Bob Easson says he is “surprised, but very honoured” to have been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to Scottish rugby in the King's Birthday Honours having been involved in the sport for more than six decades.
As a player, coach, coach educator, coach developer, director of rugby, committee man and much more his journey within the sport began in the 1960s when he was a teenager and, now aged 77, he is as enthusiastic about the game and helping others enjoy it as he ever has been.
And the number of ‘well done’ messages that Easson has received since the news of his BEM was announced last Friday evening shows just how many careers he has helped shape along the way in rugby and, indeed, in other sports.
“I got a message from Clark Laidlaw a few days ago from New Zealand once the news started to filter round that I ‘d been awarded a British Empire Medal,” Easson says as an example of his high-profile well-wishers.
“When I was involved with coaching the Scotland Sevens team Clark was in the squad. He has gone on to do really well in coaching, previously coaching New Zealand Sevens and now doing a great job as head coach of the Hurricanes.
“He had a big match at the weekend [in the Super Rugby play-offs] so for him and lots of others to have taken time in recent days to message me means a lot.
“I have always been big on building relationships and connections because they are very important in sport, in rugby and in life – those rugby connections are why so many of us love the game and keep coming back for more.
Easson grew up in Cupar in Fife and, like many youngsters then and now, played a lot of different sports early on.
Rugby was not one that he came across and he favoured football until he passed his 11+ exam which meant that he had no choice but to play rugby at Bell Baxter High School.
“I wasn’t the biggest guy back then, so when our teacher put us all in a line with tallest at one end and shortest at the other he came down the line to me and said ‘you’ll be a scrum-half’,” Easson recounts.
“It wasn’t the most scientific way to pick positions for people, ‘big Jimmy’ at the other end of the line was the second-row for example, but I got on with it and started to enjoy the sport once we started to play games - rugby was now part of my life and has been ever since.
“I was in my early teens then in the 1960s and, as time at school moved on, I decided I wanted to become a PE teacher. I earned my place to do PE teaching at Jordanhill College in Glasgow in 1966.
“During my years training there Bill Dickinson [who went on to became the adviser to the captain of the Scotland men’s rugby team, effectively head coach, in 1971] coached us at Jordanhill RFC and he was ahead of his time when it came to things like weights and converting people into, and training them for, specific positions.
“Richie Dixon [who went on to coach Scotland in the 1990s] was my big pal then while the club had some great players like Ian McLauchlan and we all enjoyed playing there.
“I always had a desire to coach and in 1971 the first national rugby coaching course was started.
“The course was led by John Roxburgh who was ex-Jordanhill and I had previously played rugby with him. There were three levels and after year three I went back and did them all again. After that I joined the SRU’s coach education team.”
Easson’s first teaching job around that time was at Larbert High School - “it was a football school, but I managed to sneak a couple of rugby balls in” - and then he went back to Cupar to teach at his old school Bell Baxter where he coached a range of teams. He also played and coached at Howe of Fife until the late eighties when he moved to coach Edinburgh Accies.
Glenrothes High School and Kirkcaldy High School were his next ports of call work-wise. There was no rugby at Glenrothes High, but it was massive at Kirkcaldy High - “there were 13 rugby teams” - most schools in Fife at that time had teams at each age groups
“My work with Kirkcaldy High saw me coaching Midlands Schools and then I began coaching North & Midlands senior team and the Midlands District Union team which gave guys from clubs like Alloa and regional clubs the chance to represent the District,” he explained.
“One of my proudest moments came in 1988 in Dundee when North & Midlands took on the touring Australia squad. Our philosophy with the District team was ‘if you have the ball in your hands, give it a go’.
“We lost to Australia [37-17], but we scored three tries one of them from underneath our own posts.
“A few days later Scotland lost [32-12] to them at Murrayfield, so we were quite proud of scoring more points against Australia than the national team.”
Among the people who Easson worked with at North & Midlands was a physio called James Robson [the recently retired chief medical officer of Scottish Rugby] - and both of their careers went upwards from there.
READ MORE: James Robson reflects on 33 years as Scotland team doctor
Easson coached Scotland’s men at under-18, 19, 21 and ‘A’ levels as well as Edinburgh and then Edinburgh Reivers in the early years of professionalism in the mid to late 1990s.
He was part of the Scotland Sevens coaching set up - alongside Rob Moffat and team manager Peter Gallagher - for a spell on the world circuit and at the Commonwealth Games in 2006 in Melbourne and was, by then, a very highly respected coach.
Before that sevens sojourn he had become a full-time high performance rugby coach within the Scottish Institute of Sport and that set up really was the precursor to professional academies as we know them now.
“I had to watch, interview and, along with Scottish Rugby, select the best young players in the country and help them with individualised programmes and such like and things really were stepping up then as the Institute of Sport leant on an Australian Institute of Sport model which was ‘athlete centred, coach led’,” Easson recounted.
“It was about trying to help the players balance their commitments and become the best athletes they could be in a changing rugby world and, just as example, on a Friday morning I’d spend time in Kelso with Ross Ford, Hawick with Stephen Cranston and Melrose with Kelly Brown.
“Al Kellock, Euan Murray and Geoff Cross were involved too around that time while the scrum-halves were Mike Blair, Rory Lawson and Chris Cusiter some very talented players
“Those were great times and that role really opened my eyes even more to coaching and what it involved.
"Following my role as high performance rugby coach I became high performance manager at the Scottish Institute which meant working with a number of different sports working towards Commonwealth and Olympic Games.
"I worked with coaches in boxing, hockey, badminton, squash and women’s football.
“One of my other roles was being team manager of the Team Scotland boxing team at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.
"I also mentored coaches and athletes at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and Birmingham who were aspiring to go to the next Games.
“I coached Edinburgh Accies from 1989 to 1998 and was then director of rugby there from 2011 to 2021.
“Rugby and coaching have given me so much over the years and I would like to thank my wife for her support throughout those many years.
“Although I have retired from full-time work I still act as a mentor and coach developer to many and am always keen to help people involved in Scottish sport progress.”
And it seems to be a family passion too because Easson’s sons Bryan and Andrew are heavily involved in rugby having been players to a good level, and now being the Scotland women’s head coach and a PE teacher at George Heriot’s School respectively.
“Coaching and a love for sport must be in the genes,” smiled Easson
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