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Born: 8 September, 1933, in Peterhead. Died: 29 September, 2008, in Aberdeen, aged 75.
SCOTTISH rugby has lost a great servant with the passing of Charlie Ritchie, as proud and committed a sporting character as the North-east has ever known.
A great sadness for Ritchie was that his elevation to the top post in Scottish rugby, Scottish Rugby Union president, after a 16-year period serving the game on the SRU general committee, came just six months after his wife, Helen, passed away. She had been his companion and supporter as he rose through the ranks from playing in the front row for Aberdeen Grammar School FPs to representing Scottish Rugby Union as president.
Helen had travelled with him to Australia on a Scotland tour in 1992, and as a paying spectator to South Africa for the 1995 Rugby World Cup, but she died in December 1996. Ritchie had also suffered with a tumour before this. It was removed, but left severe and noticeable tissue damage, which Ritchie simply brushed aside, as he did any minor irritations.
He had served rugby in the North of Scotland with terrific commitment and enthusiasm and no little aggression, as he regularly fought the sport's corner against what he often termed the "south and Edinburgh mafia".
Ritchie was never slow to speak his mind, and often had a wry response to bland platitudes,...