Gordon Waddell

Gordon James Barr Waddell (12 April 1937, Glasgow-[1]) was a Scottish rugby union player, and the son of Herbert Waddell. He played for Scotland the invitational tourist team, the Barbarians and on two British and Irish Lions tours. In fact he is the only Scottish stand off to be double lion.[2] He had 18 caps between 1957–62, and was never dropped, although he had to leave because of injury - this record for a Scotland fly-half was only later broken by John Rutherford.[2]

He played 12 times for the Barbarians between 1957 and 1960, scoring in three matches including their 1958 match against East Africa in Nairobi on 28 May 1958.[3] In 1962 he was the controlling influence in Scotland's first win in Wales since the 1930s, a feat not repeated for another twenty years.[2]

Playing career

Waddell was not popular with fans, according to Allan Massie,

"he was the only Scottish player in memory to be actively disliked and resented by a large section of the crowd. He was shamefully barracked in at least one Scottish trial. Part of the reason for this rested in... [that he] had been the outstanding member of the great Fettes sides of the Fifties, when the school went five years without defeat from another Scottish school... he was taken as the arch-representative of Fettes. He seemed to display the contemptuous arrogance that typified that generation of Fettesians, the sense of belonging to a different order to other schoolboys, and to have carried this attitude into adult life."[4]

He was selected in his first year out of school while doing National Service in the Royal Navy for Calcutta Cup game in 1957.[5] This created resentment as his father, Herbert Waddell was a "Big cheese" in the SRU.[5]

Allan Massie also suggests that he was unpopular because he was a kicking fly-half, which irritated older fans who preferred running rugby.[5] However, Gordon Waddell never scored a try for Scotland, but

"He gave the scoring pass for a good many tries, to George Stevenson against France in 1958 for instance, and to Norman Bruce against Wales the following year."[6]

On the 1962 British Lions tour to South Africa, he was dropped for English fly-half Richard Sharp for last two tests, both of which the Lions lost.[7]

References

  1. ^ http://www.scrum.com/scotland/rugby/player/6127.html
  2. ^ a b c Massie, p156
  3. ^ Gordon Waddell barbarianfc.co.uk
  4. ^ Massie, p156-7
  5. ^ a b c Massie, p157
  6. ^ Massie, p158
  7. ^ Massie, p159