Doddie Weir
George Wilson "Doddie" Weir (born 4 July 1970) is a Scottish former rugby union player who played as a lock. He made 61 international appearances for the Scotland national team. He currently lives with his family on a farm which he bought in the Scottish Borders. The Doddie Weir Cup is named after him. Early life. Weir was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was educated at Daniel Stewart's and Melville College. He studied at the Scottish Agricultural College from 1988 to 1991, gaining a Higher National Diploma. Rugby Union career. Amateur career. Weir started playing rugby for  Stewart's Melville FP RFC, He then played for Melrose RFC in the Borders and was part of the team that won six Scottish club championships. Provincial and professional career. He was selected for the Reds Trial side to play against the Blues Trial side on 4 January 1992. After the match, The Aberdeen Press and Journal gave a predictive howler of Weir in their assessment: No way, however, should the selectors revert to Doddie Weir for the boiler-room. The Melrose youngster's future must lie at No. 8. He is simply not heavy enough to tangle with the  giant English locks. He later moved to England in 1995 to join the Newcastle Falcons and was part of the Premiership winning side of 1997–98. He also started the victorious 2001 Anglo-Welsh Cup final. He moved back to Scotland to join the newly reformed Borders team in 2002 where he remained until his retirement from professional rugby. He finished his playing career together with Gary Armstrong at the Border Reivers in 2004. International career. He had one solitary cap for Scotland B against Ireland B on 9 December 1989. 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." Weir's first senior appearance for Scotland was on 10 November 1990 against at Murrayfield Stadium. A mainstay of the team throughout the 1990s, he was a fan favourite of the Murrayfield crowd. In 1997 he was the first recipient of the "Famous Grouse Scotland Player of the Five Nations Award". He was once described by commentator Bill McLaren as being "On the charge like a mad giraffe". A lineout specialist, he was selected as part of the  British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa in 1997. Whilst on the tour he suffered a serious knee injury, as a result of foul play, while playing against Mpumalanga Province. 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. His final appearance was in the Six Nations Championship match against France at Murrayfield, on 4 March 2000. He won 61 Scottish caps, scoring 19 points from four tries (his first scoring four points  under the old scoring system). Significantly 2 of his 4 tries came against New Zealand in the quarter final of the 1995 world cup. He is the only Scot to have scored 2 tries against New Zealand. After playing career. Weir went on to work for Hutchinson Environmental Solutions, a waste management company that was started by his father-in-law. Weir was given the position of commercial director. He is also active on the after-dinner speech circuit. He occasionally appears on the BBC as part of the half-time analysis during Scotland matches. Motor Neurone Disease campaiging. In  June 2017, Weir announced that he had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND), the announcement coinciding with global MND Awareness Day. In August, he spoke about plans to set up a foundation named 'My Name's Doddie' in order to "raise funds for research into a cure for MND and to provide grants to people living with the condition". In November, accompanied by his three sons, he walked the match ball on to the pitch at Murrayfield for the Autumn international test match between Scotland and the All Blacks. A tartan was designed by Weir in collaboration with Berwickshire -based clothes firm ScotlandShop, in a bid to raise cash for his motor neurone disease research charity. The tartan features colours from the teams he played for: black and yellow of Melrose, blue and white of Scotland, and black of the former and white of the latter are also intended as a reference to his seven years with Newcastle Falcons."My Name's Doddie: The Autobiography" was published on 25 October 2018 through Black & White Publishing. On 31 October 2018, Weir appeared on BBC One's "The One Show", where he stated that his charity had now raised over £ 1 million. In January 2020 Weir confirmed his involvement in a clinical trial aimed at finding drugs that could slow, stop or reverse the progression of MND. Honours. He 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. Named in his honour, the Doddie Weir Cup is a perpetual rugby union trophy for matches played between Scotland and Wales; including those matches played in the Six Nations. In December 2019, Weir was announced as  the recipient of the Helen Rollason Award, which is presented every year during the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year show.