Hidden treasures of Murrayfield

Murrayfield heritage lead Laura Tinch reveals hidden collection of 5,000 artefacts charting a century of Scottish rugby history.

Article Source: Scottish Gas Murrayfield
Last Updated: 10 November 2025 11:12

THE woman responsible for thousands of pieces of priceless Scottish rugby history has described the collection as a ‘national treasure hiding in plain sight’ as she lifts the lid on Scottish Rugby’s archive as part of the Murrayfield Memories campaign.

Deep beneath the stands at Scottish Gas Murrayfield, among stacks of forgotten match balls, yellowed photographs, and hand-stitched caps, heritage lead Laura Tinch is piecing Scotland’s rugby past back together one story at a time.

Tinch, who after originally discovering the Scottish Rugby Archive in 2016, has spent the past four years since the pandemic painstakingly cataloguing it, says the collection is ‘a national treasure’, and one day hopes to digitise the collection for access around the world. Inside are thousands of objects and personal mementoes that reveal the story of the Scottish game, and also the people who shaped it – soldiers, teachers, broadcasters, volunteers, and families whose lives intertwined with rugby’s rise.

“The collection is a national treasure hiding in plain sight. When I first opened the vault – well room to be more accurate – it was overwhelming, priceless artefacts piled high, barely labelled,” she recalls. “There was a marble hippo from Zimbabwe sitting next to an eagle from the USA, both brought home from Rugby World Cups. Of course, there are the trophies, the jerseys, the balls, and the medals, but I knew this is about far more than just rugby, it’s about people, about Scotland.”

Tinch is speaking as part of Murrayfield Memories, a nationwide campaign launched by Scottish Rugby last month to collect and celebrate personal stories from across the country as the national stadium celebrates its centenary this year. The project aims to highlight Murrayfield’s heritage through the memories of fans, shining a light on the social history of the game through the stories spanning 100 years.

“There are of course famous sporting moments that are synonymous with Murrayfield – the Grand Slams, the Calcutta Cups, magical rugby moments, but the archive is far bigger than that,” Tinch explains. “It’s about the local clubs, the volunteers who marked the pitches, the families, who travelled every weekend. These stories are the soul of Scottish rugby – they deserve to be remembered.”

A former tour guide at Edinburgh and Stirling Castles, Tinch has storytelling in her blood. Raised near Dunfermline in Fife, she grew up surrounded by history – her grandfather served on HMS Belfast, and family tales of wartime life filled the house. After leaving university and a brief flirtation with law, she discovered a knack for bringing the past to life through character performance and museum work. “I was Mary of Guise one week, a castle servant the next,” she laughs. “It taught me that history connects best when it feels human.”

That instinct now drives her work at Murrayfield. Since joining Scottish Rugby in 2011, initially to help revamp stadium tours, Tinch has gradually become more involved in the national game’s archive, unearthing a collection she believes holds national and international significance.

“It takes incredible dedication and an enormous amount of time. You could have a team of 20 trying to look after this collection and it’d still take forever to catalogue it. But that’s a huge part of the charm and challenge – there’s so much history in every piece,” Tinch, who is currently looks after the archive on her own, hopes to bring in further volunteers, explained.

Among her favourite discoveries is a near-pristine dark blue silk flag from South Africa, dated 1932. “It’s almost 100 years old and still gleams,” she says. “Unfolding it for the first time gave me goosebumps.” Another highlight is a set of ornate international caps, each one hand-stitched, dating back to 1871. “They’re like tiny pieces of art – silver-threaded, velvet, beautiful. You can see history changing through them, from the craftsmanship of the early game to the more practical caps after the Second World War, and the arrival of women’s caps in the modern era. Each tells a social story as much as a sporting one.”

But it’s the human connections that move her most. During Scottish Rugby’s 150th anniversary celebrations, Tinch – aided by Murrayfield tour guide David Jordan and his wife Fay – helped track down the descendants of James Michael Blair, a soldier who died in the D-Day landings who represented Scotland during the Second World War years, but was never officially capped. “We found his relatives in Inverness and sent them his cap,” she recalls. “It was incredibly emotional. These are moments when sport becomes family history.”

Her work has also uncovered the quirks that make rugby folklore unique – like the tale of fans spiking cockerels with rum-soaked raisins to sneak them into Murrayfield in the 1980s. It’s a moment immortalised in the Scottish rugby museum in a famous photograph of legendary Scotland captain Finlay Calder baring down on one of the birds on the pitch. “Everybody’s seen that image, but few know the mad story behind it. It’s those eccentric, very Scottish touches that make the archive so alive,” she added.

Other artefacts include a pair of black boots from 1971 – once work by the late great Scotland captain PC Brown – with branding blacked out in marker pen to prevent the giant forward falling foul of sponsorship rules in the sport’s strictly amateur era.

The archive also includes handwritten notes from Bill McLaren, the legendary commentator whose voice became the sound of rugby for generations. “Bill’s story transcends the pitch,” Tinch says. “He was a teacher, a soldier, a pioneer of sports broadcasting – and he connected Scotland to the world. Holding his notes in your hands, written on old school jotters, is spine-tingling.”

As the Murrayfield Memories campaign prepares to reach its climax at the Scotland vs New Zealand match on November 8, Tinch hopes to see more of Scotland’s rugby heritage recognised as part of the nation’s cultural story.

“It tells us who we are,” she says. “Every medal, every jersey, every faded photo tells a story of courage, community, and identity. These memories belong to everyone in Scotland – and they deserve to be protected.”

Murrayfield Memories is a Scottish Rugby initiative dedicated to collecting, preserving and celebrating the stories, objects and photographs that tell the human history of rugby in Scotland. The campaign invites fans, families, and former players to share their personal mementoes and memories, helping to celebrate the nation’s sporting heritage.

To contribute your story to the Murrayfield Memories archive, visit scottishrugby.org/murrayfieldmemories.

Image: Laura Tinsh, Heritage Lead at Scottish Rugby, with the Doddie Weir Cup (image courtesy of Scottish Rugby)

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