JIM ANDERSON
JIM ANDERSON - A TRIBUTE
Jim Anderson died early on Friday 13th July at St Vincent’s Hospice Howood, after a brave battle with cancer. He was 61 years old. Obituaries and tributes have appeared elsewhere: this is an appreciation of just part of his life and one of his loves – hockey.
Jim joined Western H.C. in 1971, having been introduced to hockey at Vale of Leven Academy where charismatic teacher and umpire David Simpson had started a boys' team a few years earlier. After a couple of years with Clydebank T.C. he moved to Auchenhowie on David's advice, and he was the catalyst for many others to join Western from the Vale. This influx had a profound and beneficial effect on the club and its fortunes in the 1970s.
An enthusiastic runner, he was arguably the fittest player at the club when he joined. This, combined with sound skills and good discipline, both temperamental and positional, made him a very reliable right back who reached the fringes of the first team without being able to displace the likes of Tony Duncan and Geoff Laws. A fixture in the 2nds for many years, he picked up three consecutive District Cup winners medals in 1979-81. He also contributed to the running of the club, both as match secretary and as a popular and successful 2nd team captain (1990-92) nurturing the precocious talent of the likes of Euan Millar.
He loved his hockey and the socialising that went with it. Unsurprisingly he was a great tourist playing in festivals and tournaments from Bridlington to La Louviere (Belgium), New York State to Oss (Holland), Dublin to Bethune (France) and of course the annual trip to Fort Augustus. There is so much to say about his contributions, yet it’s all sorts of trivial events that seem to stick in people's memories.
It is also clear that Jim was far from one-dimensional. As well as hockey he took a keen interest in hill-walking, ski-ing, scuba diving and folk music. At one of our club smokers in the 1970's a favourite act was the “Anderson Brothers” aka Luigi and the Coat*, a duo comprising Jim on piano and Ian Anderson (no relation) on fiddle. Alongside his successful career in laboratory science he later developed considerable skills as a painter, linguist and photographer, and was avidly involved in environmental projects.
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Jim at Ben Rhydding Tournament 1973
All these other activities began to wean him away from hockey and Western, and his appearances were less frequent in the 1990s. Jim never got to play veterans hockey (he would have loved it). When he moved to Lochwinnoch around 2001 we lost touch with him altogether. As a consequence he didn’t join Friends of Western, but of course we haven’t forgotten him nor his immense contribution to the Club. We send our condolences and thanks for a share in his life to his partner Eileen. HFA
* a reference to their apparel at the time - Jim had a suit which would have graced a Chicago mafia don, and Ian favoured a 40's style brown full length tweed coat.