FORMER footballer Danny McGrain has paid tribute to a Celtic-loving piano teacher who was killed in a road crash.
Grant Gourlay, 48, was cycling on the A926 between Maryton and Kirriemuir in Angus on Wednesday when he collided with a van. He died at the scene.
Mr Gourlay was a lifelong Celtic fan who had first met McGrain as a schoolboy after writing a letter to Celtic.
He met the defender, who also played for Scotland, several times over the years.
McGrain, who played for Celtic from 1967 to 1987 and is now a coach at the Parkhead club, said: "I'm saddened to hear of Grant's death because he was an extremely nice guy. He was really interested in my career and I found that really humbling.
"I know he had a passion for music and hoped to be a music teacher and I was pleased to hear he achieved his ambitions. My thoughts are with his family."
Mr Gourlay ran his own music school and was well-known in his hometown of Dundee.
In 2005, he played alongside his childhood hero in a charity football match, afterwards describing the experience as "the nearest I will get to Heaven without dying".
Mr Gourlay had also been involved with Dundee Roadrunners.
Earlier, his cousin Stephen Gourlay, 49, had paid tribute, saying: "He was a marvellous cousin, well loved."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article