Bert Cromar

Everybody called him Bert. Bert Cromar was a key member of the last Queen's Park side that could make a legitimate claim to compete on something akin to level terms with the very highest football teams in the land.

He was a footballing child of the spring of 1945 and soon made his mark in several facets of the game. There were scarcely enough hours in the day and few indeed were the Saturdays in which he was not playing for a representative XI, either with the ATC or youth club football. Other opponents during this time were the Army Cadet Corps and civilian XIs.

It was a time of great buoyancy in these post-war years as clubs such as Ayr United and Queen of the South resumed their wonted stations and renewed pre-war friendships on the gentle slopes of Cathkin Park. Into this scene came a young player, Bert Cromar, who began a career with Queen's Park Football Club which would last for well over 10 years. It would take him to the captaincy of the club and ultimately the presidency.

It was a good time to be a young player - players were being called up for National Service. This youngster brought with him a quite astonishing versatility, the scope of which can be illustrated by the fact that he was capped for five Scottish amateur international matches where he played in five different positions.

As often happens, it took some time to identify a player's best position. It was thought that with his splendid physique there might be a case for playing Cromar as a centre- forward. He did his cause no harm by scoring two goals in a match at an early stage.

There was, however, another party on the committee who wished to use Cromar's tremendous energy and in the end these had their way. Cromar scored two goals in a league match at Ibrox in season 1956-57. In fairness, Cromar had always looked more at home in the wing half's position.

In the depths of winter, Rangers and Queen's Park played a 3-3 draw at Ibrox and Cromar scored two of those goals, not bad for a non-prolific contributor. In his playing career he scored only 13 goals.

Cromar has the unique distinction of scoring one of his goals from 60 yards, a goal that owed more to a goalkeeping error by the Rangers keeper, George Niven.

A 3-3 draw was perfectly commendable and piquancy came from the fact that in the return match at Hampden, Queens Park raced to a 4-1 lead. It should and would have been more but only two minutes into the game a penalty was awarded to Queen's Park which Cromar blasted well over the bar. This sent a gleam of hope flickering in the Rangers' camp and although Cromar did what he could, the impetus had passed back to Rangers.

Queen's Park were not helped by the fact that two of their players were injured and they finished the match with only nine men. F Crampsey and W Omand, the two injured players, ended up in hospital. The final score was Queen's Park 4, Rangers 6.

Cromar was an all-rounder, being a more than useful tennis player. Taking up golf at a rather late stage, he revealed a resilience which allowed him to become a player of considerable ability. He was a member of Millport and Whitecraigs golf clubs.

He was Corinthian in his activities and would have shared wholeheartedly the view of that famous old club that "no Englishman would wilfully commit a foul on an opponent". Cromar epitomised the Queen's Park motto: ludere causa ludendi (the game for the game's sake).

In his professional life, Bert was joint general manager of the Bank of Scotland until retiring in 1989. Privately, he was a family man and is survived by his wife, Anne, and children, Lindsay, Tom and Murray.