He started off playing for Haddington and then played for Watsonians.
He was named as a replacement in the Cities District side to play Australia in October 1996.[2] However he did not play.[3]
McKelvey played for Edinburgh Rugby.[4]
He played for the Scottish Schools under-15s in 1984.[5]
He played one Autumn international match as hooker for Scotland against Australia at Murrayfield on 22 November 1997.
In July 2000 the Reivers announced that he had left their squad to concentrate on his work as a SRU development officer in East Lothian.[6]
He coached Musselburgh RFC until 2003 when he became the rugby development manager for Edinburgh.[7]
In 2007 he became the Scotland national under-18 rugby union team coach, having previously coached the under-17 team.[8] In December 2014 he became a talent identification and performance projects manager.[9]