Please see below a notice of the death of Davie Barr from Renfrew CC. A wonderful servant to cricket in the West of Scotland. He will be greatly missed by his family and friends and the very many people who knew him.
DAVID BRUCE BARR 15.01.1931 – 31.01.2023
David Bruce Barr was born on 15 th January 1931, in Kinning Park, Glasgow, just a short distance from the home of his beloved Rangers.
David played football from the day he was born, playing for the school and army amateur teams, and also trained with Partick Thistle for one year, but like so many youngsters, then and now, he dreamed of pulling on the famous light blue jersey.
Sadly, this wasn’t to be.
This did not deter young David and his love of sport was undiminished.
He worked with the Glasgow Corporation Youth Clubs as a leader, and obtained certificates in football and table tennis.
He also worked as a youth leader in football and table tennis for ten years at Garthamlock, Castlemilk and Bridgeton Y.C. clubs.
He was the Leader in charge of an inter-exchange group to Bavaria and was responsible for the welfare of 40 teenage boys and girls in Munich, Erlangen and Forcheir (Germany) and Brugges (Belgium).
David was also a member of the L.M.S. Rovers boxing club aged 12 and participated in the churches’ badminton league as an adult.
But when David discovered cricket he became captivated and so began a long love affair with a sport that he gave so much to and gave so much joy and pleasure to him.
He played for and gave great service to Cartha Cricket Club, Babcock & Wilcox Cricket Club which then became Renfrew Cricket Club as an accomplished seam bowler and middle order batter. David continued playing cricket well into his eighties, still demonstrating how he would bowl left and right arm.
David also had a spell coaching at Ferguslie Cricket club at a time when he had many children take up the game from his village of Inchinnan, with quite a few going on to play representative cricket.
He also freely gave his time to assisting the West District Cricket Union and The Scottish Cricket Union’s (as Cricket Scotland was known back then) various coaching initiatives as a qualified SCU Staff Coach.
There was many a time when David would turn up with another idea of developing coaching practices particularly in making/ inventing coaching aids.
On top of this, David was a founder member of the Babcock and Wilcox Charity Committee and Stars for Spastics organisation, was involved with coaching and supervising youngsters for over 60 years.
Away from the sporting arena, David spent a lot of time at numerous dance clubs indulging his passion for ballroom dancing and attributed this, along with a good sense of humour, to his continued good health in his later years.
He was a father of four children and grand-father to seven grand-children, and a number of great grand-children. Family was important to David and he loved the time he spent with them.
Sadly, only a short number of days after his 92nd birthday, David suffered a stroke and was admitted to the Royal Alexandria Hospital in Paisley and, unfortunately, passed away in the early hours of Tuesday 31st January.
David will be greatly missed by both his family and his cricket family and will be remembered with great fondness.
David once said that when someone dies a library burns down. This is so true, and we never grew tired of his stories and how he always had time to speak to all the people he met, who were captivated by his knowledge and enthusiasm.
David’s funeral will take place at the Woodside Crematorium, Paisley at 2.30pm on Friday the 17th of February.