Jim Pollock was teaching a PE lesson at Kenton School in Newcastle when the school secretary ran across the playing field to speak to him. It was a cold, wet Thursday afternoon in March 1982, and there was an urgent phone call.
The caller was from the Scottish Rugby Union, informing Pollock that he was selected to play against Wales in Cardiff two days later. Keith Robertson, established on the wing for Scotland, had tonsillitis, and Pollock was instructed to get the train to Cardiff as soon as possible.
“I thought it was one of my mates from Gosforth on a wind up,” he remembers. “Selection came as a big surprise.”
His surprise was echoed by some of Pollock’s new teammates, several of whom did not even know his name, and he puts his selection down to unknown forces at work behind the scenes.
“A young journalist, Graham Law, was doing a piece on Scottish sportsmen playing in England to look out for,” he says. “That was me and a young footballer called Ally McCoist who was at Sunderland at the time.”
Duncan Madsen, a teammate at Gosforth, was a selector, and Pollock later discovered that Scotland’s veteran replacement wing, Bruce Hay, had suggested someone younger was picked ahead of him.
“These things were maybe happening in the background,” he says. “But I had no idea I was in contention.”
Pollock was on the train on the Friday morning, and met up with his new team that afternoon at the St. Pierre Golf & Country Club hotel.
“I had to get my kit on straight away,” he recalls, “and we went and had a training session out on the golf course.”
The new boy’s match preparation was a few minutes running around a fairway practicing some moves.
“A couple of times I ran into a bunker,” he says. “But I felt quite comfortable, and the next day, as you know, is history.”
Wales had not been beaten at home in the Five Nations for fourteen years; Scotland had not won in Cardiff for twenty. But the visitors put on one of the great performances, outscoring their hosts five tries to one to win 34-18. Pollock crossed in the corner for what commentator Bill McLaren called ‘a gift of a debut try’. After the game, Scotland great Jim Renwick reportedly said, ‘I’ve never won here for a thousand years, then this tw*t turns up and we do it!’.
But Pollock remembers other less glorious moments.
“I should have scored twice,” he says. “I was carrying the ball in one hand – I’ve been telling kids forever not to do that – and I couldn’t believe how close I was to the try line. For some reason I tried to pass it and dropped the ball.”
Before the game he saw the other players rubbing themselves with grease. Trying to copy, he inadvertently covered himself in ‘Fiery Jack’ heat ointment.
“I couldn’t feel my body throughout the whole match, and couldn’t even get in the shower after,” he recalls.
He knew he was now mixing with some fine players, and everything had come together that afternoon. The game was over in a flash, and the gravity of the achievement did not sink in.
“We performed very well; scored some great tries,” he says. “But I thought, I’m on the periphery of a fantastic side here.”
The triumph was the last game of the championship. Robertson recovered, and Pollock was once again out of the team. A year passed before the call came again in March 1983, this time to play England at Twickenham where they had not won since 1971. Though he wasn’t on the scoresheet this time, Pollock was instrumental as Scotland won 22-12.
He had to wait again, until November, for his third cap which came against New Zealand at Murrayfield. Scotland had never beaten the All Blacks, and Pollock was lining up against an all-time great in Bernie Fraser.
The game was frenetic, but Scotland stayed in touch throughout. In the final play of the game came the turn of ‘Lucky Jim’.
“I don’t think the All Blacks were too impressed that we’d got back close,” he remembers. “The last ten minutes they were just kicking the sh*t out of us.”
With his team four points down, David Johnston kicked the ball across to the right corner behind the All Blacks defenders. Pollock chased and touched down to level the score at 25-25.
“We had practiced it the day before in a gale force wind,” says Pollock. “The ball went down the car park, it was going everywhere. But practice makes perfect, and on the day, it was a perfect kick.”
He had cemented his nickname, but says his major contribution might actually have come moments earlier when New Zealand were awarded a kickable penalty. Pollock had tackled Fraser off the ball, and, incensed, the All Black retaliated, punching him square in the nose. The penalty was reversed, and New Zealand missed out on points that could have won them the game.
“It doesn’t matter, but my nose was all over the place,” he says.
After Pollock’s last-ditch try in the corner, full-back Peter Dods missed the conversion. They had drawn with their great rivals, but were centimetres from victory.
“It was a magnificent kick from the touch line, and it just missed,” remembers Pollock. “If it had scooted along the ground nobody would have given a toss.”
After three appearances, two tries and historic results, Pollock enjoyed his longest run in the team in 1984, making three appearances in the Five Nations. The third, a win over France at Murrayfield, sealed the first Grand Slam for Scotland since 1925. His group of players had become legends of the game.
“We had some magnificent players, and all of them at the top of their game,” he says. “There was such strong belief.”
He begins by singling out the half-back pair of Roy Laidlaw and John Rutherford, but in the end lists the entire team, the coaches, and even the substitutes unlucky not to be called upon. Until 1996, replacements were only permitted for injuries. Pollock would have won many more caps had he been playing in the modern era of tactical changes.
He toured Romania in the summer of 1984, playing in the Test match, and played once in the Five Nations of 1985, against France. Both were defeats, and a change of career to the police force meant he could devote less time to rugby. After eight appearances – a cameo that had lasted less than three years, and in which he had succeeded where many greats had fallen short – he was not selected again.
“Maybe things might have been different for me, but I could have had no caps at all,” he says. “I was charmed to play with some great players, and great people. And we had some great times.”
For ‘Lucky Jim’ it was the end of a “strange but wonderful” journey.
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Highlights of Pollock's debut vs Wales in Cardiff in the 1982 Five Nations