An appreciation: Harry Whitaker

PIERRE DANOS’ oft quoted diktat that ‘in rugby there are those who play the piano – and those who shift them’ comes readily to mind when thinking about Harry Whitaker. Shifting pianos was never a problem for the likes of Jock Beattie and Hugh McLeod, and there have been many fine players amongst Hawick’s serried international ranks, but only three can be truly said to have achieved virtuoso status – Wattie Sutherland, Jim Renwick and Harry.

When in 1957, Harold Macmillan told the country that we ‘had never had it so good’ he was not kidding so far as Hawick was concerned. The mills were booming, the town was the highest dollar earner per head of population in the UK, it had just been voted the best dressed town in Britain, Jack Hegarty’s great championship winning side were at the top of the Scottish game – and it was always sunny at the Common Riding. ‘The grey auld toon’ was at that time, as David Hill so memorably wrote, ‘a grand place to be a laddie in’ – and the perfect environment to nurture Harry Whitaker’s sublime sporting talents.

Scrum-half in the High School 1st XV at 14, opening the batting for Hawick & Wilton at 16, a stylish inside left for Hawick Legion in the Sunday League, halcyon days with the PSA in the Border semi-junior league, unforgettably stamping his class all over the exhibition match played against the full Hawick side to celebrate the opening of the new pavilion at Cavers View.

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Two tries on his debut for the ‘Greens’ in 1963 in the then traditional September holiday Monday game against the reigning Scottish champions, Glasgow High – and then winning a regular place in the side when Glen Turnbull went to Rugby League the following season, Harry took to senior rugby ‘as to the manner born’ – quick hands and a great box-kick, a killer break, superb game management, a telepathic understanding with Colin Telfer – and unbelievably brave.

Faith was in short supply when the Hawick seven was announced for the Gala tournament at the beginning of April 1966 – four raw, untested youngsters behind the scrum (John Auchinleck, Rob Welsh, Colin and Harry) and three front five forwards (Norman Suddon, Peter Robertson and Rob Brydon) packing down in front of them. Few rated their prospects, but after breezing past Gordonians and Selkirk in the early rounds, they swamped a very strong Cardiff seven (which included Gareth Edwards) 20-5 in the semi-final and blew away a highly rated Loughborough Colleges seven (which included Gerald Davies) 25-15 in the final. A great day for Hawick rugby and the launch pad for the glorious ten-in-a-row – with Norman Mair writing in The Scotsman the following week at Melrose about Harry ‘breaking with the impudence of a street urchin ringing other people’s door bells’.

Eddie McGovern, who managed Hawick Royal Albert in the East of Scotland football league, turned up at pre-season training at Mansfield one Saturday afternoon in August that year. Ian Cleghorn’s car had broken down so they were a man short for their game against Chirnside United. Could Harry fill in?  He could – and did – and scored a hat-trick!

Harry toured South Africa with the Scottish Border Club earning praise from no less a personage than Doctor Dannie Craven – then he captained Hawick to the Border League and the Scottish Unofficial Championship in season 1967-68. He was at the height of his rugby powers – international recognition was a given – but Harry was his own man – and he signed Rugby League for Workington Town – not for the money but for the challenge it presented.

Rugby League was a hard and at times brutal game in those days, and Workington Town was maybe not the most fashionable of clubs, but Harry built a meaningful career through hard work, guts and innate talent, playing alongside the likes of Paul Charlton and Ike Southward. He had no regrets whatsoever about ‘going South’ and always argued that League was the better game – but there remains a suspicion that his talents were better suited to Union – and intriguing conjecture as to what might have been had he played his cards differently. Certainly, for those of us who saw him play, it is a hypothetically close call between Harry and Gareth Edwards for the starting scrum-half slot with the 1971 Lions tour of New Zealand.

Harry was always keen on the horses and an inveterate student of bloodstock form – and back in Hawick after his playing days were over he and ‘Pie’ Laidlaw opened a bookies shop down Baker Street – but he had always been interested in sports injuries and working from scratch, studying at home on his own, he qualified as a registered osteopath and ran a highly regarded clinic from his house in Beaconsfield Terrace – so highly regarded that Rugby League luminaries such as Ellerly Hanley, Sean Edwards and Alan Tait travelled up to Hawick for treatment.

Golf was by then Harry’s game – over the Vertish with Bill McLaren – or ‘troot suppers’ down at Goswick with Jim Renwick – with bagging four holes-in-one over the piece as fitting testament to his proficiency on the links..

Harry was an avid reader with eclectic tastes. A deep thinker with strong views – interesting and interested – happy to set the world to rights over a couple of pints in the High Level on a Thursday night.

An outstanding sportsman, a proud Teri, a self-effacing polymath – but Harry was, however, first and foremost a committed family man and our thoughts must be with Joan, Kevin, Jane and their families at this incredibly sad and very difficult time.

Ken Scotland: an unlikely revolutionary who embodies the spirit of rugby