Phil Gachagan, former player of Jets, has passed away after a short illness. Phil was an incredibly supportive team player at Jets. He will be remembered an incredibly friendly and sociable person.
Phil was a member of the all-conquering Whitburn Academy squad. He was an important member of of the Scottish under 16 squad, which was made up mostly by Whitburn players, and coached by Bobby Ralston and Jim Ferguson. A strange fact was that all the Whitburn boys had extremely long hair, including Phil! All of them liked their heavy metal music. He was part of a Scotland squad that played England in England, and such was the standard of the squad that they won 3/0 with ease. The game lasted less than an hour. No rally point back in the day!
Phil went on to play for Whitburn VC in the national leagues before joining Jets. He played mainly as an outside hitter although the occasional outing as a middle sometimes presented itself. Eventually, Phil played Libero towards the end of his Jets playing days. A position he seemed to enjoy, being a strong passer and his ability to read the game was exceptional. He played in several cup finals for Jets, finished runners up in the league to the dominant Ragazzi team of the 90s and represented Scottish Police at the Inter-services tournaments and international events. At the end of his playing career, he went on to coach the Scottish Police and the British Police teams.
His committal is at Kinross North Cemetery on Tuesday 8th March at 1.00pm. Here’s a link to https://phil-gachagan.muchloved.com/ should anyone wish to leave a wee tribute or indeed a donation to a very worthy cause.
