Andy Murray’s grandfather, Roy Erskine, sadly handed away final week aged 94.

Tributes have been flooding in after it was sadly introduced that Andy Murray’s grandfather had handed away final week. Aged 94, Roy Erskine was a “widespread determine in Dunblane” who lived many lives, from a retired optician to a former footballer and tennis star.

Very like his grandsons, Andy and Jamie, Roy was a promising tennis participant in his youth, occurring to succeed in the semi-finals of the Scottish Boys’ Tennis Championships. Nonetheless, he then modified routes to grow to be an expert footballer, the place he performed full again for Hibernian, Stirling Albion and Cowdenbeath.

Nonetheless, tennis was all the time considered one of his loves, as he went again to the game after retiring from soccer to play at a county stage. Roy was seen to go his curiosity within the sport via the household, right down to daughter Judy and his grandsons.

Roy was identified to be immensely happy with his tennis star grandsons, who’ve gone on to win world championships and Olympic medals. Again in 2016, Roy gave an interview that shared how he would play tennis with Andy and Jamie every time he taken care of them.

Nonetheless, regardless of each boys being aggressive, that they had completely different reactions to when their grandad would begin messing round. Chatting with Radio Occasions again in 2016, Roy defined: “Andy didn’t prefer it after I performed drop photographs or sliced the ball.

“He would say to me, ‘For goodness’ sake Grandpa, play correctly and cease doing these twiddly photographs.'” He defined that whereas Jamie appears okay to have a muck round at instances, Andy all the time needed to play what he thought of to be “correct tennis”.

He recalled that each of his grandsons’ cherished tennis once they had been youthful and that it wasn’t lengthy earlier than Andy was taking part in in opposition to senior gamers in Dunblane. Nonetheless, as their careers started to develop, Roy did point out that he did not get to speak to Andy as a lot attributable to his schedule.

Chatting with the Each day Report in 2024, Roy expressed how he was excited to see each his grandsons extra after Andy sadly misplaced out within the quarter-finals of the boys’s doubles on the Paris Olympics that yr.

He mentioned: “We’ve missed seeing each the boys as a result of they’ve been so busy through the years. Hopefully Andy can have extra time to come back up and we are going to see a bit extra of him.

“The ultimate sport wasn’t too emotional for us as a result of it had been talked about for a while. We realised Andy was stopping after the Olympics. The household are all very happy with Andy and what he has achieved in that point.”

It was Stirling Albion, the workforce Roy used to play for, that broke the unhappy information of his passing. In a touching tribute, Albion wrote: “Everybody at Stirling Albion was saddened to be taught of the passing of former participant, Roy Erskine, on the nineteenth of January 2026.

“Roy joined Albion from Troon Juniors in August 1954 and performed with the membership for 2 seasons earlier than leaving for Cowdenbeath in recent times, Roy had been a daily together with his daughter Judy at membership hospitality the place he loved talking with supporters and chatting about his time on the membership.

“He was significantly happy to assist rejoice the membership’s League 2 championship win in 2022-23. A well known and widespread determine in Dunblane the place he spent a few years as an Optician, he might be sorely missed.”

Cowdenbeath additionally shared a tribute to the previous full again, sharing a deep sorrow for his passing. Whereas commemorating his lengthy life, the membership hailed again to his household’s love of tennis.

The membership wrote: “After all perhaps Roy (and Shirley’s) biggest contribution to tennis on this nation is the genes they handed on to Judy, Jamie and Andy! And perhaps a bit of little bit of tuition through the years – certainly Roy was wont to assert he was the person who invented topspin in tennis.

“Roy joined us to rejoice Cowdenbeath’s title win at Wee Jimmies again in 2006 and he was all the time a well-liked membership visitor again at Central Park on many events through the years since. We loved his firm and good humour.”