Record-breaking Scottish basketball player

Born: October 27, 1945;

Died: March 4, 2017

BILL McInnes, who has died of cancer aged 71, was widely recognised as Scotland's greatest basketball player and still holds the record for the number of British caps at 49, to add to his 127 Scottish caps, a figure which may never be equalled.

The first ever winner in 1971 of the "English Player of the Year" award, McInnes would undoubtedly be the first on the list for Scotland's still nascent Basketball Hall of Fame.

His skills were mesmerising as many a player bewildered by his trademark fake behind-the-back pass would testify.

In fact, when Scotland embarked on a US tour in 1967 even the Americans were astonished by what they saw, but that was only one of a range of options in the armoury of the first Scot to be credited with "dunking" the ball.

His javelin pass he could unleash the full length of a court to find an unmarked teammate and turn defence into attack and his hook shot with right arm outstretched was classic. My favourite was his baseline drive which he executed with the balance and grace of a ballet dancer before finishing the move with a reverse lay-up and basket.

These talents were much in evidence at Meadowbank Sports Centre, the arena which became his for both his beloved club Boroughmuir and country and where he also worked as assistant manager. And, even though he was on the losing side, his basket-for-basket jump-shooting duel with Paisley's American guard Chuck Chambliss in the 1978 Scottish Cup Final was a never-to-be-forgotten classic.

McInnes amassed most of his caps during a vintage decade from 1968, including those he earned at the 1973 European pre-Olympic qualifying tournament at Meadowbank, and in 1970 he led Scotland against England before a full-house 2,000 crowd to mark the official opening of the centre.

McInnes was British captain on almost every occasion and leading GB scorer in the 1968 Olympic qualifying tournament with 119 points from seven games; he also played in the 1972 and 1976 qualifiers, totalling 362 points in all.

In 1972 Boroughmuir won the British Rose Bowl team championship while in the midst of a run of nine consecutive Scottish Cup wins and a similar Scottish league monopoly.

At 6ft 4in tall, McInnes was not huge, even by standards at the time, and other Scots who were bigger or stronger would come along with their own claims to fame. But his durability was remarkable - he was still playing and helping to promote Veterans or "Masters" basketball after his 70th birthday and had even been intending to travel to Ireland to a Masters tournament when fate so cruelly intervened.

Though he rocked the establishment when he and four other friends Brian Carmichael, Stuart Capaldi, John Tunnah and Tony Wilson "discovered basketball" and went on to develop a formidable team at a traditional Edinburgh rugby school, McInnes remained a committed Boroughmuir man.

Running out of competition at school level in the 1960s, the new Boroughmuir club had entered the East of Scotland league and soon became a force at senior level, travelling far and wide to tournaments and even cycling several times a week to the US Air Force base at Kirknewton for an inter-mural league.

It was there that McInnes, an admirer of the NBA legends Bill Russell and Larry Bird, learned and honed his skills.

McInnes also proved an able administrator and an inventive fund-raiser, even organising a pop concert at the Fountainbridge Palais to help meet the rising costs of their ambitious game programme yet still managing to maintain his own high playing standard.

The highlight came when the new club entered the European Cup and drew Spanish champions Real Madrid in the first round. They rose to the challenge and secured Murrayfield Ice Rink for the game where a floor had to be specially built and laid.

Secretary of the Boroughmuir club from 1961, and awarded the OBE in the 2000 New Year Honours List, McInnes took his organisational skills into both his professional and voluntary life.

After a year at Jordanhill College he resisted offers to go to the USA and worked for a year as an area youth organiser in Stirling before joining Meadowbank Sports Centre as an assistant manager, moving to Wester Hailes Education Centre to become centre manager in 1978, a post he remained in until he retired in 2007.

As a volunteer, McInnes served as chair of Scottish Basketball, later Basketballscotland, for an unprecedented 18 years from 1990 to 2008 and, when Scotland took the difficult decision to become integrated in the new British Federation in order to comply with the international body FIBA's stipulation on their Olympic participation in London 2012, he embraced the new situation and held the chair until stepping down last year.

McInnes was born William Duncan McInnes no distance from Meadowbank at Elsie Inglis Hospital, and was brought up in Bathgate where his parents Jim and Ella, originally from Montrose, had moved.

His grandfather had been a lighthouse keeper at Ferryden near Montrose and he spent many happy summers revisiting the area and fishing from the rocks, especially at low tide when it was possible to catch lobsters.

As well as his main sport, McInnes was an enthusiastic golfer and latterly a member of Ratho Park club where he organised the annual Boroughmuir BC spring outings for many years and, thanks to his efforts, Aberdour GC continually hosted the annual autumn outing, last year celebrating the 50th by a dinner at Murrayfield.

A warm, generous family man and genial host, especially at barbecues, at their home in Corstophine, McInnes is survived by his wife Andrea, a former member of the Red Aces (later Boroughmuir Aces) women's team, two children, Neil and Beth, and four grandchildren and also his older sister Margaret.

SANDY SUTHERLAND