Doddie Weir

George Wilson "Doddie" Weir OBE (4 July 1970 – 26 November 2022) was a Scottish rugby union player who played as a lock.

[10] By 1989 he was playing for Melrose RFC in the Borders[11] and was part of the team that won six Scottish club championships.

After the match, The Aberdeen Press and Journal wrote:[12] No way, however, should the selectors revert to Doddie Weir for the boiler-room.

invitational side on six occasions, making his debut against Newport in 1992 and captaining the club on his final appearance against the Combined Services in 2002.

[16] In February 2002, the Falcons announced that Weir, Gary Armstrong and George Graham would all leave the club at the end of the season to join the newly reformed Borders Rugby team.

The Herald columnist Brian Meek wrote: "Melrose's Doddie Weir still looks like he should eat more porridge, but his jumping and catching are a joy to watch... and he gets about.

[32] A lineout specialist, he was selected as part of the British & Irish Lions tour of South Africa in 1997.

[24][33] His time in the national side declined in later years as the next generation of locks emerged, with the likes of Stuart Grimes and eventual Scotland cap record holder Scott Murray coming into the team.

[36] In 2005, having retired from professional rugby, Weir settled in to the 300-acre Bluecairn Farm, located only a few miles from where he was brought up at Cortleferry.

[1] He occasionally made appearances in his distinctive tartan suits on television,[38] including work as a pundit for the BBC as part of the half-time analysis during Scotland matches and commentating at the Melrose Sevens.

[48] A fellow rugby international and BBC broadcaster John Beattie followed Doddie over a couple of years.

[49][50] In January 2020 Weir confirmed his own participation in a clinical trial aimed at finding drugs that could slow, stop or reverse the progression of MND.

They have three sons, Hamish, Angus and Ben [1] Weir designed his tartan in 2018 in collaboration with Berwickshire-based clothes firm ScotlandShop,[60] in a bid to raise cash for the My Name'5 Doddie Foundation.

Weir had become good friends with former Rhinos player and fellow MND sufferer Rob Burrow.

Weir was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to rugby, to motor neurone disease research and to the community in the Scottish Borders.

[65] Named in his honour, the Doddie Weir Cup is a perpetual rugby union trophy for matches played between Scotland and Wales.

[68][69] That same month, Glasgow Caledonian University conferred him with an Honorary Degree in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the sporting community and his commitment to fundraising for the common good.

[73] That year, the National Galleries of Scotland announced that a portrait of Weir by artist Gerard M. Burns had been loaned to the Scottish collection.

[74] In November 2021, Melrose Rugby announced Weir as being appointed to the honorary position of joint President of the club.