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Two Legends - one night in Blantyre

Earlier this month our Blantyre club, which meets at the David Livingstone Memorial Church on alternate Wednesday evenings, had a real treat when Scottish sports broadcaster Chick Young dropped in to share memories and anecdotes with members. 

Chick is in fact one of Scotland’s best known and instantly recognisable football commentators and more often to be found regaling Sportsman’s Dinners and prestige events than sitting down with a room full of an eclectic mix of Blantyre locals. 

How on earth did our Blantyre club manage to get such a recognisable sporting legend to come along. Well, here’s how and it’s about our first legend of the night, volunteer Iain Mcmillan. 

Volunteer Extraordinaire 

Iain has been involved with Sporting Memories for over nearly 10 years and started off his journey with us overseeing the clubs within South Lanarkshire Day Care. When Iain retired he began to attend Meldrum Day Care in a volunteer roll to assist John Whitelaw and Iain Dalgarno in delivering a weekly group. From there Iain started a fortnightly club within his parish church (David Livingstone Memorial Church in Blantyre) on Wednesday evenings which he’s continued to keep as vibrant as the day it started. 

However Iain was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s around the time of pandemic. Never one to let anything like this slow him down, Iain was keen to do a fortnightly Zoom group which continues to this day. Iain’s Parkinson’s has progressed and he does get some help now at the club with the lifting and laying but it is still Iain’s undoubted drive and persistence that has brought a wide array of guest speakers to Blantyre. There are many but let’s list a few: 

• Football referee David Sommers  

• Tom Boyd formerly of Celtic Fc (twice)  

• Commentator Archie Macpherson on both via Zoom and in person  

• Jim McCalliog - Scotland footballing hero ( twice) 

• Scotland Under 21s coach  

He also managed to get in touch with Sir Alex Ferguson but we’ll keep that tale for another day. As if Iain is not busy enough, he also runs a cuppa and a chat club on Thursday mornings in the Church. Iain is a great advocaat for Sporting Memroeis as he speaks to everyone about it and what good it does for people, 

A long and illustrious career 

Chick, or as his parents christened him, Charles, is a sports journalist and broadcaster, best known for his work with BBC Scotland.?He was a football correspondent reporting on both television and radio.?He has covered six World Cups which he is immensely proud of. Chick began his career in newspapers, from regional local press to Fleet Street and back, working for various publications before joining the BBC in the 1980s.?  In 2022, he was delighted to be named President of the Scottish Football Writers Association. As he said at the time: “I was born into newspapers.” 

The laugh is legendary 

His humorous persona, particularly his portrayal as a Rangers fan (despite being a Hearts supporter) in the popular comedy show “Only an Excuse,” made him a recognizable figure even to those who don’t follow football.? Which led to one of his many tales. 

Chick was making an advert for a sponsor and the premise was that he had to play his Only an Excuse character but as himself. Complicated, yes! Chick thought he had it nailed in one take. After all he’s a professional broadcaster. However, the recording team asked him to do it over and over and finally said “You just don’t sound like the real thing, the laugh is all wrong” - Go figure! 

From stories of grand pianos in tenement blocks in Clydebank during the blitz in 1941 to the real story behind the infamous interview with Walter Smith, manager of Rangers FC (available on YouTube unless you have sensitive ears) with dollops of Rod Stewart planning to net the first ever goal at the newly refurbished Hampden and the Inland Revenue sponsoring Ibrox stadium then to be known as the Inland Revenue Arena (think about it) it was hard to separate truth from fiction. But each and every moment of the evening was filled with laughter and merriment. 

The real Chick 

However, we also had the opportunity to witness another side to Chick. In the audience, unannounced, was a very old friend and his wife who had the made the trip specially to see their old friend. Chick recognised them immediately and spent a lot of time with them afterwards. His friend was quite unwell with dementia but that didn’t stop the two of them remembering days gone by, 

Many memories made that night – thank you Chick!