David W. Potter

Many Forfarians of all walks of life will be saddened to hear of the fairly sudden death at the age of 74 on Saturday in his adopted home of Kirkcaldy of one of Forfar’s more famous ‘exports’ David W. Potter.

In what has not been a summer to remember on that front for the ‘Loons’ it marks the passing of yet another member of the Forfar Athletic ‘family.’

David was brought up in Peffers Place in the town back in the 1950’s and attended the North School and Forfar Academy excelling academically at both, in fact probably being one of the few pupils ever in the town to study Greek!
His further education continued in a similarly successful mode at St. Andrews University before he became a teacher not surprisingly of Latin and Spanish at Glenrothes High school for nearly forty years.

Away from work and family commitments David had a great interest in football and cricket, both fuelled in his early days in the ‘toonie.’

On the cricket front he was a young scorer at Strathmore for many a season, before going on to umpire at various levels of the game throughout Scotland before returning to the score box in 2005 at Falkland Cricket Club, where he was also match secretary until his untimely passing.

On the football front David never hid the fact that this first love was Celtic, but it would be fair to say Forfar Athletic were not far behind.

From the nineties onwards he utilised his undoubted literary talents to write astonishingly over fifty books many in excess of 500 pages on a varied mix of subjects. A great many however were about Celtic, the club’s origins and stars of the past.

However apart from contributing a regular column to the Forfar Athletic programme for many a year, he also put pen to paper to produce three books which were of great interest to Forfar fans.

‘Wee Troupie’ the life story of Forfar, Everton and Scotland legend Alec Troup was the first followed by ‘Forfar Greats’ in 2009.

Then eight years on ‘Forfar Athletic On this Day’ was his latest creation.

He also a few years later provided a similar publication which drew acclaim from all quarters simply about events in general over the years that occurred in the town of his birth which always remained so close to his heart.

David whose other great interest was Amateur Dramatics, his first foray on stage coming back in the early sixties while a member of an at the time vibrant 2nd Forfar Boys Brigade company.

He was an active member of the Fife based Joseph Rafferty Celtic Supporters Club and enjoyed his many outings to Celtic Park but he admitted he was equally at ‘home’ in his seat in the east end of the stand at Station Park out with the cricket season always spreading encouragement in his backing of his beloved ‘Loons’ in the company of lifelong friend Richard Grant.

Another sad loss to FAFC, but more so to his wife Rosemary and his family to whom our sympathy is extended at this sad time.

DWP will be missed by so many of that there is no doubt.