Touching the heights : portraits of Scottish sporting greats

They all excited and inspired me by how they fought their corners […] So I want to place them all round a fantasy dinner-table, not just to dine, but to relive how I saw them in action and how much they had in common. Who would be on your dream dinner party guest list?

Over his 50 years in broadcasting, Archie Macpherson has seen many sports personalities come and go; in Touching the Heights he collects the 13 who have inspired him most around his fantasy dinner table.

Some are well-known, others less so, but all shaped both their sport and those, like Macpherson, who watched their careers unfold. Tommy Docherty · Jackie Paterson · Jim Baxter Eric Brown · Jimmy Johnstone · Sandra Whittaker Dr Richard Budgett · Ally MacLeod · Jock Stein · Sir Alex Ferguson · Bill McLaren · Jim MacLean · Graeme SounessFrom football to golf, boxing to athletics, Touching the Heights celebrates the breadth of Scottish sporting achievement.

Whether telling the tale of a boy who acquired new shoes by stealing them from the local baths, or that of a distinguished medical scientist at the centre of sporting transgender debates, one thing unites them all: Without them life would have been much poorer.