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A FAMILY GAME

HE MAY BE RETIRED, BUT RUGBY COMMENTATOR BILL MCLAREN WILL STILL BE WATCHING THE WORLD CUP WITH A KEEN EYE HIS GRANDSON RORY LAWSON IS PLAYING FOR SCOTLAND

THE GRANDFATHER: Bill McLaren has a voice as warm and satisfying as a Thermos fl ask of Scotch broth on a raw January afternoon at Murrayfi eld. Close your eyes and savour again each richly delicious sip: "That conversion wobbled between the posts like a three-pound haggis… Aye, Zinzan Brooke is as crafty as a bag of weasels… Jonah Lomu went clean through Tony Underwood like an enraged bison… Wee Gary Armstrong is as slippery as a salmon in a Border burn… I reckon you’d need dynamite or the Highland Light Infantry to shift Dean Richards… Martin Johnson is like a human lamp-post in the English line-out… And that’s a marvellous All-Black try from Hikka the hooker."

`The voice’ as McLaren has come to be known has been retired for some years now and, like the majority of rugby union fans across the globe, will watch the World Cup unfold on television. But as former Scotland and British Lions’ skipper Gavin Hastings puts it: "If you ask anyone connected with rugby anywhere in the world to name their favourite commentator, then 99.99% of them will nominate Bill McLaren."

The familiar Hawick brogue greets the great affection in which he is held wherever rugby union is played with a mixture of gentle pride and shy embarrassment: "I think the one thing which gave me the greatest pleasure was when a couple of the Springbok players told me that while they were growing up, my voice had brought rugby to them during the time South Africa was ostracised. Their only connection with the outside had been through my TV broadcasts of the Five Nations Championship and that gave me a great kick."

THE GRANDSON: Scotland will not win the World Cup a quarter- fi nal place would be an outstanding achievement but could well provide one of the stars of the tournament in scrum-half Rory Lawson. Lawson, 25, was born for this moment; before becoming a national treasure, his grandfather (known to the rest of us as the aforementioned Bill McLaren) would have played for Scotland had he not contracted tuberculosis at the age of 23 shortly after returning from war service in Italy. What’s more, his father Alan Lawson (McLaren’s son- in-law) gained 15 caps in the same No 9 shirt, the highlight of which was scoring two tries in the 22-12 defeat of England at Murrayfi eld in 1976.

"I can’t tell you if I was actually handed a rugby ball instead of a rattle in my pram, but whether we were at home or at my grandparents’ house there was always a ball lying around," recalls Lawson of his childhood. "Dad’s international career was over by the time I was born, but I can remember watching him play club rugby for Heriot’s and my big brother (Gregor) and I were always out in the garden throwing a ball around. Which was a pity for our sister Lindsay who was out there trying to do `girlie things’ but forever ended up getting sent fl ying. She’s obviously forgiven me because Lindsay’s now one of my biggest fans."

The brothers’ rugby education continued unabated during their regular visits to the McLarens’ idyllic rural retreat, on a rolling hillside overlooking a rugby pitch it was here that Bill introduced the boys of Wilton Primary to the joys of the oval ball, with the River Teviot winding through the picturesque valley beyond. As Lawson recalls:"I knew from a young age that papa [the affectionate Scottish diminutive for grandpapa] was someone special not just to us but to everyone it seemed when I heard his voice on the television. We never set off for a walk without taking a rugby ball with us and, needless to say, my grandfather came equipped with a set of keys to the shed at the ground where all the tackle-bags were kept, so we could have a knock-around whenever we turned up to the special dinner which was held in their honour. It was awesome. Sean Fitzpatrick was there, Mike Gibson, Gareth Edwards, everyone. It was an autograph hunter’s paradise."

But it was thanks to Gregor Lawson (currently playing club rugby in Dublin) that Lawson fi rst came face to face with another of his idols in the unmistakable form of Jonah Lomu. "In 1997, the family went out to South Africa where my brother was on tour with the Scottish Schools and where, as it happened, papa was commentating on the Tri- Nations tournament. I was in the hotel lift in Durban when the doors opened, and there stood Jonah looking like a Giant Redwood in a pair of shorts. I was only 15, so I don’t know whether I admired him more for his achievements on the rugby pitch or for being the name behind a terrifi c computer game."

Alan Lawson, too, has played an infl uential role in his son’s graduation from schoolboy superstar to full international. "Dad played in a different era when rugby was still amateur the time when the night before they played Wales at Cardiff they’d all go to the movies then dash back to the hotel to grab a couple of beers before last orders. But he fully understands the needs of the modern game and the demands of professionalism. And as a fellow scrum- half, he knows exactly what he’s talking about."

THE GRANDFATHER’S dreams of playing for Scotland were crushed when, after playing in a fi nal trial in 1946 as a stalwart of the Hawick pack, he was admitted to East Fortune sanitarium. He was suffering from tuberculosis in the lung and warned that should he survive, he would remain in hospital for four years and would never play rugby again. "Tuberculosis at that time was a scourge," says Bill McLaren. "I was lucky to survive it because there were lads dying all around me. They picked out six of us from my ward to act as guinea pigs for a new drug they were experimenting with and the hole in my lung slowly started closing up. I was out of hospital in 19 months, which was a miracle; there were lads in East Fortune who had to lie fl at on their backs encased in a plaster cast shell from head to foot for four years because they had tuberculosis in the spine."

THE GRANDSON’S dreams were fi red at a tender age when he sat at his grandfather’s feet listening to him spin tales in that intoxicating voice. "Papa also has a cupboard packed full of videos and DVDs which Gregor and I would rifl e through: Barbarians’ games, World Cup classics and `Bill’s Best Bits’. It really is an amazing catalogue and even now you can still chuck one on and see how guys like Andy Irvine and my dad played in the olden days." Not only has Lawson been able to see his boyhood heroes such as David Campese, Serge Blanco and Philippe Sella in action, he’s even met most of them. "I’ve been very, very lucky because at the end of his commentary career my papa was asked to name his all-time best XV.

THE RUGBY WORLD CUP 2007

The Rugby World Cup 2007 will take place from 7 September- 20 October at various venues across France (including bmi destination Lyon and the nearby town of St Etienne), with selected matches in Cardiff and Edinburgh.