IT was with great regret that I read the final piece to be written by your esteemed athletics correspondent and Sportswriter Doug Gillon last week (“Fifty years of sporting memories as Gillon bows out”, Herald Sport, October 28).

I worked on both sides of the media divide with Doug over many years and found him to be not only an even-handed journalist with integrity and a sense of purpose, but also a writer whose work was invariably founded on in-depth research, forensic analysis and hard-but-fair questioning and ultimately written with the reader – as opposed to himself or his editors – in mind.

One of the UK’s finest sports journalists, with a plethora of Olympic and Commonwealth Games to his name Doug’s work acted as a bulwark against the incessant and grinding wall-to-wall coverage of football, a sport which, unlike his work in athletics, basketball and the corrupt world of sports administration had no need to fight for column inches, irrespective of its banality.

Doug was never one to put the boot in, far too smart – and decent – for that, preferring the precision of the scalpel as his journalistic tool of choice and any aspiring young sportswriter – and some of his contemporaries too – would be wise to study his considerable body of work.

My fear is that his departure will only lead to the further and inexorable march of what is, admittedly, the national game and it is to be hoped that his former editors will continue to filter their choices through a prism as if the bearded one were still around.

Sport in Scotland in general, and The Herald and its readers in particular, owe a huge debt of gratitude to Doug Gillon, whose likes we may never see again.

Enjoy a well-earned retirement, Doug, and as there must be a book or two in there, don’t unplug the laptop yet awhile.

Mike Wilson,

3 Lochhill Farm Cottages, Longniddry.