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The greatest ever Scottish sportsperson?


TheScarf

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This debate is more about how much people value certain sports, rather than the actual sportsperson. If you view all sports as equal then you have to pick Hendry or Hoy. If you feel there's a hierarchy of sports with Tennis, Football and Golf as the top ones then Andy Murray would be top. I'd be inclined to go for Murray, then Hendry.

I think you need to take into account the nature of the sport or even specific event within a sport (e.g. Hoy and track sprinting). It's just one factor though.

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People get very arsey about what qualifies as a sport and often don't include games. However the skill and dedication to getting to the top of the field in a game is probably more than most athletes train. You can't work out 8hrs a day, but snooker players will often spend that amount of time practising. Top competitive gamers will often spend up to 12 hours a day practising. Chess players will spend all their time studying strategies etc.

If you taking all sports as equals, as I have already said (wee bit tongue in cheek from me the first time round) Alex Marshall at lawn bowls is the Scottish sportsman with more world titles than any mentioned with 19.

Also I bet their are more bowling greens than there are running tracks, tennis courts snooker halls and cycling tracks put together so therefore a very accessible sport.

However Sir Alex Ferguson will be considered for along time to come as the greatest football manager the world has ever seen with such participation and availability of football that is hard to rival for Hoy and Hendry, so technically not a sportsman he is still a sportsperson (does he count as a sportsman????) still could be the greatest Scot involved in sport. His longevity and adaptability to a changing game is what sets him apart.

My vote would go to Sir Alex

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Wells has the PED accusations hanging over him and his Olympic Gold was achieves with no Americans in the field, I suspect that he may not have won if the Americans were competing.

To be fair he then beat all the Americans in a fortnight later in an invitational set up just to settle this argument and then beat them all a year later in the Worlds

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Which makes my point. Andy Murray is blatantly not the greatest tennis player of all time, whereas Hendry is probably the greatest snooker player of all time. So how you could describe Murray as a greater sportsman I have no idea of.

I think Bjorn Borg might disagree btw.

He's probably agree that Snooker isn't as good a sport as Tennis though.

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Eric Liddell.

Olympic Gold Medalist in 400, bronze in 200, and 7 caps for Scotland at rugby.

And that Scotland team were no slouches. In Liddels last game they narrowly lost to an English conversion in a Grand Slam decider at Inverleith. Scotland would win their first slam two years later it would be the last for 59 years

Having reached the top in one sport as an individual and played at international level in another makes a pretty strong case

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But when it comes to all rounders this K. G. McLeod chap takes some beating

10 caps for Scotland at Rugby taking in the 1907 triple crown played football for Manchester City, Cricket for Lancashire and was a shit hot Golfet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Grant_MacLeod

I don't know if Stephen Hendry has even tried playing pool

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Robert Millar was a guid biker but never beat the big boys, he was a one trick pony.

The only other one I would think about would be David Wilkie but again, he was never dominant.

Millar only beat Lucian Van Impe to take his polka dot Jersey, not a "big boy" by any means, climbers never usually are, but Google the guys record.

As for Wilkie, as well as silvers in the 100m in Munich & Montreal, I'm pretty sure his 200 breaststroke World Record stood for 10 years until Canada's Victor Davis broke it.

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Craig Whyte. Or that tidy lassie from the woman's Olympic curling team.

Eve is a scratch golfer as well.

When it comes to these lists they always forget four times US Open Golf Champion...Willie Anderson [frae Dirleton.]

James Braid, Chris Hoy or Murray for me.

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Its Sir Alex Ferguson, his achievements annihilate Murrays and any others. In terms of actually "playing" a sport, then its Murray, but thats not what the titles asking.

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