STEWART’S Melville College in Edinburgh might not be among the oldest schools in Scotland, indeed in its present form it has existed only since 1972, but it has been a consistent centre of rugby excellence, not least in recent seasons.
A couple of weeks back no fewer than three of its former pupils pulled on the Scotland shirt to play against Tonga at Murrayfield. There was giant young Edinburgh lock Jamie Dobson and Glasgow Warriors fly-half Ross Thompson, who were contemporaries at the school, and more experienced hooker George Turner who has thus far won 13 caps.
There are others in the pipeline with the school currently enjoying a purple patch, evidenced by the fact that they are the current Scottish schools champions, winning the title the last time it was contested pre Covid in December 2019.
Historically the school has two strands. There was Melville College which was founded in 1832, and Daniel Stewart’s College which was formed in 1855. The two schools merged during the difficult 1970s when the education system in Britain was being ripped up and based itself at the old Daniel Stewart “campus” –a spectacular and rather gothic building in Queensferry Road which started out life as the Daniel Stewart Hospital.
Most of the notable rugby alumni date from the amalgamation onwards but there were a couple of notable exceptions. The first was former Scotland captain, coach and selector Dougie Morgan who starred for Melville College in the early 60s before going on to win 21 caps for Scotland at scrum-half and two for the Lions when they toured New Zealand in 1977.
A few years after Morgan, Alex Brewster emerged as another product of Melville College, a gifted rumbustious forward with a curious back story. Brewster started out life as a back row and won three caps for Scotland as a flanker between 1977 and 1980. He did well enough but, as is usually the case, Scotland had back row forwards aplenty and after a while Brewster switched to prop. It took a while to learn his trade but by 1986 he had forced his way back into the Scotland side and played in three straight wins over England, Ireland and Romania before the Scotland selectors again lost a little faith.
Remarkably he came back into favour in 1989 and captained Scotland on their tour of Japan for which caps were not awarded. Thus ended a strange 13-season involvement with the Scotland team that harvested just six caps.
A product of just Daniel Stewart’s was centre Ian Forsyth who cut a swathe in the First XV for three years between 1962-64, captaining the side in his last season. Forsyth was a noted Sevens exponent but also earned six full Scotland caps, making his debut against the 1972 All Blacks.
He was ever-present during the 1973 Five Nations, scored the winning try against Ireland and played a fine hand in a notable Scotland win over Wales, but after playing against the President’s XV at the end of that season failed to gain further Scotland recognition.
Soon after the amalgamation came one of the great Stewart Melville dynasties, the Calders. Both Jim and Finlay – twins – played in the back row for the team in the inaugu- ral season of 1972-73 and the one that followed before going to greater glories with Scotland. Jim won selection for the 1983 Lions and appeared in one Test.
Jim’s Test career probably reached its zenith in 1984 when he scored the winning try for Scotland in their Grand Slam victory over France at Murrayfield.
Finlay meanwhile made a slower transition to senior rugby – he didn’t even win aB cap until 1984 and oddly for two exact contemporaries never played for Scotland together.
Jim won the last of his 27 Scotland caps in 1985 whereas Finlay didn’t make his debut until the following season in the Five Nations against France.
Finlay certainly made up for lost time though in the five years that followed, winning 32 Scotland caps, playing a big role in their 1990 Grand Slam success and then helping Scotland reach the semi-final of the 1991 World Cup. More recently both Jim’s sons Duncan and Lewis attended the school and played age group rugby for Scotland.
Just missing out on that 1990 Grand Slam but present and correct for the 1991 World cup campaign was another Stewart’s Melville alumni in Doddie Weir.
Doddie’s roots are in the Borders and the Melrose club but he switched to Stewart’s Melville to complete his education and won his Scotland age group caps from the school. He also played his first season of senior rugby for the old boys club – Stewart’s Melville FP – before moving back to the Borders and helping the Melrose club to six Scottish championships.
Internationally he made his Test debut in 1990 and was soon dubbed ‘a mad giraffe’ by Bill McLaren on account of his lanky appearance at lock or just occasionally in the back row. There followed 61 caps, three World Cups and a Lions tour in 1997, the latter cruelly curtailed by injury.
In recent years he has mounted a brave fight against Motor Neuron Disease (MND) helping to raise millions of pounds to aid research. Since 2018 the annual Wales-Scotland fixture has been for the Doddie Weir Cup.
On the subject of Bill McLaren, his grandson Jim Thompson was also a pupil at the school and went on to play full-back for Scotland A and skipper the Scotland Sevens team.
Scrum-half Graeme Burns was another school product of the late 80s, a live wire scrum-half who captained Scotland B and Scotland Sevens although fierce competition meant he was restricted to four full caps.
The school’s most recent success in the Scottish Schools Cup came in December 2019, the last full season before Covid struck when they defeated old rivals George Watson’s 24- 14 at Murrayfield.
That was a game decided by the clash of two very strong packs but it was a much more free-flowing affair back in 2016 when they won an exciting encounter with Dollar Academy 36-32. Dollar looked to have snatched victory with a late try but were made to pay for their decision to kick out before time was up and Stew- Mel’s prop Rory O’Hara drove over for the winning try. Prior to that their hero had been Jacob Lineen, son of Scotland’s Grand Slam centre Sean Lineen, who had scored a classy hat-trick for Stewart’s Melville. This was the side that also featured the creative skills and kicking skills of Ross Thompson who was maintaining a family link which stretched back to the Melville College days.
Thompson’s grandfather Eric was from the Orkneys but educated at Melville College where he was a standout in both the rugby and cricket teams. Eventually he settled on cricket and became one of Scotland’s best bowlers with 107 wickets in 41 internationals.
In 2011, having lost to Fetters and Edinburgh Academy in the previous two Scottish Schools Cup finals, Stewart’s Melville reversed that trend and defeated the latter 19-11 at Murrayfield. On that occasion it was a try by wing Adam Greig and 14 points from the boot of Alex Hagart that did the trick.
Prior to that there had also been titles in 2005 when they thumped Robert Gordon School 36-0 in the final. Leading the charge that day was flanker Lewis Calder, son of Jim, who later went on to play for London Scottish. The school’s first-ever title had come in 1999, when after a hard fought battle with Merchiston Castle, Stewart’s Melville eventually ended up 8-3 winners.
Jamie Hodgeson not Dobson!