Passion gone south
When the SRU’s finest surged to the 1984 Grand Slam, no less than two-thirds of the team were either born and bred in the south of Scotland, or turned out for the area’s leading clubs; and six years later, when David Sole led out his charges on their famous slow march into the cauldron of Murrayfield, Borderers in the mould of Gary Armstrong, Craig Chalmers, John Jeffrey and Derek White were in the thick of the action, while the try which clinched the second Slam was scored by Tony Stanger, a former pupil of the legendary Bill McLaren, when the latter was teaching in Hawick.
Given the unstinting commitment which has been poured into the sport at such hotbeds as Mansfield Park, The Greenyards in Melrose, Netherdale in Galashiels, and a string of other clubs in the region, one might suppose that the SRU would have recognised the importance of keeping the supply chain going and nurturing the game in the one part of Scotland which has always preferred rugby to football. You might imagine that even the most cursory glance at the roll-call of past Test stars, who have emerged from the Borders, would concentrate the minds of those who run the pursuit in Edinburgh.
