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February 2nd 1980 is a significant date in the life of John Beattie. It’s when he earned the first of his 25 caps for the Scotland rugby team.
April 4th 1987 is also significant. It’s when he won his last.
Scotland were playing England, and John suffered an injury during the match. It cut short his playing career, and he retrained as a chartered accountant.
It wasn’t the end of his time in the limelight though, and he started broadcasting for the BBC as a summariser. He'd later write for newspapers and present radio programmes and TV shows.
His father, shortly before his death, advised John to only do work he enjoyed and that led to him giving up chartered accountancy to focus purely on his media work.
These days, John is a well-known voice on BBC Radio Scotland. He's also involved with BBC Alba’s English language coverage of domestic rugby, and BBC Scotland’s coverage of international rugby games.
He was awarded an honorary degree by Abertay in 2015.
