IF Hugh McIlvanney did not exist there is a suspicion that William McIlvanney would have had to create him. The greatest sportswriter of our time carries the contradictions that would surely inspire his brother. He is a man who exudes an almost menacing physicality but earns his living by words. He is a globetrotter who remains inextricably linked to

his roots. A man who commands top dollar but whose values have little to do with money.

He may not be a graduate from his brother's Graithnock but he was created by a William McIlvanney, senior of course, and Helen McIlvanney. He arrived in Kilmarnock in February 1933. The family was completed by Betty, Neil, and William. They lived at first in a High Street tenement before moving to a housing estate.

Hugh McIlvanney's considerable inheritance was drawn from both parents. His father, disillusioned by the pits after the General Strike, took labouring jobs which kept his small frame in superb shape. He was a fine example of that most dangerous of species - the 5ft 4in West of Scotland male. His lack of education, the curse of the working classes, was leavened by his articulacy and his delight in constructive argument.

His brazen physicality, honed on the sites and exhibited through harmless strong-arm stunts in the home, was passed on to Hugh who played football with a robustness laced with no little skill. He and William both frequented boxing gyms, but he never fought, not at least under Marquis of Queensberry Rules. His sporting life extended into the RAF during National Service where he was a formidable 440 runner.

However, his legacy from his mother was to be more enduring. She loved reading, particularly poetry. On certain afternoons, the McIlvanney curtains would be drawn and Hugh, aged 14 or 15, and William, several years younger, would listen to and write poetry.

Indeed, William recalls coming from the dancing aged 17 and finding his mother waiting up for him. She was reading the Rubaiyat.

Hugh was educated at Hillhead

Primary School, but eschewed the delights of an academy education by opting to join his mates at James Hamilton Junior Secondary.

There his talent was discovered and encouraged by two teachers, Charles Rosamunde and Doddie Hay, and he joined the Kilmarnock Standard before graduating to the Scotsman where he wrote news and features articles.

His transfer to sport was taken with some trepidation and required the eloquent, if unwitting, persuasion of A J Liebling, the great American chronicler of boxing.

McIlvanney recalls in an interview: ''The editor of the day, a rather exceptional man, Alastair Dunnett, asked me to write about sport. But the fear of ending up as a fitba' writer in Scotland was considerable and it took all of Alastair's persuasiveness to allay it. He helped his case by giving me a copy of The Sweet Science by A J Liebling. On the one hand, Liebling's standards were liable to frighten the life out of me. On the other, the book confirmed that writing about sport could be worthwhile.''

McIlvanney thus formed the front line in a new army of Scottish sports journalism. It was an era marked by great writers, great stories, and great circulations. The quality press offered huge expanses for McIlvanney, John Rafferty, and later Ian Archer, to roam. The tabloids crackled with John McKenzie, Ken Gallacher, and Malky Munro. Football was big but these

writers did not shirk the tackle. The trade was as tough and vibrant as a junior cup tie. McIlvanney got stuck in.

His subsequent move to the Observer was an instinctive challenge to himself. ''So many of my friends on Scottish papers were inclined to sound off in

the bar about how London's special

status in journalism was phony, how they could have cracked it down here if they were willing to put up with the place. I didn't want to find myself talking that way 10 or 15 years on.''

He arrived, with a timing reminiscent of his hero, Muhammad Ali, in time to cover the 1966 World Cup. The rest is geography as he covered matches, races, and fights throughout the world. He eventually came to what passes for rest for this obsessive workaholic at the Sunday Times.

His work is marked with a fluency which conceals an inner tension. The style is seamless but every word has been hewn as if from stone. To say he is a stickler for detail is like saying Mussolini had a penchant for uniforms.

Once travelling back from an international football match in Wales, he realised in a conversation with fellow pressmen that he had made a minor, inconsequential mistake in his filed copy. As the train steamed on to London, McIlvanney was last seen at a rural station phoning London to correct the aberration.

This perfectionism is naturally allied with a propensity to be hard on himself. This is not confined to a hard-living, hard-drinking lifestyle. He also believes he is only as good as his last story. ''He never gets carried away with himself,'' says one intimate.

He has a good reporter's instinct

and discipline but this is allied to a

talent that meant the only way to

deny him Sportswriter of the Year

for the umpteenth time was to make him a judge.

Curiously, given his great success, he is held in admiration by his colleagues in a game where the top players can be anonymously and brutally scythed down by their peers. His forays north of the Border can be accompanied by alcoholic sessions reminiscent of the ending of Prohibition. But these are marked with a bonhomie not usually associated with Glasgow at closing time.

He is no easy touch, however. He would prowl the composing rooms of the old technology newspaper, ensuring his words were properly inserted in the edition. His humour can be scathing, particularly when baiting Englishmen on his home turf. When Celtic were demolishing Leeds in the European Cup sem-final of 1970, he idly asked of his English counterparts: ''Do you think Leeds would survive in the Scottish first division?''

Words rarely fail him but when they do his fists can be eloquent persuaders. He once clashed with Norman Mailer who was in head-butting macho mode as the top writers gathered in America for an Ali fight. The scorecards are not extant but Mailer was indisputably awarded the silver medal, perhaps accompanied by a Purple Heart. Budd Schulberg wrote ''. . . Hugh McIlvanney, who does his writing for the London Observer, and his fighting for the glory of Scotland'' in recollection of this unscheduled preliminary to the main event.

Many of his contemporaries insist that boxing is where he best showcases his devastating writing talent. They can submit persuasive evidence. He is, pound for pound and word for word, the superior of Plimpton, Hamill, or Mailer. But it is fitting that this man of contradictions is seduced and repelled by the brutal realities of the ring.

Of the virgin soldier, the waif-like Welshman Johnny Owen, who died after a pummelling in a Los Angeles ring, McIlvanney wrote: ''It is his tragedy that he found himself articulate in such a dangerous language.''

He concedes of boxing: ''It is the only activity recognised as a sport in which the fundamental objective is to render an opponent unconscious. Of course, it has beauty and grace and heroism, but it also has that terrifying motive. As long as it exists, I'll find it irresistible. But if it were banned tomorrow, I couldn't raise an outcry.''

Away from the ring and the arena,

he has found time to marry twice and produce a daughter, Elizabeth, an

academic, and a son, Conn, a businessman. He reads voraciously - Melville, at the moment, Moby Dick is a particular favourite - loves the theatre and has been known to quote chunks of Shakespeare to befuddled hacks at after-match soirees. He has also been known to frequent the opera, which is merely communal singing without the football.

He has rebuffed approaches to write an autobiography, saying: ''It's all in the pieces (articles).'' But when these pieces are reconstructed what do they form?

The jigsaw would seem to show a man marked with a romanticism learned on his mother's knee. His father's influence, too, is considerable. McIlvanney would recognise as kindred spirits those escapees from a life in

the pit - Jock Stein, Matt Busby, and Bill Shankly. It would be a myopic

man, indeed, who could not see traces of the character and values of McIlvanney's father in this holy trinity of Scottish managers.

Most recently he has been working with the holy trinity's representative on earth, the inflammable if not infallible Sir Alex Ferguson, on a remarkable biography. This has shown his renowned assiduity as he honed down 250,000 words to a breathtaking narrative. It has also revealed a talent for compromise not hitherto associated with McIlvanney or Ferguson. The voice of the book is unmistakably

Ferguson's although a few McIlvanney gems shine through. But this is like selecting Jim Baxter, then complaining when he performs a few nutmegs.

what McIlvanney has in common with this dying breed of great Scottish managers is a belief in the socialism of the team and a wonder at the divinity of individual talent. They all set high standards, set store on character, and believed in the nobility and necessity of hard work.

In his obituary of Stein, who became almost a non-playing substitute for his father, McIlvanney wrote: ''He was utterly Scottish . . . his was the kind of loyalty to his roots that made his principles universal.''

In his journey from Kilmarnock to Madison Square Garden or the Maracana Stadium, McIlvanney, too, has stayed loyal to these principles.

He celebrates genius and is awed

by the power of will. His romanticism is strengthened with a particular

Scottish sentimentality that surfaces only at weddings, funerals, and football matches.

He talks of the undeniable ''truth of sport'' but gratifyingly does not dismiss the fantasy.

My son once asked me: ''Dad, do you think I will make it as a professional football player?''

''I still think I'll make it as a professional player,'' I replied. McIlvanney, I believe, would have understood.

William McIlvanney -Page 32