A FORMER professional footballer who spent the last 18 years of his life in Helensburgh managed Manchesder United for five years and Ipswich Town for 18 years.

Butcher’s son Adam Scott Mathewson Duncan, known to his friends as Scooby, was born in Dumbarton on November 2 1888, one of seven siblings, and died in Helensburgh on October 3 1976 aged 87.

THE SHANDON village golf course, where Ryder Cup player Tom Haliburton learnt to play the game, is remenbered for its stunning views over the Gareloch.

Now long gone, the first course was laid out by Robert Simpson of the Dalhousie Golf Club in April 1890 as the 9-hole course of the Shandon Hydropathic Company, with holes ranging from 300 to 500 yards.

WHILE Helensburgh interest in the Tokyo Olympics was focussed on the sailing stars, gold medalist Eilidh McIntyre, silver medalist Anna Burnet, and finalists Charlotte Dobson and Luke Patience, in one burgh household what mattered most was the cycling.

In charge of the very successful GB cycling team was performance director Stephen Park, whose parents Douglas and Sylvia live in Crawford Drive. For his efforts he was awarded the CBE in the 2022 New Year's Honours List.

THE DRAMATIC finish to the 2019 ICC World Championship propelled cricket into the media spotlight — followed by the Ashes, the no-holds barred Test match series between England and Australia.

There is a link between Helensburgh and Australian cricket, former Aussie skipper Stan Sismey, who found his bride-to-be in Helensburgh when serving with the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment during World War Two.

THE SILVER medal Anna Burnet won in the mixed Nacra 17 class at the Tokyo Olympic Games was greeted with delight at the Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club at Rhu, and by the whole Helensburgh and District community.

It was the climax to date of the 28 year-old Shandon girl’s remarkable career in sailing which began at the age of five in an Optimist dinghy in the Gareloch.

AN AMERICAN golf club holds an annual club tournament called ‘The Battle of Glen Fruin’ — and now it plans to create its own monument to the 1603 battle.

John Vernasco, from Chicago, Illinois, contacted Helensburgh Heritage Trust to find out the dimensions of the Trust monument at the west end of the glen to those who died in clash between the Colquhouns and the MacGregors.

SCOTLAND is universally acknowledged as the home of golf, and bald statistics show that this is no myth.

In 2002 Scotland was ranked as world no.1 in terms of golf courses per unit of population, the next five being Ireland, U.S.A., Wales, Sweden and England.

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