Norman George Robertson MairMBE (7 October 1928 – 7 December 2014)[1][2] was a Scottish international rugby union and cricket player.[3] He later became a journalist for The Scotsman reporting on rugby and golf,[4] and also wrote for Rugby World.
Life
Mair was born 7 October 1928 in Edinburgh, the youngest of the 11 surviving children of Elizabeth Mackay Bisset (1882-1950) and Alexander William Mair (1875-1928), professor of Greek at the University of Edinburgh. On 13 November 1928 his father died in a fire at the family home, 9 Corennie Drive, Morningside, Edinburgh.[5][6]
Mair played for Scotland in 1952.[9] He was capped once, playing against Worcestershire. He scored four not out in his only innings.[10]
Sports journalism
Bill McLaren rated Mair as one of the best rugby journalists that Scotland produced:
"I always have had a high regard for the coverage by Norman Mair, formerly of The Scotsman.
"Norman never was persona grata with all members of the Scottish Rugby Union because he wrote what he felt and had the ear of some very influential people in the game. There have been times when I have had to read one of Norman's sentences two or three times over in order to get the gist, but he has been one of the most perceptive of analysts and his articles have been both enlightening and enjoyable - especially the little humorous stories that were so often his punchlines."[11]
Writing of the Australian player Mark Ella, he once said:
"Ella has hands so adhesive that when he fumbled a ball against Scotland (in 1984) you would not have been surprised to see those Australians of the appropriate religious persuasion cross themselves"[12]
Mair was always outspoken in his opinions. In the early fifties, for example, criticising the large number of new caps in each game in 1953 and 1954, he said that he consider the "inhabitants of lunatic asylums... had a fair grievance while the S.R.U. selectors walked around free and uncertified."[13]
