BRIGG BLOG PAYS TRIBUTE TO BRIGGENSIAN BILL MONTEITH WHO KNEW MANY INTERNATIONAL SPORTSMEN

A former pupil of Brigg Grammar School who went on to organise events involving many famous international sportsmen has died. His funeral will be held next week.
Bill Monteith, who was 96, lived in Ashby for many years and was very well-known in local sport and across Lincolnshire.
He attended Crosby Infant and Junior Schools. Having passed the 11-plus examination, Bill was one of only three pupils from his junior school to gain a place at Brigg Grammar. Upon leaving BGS in 1942, he joined the workforce at Appleby-Frodingham steelworks in Scunthorpe, where he became a senior chemist, eventually retiring in 1980.
In the the 1970s and 1980s, he organised memorable cricket forums in Scunthorpe to which he invited England Test cricket stars who talked to the audience and answered questions.
Among famous players to grace these events were Colin Cowdrey, Derek Randall, Ray Illingworth, Ian Botham, Alan Knott, Dennis Amiss, John Hampshire and Basil D'Oliveria.
Bill arranged with the British Steel Corporation for some of the stars to be given guided tours of the giant complex, prior to speaking at his evening forums.
He organised these as fundraisers for his Scunthorpe club, Nuform, which played its home games at the Co-op Ground on Brumby Wood Lane and later at Foxhills off Ferry Road.
In addition to being a club official, Bill was very active in coaching - encouraging young players across the district.
He also helped to coach trainee coaches, and hosted a course at the Vale of Ancholme Sports Hall on Grammar School Road, Brigg, which we remember attending in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Among the other trainees was Neale Barry, the future Premier League football referee who was then a keen local cricketer.
Bill was a hard-working official of the Scunthorpe Colts Organisation which arranged various age group leagues in North Lincolnshire. He was also involved with the Broughton & District Evening League - being its president for some years - and was one of the driving forces behind the formation of the South Humberside Alliance circa 1980 which was aimed at encouraging young players to develop their skills with 2nd and 3rd XI club teams on good-standard grounds.
He was named secretary of the year by the Lincolnshire County Cricket League in 1979.
In the late 1980s he was instrumental in establishing a new cricket club in Bottesford, playing on a brand new ground off Ontario Road. Bill welcomed former England Test all-rounder Chris Old to view the site during its creation while Chris was cricket development officer for Humberside County Council. Bill later became the club's groundsman.
Bill was a VIP guest at a famous match played on Appleby-Frodingham's Brumby Hall ground in Scunthorpe during the mid-1970s when Minor Counties North (including some Lincolnshire players) hosted Yorkshire in a Benson & Hedges Cup zonal fixture. Yorkshire's side included Geoff Boycott, Chris Old and John Hampshire.
We were then working for Steel News, the British Steel Corporation's weekly newspaper, which took pictures of Bill chatting to players in the Brumby Hall pavilion during this game.
He was a qualified cricket umpire and also umpired hockey matches involving Appleby-Frodingham Ladies for some seasons.
In his younger days he played football for a team in the Appleby-Frodingham Inter-Departmental League.
All-rounder Bill started in club cricket with Appleby-Frodingham, then spent 30 years with Nuform before joining Bottesford.
He donned his whites for the final time aged 68.
Bill enjoyed three overseas tours as a coach with under-15 sides, visiting Pakistan, the West Indies and South Africa.
We were very sorry to hear of his passing. At 96 he had a good innings, to use a cricketing phrase.
We have forwarded some of our recollections to Bill's family, and we thank them for the pictures of him seen above.
He worked in the central laboratories at the steelworks while we were based in nearby offices with the public relations department in the mid and late 1970s.
Bill would often pop in to discuss cricket and pass on details of the forums he arranged, which we featured in Steel News.
We also printed pictures of Bill accompanying England cricketers during their tours of the works.
While we were on the Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph sports desk, an important job during the Saturday morning shift was to assign photographer(s) to take action pictures of matches that afternoon.
One Saturday in either late April or early May we instructed the duty photographer to call at Foxhills for Nuform's first cricket fixture of the season.
He came back with a very impressive but unexpected picture of Bill - in his playing 'whites' - leaving the field... during a heavy snow shower!
Bill's funeral will take place on Friday, January 21, from 12 noon, at St Bernadette’s Roman Catholic Church, Ashby, and then Woodlands Crematorium, off Brumby Wood Lane, Scunthorpe, at 1.20pm.