Doddie

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Doddie

Postby Tichtheid on Tue Jun 20, 2017 10:44 am

Very sad to hear that Doddie Weir has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, all the very best big man.

http://www.scotsman.com/giving-back/cha ... -1-4480630
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Re: Doddie

Postby biffer on Tue Jun 20, 2017 11:03 am

Saw that, terrible news.
Don't mention Rory Hutton. I did once but I think I got away with it.
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Re: Doddie

Postby EWT spoons on Tue Jun 20, 2017 2:50 pm

Is there anything we can do as a club to help with the fund raising he is planning?
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Re: Doddie

Postby BigD163 on Wed Jun 21, 2017 9:01 am

Terrible news.
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Re: Doddie

Postby biffer on Wed Jun 21, 2017 9:30 am

EWT spoons wrote:Is there anything we can do as a club to help with the fund raising he is planning?


Suggestion on the Glasgow board of Tartan Trews everywhere for the Internationals this year, and finding a way to integrate that into the kit from Macron - maybe tartan track suits.
Don't mention Rory Hutton. I did once but I think I got away with it.
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Re: Doddie

Postby mikeypikey on Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:35 am

i would be up for that Tartan trews
would be a very good way of showing he is well thought of
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Re: Doddie

Postby Tichtheid on Fri Nov 10, 2017 1:16 pm

Brian Moore's latest podcast has an interview with Doddie (after a quick preview of the AIs)

https://telegraphmediagroup.podbean.com/
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Re: Doddie

Postby biffer on Mon Nov 20, 2017 11:59 am

Leicester Tigers are donating proceeds from their 125th anniversary dinner to Doddie's charity

https://www.leicestertigers.com/news/12 ... eirs-trust
Don't mention Rory Hutton. I did once but I think I got away with it.
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Re: Doddie

Postby The Feral Goat on Wed Jan 17, 2018 12:31 pm

Column in Telegraph from DW

I've been punched by Martin Johnson, elbowed and stamped on but nothing compares to being told I had MND
DODDIE WEIR


MND. I have taken some right old shots in my time – a punch from Martin Johnson, an elbow by Wade Dooley, a stamp by Marius Bosman which ended my Lions tour in 1997. But, let me tell you, nothing compared to that day nearly two years ago when my doctor uttered those three letters and told me I had Motor Neurone Disease.

One of the questions I have been asked most frequently since is ‘has your outlook on life changed?’ Well, I can honestly say that it hasn’t. It has brought us closer together as a family and it has made buttoning up a shirt a damn sight more difficult, but in terms of the way I have tried to live my life nothing much has changed. I still wear horrendous tartan suits, tell even more horrendous jokes and enjoy the odd beer or two.

I have never had time for regrets. I’ve always tried to say yes to everything. Do what you can today and then worry about tomorrow when it comes. This is a philosophy that goes back 27 years to when I was a lanky 19-year-old coming into a Scotland camp for the first time.

I remember how nervous I was to make a good impression. We had a fitness test early the next morning so I was tucked up in bed at 10pm with a cup of cocoa. Then Gary Armstrong, the great scrum half who was my roommate, comes in and says, “Night out. Let’s go.” Of course, the fitness test was horrendous but it was worth it. There’s no such thing as a bad party.

I don’t want to make light of MND, which is a cruel and horrific disease. Basically your brain signals can’t reach your muscles that causes them to waste away to the point of paralysis. It is a terminal disease with no cure and no timetable.

This time last year I was told that I would be in a wheelchair within 12 months, but I’ve been incredibly lucky. I know a boy who was diagnosed in April and was in a wheelchair by August. In my case, it has mainly affected the grip in my hands. Doing up buttons, as I mentioned, is a challenge. So is holding a pint glass. In the old days, I could carry four pints across a crowded bar without spilling a drop. At least I have got a readymade excuse to avoid getting a round in.

Those inconveniences aside, it has not greatly affected my day to day to life. I still do everything I previously did. Farm life doesn’t allow you to feel sorry for yourself. Here we have got animals to feed, drains to sluice, fences to restore. I like to keep myself busy and I still work for Hutchinson’s sewage company. That brings you down to earth. A couple of days after I had this big fancy do thrown in my honour and I am cleaning up what you had for your tea.

I first noticed the symptoms when I caught my hand on a door at home back in November 2015. It hurt a lot but that wasn’t too unusual. It became strange when I started to lose a bit of strength in that arm. I tried to shrug it off but then my skin started twitching.

There is no single test to diagnose MND. It is effectively a process of elimination through dozens of tests. I had brain scans, blood tests and even a spinal tap, where a needle is inserted directly into your spine. Let me tell you that stings.

This all happened over several months so you know full well what they are testing for and what it could be. By the time the diagnosis came, it wasn’t that much of a surprise but that didn't lessen the impact.

As it was just before Christmas, me and my good lady wife, Kathy, didn’t tell our boys, Hamish, Angus and Ben. My mum was also not doing very well at the time but she’s pulled through. We eventually told the boys last January. We didn’t try to sugarcoat it: we said this is what it is and this is what will happen. I am so proud of how they have dealt with it.

Then came the decision of when to go public. We considered announcing it during the Six Nations but then one of the boys had exams. As a family we had always planned to follow the Lions to South Africa in 2021. I would still dearly love to go through with that but we had to accept that I may not get that opportunity. So we brought that plan forward four years and decided to put out the press release while we were in midair, which just so happened to be during MND week.

When I switched my phone back on, I thought it was going to explode with the amount of messages I was receiving. Being the tight Scotsman that I am, I ended up taking the Sim card out to avoid being stung by an enormous phone bill.


New Zealand was a fabulous experience. The five of us travelled around the country in a mobile home doing as many crazy things as we could. Bungee-jumping, white-water rafting – you name it, we did it. I also got to see the other side of the Lions experience and it was every bit as special as I was led to believe. Unlike a World Cup where fans are scattered all over a country, it was 40,000 people partying in one city after another.

Being 11,000 miles away with my phone off, I was slightly inured to the reaction of my announcement. When I got back I was blown away by the volume of people who had got in touch and how many of them wanted to help. Their generosity can be really hard to take, even if it is Mrs Smith down the road donating £5. The other day a lorry driver donated £1,000. Why? I really don’t know.


We set up a trust to take care of my family – who are and always been my main priority – but I also want to make a difference to MND while I am here so last November we launched the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation.

We still know so little about MND. Doctors in this country are still administering the same drug to patients that they were 22 years ago. It is horrific what people are going through and the drugs companies are doing nothing to help because it is not financially sustainable. Surely there must be something that can slow its onset.

I know the chances that they will discover a miracle cure in my lifetime are slim. This disease is a death sentence. There is no way around that. As a farmer, I deal with death all the time and have been touched by it personally.

The daughter of a close friend of mine died at 33, going in for a routine operation. We lost my brother in law at the age of 54. He was a big character, a local farmer - very good with sheep. Him Upstairs must have thought: 'I need someone who is good with sheep. Michael Dunn, you are coming up to see me.'

About 20 years ago I had a bad car crash. The doors were ripped off, the roof was turned upside down and impaled into the headrest but I just walked away with a bruised hip. Him Up There didn’t need a rugby boy at the time. Now He is saying: 'I’ve got an issue with this MND rubbish, I need you to go sort it out for me.' When it is your time, it is your time.

I hope to use this column to let you know how I get on with this mission. Hopefully it will raise awareness and some funds to combat this wicked disease. I will also write about what is going on in my life, both the good and bad stuff, although I guarantee the good will outweigh the bad.

If I could give you one message it would be don’t put off the things you really want to do today. Don’t wait to do these things in 10-20 years’ time because you may not get there. I’ve had an unbelievable life. It is not over yet but when it is I know that I will have no regrets.
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Re: Doddie

Postby Rico on Wed Jan 17, 2018 2:41 pm

What can you say - heart-warming and yet so sad in equal measure. A true gent and a living legend.
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Re: Doddie

Postby The Feral Goat on Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:35 pm

Another column from Doddie in the Telegraph



I don’t like to think I am naturally an angry man. I’ve never had a fight on the pitch that I have not been able to settle over a couple of pints in the bar afterwards. I am also not someone who despairs at the cards I've been dealt, with my motor neurone disease diagnosis. But these have been an emotional few days.

Every week I receive hundreds of emails relating to MND. Some people will be looking to help while others relate their own experiences. On Friday I received one such email from the brother in law of a guy called Nick Smith. Like myself, Nick was a half decent rugby player. He was on the books of Leeds Rhinos for a while. Then he was diagnosed with MND last September at 38. By December, just 101 days after his diagnosis, he had passed away leaving a wife and two children, aged five and two.

Reading that I felt like all the air was being sucked from my lungs. Why did he get three months and I have had 14 months and counting? It made me realise how lucky I have been to spend as much time as I have with my family.
When you are in my position, you need positivity. You need something to cling on to. People say they don’t want to give me false hope but some hope is better than no hope.

Later that day, I received another email from the NHS Borders. Together with my consultant, I had applied to receive a course of a French drug called Masitinib. Studies have shown that it slows the effects of Lou Gehrig’s disease, but it has never been used in the United Kingdom before. The email informed me that my application was rejected.


The NHS’s attitude just leaves me furious. I should make it clear that the health service is full of great doctors and nurses who are doing their best, but the institution as a whole is so risk averse and so negative.
When you are diagnosed with a terminal disease, there are no longer such things as risks. If there are side effects, then I will deal with them and, if necessary, come off the drugs. Anything is better than nothing. When I read that they will review my application again in October, I wanted to scream. By October I could be dead.

This is why I flew over to the USA last week at the extremely generous invitation of Brian Kennedy, the former owner of Sale Sharks who read my story and wanted to help. He put me in touch with some MND specialists and the first thing they said to me was that we are going to try everything we can to help you.

After months of hearing “we can’t do this” or “you can’t do that”, it was wonderful to hear someone say what they can do for you. When you are in my position, you need positivity. You need something to cling on to. People say they don’t want to give me false hope but some hope is better than no hope.

Again I understand that in normal circumstances a drug needs to go through certain clinical trials before it is released to the public and there has to be a safety-first attitude. That goes out the window when it comes to a terminal disease like MND.

This particular drug may not work but there’s a few things that suggest it might. Why can’t I be the first in the UK to take it? What exactly do I have to lose? In this country the only drug that the NHS will permit you to take for MND is called Riluzole, which is now 22 years old. That there have been no further developments in nearly a quarter of a century displays a shocking callousness and indifference towards MND sufferers. I refuse to believe that more cannot be done to combat this wicked disease. This is what I am fighting for through my foundation. If that results in giving people like Nick just one more month to be with his family then it will be worth it.
At the auction, someone paid £5,000 for a pint and a steak with myself and Gary Armstrong – I just hope they were bidding for the steak rather than my chat.

But we will have to take risks to get there. Why do the All Blacks stay ahead of the game? Because they are always looking in front of themselves, always developing, never looking back. So many countries try to copy what New Zealand are doing but by the time they have done that the All Blacks have moved on again.

These periods of frustration are isolated and I would prefer to dwell on the rest of my week from getting to walk around Central Park to attending a pair of incredible fundraising dinners. On Thursday, Stuart Grimes, a good friend of mine, and 20 other former Newcastle players walked 55 miles from Jedburgh to bring a decent Scottish haggis to Kingston Park for Burns Night. Gary Armstrong nearly lost his little toe but he soldiered on and we had a superb night as we always do in Newcastle.

Then on Saturday I attended the Tartan Giraffe Ball (that was one of the kinder descriptions the great Bill McLaren gave me) in Kelso organised by three of my childhood friends, David Baird, Stewart Bennet and Douglas Stephen.
We had messages from Rory McIlroy and Jackie Stewart while Ricky Ross from Deacon Blue played an acoustic set and John Beattie’s Ruckstars had us all on our feet. With nearly 600 people in attendance, it showed the Borders community at its finest.

At the auction, someone paid £5,000 for a pint and a steak with myself and Gary Armstrong – I just hope they were bidding for the steak rather than my chat – and we ended up raising around £250,000, which is just phenomenal.

Sometimes it gets too much for me and I am glad the Six Nations is starting this week so we can talk about rugby again. I think Scotland showed in the autumn that they are a serious force now and for the first time in quite a while we will be going to Cardiff with expectation as well as our customary hope.

I will be there, catching up with my old pal Scott Quinnell, and probably a few others. It was pretty humbling to hear that Wales and Scotland will play again this autumn for the Doddie Cup. I didn’t know anything about it until the day before it was announced. My only request is that the cup has a pair of massive handles on it to represent my ears.

Humbling is a word I will use frequently in these columns, for which I will apologise now, but it still blows my mind that so many people are willing to do so much for a daft wee boy from the Borders like me
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Re: Doddie

Postby Weegie on Tue Feb 06, 2018 3:10 pm

It's got a bit dusty in here.
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Re: Doddie

Postby Weegie on Wed Apr 04, 2018 12:18 am

Shamelessly nicked from the Glasgow Site

Laureus, who do a number of high profile sporting awards, have a "Sporting moment of the month" vote going on, and one of the four choices is Doddie and his sons carrying the ball onto BTM before the AB game.

Not sure why it's a moment of this month ( I wonder if they got confused with Newcastle ), but regardless if you'd like to vote for Doddie ( and if not, why not :angry: ), this is the link :


https://mylaureus.com/
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Re: Doddie

Postby The Chiel on Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:43 am

Also shamelessly stolen from the Glasgow forum :

https://www.halbro.com/doddie-weir-foundation

Shirt, Hoodie, T shirt in the Raging Bull brand ( Phil Vickery's company IIRC ).
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Re: Doddie

Postby The Chiel on Sat Apr 28, 2018 9:43 am

Weegie wrote:Shamelessly nicked from the Glasgow Site

Laureus, who do a number of high profile sporting awards, have a "Sporting moment of the month" vote going on, and one of the four choices is Doddie and his sons carrying the ball onto BTM before the AB game.

Not sure why it's a moment of this month ( I wonder if they got confused with Newcastle ), but regardless if you'd like to vote for Doddie ( and if not, why not :angry: ), this is the link :


https://mylaureus.com/


Bump - after being comfortably in the lead, a late run of votes for Felippe Massa now has him in the lead. If you haven't voted, I'd urge you to do so, and spread this as widely as possible on your own social media. 3 days to go before voting closes.
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