Paying tribute to Ian Robertson, one of the commentating greats

I first heard of the BBC’s long-serving Rugby commentator, Ian Robertson, from one of his Watsonians’ team-mates. “He’s got terrific acceleration and his break’s ******* electric,” he said. “He can’t see without his contact lenses and his hands are poor and he can’t ******* tackle, but give him the ball and watch him run”. Well, he did that well enough to win eight caps for Scotland and create one gorgeous try to enable Scotland to win the Calcutta Cup in 1970. There was good competition at fly-half then, from Gala’s Jock Turner and Hawick’s Colin Telfer, and selection was wayward as it usually was in these old amateur days, but he would surely have won more caps if his career hadn’t been abruptly ended by the sort of injury that is repaired now, but wasn’t then.

So, after a brief stint teaching at Fettes, where he sought to supplement his modest salary by visits to the bookie, helped along by the fact that one of his pupils was the grandson of the trainer Harry Wragg who, two or three times a term, would provide “sure thing tips”, he became a journalist and commentator. In this switch he was fortunate in having Bill McLaren and Cliff Morgan as his mentors. He pays warm tribute to both in his just-released memoir “Rugby: Talking A Good Game”, published by Hodder & Stoughton. It has the sub-title “47 years of fun with the BBC”, not, perhaps, a claim many could, or would, make.

He learned much from McLaren and Morgan, and one piece of advice from Bill should be taken to heart by all of us who write about sport or speak about it on the airwaves. “Remember, son,”  Bill said, “when you’re commentating, you’re not a tabloid newspaper in human form. You’re not seeking blood. If a full-back drops a high one, you don’t destroy his life, you don’t say things that will hurt his mother or his granny or his wee bairn. ‘The worst pass I’ve ever seen’, ‘the most pathetic tackle in the history of the game’ – it’s not nice and it’s not necessary, all that nonsense. Be kind…”

Well, Robertson says he has tried to follow that advice, “almost to the letter”, and so should we all. Most of us fail to do so from time to time, and write or say things for which we should really be ashamed. Some may argue that things are different now: that we are writing about professional sportsmen, often very highly paid ones, and they must therefore expect harsh criticism just as actors, authors, politicians and other people who have put themselves in the public eye must. Well, there’s something in this, I suppose, but there’s enough nastiness in life already without sportswriters playing the assassin. You can leave that to some of the people who contribute to HYS websites. Sport for the viewer, spectator and fan is first of all about enjoyment. Let’s not forget this.

Ian Robertson, to his credit, never has. He has very evidently had awful fun out of his life and work. Rugby has changed almost out of recognition since he played the game himself. Younger readers – young players too – may be amazed, rendered even incredulous, when they read his memories of the amateur days. Can it really be true, they may say, that when Robertson took a taxi from Waverley  Station to the Braid Hills Hotel to join his Scotland team-mates the day before an international, the close-fisted Secretary of the SRU refused to reimburse him for the fare, saying: “There are two buses you could have taken from Waverley, so I’ll repay you the price of the ticket you didn’t buy”? Well, yes, this is how it was then.

Douglas Elliot, the greatest Scottish player of my boyhood, once showed me a postcard from the SRU inviting him to play in the Final Trial at Murrayfield. He was told that stockings would be provided but was instructed to bring his own soap and towel. Or perhaps soap would be provided but he had to bring his own stockings. The SRU had its standards and they were severely applied.

Scotland was, I believe, the last of the Test-playing countries to put numbers on the players’ shirts. When asked by no less a spectator than King George V why the Scottish jerseys weren’t numbered, the then SRU secretary, the redoubtable J Aikman Smith, uttered the splendid rebuke: “This is a rugby match, Your Majesty, not a cattle show.”

What either Mr Aikman Smith or Mr Law would have said to the sight of the Scotland team as animated billboards is the sort of fantasy which Ian Robertson might elaborate in one of his other roles as the most engaging of after-dinner speakers. This ability to give pleasure has been of invaluable help to the numerous charities he has tirelessly supported over the years. He is a man who has not only given pleasure to millions but has also done good.

I would guess that the shade of Bill McLaren can be proud of the young Robertson he mentored.

His book is full of good stories, as one would expect, not least among them the account of how by audacity and pure cheek he gate-crashed a reception in Johannesburg in 1992 and secured a one-to-one interview with Nelson Mandela, not long after his release from prison. You can hardly blame Robertson if he tells this story somewhat in the manner of a cat that has happened upon a bowl of cream.

This Saturday he will be making his last appearance as a commentator at Twickenham, and I am pretty confident of three things: first, he will treat it as just another international rather than as his farewell performance; second, that you won’t be able to tell from his commentary which side – England or Australia – he hopes will win; and third, that he will remember that he is “not a tabloid newspaper in human form” and be, as ever, conscious of Bill McLaren’s advice: “be kind”.