These early games for Gala Wanderers were an essential part of my rugby education. Physically inferior to the other players, I had to use pace and evasion to get past opponents. There was also a much rougher edge to youth rugby than I’d been experiencing at school – my first game against Selkirk Youth Club ended up in a mass brawl that even involved some of our replacements on the touchline. It showed me that you could never afford to take a backward step in rugby. I also received some excellent guidance from our coaches, Johnny Gray and Arthur ‘Hovis’ Brown.
Enthusiasm is a crucial characteristic for any successful coach. This is even more the case when coaching youngsters. Johnny and Hovis had this in spades, and it was such a joy to train and play for them. They are real characters, full of banter and proud Gala men. Being coached by them made you feel you were part of something much bigger. I used to love hearing their stories. They also knew the game inside out – Johnny having coached the South to victory over Australia in 1984, and Hovis being full-back for Scotland in the Seventies before Andy Irvine came on the scene.
We were never dictated to or told to play in a certain way and I’m sure this freedom was a major help in enabling us to win the Scottish youth title at Murrayfield the following season. We had some really promising players like Mark Ballantyne, Greig Crosbie, Alan Bell and Alan Johnstone, but our antics must have driven the coaches mad at times. One night after a heavy snowfall they still wanted us to train – instead we went outside and built a snowman and then pelted them with snowballs. I’m sure Johnny was wishing he was still preparing to play the likes of Mark Ella and David Campese.
Like anyone else in Scotland, on 17 March 1990 I was celebrating the fact that we had beaten England to win the Grand Slam. Everything about that day at Murrayfield was a credit to the values of Scottish rugby at the time: humility, passion, graft and togetherness. Four days later I felt very privileged to run out on the same ground to play in the Schools Cup Final against St Aloysius. In fact during the next month I played on five occasions at Murrayfield. I had made it into the Scotland Schools side and we played three matches at the ground, together with a match against Ireland at Lansdowne Road. Unfortunately, all four games were lost.
The Schools Cup Final had also ended up in a defeat and left me with an embarrassing reminder each time I returned to the home of Scottish rugby. Before the match we were in the home dressing room, a vast area underneath the old West Stand. As was the tradition at the time, we had a pre-match ‘psych up’, which involved slapping our legs and faces then grabbing someone and wrestling with them. With memories of David Sole leading out his troops the previous Saturday, we were all pumped up. On the way out, in a rush of adrenalin, I kicked the door to the changing room. Unfortunately, my boot went right through the plywood, leaving a sizable hole. Each time I returned over the next few weeks, I was racked with guilt. Just as well the West Stand has now been replaced or I think the SRU would probably come looking for some compensation!
Following the success of Gala Wanderers in winning the national title at Murrayfield, I came under the radar of the Gala selectors. This I know, because my dad was still one of the selectors at the time. He had told me they wanted to give me a run at the end of that season, when I was still sixteen years old, but both he and my school coach, Rob Moffat, were not keen on the idea so it never happened. I had enjoyed an outing for Gala in the Kelso Sevens a few months later, but I presumed my final year at the Academy would be spent once again playing for the school in the morning and the Wanderers in the afternoon. That was how things were panning out until we broke up for the October holidays.
For a Borders youngster with a talent for sport, rugby was seen as the only true way to express your natural abilities. I grew up in the golden age of Borders rugby. We had some great ambassadors for the area – people like Gary Armstrong, Roy Laidlaw, John Jeffrey and John Rutherford – all of whom successfully blended courage, modesty and skill. The Scottish League officially started in 1973, the year I was born. Between then and 1990, the year I made my debut for Gala, there was only one occasion when a non-Borders team won the championship. So, when I was asked if I would be available to play for Gala in their league match away to Stirling County, I jumped at the chance.
A club’s tradition and history are what make it special. If the club is also your home town, it makes it something to aspire to be a part of. Even though it had been a few years since Gala’s run of three championship titles in the early Eighties, at the start of the Nineties the side still had a reputation of being a tough team to play against. They invariably finished in the top half of the table. One key difference that separated Gala from the likes of Hawick or Melrose was that they lacked a ruthless streak and a sizeable forward pack. However, Gala possessed many talented individuals. Players like Ian Corcoran, John Amos, Mark Moncrieff and Mike Dods were some of the most skilful in the country and were on the fringes of the Scottish squad. However, it was the more experienced players like Hamish Hunter, Peter Dods and Dave Bryson that I turned to as I prepared for my first match at that level.
Brideghaugh, Stirling’s home ground, was almost completely waterlogged after some torrential rain, but the game went ahead. We went on to lose 12–10, but I’d put in a decent enough performance. I relished the step up in intensity and the fact that everyone was taking things seriously. There had been times when I felt that there weren’t many of my teammates at school or youth level who cared that much about rugby. This time, however, I could see the guys were visibly upset at not coming away with a win. The Gala players had been great with me and were already talking about next week’s fixture as if I’d be playing.
Although Gala’s traditional rivals had always been Hawick, it was Melrose – just four miles away – who had emerged as the team we most desperately wanted to beat. Melrose set the benchmark in Scottish club rugby, and would go on to repeat the feats of Hawick who had dominated the championship in the Seventies and early Eighties. Well marshalled by their inspirational coach Jim Telfer, they were aggressive and relentless up front and had halfbacks who knew how to control a game. One of those half-backs was Scotland standoff Craig Chalmers, who had played for the Lions and won a Grand Slam in the previous eighteen months. I was due to face him on his home turf in only my second game for Gala.
Against the odds, we defeated the reigning champions 19–15 in a game that was much more open than it had been at Stirling. I had a pretty mixed game, making some good breaks but also missing tackles and struggling with my restarts. I once read in a coaching manual that the biggest room in the house was the room for improvement and that definitely applied to my game – I knew I had many things to work on. That was why I had already decided I would return to play for the school team the following weekend. I thought it would be a better way to work on my basic skills, as well as offering a chance to finally win the Scottish Cup after two Final defeats in a row.
Later, some said that my return to schoolboy rugby had been bad for my game. They said that as I had continued to dominate games bad habits had developed. For years I would have argued with this sentiment. I worked very hard on my kicking and passing under the expert eye of Rob Moffat, often spending lunch hours during the week out on the pitch. I also achieved my goal of captaining the Scottish Schools team and leading Gala Academy – finally – to a Scottish Cup success. However, my form a year later, when I became established in the Gala side, was not as good as I expected. Part of the reason was a frustration borne from being unable to find holes as easily as I had done at Under-18 level. Throughout my career I have always felt my game has improved every time I’ve had to make a step-up to a better standard of rugby, but it wasn’t immediately obvious that I had made real progress in my first season of senior rugby. Although my last season at school was very enjoyable, maybe I should have decided to stay with Gala after the win at Melrose.
Near the end of the season, I managed to play the odd game for the club and made it into the side for the 100th Gala Sevens, which attracted