Bill Dickinson

Bill Dickinson (1917 – 7 April 1994 ) was a Scottish rugby union player and coach. He was appointed the first official national coach of in 1971. Allan Massie describes his contribution to Scottish rugby as "immense".

Coaching career Many of the SRU committee were not in favour of a national coach, so in 1971, Dickinson was named "adviser to the captain" rather than "coach".

"he had a sage and uncompromising guide in... Bill Dickinson. McLauchlan wasn't taken seriously when he first hit the big time. For one thing he had a roly-poly build and weighed in at just over 13 stones. I have to admit when I first saw him I thought he was just too small for the international game... I doubted that a player of McLauchlan's physique could hold his own with such giants. Hold his own? He gave them all a hell of a time! He posed all kinds of different problems for them because of his shape but also because of his strength which, along with his weight, was being boosted by special training supervised by the crafty Dickinson."

His teams were less successful in away games, and they did not win any games at Twickenham between 1971 and 1983, or any away games against .