Scots success merits special praise

THE Scottish Rugby Hall of Fame will be launched at Murrayfield in a glittering event next Thursday and one of the panel of judges believes that it will go some way to addressing a failure by Scottish sport to embrace and celebrate success.

John Beattie, the former Scotland and British and Irish Lions forward, was joined by Ian McGeechan, Chris Rea and Norman Mair on a panel chaired by John Jeffrey, and he admitted that the task of deciding who would be the first entrants into the new 'Hall' was extremely tough. In this third part of our series looking at the various contenders, Beattie casts his eye over the deliberations that went into the 'Specials' section, a category devoted to non-players.

However, the outspoken broadcaster, who launches a new lunchtime show on BBC Radio Scotland on Monday, stated that the concept was long overdue.

"I did find it very difficult and I'll come back to that in a minute, but I believe passionately that 'Halls of Fame' are very important. Having been in countries like Australia, South America and USA, and just returned from the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, it has struck me how good other nations are at recognising success and holding it up as something for everyone to be proud of. We struggle with that in Scotland for some reason and I feel that it's actually a national disgrace that we are so backward. We don't praise each other nearly enough when we get things right, and succeed and achieve, yet can be very quick as a nation to be negative when it doesn't quite go right or we lose.

"It is a tremendously positive thing to praise people and remind people. For a wee country we have done some amazing things and that has just come through for me in this process of looking at what Scottish rugby has brought to the world.

Why did we invent sevens, and not England or someone else? How can a country of just five million people beat one the size of England several times, or Australia or South Africa, with the populations they have and vast resources they put into rugby, as we have done in recent years? It's valuable to recognise these achievements."

So, what has Scottish rugby brought the world? There are many and varied examples of success through the 130 years of Scottish rugby, but Beattie acknowledged that sifting them into a few gems proved an extremely arduous challenge.

"When you think of what Scotland or Scots people have brought the world, you think of things penicillin, roads, tarmac and television, so we set out to look at rugby and as well as choosing players from eight different eras we decided on the specials category in an effort to recognise the achievements of people who did not play for the country, but served it outstandingly in other ways."We actually widened it as far as we could to begin with in thinking about what people outside of Scotland might associate with the great moments in Scottish rugby. We had great discussions about whether we should include famous tries as examples of Scottish sporting excellence, seven-a-side rugby or the very first game at Raeburn Place, the ground itself as having given the world rugby, or Murrayfield Stadium, which is an iconic venue known and admired throughout the world as a great home of rugby."

The winners will not be revealed until next week's gala dinner, however, following the recent interviews with Jeffrey and Mair, Beattie gave us an insight into other people or places that were debated.

"There was a lot of support I have to say for Dr James Robson, a world- renowned medic who has toured with the Lions since 1993 and is hugely respected across world sport for what he has brought to sporting medicine, and yet we had to work within certain parameters as well which did preclude some individuals, such as current internationalists and SRU employees.

"The late Bill McLaren is another great example of a great Scottish rugby character who was never capped, yet you could ask people what the best thing to come out of Scotland in terms of rugby has been and some will point to a specific player, or a captain and others would argue it was Bill.

"We have had some great coaches like Jim Telfer, who we might not have picked out as Scotland's greatest player but clearly made his mark as a coach after his playing career.

"We also spent a time discussing Norman (Mair] when he wasn't there! This is a person who played for Scotland then went on to write about the game with a passion that introduced who knows how many people to rugby.

And when you start to look at some great administrators in Scottish rugby, people who gave their life to developing the game, organising and running the game, right back to the Loretto schoolmaster who decreed that players should be allowed to pass the ball before contact with another person, which prior to this has not been allowed and was called 'flunking'."

Beattie added: "That maybe shows how deep our discussions got, but we have certainly taken the responsibility very seriously and I hope it produces a great start for the Hall of Fame next week. I am really pleased that the SRU are doing this and I hope it goes from strength to strength in the years to come."

• For more details about the Scottish Rugby Hall of Fame, including how to purchase tickets, visit the Scottish Rugby website at www.scottishrugby.orgx