Al Kellock is smiling profusely as a soft light trickles through the glass at Scotstoun.
The 43-year-old has come a long way since his days at Allan Glen’s RFC in Bishopbriggs; a side he progressed seamlessly from, to become a key part of the Scotland set up.
A towering lock, Kellock led out his country on many occasions — most notably at both the Six Nations and the World Cup in 2011. At international level, he pulled on the jersey an impressive 56 times. At club level, meanwhile, he made over 200 appearances for both Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Now managing director of Glasgow Warriors, it’s the latter, perhaps, that gives him such a vivid understanding of the ever-changing landscape of club life. To succeed requires prosperity, growth and unfaltering clarity.
Undoubtedly, with Warriors, there’s a sense of an upwards trajectory between the posts.
Having won the URC championship last season with an incredible comeback over Bulls, the challenge now is returning with similar might. And that, in itself, will always be difficult.
Al Kellock is determined to help Glasgow build on their URC success from last season
Kellock was a force of nature as a player and earned 56 caps for Scotland
Hampden will host the first leg of the 1872 Cup derby on December 22 this year
The early-season signs point to them making a decent fist of things, with Friday night’s 33-3 thumping of Zebre taking them top of the standings, temporarily at least, through the opening four fixtures. But with back-to-back outings coming up in South Africa, the Warriors will be all too aware of the difficulties that lie ahead of them.
Importantly, they won’t play again at Scotstoun until November 29, after a series of Scotland internationals which see Fiji, South Africa, Portugal and Australia coming to town.
In some ways, therefore, it’s a good time for Warriors to reflect and consolidate. Big results, after all, require big ambitions. And Kellock is a man who has them in spades.
‘I think we’re at a period of opportunity,’ admitted the former Scotland international. ‘We won that trophy last year in front of 51,000 people, albeit in South Africa. The only piece that you would change was the fact that we didn’t get to do it here.
‘But our opportunity to do more is undoubtedly there. We look enviously at what they’ve done with that Munster game in the last couple of weeks (Leinster beat Munster 26-12 in front of a record 80,000 crowd at a sold-out Croke Park yesterday). We look at Harlequins, we look at Edinburgh. And we do it on the back of the performances on the park being good enough to win what is an unbelievably competitive league.
‘So now, it’s about making sure that we get our cultural relevance in our region as high as it possibly can be, to engage.’
The Warriors squad celebrate their remarkable URC Grand Final success back in June
What that means in the foreseeable future is a continuation of the vital work they carry out in the local community and, intriguingly, an 1872 Cup derby at Hampden — the first time a club match will be played at Scotland’s national stadium.
Innovative, yes. Risky? Perhaps. After all, with a stadium capacity of over 50,000, there’s a very real possibility that the dynamic atmosphere of Scotstoun will be lost in a cavernous hole, should an increased number of fans fail to turn up for the December spectacular.
That, it seems, is not a concern for the Glasgow MD — who well understands the benefit of widening one’s supporter base both within and outwith the city.
‘We’ve been looking at bigger venues for a while,’ admitted Kellock. ‘We’ve had conversations since I first came in around what would we do for big games. The Pretoria experience, what we’ve seen happening in Leinster at Croke Park, Leinster when they take games to the Aviva, even Munster when they put on bigger games, we want some of that. We need some of that as well.
‘From a club point of view, we need to grow and the only way of growing is to find opportunities to do things like this.
‘Rugby Park doesn’t work because the pile on the carpet is too small, too short. Ibrox doesn’t work because you can’t fit a pitch into it without doing a decent amount of construction work around the side because of the camber of the pitch.
Glasgow and Edinburgh in action at Scotstoun last year, Warriors claiming an aggregate win
‘We’ve been speaking to Celtic Park at length. They’re right in the middle of the season when we would be playing this one. We’ve had some great conversations with them, and also, all the way along, with Hampden.
‘Some of that was looking at URC playoff matches, potentially URC home finals. All of those, the URC ones, are meritocratic, so we need to qualify, we need to earn the right.
‘Coming back from a summer break, the conversation started again with the SFA and Ian Maxwell in particular. I think we’ve got an opportunity to show that rugby and football can coexist. You don’t need to have a stadium that is purely football.
‘We understand we’re playing in Scottish football’s national stadium and there’s a privilege to that but we can show, from a rugby performance point of view and from a rugby fan point of view, that it can absolutely work.’
Getting new and current supporters along will clearly be crucial, should they hope for a Hampden re-run. Kellock insists he doesn’t have a figure in mind, as far as bums on seats are concerned — but he remains confident a large number can be attained from both the east and west sides of Scotland.
Kellock celebrates Glasgow’s 2015 Pro12 triumph in what was his final match in club rugby
‘It’s as close as you’ll get to an international trial,’ adds Kellock. ‘Externally, or as a fan, you can sit there and you can see head-to-heads that you never see. And you know that in the back of the players’ mind, or sometimes at the front of that players’ mind, will be the fact that there’s Six Nations selection just around the corner. We will be engaged from an international point of view. We are at all games, but Gregor and his team will also be there watching.
‘There’s something special about playing at a stadium the size of Hampden and there’s something incredibly special about playing at a stadium that not many rugby players have had the opportunity to play at.
‘We’ve done a one-game deal with the SFA, but I would be excited about taking other games there. I think if we get to the point where we’ve got big European knockout games or URC playoff games that we feel as if we can put in a significant crowd, it would be great.’
