Support the Workers

AT MY village primary school, I suppose I was the middle-class kid, since in my class, I was the only pupil whose father wore a collar and tie to work. I went on to the local Senior Secondary School, which abnormally for such Six Year Schools in 1950s Scotland offered both football and rugby to the boys - I played both.

This marked me out as "different" since our school, although a Senior Secondary, the Scottish equivalent of the English Grammar Schools, also took in all-comers from the immediate catchment area.

Those of us in the A stream were expected to be there for six years and to emerge either to university or into one of the professions, or banking or insurance. This also applied to the B stream, although we in the A stream took Latin, the B stream didn't. (Funnily enough the two future university professors from my year both emerged from the B stream).

If you were put into 1C you were already being looked upon as a future skilled tradesman, likewise the top half of 1D; the bottom half of 1D, and the kids in 1E and 1F were already being guided doon the pit like their faithers. Rumour had it all the boys in 1F had flat tops to their heads, for use as emergency pit props.

The occasional kid beat the system, another of my old schools alumni to now have the prefix Professor before his name started in 1C, but then, if not now, good teaching and a flexible system caught the late developers.

However, this streaming also worked in school sport. Those of us in 1A and 1B were expected to play rugby, indeed, you almost needed a Papal dispensation to play football beyond Third Year.

I played both and somehow got away with it. But, even at 11 the social divisions of the two codes of football were evident. The "clever" supposedly middle-class boys were expected to play rugby, the "working-class" kids played football.

There have been various admittedly lukewarm efforts within rugby to alter this perception in recent years, but, to little avail. Here in Ayrshire it is still easier for the son of a banker from Alloway to progress in rugby than for the son of an unemployed man from Onthank - home of the wonderful car crash TV which is "The Scheme".

The SRU is supposed to be treating club Under-18 rugby the same as the increasingly private school Scottish Schools Rugby Union - I see little evidence of this and until Murrayfield seriously starts encouraging ALL grass roots rugby and not just that involving the public schools and the Edinburgh schools such as Heriot's, Watson's, Stew-Mel and the like, we will struggle.

Of course, what hasn't helped has been the way the Borders has slipped from its previous premier place in the game. A strong Borders has traditionally meant a strong Scotland and right now Borders rugby isn't what it was. Hopefully the wheel will turn and Hawick, Gala and the rest will come back to support Melrose at the top end of the table, but, given the way the Borders economy has withered in recent years, that recovery might be a long time coming.

On my first overseas trip with a Scotland squad, sitting at the front of the team bus with the Alickadoos and the other press men, I found the ritual of the team, up the back of the bus, numbering off prior to departure, both funny and fascinating.

Each member of the official party would call-out his squad number for the tour in order, so it could be ascertained that everyone was on-board. One, two, three etc. they would go; the range of accents, from the languid drawl of the Fettesian: "four", to the bark of the Borders mill worker: "seeven".

Anyone listening would soon be aware that Scottish rugby was a broader church than the slanderous description of the average Murrayfield crowd: "the biggest school reunion in the world" might signify.

There is good work being done at the bottom of the Scottish rugby pile, but, unless the SRU really sets out to grow the game right across Scotland and not merely, as the perception is, within the "right" schools and the "right" clubs, I am afraid we will continue to struggle.

Get into the tougher schools - the prototype "neds" there would relish the chance to legally duff-up other people. Engage the working classes - they will work for you. Get schools rugby working in all schools - the kids are crying out for the support and encouragement.