Borders youngsters prove they fit the bill to follow in legend McLaren’s footsteps as sports commentators

The late McLaren’s praise for the try by winger Tony Stanger that, together with three penalties from Melrose fly-half Craig Chalmers, earned Scotland a 13-7 victory over England at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium in March 1990, securing their third and final Five Nations grand slam and their second-to-last title win, might be a hard act to follow, but more than 1,000 youngsters have given it a go, with four, two of them from the man known as the Voice of Rugby’s home-town, winning prizes for their efforts.

Those four winners, in their various age groups, are P4 Cullen Smyth, of Hawick’s Wilton Primary School; P5 Seren Isobel Macdougall, of Hawick’s Trinity Primary; P6 Isaac Hastie, of Kelso’s Edenside Primary; and P7 Dan Johnston, of St Peter’s Primary in Galashiels.

The competition they won, earning them a tour of Murrayfield later this year, was staged in October to mark the centenary of the birth of McLaren, alive from 1923 to 2010.

Hundreds of pupils at 45 schools across the region downloaded onto iPads a video clip of Hawick’s Stanger, 55, scoring Scotland’s winning try against the English in 1990 soundtracked only by crowd noise – without McLaren’s voiceover for the BBC at the time – and were asked to come up with their own commentary for the minute or so from Jedburgh’s Gary Armstrong putting the ball into a scrum, Kelso’s John Jeffrey picking it up and passing it back to the 57-year-old to move it onto captain Gavin Hastings, Hastings kicking the ball up the pitch and Stanger outpacing England’s defence to touch it down, followed by celebrations around a packed stadium.

“Stanger could be there first. It’s a try, a magnificent try for the 21-year-old, his first try in a championship match but his sixth try for Scotland in his sixth international. The euphoria around the ground is something else,” reported McLaren, and aspiring successors were challenged to come up with words of their own to capture that moment, with current BBC sports commentator Andrew Cotter selecting the winners.

The competition was organised by the Bill McLaren Foundation, Scottish Borders Council and Live Borders, and Linda Lawson, Bill’s daughter and a trustee of the foundation, was impressed by the calibre of entries received, saying: “The standard was incredibly high, and I am sure dad would be pleased to know that the tradition of rugby commentating is alive and well right here in the Borders.”

Cullen, Seren, Isaac and Dan’s winning commentaries can be heard at a Bill McLaren centenary exhibition due to reopen at Hawick Museum, in the town’s Wilton Lodge Park, on Friday, March 1.