From a rugby club perspective, Scotty achieved all those things that would ensure he would be remembered, honoured and missed. He was first team captain. You cannot be first team captain without the respect of the players and members who elect you. He captained the seconds and thirds. He took many other non-playing roles.

However, to my mind, these highly creditable achievements are not why so many of us are here today. I and my rugby colleagues are here because a most amazing character has left us. One that gave us so much to laugh about it will need more time than we have today to tell the tales.

My own recollections of Scotty start in 1984. I had just graduated from colts to seniors and I went to watch the first team playing a cup game against Manchester. We lost that day but I just remember thinking - who was that fly half? Scotty was not you’re your manicured, hair blow dried, chiselled physique like so many in that position. Rather, he looked like he had come straight out of a Motorhead concert. My guess, just a guess mind, was he did not spend each night in the gym either.

But what a player. Elusive, good passer and kicker off right and left and surprisingly quick over ten yards, but his speciality was the dummy. I am pleased that there are individuals here who can testify to one game in Scotland in particular where, whilst standing still, Scotty threw 13 dummies.
I know it was 13 because he counted them out! Opposition players were diving all over the place tackling shadows. Many of those tacklers came back for second and third goes and still fell for it.

Amateur rugby is essentially about 2 things. Play hard on the field and play hard off it. Scotty was good at both. You had to watch him closely though, should that mischievous glint in his eye appear - be on your guard. His laugh was highly infectious. In the bar if he laughed we all laughed, wherever you were in the room. We would laugh about lots of things but none more than when on tour and more specifically in tour court. His performances as Chief Prosecutor, a role he was born for, are legendary. Lots of people think that tour and courts are juvenile fun and they are right. However, court gave Scotty a stage and he never failed to deliver.

Many of these stories will be told later but who can forget the interrogation of Ichitoro, a student from the land of the rising sun on his first tour in New Quay. Scotty’s cross examination, in a rare form of Japanese, somewhat bewildering the young man into a guilty plea and throwing himself at the feet of the judge for mercy. I suspect when he chose England for an education he did not imagine one like that.

Scotty’s humour did have boundaries, but they were pretty far and wide. On another tour, I think it was Eastbourne, he found an old horse whip in a charity shop. Justice was certainly quick and effective that tour and perjury was at a record low.

I remember a player broke his ribs in an away game once, it might have been John Morris, and Scotty offered to drive him straight back to Manchester to the Royal Infirmary.
Thanks Scotty, that’s very kind of you. The glint in the eye was back. Scotty drove along the cat’s eyes all the way and cut the corner of every roundabout and corner.

I leave the stories at that for now and know we all have our favourites. That as much as anything is the measure of the man.

Toc H is a fantastic club because of the people within. We share great times and strike up lifelong friendships. The club has lost one of its greats, a true character, we will miss him dearly and, on behalf of the club, we mourn for him and the family’s loss.

Thank you.
Richard Massingham
President
Didsbury Toc H RFC"

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The club has received the following message from Scotty's family:

Joanne and the family would like to say a huge thank-you to everybody at Toc H, particularly the huge number of club members who attended John's funeral yesterday.