East Kilbride Pirates legend Neil Baptie admits starting a family and the fear of more injuries has led to him calling time on his 15-year spell with his hometown club.
The quarterback, who hails from St Leonards, first stepped foot at a Pirates training session back in 2010 when he was the understudy to hall of famer and 2011 Division One title-winner Ryan Hunter.
Baptie managed to replicate that feat when he guided the Pirates to the Britbowl Division One crown in 2022, and he has now bowed out after helping the club finish the 2024 campaign in the top flight with a third place finish.
The 35-year-old’s last game came earlier this month in a 36-12 victory away to Tamworth Phoenix and he revealed the reason he is now retiring is to focus on becoming a dad for the first time.
His wife Amy is expecting their first child in December and fears that he might have broken his collarbone for a third time in his career at Newcastle Vikings in April, made his mind up.
Baptie said: “That’s 15 years I was at East Kilbride so that is quite a decent stint!
“But my wife fell pregnant this year and we are expecting our first child at the start of December.
“We don’t really know what to expect, what our new normal is going to be and speaking to guys in the team with families and other friends I have that have played, having kids is a big responsibility that takes up a lot of your time.
“The Pirates are at such a level now where the commitment is quite high. It’s not just attending practice and games, we do a lot of film sessions as well and that is a lot about the mental aspect of the game and that is another big aspect also.
“That, along with an injury at the start of the season, made my mind up.
“I have broken my collarbone twice before and I thought I’d broken it again in the Newcastle game at the start of the season.
“That put a different perspective on things because if the baby was here or it was closer to the birth, I would have been absolutely hopeless to Amy, being held up in a sling. I looked at things differently and I know now is a good time to call it a day.
“I don’t think anyone expects to play and be at the same club for 15 years. I’ve spanned two generations of teams really and now I’m starting to see the next generation coming through. It is a bittersweet moment, being part of the team that long, but it has been a great journey.”
During his spell with the club, Baptie has won six titles and suffered several play-off heartbreaks along the way, not to mention the pain of relegation from Premier North in 2018. He was also player of the year in 2019.
But there is a clear highlight, which took him most of his 15 years to achieve.
“The first thing that comes to mind is the Division One final back in 2022,” he said. “Early on in my career, I witnessed Ryan Hunter – who was the quarterback in front of me at that time – win it 2011 and it was a big personal goal of mine from that moment to win a Britbowl title. “It took in excess of 10 years for me to get there but that was the big personal goal for me.
“One of the other big things was getting back up to the Premier League following that season, but this season just past has been one of the highs we’ve had in the Premier.
“There was a lot of uncertainty at the start of the season because we didn’t know who was going to be our head coach or who would be on the coaching staff because a lot of people retired.
“Andrew McGowan departed [as head coach] but we’ve managed to get a good season out of it with Matthew [Davies].
“We didn’t start well but we finished strongly and that shows the kind of resilience in the team and the strides we made as a team. We ended up third in the table and I think that was a big team achievement.”
With fatherhood beckoning, Baptie knows gridiron will take a backseat for changing nappies and feeding time.
But he hopes he will don a coaching bib in the future.
He said: “I will definitely try to be around the team as much as I can. Once I know what life looks like for my family, coaching would definitely not be outside the realms of possibility, especially coaching quarterback.
“That has been where I played predominantly throughout the 15 years. I have experienced a bit of coaching with the junior teams and the women’s team down the years, so it is something I have dabbled in and enjoyed. In a senior capacity, I’d like to see what happens with that in the future.”
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