Hall of Fame
What started as a Physical Education Hall of Fame at Coltness High School has grown arms and legs to become a whole school feature. Given the large number of individuals who have come through the school and become professional footballers it was muted that a Hall of Fame may be a nice feature to try to encourage and motivate the current crop of youngsters coming through the school. Roger Hynd who starred in the European Cup Winners’ Cup final in 1967 for Rangers against Bayern Munich and Iain Browning who played for various professional clubs including a spell under Sir Alex Ferguson during his first managerial spell at East Stirlingshire, had been teachers in the PE department for a number of years and must have been a big influence on the boys coming through.
The names who have already donated tops include Lewis MacLeod of Brentford, Paul Quinn of Aberdeen, Scott Leitch the current Academy Director at Motherwell FC , Andrew Barrowan who played for Birmingham City and his dad Cliff Barrowman who played for Motherwell for about eight years. The school have also been in touch with Colin Craib, Derek Holmes and Stewart Kerr ex of Celtic. Colin Craib holds two very unique records in that he is the first person to have scored in all four top flight divisions in Scotland with the same team (only having this equalled recently by Lee Wallace at Rangers). He is also the only person who has played in all four top flight leagues in both England and Scotland! Outwith the playing side of football we also have our own PT of PE of PE Campbell Rae who was capped at U21 Level for Scotland at Rugby, Andrew Dallas the SFA Referee, Hannah Stone a Scottish Rower, Andrewa Lawler the current British U23 hill running champion and his twin sister Hannah who is the current Scottish Wowan’s pole vault champion! We are also hoping to include something shortly from Scottish cyclist Steve Lawley.
Beyond the realms of sport however we are also starting to gain a sizeable amount of former pupils on the walls. Linda Park (nee MacFarlane) the current Head Teacher at Greenfaulds High School, likewise John Port the HT at Gairloch High in Highland, Steven and Alan Jukes and Barry Cowan of the band “The Vigo Thieves” who have written and recorded the soundtrack for the Scotland team’s Euro 16 campaign, ex-MSP Andrew Wilson, current MEP Catherine Stihler (nee Taylor) and Police Scotland Superintendent Craig Ritchie to name but a few.
The Hall of Fame has been established to form part of the school’s 50th Anniversary celebrations in 2016 and the English Department will run a competition for one of the current crop of school pupils to come up with a slogan which will adorn the walls for years to come.
Quote from Campbell Rae, Principal Teacher of PE ““The response we have had from our pupils has been fantastic. The Hall of fame is displayed centrally in the PE Department and captures the attention of everyone who walks through it. Particularly, the pictures of Roger Hynd taking the ball past Franz Beckenbauer in the European Cup final and of Ian Browning Pictured with his then manager Sir Alex Fergusson. So many pupils and parents were unaware of these acheivements by people in the school community and this allows our young people to be inspired and realise that the dreams and aspirations they have are possible.”
Quote from Head Teacher John McGilp Head Teacher said ” A good friend of mine is the Head Teacher at Dunoon Grammar and I found out that they had an interesting batch of former pupils including the late, great John Smith MP, Sylvester McCoy, George Robertson and Brian Wilson. When I came to Coltness and I started to hear from Iain Browning about the amount of professional footballlers and I was really amazed and interested. The PE Department then had the idea of how we could use this to inspire our current generation and hey presto the Hall of Fame came into being. Once this was up however it then became obvious that Wishaw and in particular Coltness High had produced a batch of really talented individuals from other walks of life so we decided to expand this to include others who have made it to the top of their chosen career path. It is our hope that the creation of this Hall of Fame will be a good focus for our 50th year celebrations next year but more importantly it will be an inspiration and motivation for the youth of today to aspire to and reach their full potential. If they can see that someone from their school has become an MSP for example, well what’s to stop them doing it! That is my main hope for this resource. The Hall is testament to the encouragement that the staff in the school over the years have given to the pupils and is something which is very evident in the day-to-day life of the school today. One example of this is David Turnbull who has recently signed a two year deal with Motherwell and starred for Scotland U15s in the recently televised Victory Shield”
The school would ask anyone who knows of someone they believe warrants a spot in the Hall of Fame to contact us on 01698 274920 or on enquiries@coltnesshigh.n-lanark.sch.uk with details of who, what and how we can contact people, which is the most important aspect. To get into the Hall of Fame you must have “reached the top of your game career wise”, played sports professionally or as an amateur represented your country to at least U21 level.
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