Marjorie Langmuir has an extraordinary claim to fame as she not only represented Scotland in three different sports, she did so in the same calendar year, 1932. What is more, two of those appearances came on consecutive days, playing badminton against England in London on a Friday then travelling overnight to Belfast to captain Scotland’s hockey team against Ireland.
   All this was done as an amateur, paying her own travel expenses while juggling the demands of a full time job. She was one of a generation of pioneering Scottish sportswomen who performed remarkable feats but received little recognition at the time and have since been largely forgotten. However, having discovered her story I nominated her for the inaugural Scottish Women in Sport Hall of Fame and I am delighted she was selected as one of the first inductees.
   Born in Glasgow in 1905, Langmuir was one of five daughters educated at Hillhead High School where she developed her love of sport.
   She was West of Scotland Junior Tennis Champion but it was in hockey that she first made her mark at national level. She was capped in 1923 as an 18-year-old student and by the time she returned to Hillhead in 1927 as a PE teacher, she was a fixture in the Scotland hockey team, playing in 36 consecutive internationals.
   She also made quite a name for herself on the tennis courts and won the Scottish ladies doubles championship in 1926, while at badminton she first represented Scotland in 1930, going on to win eleven caps and twice won the Scottish mixed doubles championship.

Her great ‘triple’ international feat came in 1932. On Thursday 3 March she caught the night train from Glasgow to London, where she played mixed doubles and ladies’ doubles badminton at the Royal Horticultural Hall against England. She then travelled overnight to Belfast where, on Saturday afternoon, she captained Scotland to a 3-2 victory at hockey over Ireland, scoring twice to help turn round a two goal half-time deficit. That summer, in July, she represented Scotland twice at tennis against England.
   Her hockey career was crowned in glory in 1933, when she captained the only Scotland women’s team ever to win in England. In fact, the 2-1 victory in front of 5,000 spectators at Merton Abbey was the only time Scotland defeated England, home or away, between 1909 and 1972. It was a sharp contrast to Marjory’s first game against England ten years earlier which ended in a 13-0 defeat.  That autumn she led Scotland to a 5-4 victory over USA at Old Anniesland, her final match before retiring.

It is one of the curiosities of Scotland's sporting annals that an activity as popular as hockey has such a limited historical record. At a national level hockey has a proud heritage that even extends to the Olympic Games, but the club game has operated somewhat below the radar for too long.
   As a former player myself (goalkeeper for school and university seconds) I've got more than a passing interest in hockey, so it was a great pleasure this week to receive a new history of Dundee Wanderers, one of Scotland's most successful clubs, who are celebrating their 80th anniversary. Written by Richard Miller - who is also a prolific cricket writer - it is a lively jaunt through eighty years of action, anecdotes, including European campaigns and club tours, with numerous illustrations old and new. There is an excellent and informative section on the club's select band of male and female internationalists.
   Published in paperback and running to 120 pages, it has been distributed free to club members but is also available to anyone else for £10 plus postage. Full details are on the club website.
   As far as I know, Wanderers are just the fourth Scottish club to produce a history, the others being Dunfermline Carnegie, ICI Grangemouth and Edinburgh Northern/Grange. All of them were printed in small numbers and are hard to find.
   The bibliography of Scottish hockey can be found here: http://www.scottishsporthistory.com/hockey-books.html