Rugby union will never have a more evocative ambassador than Bill McLaren, who has died after a long illness at the age of 86. "His voice transcended his sport," said Gavin Hastings, the former Scotland and Lions captain, reflecting the esteem in which the much-loved BBC commentator was held around the world.
For a generation of TV viewers rugby just did not feel like rugby without McLaren at the microphone. Above all he made it sound fun, his enthusiasm and lack of bias adding to his popularity. Every high ball came down with snow on it, every lock forward operated in somewhere called the boiler-house. Rare was the Scottish border town in which the inhabitants were not dancing in the streets at some stage in his 50-year broadcasting career.
Among the many warm tributes tonight one came from his fellow Scot Gordon Brown, the prime minister, who described McLaren as "a fixture of our national sporting life". The England team manager, Martin Johnson, called him "the iconic voice of rugby" and the Rugby Football Union's president, John Owen, praised his human qualities. "He was a man everybody thought of as their friend. It is unsurprising that the crowd sang For He's a Jolly Good Fellow at his last match as a commentator, for that is exactly what Bill was."
McLaren's broadcasting career began on hospital radio while he was recovering from the tuberculosis which almost killed him and cost him any chance of a cap for Scotland, for whom he had a trial as a flanker in 1947. A qualified PE teacher, he made his BBC radio debut in 1953, having spent his youth dreaming of a similar job: "I've still got the fictional reports I used to write when I was a wee boy of seven or eight. Scotland always won. They beat the world once by 70-3."
He received an MBE, OBE and CBE for services to rugby and combined his meticulous work as a broadcaster with that of a PE teacher until 1987. He commentated on his final international in 2002 but was never prouder than when his son-in-law Alan Lawson scored two tries for Scotland against England at Murrayfield in 1976. Two of McLaren's grandchildren, the Gloucester and Scotland scrum-half Rory Lawson and Edinburgh's Jim Thompson, are current professional players.
More so even than the BBC's other doyens – Dan Maskell, Murray Walker, Peter Alliss, John Arlott and Peter O'Sullevan – he enjoyed an instinctive rapport with players of all ages. "Bill would come along and watch the team train on the Friday," recalled Gregor Townsend, the former Scotland fly-half. "If you were lucky he would give you a Hawick Ball [a minty sweet]. I'm a Gala man but Bill would always say to me I was his wife's favourite when he handed over the sweeties."
The broadcaster, who once famously suggested that a player had "kicked that ball like it were three pounds o' haggis", will also be fondly remembered by Hastings, who shared a commentary box with McLaren. "One of the times I'll always remember he said: 'Now son, if you want to speak, just tug away at my coat.' I was keen to say something so I kept tugging away at his coat for what seemed like five minutes before he allowed me to speak. He got so into the game … that was just the way he was."
