Swimmer Archie Goodburn to Deliver Match Ball at Scotland v Australia
Scottish swimmer Archie Goodburn will deliver the match ball when Scotland play Australia at Murrayfield on Sunday 15 November. He is living with inoperable brain tumours, and he has used his profile to press for better treatment and more research.
Scottish Rugby announced on its official Facebook page that Goodburn will bring his story to Scottish Gas Murrayfield on the day, raising further awareness of the cause he has championed.
Goodburn is 25 and was born in Edinburgh. He holds the Scottish 50 metre breaststroke record, a sprint of one length of the pool in which swimmers push both arms forward together and kick like a frog. Before he concentrated on the pool, he played as a blindside flanker, a back-row forward, at Stewart's-Melville College.
He was diagnosed in 2024 with a rare brain tumour called an oligodendroglioma. He has since returned to competitive swimming after surgery. In September, BBC News reported that he has three inoperable tumours. In June, BBC Sport reported that a new treatment was slowing their growth, and that he was aiming for a home medal at Glasgow 2026. He went on to represent Scotland in swimming at the Commonwealth Games this summer.
His campaigning has reached Downing Street and Holyrood. In recent weeks he has pressed Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Scotland's First Minister John Swinney to strengthen brain tumour treatment and research. In October, BBC News reported that he thanked the prime minister after the UK government announced new measures to improve brain cancer care for patients.
Goodburn says brain cancer is the biggest cancer killer of people under 40 in the UK. He also says the disease has received less than 2% of the national cancer budget for about 25 years. Those are his figures, and they are his argument for change. A mother from Staffordshire, whose 12-year-old son died of brain cancer, has publicly backed his campaign for more research, according to BBC iPlayer.
Supporters at Murrayfield on 15 November can give to two charities, Brain Tumour Research and the Astro Brain Tumour Fund.
For fans, the match is a chance to do more than cheer from the stand. A ball handed over by a man who has spent years in a pool, and who has fought his own diagnosis in public, carries a weight that no scoreboard can match.
