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Daily Record
Daily Record
National
George Mair

Scots professor wins gong in subject he skipped to watch Scotland qualify for World Cup in 1989

Professor David ­MacMillan didn’t think much of skipping a ­subject at ­university in 1989 to watch Scotland qualify for a World Cup.

And he never imagined ­winning a Nobel Prize for the same science topic 32 years later.

The 54-year-old was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with German ­scientist Benjamin List to share an £800,000 prize.

They won it for creating a new catalyst related to ­ ­“enantiomers”, which are pairs of molecules that are mirror images of each other.

But that was the same subject he missed at Glasgow ­University to watch Mo Johnston and Ally McCoist score vital goals for Scotland in an Italia 90 World Cup qualifier.

Winner David MacMillan with his Nobel Prize (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

MacMillan, who grew up in New Stevenston, Lanarkshire, said: “One of my professors, Ernie Colvin, gave me a hard time when I missed the lecture.

“He said, ‘You can’t do that, ­enantiomers are important.’ Turns out this Nobel Prize is actually about enantiomers, so it’s kind of ironic that all these years later I get a Nobel Prize for ­enantiomers, having missed the initial lecture in the first place.”

He said the biggest shock came when he received a ­congratulatory call from ­football boss Sir Alex Ferguson.

MacMillan told the ­ university’s magazine ­Avenue: “He called while I was driving and I had to pull over otherwise I would have run off the road.”

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