News

Alex Connacher – the Quiz Master supreme

We often talk about our volunteers and the immense contributions they make to our clubs but sometimes in amongst the membership itself there are inspirational members who bring so much to their clubs. 

Alex Connacher was just that person at our Motherwell Clubs. Sadly, Alex recently passed away and amidst all the chat and reminiscing it became clear that Alex was a total legend. 

Before joining Sporting Memories in 2018, Alex had survived a brain haemorrhage along with living with other serious health issues. 

He was from Motherwell in Lanarkshire and had previously attended the "Remember Well" group at Fir Park football stadium – the home of Motherwell FC - before that club morphed into Sporting Memories in 2018. He rarely missed a session at the group which met every Wednesday and when we set up another club in the area - Club 100 – meeting on a Friday morning, he joined that too. Sporting Memories became a big part of his weekly activities.  

A lifelong Motherwell FC supporter, he was the stadium announcer at Fir Park for over 20 years and he had a fund of funny and interesting stories from those days. 

The little black book 

Alex would spend a lot of time preparing quizzes for each session and would research meticulously so that the questions were often fiendishly difficult! He kept all of the questions in little black books. During lockdown he became the heartbeat of our Zoom sessions with his Quizmaster hat on and kept our mid-week sessions filled with fun and laughter. 

Not just football 

He had been a keen bowler at Wishaw South Bowling Club and golfer at Wishaw Golf Club. In 2019, when we had bowls sessions at his old club, Alex in his usual enthusiastic style dusted off his woods to show us all that his skills hadn't been diminished by the passing years.  

Latterly, he was often in a lot of pain but bore it without complaint. He always had a cheery smile and a joke for every occasion, but as his mobility diminished over the course of this year and his visits to the clubs became infrequent and then stopped. He was missed and we know he missed us, never failing to ask how things were going. 

He will be sadly missed. 

Now all you keen quizmasters, you might be wondering what happened to those little black books - worth their weight in gold to anyone compiling a sporting quiz. Well, Alex gave them to one of our volunteers who has them safely under lock and key. Oh, to borrow that key!!!