] Jordanhill. I said to him: ‘What are we going to do about JPR [Williams]?’ If he joined the backline Sid [Scotland full-back Ian Smith] had to do likewise. Bill wouldn’t have it. JPR galloped into the line and the rest is history.”

But there were a few victories, including one against South Africa amid fierce anti-apartheid protests and the ’72 defeat of France. Frame right through our chat is modest to the point of disparaging about his abilities. Typical is this: “Defence was the strongest part of my game, which is another way of saying I wasn’t much use in attack.” But wasn’t that the day half a century ago that he dived for the clinching try? “Yes, but it was a bit flukey. Colin Telfer and I had a move we developed at Edinburgh Uni where I was supposed to take his pass on the crash then pop it back to him so he could set up a far better finisher than me. But the ball, which still had laces, snagged on one of my fingernails so I had to dash for the line myself. Every Sunday I’d been going through to Baillieston in Glasgow to train with this lovely Polish guy, a List D teacher and pole-vaulter called Bobby Gemza, who was forever telling me: ‘Sonny boy, you’re no’ fit!’ He taught me power-sprinting, a knee action with the feet further apart, and it worked against the French. There were four of their guys on my back but I managed to drop over. [French sports paper] L’Equipe wanted me in a kilt for their front-page picture, under the headline: ‘This man could have broken out of the Bastille!’”

And in the match marking 100 years since the first Scotland-England international in 1871 Frame was to double his score. Don’t call this a friendly or exhibition game. Between these teams there is no such thing and having won at Twickenham the previous Saturday for the first time in 33 years, Scotland were determined to do it again, all the more so after some grumping from the Auld Enemy ranks.

“According to the English rugby writer, John Reason, the reason they lost at Twickenham was they hadn’t utilised their ‘superior back division’. And at the post-match dinner John Spencer proposed the games be swapped around: the one we’d just won could be for the centenary, which seemed to downgrade it, and Murrayfield could be for the Calcutta Cup. That sort of stuff just fired us up even more.”

The two-try hero almost didn’t make the rematch and it’s thanks to Hibernian that he did. Carried off injured at Twickenham and required to watch PC Brown’s gloriously eccentric winning kick from the stand, his haematoma came to the attention of Sir John Bruce, the eminent surgeon and Easter Road director. He said: “‘We’ve got this new ultrasonic gizmo, the first of its kind in Scotland – come down’. I couldn’t have played otherwise.

“There was a bit of good fortune about my tries. Jock Turner kicked off and the big lump Jeremy Janion gathered, but then the ‘superior back division’ dropped the ball. I ran though and scored, just ten seconds played, but actually before three o’clock because Prince Charles, who was receiving the teams, scooted along the line-up far too fast. That might make me a pub quiz question, I suppose [just like Derek Johnstone who netted for Rangers before three in the 1976 Scottish Cup final], and my second try was the result of a lucky bounce.

“But what a tremendous day that was. We scored five tries in all and the winning margin of 26-6 was a record. There was hysteria in our changing-room. Victory was sweet, very sweet. And like anything in life, when something doesn’t happen very often, it was all the more pleasurable for that.”

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