Let's Celebrate The Eternal Magic Of The Six Nations

I THINK today, I should take a wee break from Super Six and Agenda 3, it is time to dwell on more-pleasant matters, such as the start of the NatWest Six Nations. This annual mid-winter festival of rugby has been a constant in all our lives, seemingly for ever, let's enjoy it.

My now sadly departed elder brother suffered, as my eldest grandson now does, from Asperger's Syndrome. This meant he was “different”, in his case, he was further handicapped by being born and brought-up in a mining area where the people struggled to cope with highly-intelligent people such as he. He was hopeless at football, read voraciously and the only sport at which he had shown any aptitude was high jumping.

Then, he went to Cumnock Academy and started playing rugby. In truth, he was more enthusiastic than gifted, a tight-head prop, he never played in the First XV at school, but was throughout his career, with Cumnock, at University, then during his long years in the Sudentenland with Saracens Extra B XV.

 Arthur Smith - scored a memorable debut try

His first exposure to Murrayfield was an auspicious occasion – “Arthur Smith's Match”, on 5 February, 1955, 63 years ago; the day when Smith's legendary try was the highlight of a 14-8 win, Scotland's first victory since the same fixture in 1951, 17 long games before.

My first Murrayfield pilgrimage came four years later, 7 February, 1959; again Wales were the opponents, and again, Scotland won, 6-5. Our PE teacher, Jock “Stiffy” McClure had represented Scotland eight times in war-time internationals, and once in a “Victory” international against Ireland, but, he never won a full cap. He was a rugby fanatic and to be fair, from the heartland of Junior football, he discovered and moulded some very good players who would go on to serve mainly Ayr and Kilmarnock with distinction, before Cumnock Rugby Club was formed in 1961.

Stiffy never travelled in the school bus to Murrayfield, the Sixth Year boys who formed the CARFC committee were in-charge. In my early years of travelling we went in Liddell's Coaches' (still transporting Cumnock Academy teams today) venerable bonneted Leyland Comet, driven by Davie Liddell himself. We would be picked-up at the front door, as the old bus trundled along the old A70, over the “Lang Whang” and down through Currie to Edinburgh.

The bus always parked at the top of Murrayfield Avenue – where I still park my car today for internationals. We didn't have seats for the Schoolboys Enclosure – that was for the posh boys from the private schools, but, it was amazing how often we could infiltrate this area ourselves.

After the match, we would join in the field invasion, then, back to Murrayfield Avenue and on to the bus, which then went into the city centre, parking in Kings Stables Road, where we had a couple of hours of freedom before the long journey home, a trip broken-up by the stop for fish and chips at Rigside.

That was the pattern through my schooldays. Of course, growing-up and joining the local rugby club brought change – driving through as often as we went by bus. Things changed again when I got married and moved to Ayr. Then, we generally had a game on a Saturday morning.

I remember one Saturday morning game at Selkirk, where we were beaten well before the kick-off. The earliest any of us got to bed in our hotel in Walkerburn, would be 3am, not the best preparation for a game.

There was another French game, before we which we beat Dunfermline at McKane Park. The score was 6-3 to Ayr and we were in their half once; full-back Derek Braid kicked the winning penalty from just inside our own half.

 Gordon Brown -an amused bystander as I chatted to Benoit Dauga

The Ayrshire rugby clubs all congregated at the Gowf Inn next to Bruntsfield Links, and I remember leaving there that Saturday night and, somehow, gaining entry to the North British Hotel. Gordon Brown used to insist my conversation with the great Benoit Dauga, him with little English, me with just as little French, was hugely-entertaining.

We left two of the older players in Edinburgh when we left that night; we gave them 45 minutes beyond departure time and they didn't show. But, as the bus crossed the New Brig in Ayr, there were the two missing soldiers, boldly striding out towards their cars, which were parked at Ayr Academy.

Now, was it that night, or another night, I finished-up taking another seven players, plus their kit, plus the team kit hamper and balls home, in my mother's trusty Fiat 850.

It was only the Five Nations back then, but, five or six teams, this competition is very much a staple of the game of Rugby Union Football. This weekend, Ayr are in Wales for the annual match against Llanishen, a fixture inaugurated by the Ayr social travelling team: “McEwan's Marauders” half a century ago.

They play for the Les McCall Trophy, put-up in honour of big Les, the Ayr lock who was one of the greatest guys I ever met, who died, tragically, on the park, not getting up from a collapsed scrum in an Ayrshire Cup semi-final at Ardrossan, after his huge heart burst.

John Thorburn of Hawick, claims he knew:

Ayr v Llanishen is not the oldest Scotland v Wales club game, Hawick, as happens every second year, are again in Glynneath, where John Thorburn and some of the other Hawick worthies can honestly claim, they knew Max Boyce before he was famous.

Max Boyce, when he was still an NCB electrician

Some long-established fixtures, such as Heriot's v Cardiff have gone by the wayside, but, this weekend, many Scots will travel south and, next year, even more of the Taffia will make the bi-annual pilgrimage north.

The start of the Six Nations is a harbinger of spring, so, let's enjoy tomorrow, and the other games, and truly celebrate this great game of ours, one that will still be being played when Mark Dodson, Super Six and Agenda 3 are foot-notes in history.

And a Scotland win tomorrow would help.