Cultural exchanges

This section will describe some of the cultural exchanges club members made at home and abroad over the years. Naturally it will not include much detail: firstly due the side effects of the passages of time, combined with alcoholic beverage consumption and because WHAT GOES ON TOUR STAYS ON TOUR!

We mainly toured over Easter to various domestic locations, but there were also foreign exchange trips to support England – see the Daily Mail report on our 1984 trip to gay Paris (ed: can you call it that anymore?). This tradition continued after we ceased playing as various groups of Old Boys visited all of the other 6 Nations venues.

• Newport, South Wales – Easter 1974
  • Not the best of destinations: we got slaughtered on and off the pitch!
  • Watched Saints on Friday eve, eventually returning to forgettable Newport digs
  • Saturday we lost to Llanwern Works RFC & Magor RFC (what a club!) on Sunday
  • Finally on the way back on Easter Monday (3 games, what were we thinking?), despite having brought in reinforcements, lost to St Mary’s Old Boys in Bristol
• Leeds – Easter (in March!) 1975
  • A very sociable trip to “Gods own country”
  • Lost both games to Roundhay RFC and West Park Bramhope RFC
  • Roundhay had a bingo night on so we found a private room for fun & games, though later on we gave their ladies a show, before a brief visit to Jimmies Hospital to put a shoulder back in (again).

• Plymouth (with excursions to Cornwall) – Easter 1976
  • Only 12 turned up at club, 1 more was kidnapped on the way, the late Ray “Hooter” Pope recruited his brother and Coops, who were on holiday in Looe, to play as guests
  • Guess what, we managed to retain our beaten record
• Blackpool – Easter 1977
  • Stayed in very traditional Blackpool Guest House located too close to Yates Wine Lodge for comfort!
  • Broke tour rules & beat Fleetwood RFC, then made mistake to accept their invitation to their Sevens tournament on Sunday – somehow got to semi finals, by which time their bath was knee deep in mud!
  • Back to normal on Monday, got hammered 40-4 by Preston Grasshoppers RFC
• Weymouth – Easter 1978
  • Nice guest house close to the front, owner very pleased we weren’t a hockey team on tour after all.
  • Invented the Cresta Run, turned out the owner was more bonkers than us!
  • No recall of what Dorset clubs we might have lost to, but do recall they weren’t entirely friendly!
• Margate (aka TiT ’79) – Easter 1979
  • Lost both games to Canterbury RFC & Bettshanger Colliery RFC
  • Sunday – aka “the longest day” – somebody had bright idea to take an early morning hovercraft trip to Calais for some Entente Cordiale. Somehow we managed to get everybody back to hotel (not all in one piece) but guest house owner owner would not shut the bar! (another late night trip to hospital for 1 stitch)
  • Police search for “Missing golf clubs” later (found in the coach boot) delayed our departure, as a result had to cancel 3rd planned game, so visited East End pubs on way home instead
• Edinburgh – March 1980
  • Trip to watch England win the Grand Slam (Scotland 18 England 30) in last match at the old Murrayfield Stadium
• Southend – Easter 1980
  • Jeb (at 17!) helped to run the tour – not much recall, no surprise there!
  • Managed to coincide with one of the last seafront battles between Mods & Rockers, as well as Southend FC hosting Millwall and their not so friendly fans!
  • Allegedly played 3 games and entered Southend RFC Sevens tournament, managed to lose all group games but still went through as best losers, so threw the semi final as the 7 were missing drinking time. Records show we beat Westcliff RFC 51-0 on Easter Monday – a likely tale!
  • Diverted into Central London on way home where all the Court officials finished up in the Trafalgar Square fountains
• Paris – February 1982 (after a year off for livers to recover)
  • Trip to watch England at old Parc des Princes (France 15 England 27)
• Paris – March 1984
  • Watched England lose badly (France 32 England 18), was a very odd year as Scotland won the Grand Slam!
  • We went the weekend after England football supporters had rioted! See Daily Mail article below (it’s actually Pete Tyers in the front of the picture not Parto!)

• Whitley Bay – Easter 1985 (The Wham Boys Tour)
  • A tour with a great mix of youth & experience. Coach broke down on way up so impromptu game of rugby on the hard shoulder
  • Practise must have worked as think we might have won both games at Washington RFC (next to new Nissan factory) and Bladon RFC, according to local lad Murph the first club of British Lion and serial red carder Steve Bainbridge.
  • Stopped in Ripon on way home, left when somebody set fire to kitty
• After this League rugby kicked in so the Easter tour tradition petered away
• However even after we stopped playing as a club, we continued to socialise and often went on trips to watch England.
• Here a group of 18 in 1995 went to watch the late Princess Di’s friend Will “Dimple” Carling lead England to victory 20-8, on their way to a Grand Slam.