A Stark Reminder

Ayrshire born winger Derek Stark has had a huge influence on the success Boroughmuir have achieved over the past two seasons. The former Scotland international first arrived at Boroughmuir six years ago and has since spent time at both Melrose and Glasgow Hawks.

Having confirmed his retirement Derek acknowledged that the decision to finally call it a day was a tough one, but as he says, he went out at the top. “You just come to a point and you think how can I go on from here, how can I better this. I was lucky that my last game was in the Cup Final at Murrayfield and how do you better that. Coming out on a cold week night to play a Royal Bank league game just doesn’t compare.” 

With a career spanning as long as Derek’s did, there are bound to be many highpoints, “My first cap will always go down as one of my highlights because my whole family was there and everything went really well for me, I scored the first try and set the next one up and the headlines were brilliant. I’ve really been lucky having played for the Barbarians and the Cup Finals are great as well. But if I had to pinpoint one it would have to be my first cap.” As with any career though, Stark has had a few low points as well, “Any time you get dropped from the Scotland set up is really hard to take. Fortunately there hasn’t been too many low points though, especially in the cup.”

Stark was capped nine times for his country, but there are some, including the winger himself, who believe he should have had more, “I think you’ve got to look at the fact that my last two games were against South Africa and then England at Twickenham, two very hard games and you see someone like Kenny Logan, how many bad games has he had for Scotland but he still gets another chance whereas I never did. Then there’s people who never got the chance in the first place. People like Lindsay Graham, who in my opinion has been the most consistent Boroughmuir player of late and could have played at ‘A’ level at least.”

Despite what Derek has achieved in the past, what he will do in the future is still unclear, “Sean wants me to get involved here, helping him, but I think that would be a bit hypocritical seeing as I don’t like coming out for Tuesday and Thursday training anyway. How can I tell the other boys to turn up. We’ll have to wait and see on that front.” With rugby having had such a big influence on his life though, surely there will be things he will miss, “Hopefully I’ll still have the camaraderie with all the guys because I’m quite sociable, but I will miss playing”. Also having played at the highest level, the free scoring winger has played alongside and against some of the best, “From  a Boroughmuir perspective, Calvin is a great player and so is Lindsay Graham. I’ve always thought he misses out on a lot of the kudos and credit that players like Calvin and Graeme Kiddie get, and I  feel he could have got more recognition.” 

Top coaches and teams have also featured heavily in Stark’s career, “I think that Iain and Sean are amongst the best coaches I’ve worked with. I like to see younger coaches coming through and you can’t tell me that they couldn’t do a job at a higher level. As for the best team I’ve played in, I think it has to be the Melrose side. When I went there Melrose had an international side. When we stepped on the pitch we knew we were going to win. I must admit I had a similar feeling when a was at Hawks and we had players like Glenn Metcalfe and Tommy Hayes. At Melrose though we had Redpath at scrum half, Chalmers at stand-off Rowan Shepherd at full back, Sheil and Nicol in the centres, it was an international back division. I’ve also played against some of the top sides. One of my all time dreams was to play against the All Blacks and I did that at Eden Park, luckily for me Lomu got injured so I was up against Eric Rush, great player but not in the same league as Lomu.”  

As well as his illustrious club career, Stark spent time in the professional set up with Glasgow Caley. “I got a taste of professionalism so I’m happy. You look at players like Sean and it came just too late for them which is sad but I got my chance.” Derek is also slightly more positive than most on the imminent arrival of the third district side, “I think if you’re going to have that set up then it makes sense to have another district. For example, if a player gets let go by one, he has much more chance of getting another professional contract if there are three teams. If you look at football, it’s reasonably easy to find another club of a similar level if you are let go.” 

Having won a multitude of trophies in the past two seasons, Stark believes he is leaving the club in a good state, “The club is strong and will get stronger. Our weak point is grinding results out over a whole season. On paper we shouldn’t have won either final but a lot of the boys are big game players, though they can’t raise it for the week in week out stuff. Before we can look at winning the title, we need to get consistency, like Hawick have this year. If we can start grinding results out like they have then we can start thinking about winning the league.”

Top try scorer in his last season, Stark will be sorely missed in any Boroughmuir team of the future. There are however, quality wingers just waiting for their chance to step into the veterans boots and you never know, he may still be at the club next season, either as a coach or simply as a member. Whatever he chooses to do next year, his advice to the younger generations coming through is still the same, “Be humble, you never know when you’ll have a fall”.

Simon Furnivall