Giant Scotland rugby lock raised millions for research into MND after his diagnosis
Two days before Christmas 2016 Doddie Weir felt twitches in his hand and noticed it would no longer grip. He went on to his computer and looked up the symptoms. Turning to his wife Kathy, he said: ‘‘I think I might have motor neurone disease.’’ Soon the diagnosis was confirmed.
That moment would mark the start of a fightback against the disease that would define Weir’s life in the public mind every bit as much as his fine international rugby career for Scotland, with whom he won 61 caps over a decade, and the British and Irish Lions.
Already a popular and likeable personality, Weir launched a campaign to draw attention to the disease. At 2m tall and dressed in a specially designed suit of ‘‘Doddie’s tartan’’, Weir courageously faced the public as his health deteriorated and helped to raise £8 million for research into finding a cure.
Although life expectancy is normally two years or less, Weir would live for six – buoyed by resolute optimism. Speaking about his affliction in 2020, he said that he owed his survival to a determination to win small victories. His infectious black humour also helped. ‘‘The only people who I think are upset about being three years in are my trustees. They thought they were only signing up for six months.’’
George Wilson Weir, always known as Doddie after his grandfather, was born in Edinburgh and brought up on a farm near Stow in the Scottish borders. He studied at the Scottish Agricultural College and gained a higher national diploma in 1991, but rugby began to take precedence over farming. Jim Telfer, who led Scotland to the grand slam in 1984 saw Weir’s potential as a lineout jumper. ‘‘He was tall, but he could outjump players of a comparable height and bigger,’’ he said. ‘‘Doddie had a natural spring about him.’’
In 1990, just after Scotland had won the grand slam, Weir was called up, at the age of 19, to join the Scottish squad for a tour of New Zealand. Although he was not included in the two tests, he was part of a Scottish side that went unbeaten through the rest of the games, the first time it had happened in a southern hemisphere tour. He won his first full cap against Argentina at Murrayfield later that year. He would become a fixture for Scotland during the 1990s, mainly as lock, though Telfer always felt he was a better No 8 because of his mobility. In the lineout, he could outjump the opposition, not just because of his height, but because, as Telfer pointed out ‘‘you could literally throw Doddie into the air and keep him there, because he wasn’t carrying too much weight’’.
He was notoriously difficult to tackle, with his flailing arms and legs, leading to the commentator Bill McLaren describing him as ‘‘on the charge like a mad giraffe’’. What is often forgotten from the famous quote is that McLaren added ‘‘but he’s got great skills’’.
Weir’s greatest Scotland game was against the All Blacks in the 1995 World Cup quarterfinal in South Africa. Although the Scots lost 48-30, Weir scored two tries – the first Scot ever to do so against New Zealand.
‘‘This is the card I’ve been dealt so I’ve just got to crack on.’’
Doddie Weir on having motor neurone disease
In 1997 he married Kathy Hutchinson, who survives him along with their three sons. She was to become his greatest supporter after the MND campaign was launched, and their sons often appeared at fundraising events.
Weir’s career straddled rugby union’s transition from amateurism to professionalism in the mid-nineties and he knew which one he preferred. He hated the greater emphasis on fitness, training and psychologists. He was also uncomfortable with the celebrity culture now surrounding the game with prominent ‘‘WAGs’’ and greater press scrutiny. To him rugby was about being part of a bunch of mates who would get drunk together and go through brick walls for each other on match day. His last international was against France in 2000.
After the MND diagnosis, Weir was inspired by the South African player Joost van der Westhuizen, who received a diagnosis of the disease himself and later formed a foundation to raise its profile, and Professor Stephen Hawking, who survived MND for 50 years. He once said: ‘‘I’d have loved to have met Professor Hawking. He could have explained black holes; I could have explained lineout codes. One and the same thing, really.’’ Weir’s courage and optimism in fighting the disease won many admirers. ‘‘My attitude is that you should do what you can today and worry about tomorrow when it comes,’’ he once said. ‘‘This is the card I’ve been dealt so I’ve just got to crack on.’’
The money raised by his foundation boosted MND research at a time when there was little progress being made: it has gone principally to gene therapy and stem cell therapy work.