It is with great sadness that Glasgow Accies Cricket Club announces the death of its former captain, treasurer and junior convenor, Colin Dawson, who passed away last weekend aged 75.
A short statement cannot hope to convey the contribution Dobs made to Accies and to the sport he loved.
Already, the outpouring of love and support from the Scottish cricketing community has spoken louder than we ever could. The warmth of feeling Dobs generated is testament to a kind, selfless man who lived his life in service of others, encouraging and supporting many hundreds of cricketers over decades.
Everybody knows that Dobs was “Mr Accies”. As one member put it, “you can’t think of Accies without thinking of Dobs; the two go hand in hand”.
It’s no surprise that Dobs was synonymous with the club: he was a member of Accies for 57 seasons (he would have counted time in cricket seasons, not years), around 45 of them as an active player.
On the field, he represented the Club from leaving school in the 1960s until he was forced to retire by injury in 2015. He captained the 1XI for two seasons, in 1978-79, and played in Accies’ top team regularly into the 1990s. Our digitised records have Colin playing 334 games for the Club, scoring 3,385 runs at 17.3 and taking 188 wickets at 15.5. In truth, he will have played much more than that: our pre-internet records are patchy, and Dobs would tell anyone who’d listen that, by the way, the scorebooks that are missing covered his most prolific seasons with the bat!
Many will fondly remember his twilight cricketing years, captaining a young Alps team with immense patience, kindness and encouragement. Accies juniors from the 1990s and 2000s will easily call to mind the image of Colin, bearded and bespectacled in his old baggy cap, trudging slowing from the field, having been given out LBW again by a fourteen-year-old teammate who had never played men’s cricket before. Yet he kept coming back, week after week, indefatigable in his commitment to giving the youngsters of Accies their first taste of Saturday cricket, even if it came at the risk of the odd dodgy decision. We even won occasionally – usually when Dobs got runs.
Of course, it is off the field that Colin made his most remarkable and selfless contributions to the Club and to cricket more broadly.
A chartered accountant, he was Accies’ treasurer for over 40 years. In that role, he sat on the Committee through all the Club’s highs and lows. In his time, the Club went from a non-league friendly side to a WDCU member, winning leagues and twice (albeit briefly) winning a place in the now defunct National League. He was a leader through all of it, and he was still chasing overdue subscriptions in 2025.
It is a recurring theme that Colin’s cricketing activity enabled others, especially juniors, to experience the joys of cricket. He served as Junior Convenor at Accies for 35 years, providing hundreds of youngsters the chance to play the game for the first time. During his tenure, Accies won the U18 Scottish Cup in 1994 and the WDJCU under-18 league a remarkable six times in the 1990s and 2000s. His dedication to his role was such that he gave over his home telephone line (and, being self-employed, it was also his business telephone line) to become the Accies “cricket hotline” all summer, informing juniors if training or matches were cancelled. His clients must have grown used to hearing “Monday night, under 12s away at Ferguslie, is off, repeat, OFF” before they could leave a message asking whether their expenses were tax deductible.
He also coached Western District Junior Cricket Union representative teams in the 1990s and 2000s, leading international tours to South Africa and India that participants described as the experience of a lifetime.
Such weighty responsibilities never prevented Colin from also doing the smaller, more thankless tasks that make a cricket club run: giving lifts, updating the website, packing up kit bags or organising trophies for the awards night. When he finally retired from playing, he took up the role of 1XI scorer, a role he also performed for the XL Club right up until last Saturday. He excelled in that job too: neat and careful, and he even brought different coloured pens!
Dobs was an irreplaceable Club man; a true legend of Accies. He leaves an unbridgeable gap in this Club: five people could step up to attempt to fill his shoes, but they wouldn’t add up to one Colin Dawson. He will be dearly missed by all at Accies as a teammate, coach, mentor, administrator, and, most of all, friend. The Club, the game, and the world are all much poorer for his loss.
Rest in peace.
Our thoughts are with Colin’s family at this difficult time. We will share details about funeral arrangements when known.