My friend David Webster, who has died aged 95, was a sports administrator in Scotland. His main focus was the promotion of strength sports such as weightlifting, bodybuilding, strongman competitions and highland gatherings.
He spent the early part of his career working at the Scottish Council for Physical Recreation (later Sport Scotland), but also volunteered at the Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland, which led him to become chef de mission at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, in overall charge of the Scotland team.
Aside from that David wrote a number of books on strength sports under the name David Pirie Webster, including The Iron Game (1976, a history of weightlifting), Bodybuilding: An Illustrated History (1983) and The World History of Highland Games (2011). In addition he contributed scores of academic papers to journals on technical aspects of sports science, and wrote coaching manuals.
David was born in Aberdeen to Ronald, a local government transport inspector, and his wife, Elizabeth (nee Rennie), a photographic developer. After attending Crowlees boys’ school he worked at an aircraft factory before national service in the Gordon Highlanders (1946-48), rising to the rank of corporal. On his return to Aberdeen he did teacher training at the city’s Woolmanhill College of Physical Education.
Following David’s marriage to Mavis Pilkington in 1953, he moved to Glasgow, where he became a sports development officer at the Scottish Council for Physical Recreation, rising to be a senior technical representative there until he left in 1972 to become head of the facilities planning division at the Scottish Sports Council. After a spell as director of the Magnum leisure centre in Irvine (1974-75) he became director of leisure, recreation and tourism at Cunninghame district council until his retirement in 1987.
Over the years David’s wider contribution to sport in Scotland was immense. On a voluntary basis he regularly officiated in bodybuilding as a judge; he was a founding member of the National Amateur Bodybuilding Association, chairman of the Scottish Amateur Weightlifting Association (now Weightlifting Scotland), organised a number of the World’s Strongest Man competitions in the 1970s, and later helped to establish the Arnold Strongman Classic.
He was selected as an official observer for Scotland at three Olympic Games – Rome 1960, Mexico City 1968 and Munich 1972 – and had a leading behind the scenes role in bringing the Commonwealth Games to Edinburgh in 1970 and 1986, and then Glasgow in 2014. He also played a part in the lobbying that resulted in trampolining become an Olympic sport at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
At the Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland he was vice-chair and chair, and laterally honorary life vice-president. In 1995 he was appointed OBE.
Mavis died in 2015. He is survived by their six children, Graham, Christopher, Nigel, David, Nicola and Lesley.
