Nine more Borderers awarded retrospective Scotland rugby caps

This week’s historic cap handout, mostly for games against the Netherlands in the 1970s, follows 56 announced in August, including a dozen for players from the region, followed by two more in September.

Berwickshire’s Richie Dixon, head coach of the Scottish national team from 1995 to 1998 and an assistant to Steve Bates at the now-defunct Border Reivers from 2006 to 2007, is among the nine Borderers picking up caps this time round.

The 76-year-old’s cap is for playing against the Netherlands in March 1974 at Hughenden in Glasgow.

A player – at wing, centre or flanker for the old Jordanhill club and the Glasgow inter-district side – he went on to captain Scotland’s B team three times between 1978 and 1980 and was also once named as a substitute for the national first XV but not used.

Chirnside-born Dixon was also head coach at Glasgow Warriors from 1999 to 2002 and for the Georgian national team from 2010 to 2011.

Former Gala lock Ken Macaulay, later a player and coach at North Berwick, also picks up a cap for featuring in a Scotland XV against a French representative side in Bordeaux in April 1980.

Gala winger George Telfer, Jed-Forest centre George Turnbull, Selkirk winger Ken Trotter and three Hawick players – winger Bruce White and back-row forwards Wat Davies and Donald McLeod – have also had their appearances for Scotland upgraded to test status.

Telfer and Turnbull’s caps are for the same game versus Holland that Dixon featured in.

Trotter, Davies and White’s are for appearances away to the same opposition at Hilversum in October 1975, as is McLeod’s for a match three years later.

Announcing the latest cap handout, SRU president Colin Rigby said: “The response to our retrospective caps initiative has been heartwarming and a source of great pride, especially for the players and families who now hold that much-cherished status.

“The rationale behind the retrospective capping was to be inclusive while, at the same time, protecting the integrity of a Scotland cap, so it was important that we looked at the circumstances around individual games and remained true to our overall philosophy.

“We were contacted on behalf of other distinguished players who played in non-cap matches at that time, asking us to consider certain such matches and we have now concluded our research into those requests.”

All but two of the new caps are for matches against the Netherlands.

“We know that the Netherlands have never qualified for a Rugby World Cup, though England did award caps when the teams met in a qualifying match in 1998,” explained Rigby, 53.

“We know too that the Netherlands are currently listed at 27 in the men’s world rankings, with Zimbabwe – against whom we have awarded retrospective caps, given their involvement in Rugby World Cup tournaments – at 31.

“We contacted our counterparts at the Dutch Rugby Union to verify that they awarded caps in games versus a Scotland XV in March 1974 at Hughenden and then in October 1975 and October 1978 both at Hilversum in Holland.

“The Dutch union have confirmed that, from their perspective, these games carried cap status, so we are now pleased to include these fixtures as part of our retrospective initiative.”

Former Melrose full-back Craig Redpath, current Gala president Gary Isaac, ex-Peebles prop Steve Ferguson, Jed-Forest’s Ronnie Kirkpatrick, Gala’s Mark Moncrieff, Melrose’s Ian Ramsey, Kelso’s Garry Waite, present Melrose director of rugby Rob Moffat were among those awarded retrospective caps in the summer.

The others, for internationals played during the Second World War and just after, went to Hawick’s Donald Maltman, John Anderson and Captain JAD Thom and Melrose’s Corporal R Cowe.

A match programme mix-up at the time saw Maltman mistaken for his brother Jimmy, selected for services internationals against England in Edinburgh and London in 1942, but that confusion has now been cleared up and caps agreed for both siblings.

An SRU spokesperson explained: “Donald Maltman played in the pack in two services Internationals against England in 1943, but in the match programme of the game at Inverleith in February that year, he was incorrectly listed with the initial J, and that was his brother Jimmy, who had played in Scotland victories at Inverleith and Wembley the previous year.

“Liaising with the Maltman family in Hawick, we have been able to verify that brothers Jimmy and Donald Maltman both played in services internationals for Scotland and therefore should both be capped retrospectively.”

Hawick president Ian Landles is glad to see the Maltrmans mix-up resolved and three further caps going to ex-Greens, saying: “All at the club are delighted for Bruce, Donnie, who went on to be a great, hard-working president of the club, and maybe particularly for Wat, who so cruelly missed out on a cap by getting injured playing for Hawick the Saturday after he was selected to play for Scotland the following weekend and never got selected again.”

The new round of awards takes the number of Scottish caps handed out since the creation of the national team in 1871 to 1,216.

Two capping ceremonies are now being planned.

Families of players involved in internationals between 1942 and 1946 are invited to one at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium on Saturday, November 11, and another will be held in February for players given caps for games between 1969 and 1998.