Ian Thomson

Born: April 13, 1930; Died: November 22, 2014.

Ian Hosie Munro Thomson, who has died aged 84 after a short illness, was the fourth of the eight Heriot's FP full-backs to have also filled that position for the national XV.

He was arguably the most inexperienced and least-known of the octet, when he was capped for the first time, against Wales, at Murrayfield, in 1951.

Another of the Herioters, Tom Gray, who was then playing with Northampton, was the chosen full-back, but he was forced to call-off on the morning of the match because he had a heavy cold.

The call then went out to Goldenacre: "Tell Thomson to get on a bus and get himself to Murrayfield"; this he did and found himself capped.

He picked an auspicious occasion as a young, relatively untried and totally unfancied Scotland XV stunned the estimated 20,000 travelling Welshmen in a then-record crowd of 81,000, crammed into Murrayfield for the game. That was the official attendance, but some estimates put the actual crowd at more than 90,000.

The Taffia fully-expected their heroes, 11 of whom had played for the British Lions in New Zealand the previous summer, to win with ease. However, the out-weighed Scottish pack carried the fight to their visitors and at half-time, the Scots led, thanks to a Thomson penalty.

Early in the second half, the skipper Peter Kininmonth doubled the Scots' lead with his now legendary, long-range dropped goal and the Scots never looked back. They added further scores, with Thomson converting the second of three tries, which was scored by Hamish Dawson, to help clinch a sensational 19-0 victory.

Sadly for Scotland, this was a false dawn, as they immediately set off on that lengthy and demoralising run of 17 straight losses.

Thomson featured in matches one, four, five, six, ten and 11 of that dismal streak - the latter two caps being won while he was doing his national service in the Royal Signals.

He was also a nominated reserve on several occasions, but, in those pre-replacement days, he would never get on the park, even if a player was injured. He scored a total of 25 points in his seven internationals, the last of which being the Calcutta Cup match of 1953, lost 8-26 at Twickenham.

He was the consummate Goldenacre man, playing rugby in the winter and cricket in the summer. As a pupil at George Heriot's he had played in the rugby XV, the cricket XI and the tennis team. Cricket was probably his first love and as a player with Heriot's FP, he was twice called up to be Scotland's twelfth-man, with some considering him unfortunate not to join the ranks of Scotland's double internationalists.

He is one of the small handful of Scotland "caps" of the amateur era who never played for the Barbarians, while he also played for the Combined Services and for Edinburgh, and was regularly called-up to play in the old Scotland Trials.

From George Heriot's School, he had gone to Edinburgh University, to read mathematics; then, after his national service, he settled down to spend his entire working life, in the capital, with Standard Life, ending his career with that company with his retirement in 1990, as a senior figure in their human resources department.

Thomson was a life-long Hearts fan. He also golfed, at Duddingston Golf Club, where, at his peak, he had a handicap of three. He was a quiet man, who preferred spending time with his family and friends to partying.

He and his wife Margaret, who survives him, had two sons: David and Ian Junior, who also survive him, as do four of his five grand-children; the fifth, Ian's daughter Kerry, pre-deceased her grandfather.