Moor slip up in the mud to lose close match - additional content now added.

I normally approach the keyboard full of mischief and good intent when it comes to writing the match report. This week, however, I feel less than exuberant when faced with the task, owing to the events of the weekend’s match and my personal role within it.

I started playing rugby as an 11 year old lad some 37 years ago. Before then, I’d been a soccer player, through-and-through, brought up in the back streets of Barnsley kicking a lump of coal against my mum’s washing fluttering on the line in the back yard. You could tell when I’d been playing ‘keepy-uppy’ from the black marks on my Woolworth’s jeans. We were lucky to get an orange ‘Wembley’ ball for Christmas – remember them? £2.99 and it came in a cardboard box packaged like an Easter egg. Sometimes you could get a white one, and that looked almost like the real thing that was being knocked about by Best, and Moore, and Charlton, and Currie and Bell and Osgood… and Jeff Astle (the West Brom legend, not the All Black cricketer).

I turned up at Junior House, Lord Wandsworth College (latterly of Jonny Wilkinson, Peter Richards and Ugo Monye fame), in the summer of 1970, to take an entrance exam. I remember the journey from Sheffield Midland via St. Pancras and Waterloo to Winchfield Station, and then to the college in a mini-bus, because another lad, also from Yorkshire, was wearing the exact same shirt that I was – my mum had purchased it from the Grattan Catalogue for about £1.99 – yellow with strange paisley-esque designs worn underneath a green, corduroy safari suit that I thought was dead cool. Well, it was… in the 70s. The Headmaster gave me a mental test in his oak-panneled office, and I told him that 7 times 7 was 47 and the day after today was spelt tommorow. We took the entrance exam and were both eventually offered places (which our mothers accepted despite our pleas otherwise). After the exam, my same-shirted mate, with whom I still keep in touch, proceeded to welly this brown leather, oval-shaped ball that we’d been given to play with, over the sticks of a strangely-shaped goal I’d never seen before. My introduction to rugby. I tried kicking it too, but it was proper leather with a laced seam, and it hurt my foot. I couldn’t make it move more than 5 yards – nothing new there then!

The summer over, I started at my new school – resplendent in Harris Tweed and tie, and met Phill Bennett on Waterloo station, also en-route from the dark, satanic mills of the northern textile corridor into the rolling chalk hills of the mid-Hampshire farming belt. We’ve been best mates ever since, and it had nothing to do with the Waterloo toilets!

Benners was a gifted athlete – an early developer who was shaving at 12 and had thighs like tree-trunks. He loved rugby, and quickly took to a demolition role as a number 8 – picking and driving from scrummage to score at will. Later, he moved to the centre, where his pace, side-step and hand-off enabled  him to more-or-less score in every match and he went on to represent Hampshire many times. Phill helped to develop the rugby player in me, although we were operating at different physical levels. He provided me with my first ever try in competitive rugby – breaking from Number 8 on the blind side (where I was on the wing), drawing the defender and giving me the simplest of tasks to catch his pass and saunter over, un-opposed, in the right corner. I felt like a rugby player and began to love the game.

I realised that I was going to have to do something special, though, to stay in the school team, because I was a late developer, small, skinny, slow, but full of guts. Another mate of mine, Townsend, would offer to coach me on Sunday afternoons, and he taught me how to tackle by being cannon-fodder in the long-jump sand pit. Yes, it all sounds very strange, doesn’t it!

Anyway, I honed the tackling technique to such a level that I made up for my lack of everything else by being the best pound-for-pound tackler in the school, and became a respected leader and captain at the same time (admittedly, never at 1^st XV level). 

15 years later, at the age of 28, I decided that I was ready to play rugby again, and Phill persuaded me to have a run-out for the 2^nd XV at home against Newton-Le-Willows. I was offered the outside centre berth with Jim Crenigan at 12. I couldn’t believe how he made frivolous jokes and had the dressing room in hysterics before taking the field of play. Newton kicked off and forced a line-out just inside our half. They won the ball and proceeded to pass it down the back line. I arrived at the same time as the ball on the outside centre and knocked him into the allotments – text book! My rugby re-incarnation had begun. Two weeks later I was selected for the 1^st XV.

“And what has all this to do with last weekend’s game?” you ask. Well, it’s all about the spirit of the game and how one’s upbringing and values translate into the modern game – values which were seen to be sadly lacking at Aldwinians on Saturday.

To be continued…

Anyway, enough of emotional reminiscing – I’ll give it another 20 years before I pen my autobiography.

Saturday started badly, improved, then sort-of nose-dived later on. Short of a front row it became panic-stations until Rick got through to Pooley and the Munchkin Jaz picked him up en-route. At least we had a competitive team to take the park although it meant that Tiny had to tough it out as long as possible because Dave-O had been called up to the 1^st team bench. As it transpires, Tiny didn’t mind a bit, because grinding one’s opponent into the sludge for 80 minutes is precisely what he was built for, and didn’t he just show it… mud dripping from his droopy but smiling ‘tache at the end of the game.

The first half was a cancellation battle, where neither combatant really took the upper hand. Aldwinians captain, Mike, scuffed a penalty over the bar with a following wind to give the home side a 3-0 lead which they managed to hold on to until half time. Playing up the hill and into the elements, Moor were right to feel pleased with their first half performance and approached part II with relish and confidence, albeit the ref was being a bit one-sided and the weather was worsening.

Sleet and hail threw itself down at a wicked slant over the pitch, but both sides battled on as the second half commenced. Moor looked very dangerous in the back division, but it was clear that the longer the match went, the less ball they were likely to get. Still, pressure was maintained and chances were created.

Moor ran into the Aldwinians 22 and the ensuing turnover at the ruck was cleared via punt by the home skipper, Mike, under extreme pressure from Greg. The home guy took exception to the challenge and floored his opponent with a vicious punch. Heath raised his arms and looked forlornly at the referee for some assistance in protecting his team-mate and was then set-upon by the home pugilist without reason or antagonism. The visiting skipper had the sense not to retaliate, and, some 6 to 10 punches later, was relieved of his ‘punishment’ through vicious and unprovoked attack as the lunatic home skipper was finally pulled off him. The home referee had little option but to offer the home skipper the red card and an early bath for serious assault.

Seeing double, and with the left side of his face swelling considerably, Heath continued the match. Moor worked well to create opportunities, and always looked dangerous when supplying ball to Lyons and Hughes in the centre. Sutty had an incredibly effective game at Full-Back and hardly put a foot wrong, counter-attacking with extreme bravado and skill, often carrying the ball deep into opposition territory only to be caught by the last-gasp tackle.

However… the weather continued to worsen and this played into the hands of the home team whose larger forwards finally found a way to win – up the jumper and drive through the sludge. Moor’s forwards were valiant in their efforts to stop this attritional rugby, but eventually were worn down and Aldwinians recycled enough from pick-n-drive to score under the posts. The try was converted and Moor had 20 minutes to change the state of things.

Unfortunately, we managed to wrest possession enough times to cause upset to the home team, but made mistakes through panic so that we couldn’t retain possession long enough to do any serious damage. The home juggernaut revelled in the conditions to dominate open play as the second half unfolded, aided by a ref who didn’t notice much at all going wrong, unless it was the visitor’s ball. Then a spark of light in the gloom.

The home side tried a backs move (foolishly, as they were dominating in the loose through forward play), and dropped the ball. Sutty – hair in place and one eyebrow raised, raced onto a dropped ball then cabrioleted 80 metres to score under the sticks. Jaz’s sand-wedge did the trick for the conversion. The older elements of the team sighed in acknowledgement of what the ‘nippers’ could do given the ball. Too little too late, as the home side ran out winners by 10 points to 7.

Many boxing matches are settled by points scores, and so ensues the Aldwinians team sheet for the day:-

15.    Sugar Ray Leonard

14.    Prince Nazeem

13.     Oscar De La Hoya

12.    Mike (Capt)

11.   Amir Khan

10.     Chris Eubank

9.        Sonny Liston

1.        Evander Holyfield

2.        Henry Cooper

3.        Mike Tyson

4.        Joe Bugner

5.        George Foreman

6.        Ricky Hatton

7.        Rocky Marciano

8.        Mohammed Ali

Can you tell who the odd one out is?  Yes, Mike is the only rugby player, but they all throw a mean punch (or in flurries of 8)!!!

Moor’s forwards were immense, and their defence was more than spirited, it was truly courageous. A what-if? moment – dry pitch, full turn out? Our backs would have cut them to ribbons.

Well played, comrades – keep up the good work and never fall into the trap of brutality… it’s not what we’re about, and it’s not indicative of the values we were brought up with. This game is tough enough within the laws, so please ensure that you always endeavour to play it that way.

‘Nuff said.