The 39-year-old was appointed president of the Scottish Touch Association at its annual general meeting last September.

Former Golspie High School pupil Peter is the younger son of Bill and Betty Faasen de Heer. He moved to Brora with his family at the age of ten. A politics graduate from Aberdeen University, he went on to qualify as a teacher but now works at St Andrew's House in Edinburgh as a policy executive in the Scottish Government Public Health and Well Being Directorate.

He became involved in touch rugby – or "touch" as it is more commonly called by those involved in the game – in his early twenties when a workmate suggested they put a team into a local league.

Touch is a minimal contact sport which was developed in the late 1960s in Australia and New Zealand as a training mechanism for Rugby League. It rapidly caught on and became a sport in its own right, gradually spreading from the Antipodes into Europe. It has been played in Scotland since 1991.

The game is played by six-a-side teams on a pitch half the size of a rugby field and using a slightly smaller ball.

No tackling, lineouts, scrumming or kicking are involved and the aim is for each team to score "touchdowns" and prevent the opposition from scoring.

Peter said: "The beauty of touch is that it emphasises speed, agility and skill rather than brute force. You don't need to be built like a big rugby player to play the game at high level. A lot of players who play for Scotland have never played rugby before.

"Because it is not reliant on physical bulk and strength, it is much more accessible to everyone, including women, children and older people."

While still in its infancy in Scotland, the sport is growing fast, with well established leagues in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen and much newer leagues in Dundee and Perth.

Peter, who plays with an Edinburgh mixed team, the Globetrotters, has been capped 32 times for Scotland.

It was while participating in the 2003 World Cup in Japan that he realised just how far the sport had to go in Britain compared with other countries.

He said: "Japan was a huge learning experience because it made not just myself, but a number of others, realise that there was very little being done to develop the game in Scotland.

"It was very clear from my experience in Japan that we had a long way to go."

Peter and two other players formed a group called "Taking Touch Forward" in 2004 and in August the following year went on to form the Scottish Touch Association which is affiliated to the Federation of International Touch.

Ironically, given the game is not played formally in the Highlands, Peter is one of three Association officials to hail from the Far North. Director of Coaching, Iain Craik, a consultant subsea engineer, is from Embo and is married to Rowan Mackay of Dornoch. Director of Sponsorship and Marketing is teacher Peter Robertson who was brought up in Tain but has north west Sutherland connections. His grandfather, Matthew Elliot Ross, ran the Scourie Hotel in the first half of the last century, eventually retiring in 1943.

The Association is now working hard to drive the game forward and establish a proper structure.

Already in place is a referee training programme which has seen around 150 players qualify as referees – the highest number of any European country.

Three Scottish referees took part in the 2007 World Cup in Africa for the first time ever.

Plans are now well in hand to set up a coaching system with senior Australian coach Denis Coffey set to visit Edinburgh in May.

And Peter has just laid out the Association's vision for the future in a four-year strategic plan which lays down the framework to take the sport in Scotland forward to the next level.

The organisation is also beginning to form partnerships and links with private sector groups and earlier this month celebrated the start of a two year partnership deal with Scottish Rugby Union.

"Our partnership with the Rugby Union is a huge stride forward. The deal allows us to tap into their network. We are using rugby to help develop touch and they are using touch to help develop rugby," said Peter.

Last year the Association beat off stiff competition from New Zealand to host the next World Cup in Edinburgh in 2011.

"We have already started planning – that is why our strategic plan takes us to 2011. We want to use the World Cup as a means to try and bring about more interest in the game," said Peter. "We're looking for a knock-on effect. Many people don't know what it is about so we are looking for the World Cup to bring greater recognition to the sport and greater awareness of it to the general public. If we achieve that, then it will have been a success."

Peter would love to see more touch played in the north, but says it needs local people to come forward as volunteers. "The three of us are from the north and we can see there is very little going on at the moment as far as touch is concerned.

"We've started to look at it, but for a group of volunteers it is very difficult to find the time," he said.

"Partly it has to be done through the schools because that's where the scope is to get kids involved and put a youth development strategy in place. The problem is you cannot just walk up to somewhere, and say, right you are going to set up touch. We cannot and would not want to run touch competitions in the North from Edinburgh.

"It just needs someone to see the light and step up to do the co-ordinating in the north. If we do get someone then we can deliver coaching and refereeing courses. We have got a resource package ready should anyone be interested in taking the sport forward and there are a number of people who will be more than happy to travel up to deliver some courses and give assistance and advice."

For further information visit www.scottishtouch.org.uk or contact Peter at president@scottishtouch.org.uk.

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