Angus Black
Brilliant Scottish scrum-half and master of the reverse pass who played on the Lions tour of 1950
ANGUS BLACK, who has died aged 92, was until his death the oldest surviving member of the 1950 British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand and Australia. Angus William Black, known as Gus, was born in Dunfermline on May 6 1925 and educated at Dollar Academy and Edinburgh University, where he studied Medicine. He was capped out of the university club, and first played for Scotland against the New Zealand Services touring team, known as “the Kiwis”, in 1946.
No international caps were awarded for matches against the Kiwis, but they were a formidably good team who played 33 matches in their tour, winning 29, drawing two and losing only twice. They beat England, Wales and France, but lost to Scotland at Murrayfield.
Gus Black at scrum-half was one of the Scottish stars, and one might think this would have pointed towards a regular place in the Scotland side. He played in the first official post-war international, against France in Paris on New Year’s Day 1947, but such were the vagaries of selection then that in fact he played in only five more internationals in the next four Five Nations tournaments – and never with the same partner at fly-half.
Nevertheless – a rare feat for a Scottish player – he was twice on the winning side against England in Calcutta Cup matches at Murrayfield in 1948 and 1950. And it was probably his performance in the 1950 game, when his break from a scrum led to a try, that secured his invitation to tour with the Lions.
He played in the first two Tests against the All Blacks, the first a 9-9 draw, the second lost 0-11. Late in life he said he would go to his grave regretting that he had muffed a chance to win the first of these games. Breaking from a scrum into the New Zealand 25, he failed to see or hear the Welsh wing Ken Jones running clear on his outside. Had he been aware of him and passed, a try was certain, for nobody could have caught Jones, a flier who had won a silver medal at the 1948 London Olympics as a member of the British sprint relay team.
Black had played well in these Tests but lost his place principally because he was somewhat at odds with his half-back partner, the great Jack Kyle. Never short of an opinion or shy to offer one, Black, who had a long fast pass, believed that the fly-half should take the ball flat on or near the gain-line.
Kyle, in those days when wing forwards were onside so long as they were behind the ball, preferred to lie deeper, sometimes even, like the great Australia fly-half Mark Ella more than 30 years later, taking the ball standing still; this gave him more time to consider his options.
Since Kyle was unquestionably the star of that Lions team, hailed by New Zealand journalists as one of the greatest players ever to visit the country, there could be no doubt that if there was to be a change at half-back, it was Gus Black who would have to go.
Extraordinary as it seems now – and indeed seemed to many at the time – this was the end of his international career. He was only 25, but never played for Scotland again. These days it is inconceivable that a player with experience of a Lions tour would be immediately discarded by his country’s selectors.
Nevertheless, though Scotland would soon be entering on dark years – with 17 internationals being lost in succession, and no victory between February 1951 and February 1955 – there was no place for Black while half a dozen other scrum-halves flitted in and out of the Scotland team.
He was in the RAF from late 1952 and playing his club rugby in England, first for Bristol and then Leicester, also for the Barbarians on their Easter tours of Wales. Press reports available to Scottish selectors spoke of his continuing brilliance – to no effect.
It remains a mystery. Always opinionated and gifted with an acerbic wit, he had apparently rubbed some in the SRU up the wrong way. It was a time when selection was capricious, so much so that his former team-mate at Edinburgh University, Norman Mair, averred when he had become the doyen of Scottish rugby writers that people confined in mental hospitals had reason to think themselves hard done-by while the SRU selectors walked the streets as free men.
Gus Black would continue to play Services rugby till he was in his forties, but his international career was sadly, even shamefully short. Only elderly, even very elderly, rugby fans now remember his brilliance as a scrum-half and his mastery of the reverse pass: it was said, with some exaggeration, to be able to travel the width of Murrayfield.
Having qualified as a doctor, he specialised in psychiatric work, becoming consultant psychiatrist to the RAF and serving at various air force hospitals in the UK, in Aden for two years (1959-60) and later in Germany for three years. He finished his service at the Central Medical Establishment in London and retired as a group captain in 1985. He was admitted to the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1972, becoming a fellow of that body in 1980. He retired to Fife.
Angus Black’s wife Margaret (née Flett) predeceased him, and he is survived by his children Angus (Jock), Kate, Dave and Rab.
Angus Black, born May 6 1925, died February 14 2018