Macpherson pinpoints Press boxes after undergoing cancer surgery

THE veteran sports journalist, Archie Macpherson, has pinpointed inhaling second-hand cigarette smoke in editorial offices and football stadium Press boxes as one of the main reasons for being diagnosed with cancer.

He is recovering from surgery which saw one kidney removed and his other partially.

Writing in The Herald newspaper today, Macpherson tells how, despite having never smoked himself, he was likely a victim of passive smoking.

He writes: “As I am fond of a dram or two I had indeed spent many pleasant hours in howffs around the world with people around me creating the conditions of Auld Reekie at its worst. I could take you to a bar in Marseilles where, before the bans, I could sit happily for hours, as a non-smoker, naively savouring the almost exotic aroma of the wonderful Gauloises French cigarettes as innocently as breathing in the fragrance of a pine forest. I also worked blissfully in editorial offices and press-boxes in the past which had the sulphuric stench of Hades about them, as I recall.

“My only plea is, well, I didnae ken. But I ken noo.”