My rugby journey

I'm sure we've all arrived at the same place but by way of different directions. Ths was my way....

I played rugby at school back in the days when “wing forwards” (flankers) were speedy small guys who chased the scrum half and fly half, the hooker could literally swing between his props and wingers threw the ball into lineouts. My school played rugby in the winter term and football in the spring term and I was lucky enough to play for both the 1^st X1 and the first XV and loved every minute of the sporting opportunities but not so much the interference of lessons and schoolwork. In my penultimate year at school I played for the Second XV and occasionally ran the line for the 1^st XV On one occasion we went to Eton College where rather than changing rooms each home player took one of the opposition team to their room to change together. When the match was in progress a double decker bus passed the pitch and a guy yelled out in a “posh” accent “I say chaps, do you remember me!” My school found it amusing but I don’t think the Eton boys did. The school team photos were always taken in the summer term so there was a scarcity of boots for people to wear. Careful scrutiny of the rugby team photo shows the sitters at the front all wearing boots but the standing row have one pair of boots between them so the player at each end of the row has one boot each!

When I left school I played football for a couple of local teams based around Guildford until I slowed up to such an extent I could no longer avoid being kicked by younger, faster players. Rugby was not nearly as accessible back then and the local rugby club was dominated by old boys of the local grammar school. 

Douglas Bader was a childhood hero of mine and as he had played for Harlequins at the Adrian Stoop Memorial Ground and I lived in Guildford within easy reach of south west London I was attracted to Harlequins. The first match I went to was against Metropolitan Police at Imber Court were the propping Claxton brothers and Billy Bushell, a goal kicking full back remain in my memory. Later Quins had some fearsomely good players such as Mickey Skinner, Paul Ackford, Jamie Salmon, Will Carling, Bill Cuthbertson, Brian Moore et al but the games I enjoyed the most were the pre-season friendlies against some of the old Welsh clubs. The Welsh seemed to have such good banter. Some of these games were played at Twickenham and the benches were more likely to produce splinters than rust! I also watched Roslyn Park and the Welsh Exiles at Old Deer Park when Quins were away.

We moved down to Newton Abbot in 1998 to buy a business and that put a stop to such frivolities as watching rugby and it was not until we moved to Plympton in 2006 that I was able to resume watching rugby. Exeter was just up the road and the love affaire began…………………