In Scottish sporting terms, Nicol is up there with the best the country has produced. He won four Commonwealth Games golds – three of them for England – and the 1999 World Open, also amassing 49 PSA World Tour titles. He spent 60 months as world number one, 24 of them continuously.
Despite that extraordinary level of success, Nicol will be remembered by many as the man who ditched Scotland for England at the height of his powers. Does that trouble him?
“Not at all,” he says. “I think everyone is going to make their own opinion up and decide what they want to decide. I think we see that in the world often enough, I am not going to affect that.
“People have to live their own journeys, be their own people and everyone else can think whatever they want. I know exactly what I did for me, my family, my lifestyle and everything else. It was the right thing to do.”
Nicol earned a reputation as a fearsome competitor, with a ferocious desire to be the best. His confident on-court demeanour was in stark contrast to the quiet one off it, particularly in the early stages of his career.
“I was incredibly shy as a young adult, the confidence came from the work because I knew I was good at what I was doing. It didn’t come from anything else, because I wasn’t a particularly confident human being at that time.
“I just had to keep learning. I am not the fastest, I am not the strongest, I am not the fittest. I don’t hit the ball as well as 95% of those I play against, I fare poorly on all the physical tests. But I can learn, and I can continually adapt and understand what I need to do and maximise my potential.
“That was something really important my dad taught me. And I think it is also a north-east of Scotland trait, you get on with it and you work, and if you do that the outcome will happen.”
