2000-01: Play-off Defeat at Stafford

After years of tinkering with the league structure, the RFU introduced a more fundamental review. Leagues went down from 17 to 10 or 12 teams, with matches played home and away. Midlands 1 remained as a single league, Midlands 2 was split between East and West, and Midlands 3 was split into four. We were placed in West 3 (South), based on our finishing position the previous season. The new division included a number of local derbies, including: Bedworth, Keresley, Evesham, Stratford and Old Leamingtonians. With smaller leagues and an upward feed of two leagues into one, there was only one automatic promotion slot, with the runners-up having to play-off for a second promotion place. The ten-minute “sin bin” was also introduced as an experimental law change.

Centre Alex Carroll (left) was the new first team captain and he led a side with a number of additions to the playing strength - South African forward Chris Lahey provided options in the second and back-row, and Ben McMurdo and Tony Bristow added to our back-line. It was also good to see scrum-halves Kenny Johnson and Rob Shuttleworth return, but they were both injured and played little part in the campaign. On the downside, James Hadfield moved to Coventry.

After an opening friendly against Birmingham Exiles, we began our competitive season with a visit by Keresley in the NPI Intermediate Cup. It was not the best of starts and we went down by 18-30. The league season kicked-off the following week and we opened with a comfortable victory against Old Leamingtonians, thanks to tries from Jai Purewal and Dewi Bassett. The Extras and Spartans both scored over 50 points against the OLs, making it a very enjoyable day. Our next game should have been against Woodrush but they withdrew from the league due to lack of players and their games were declared void. Keresley then became our second opponents and we had an early chance to gain revenge for the NPI defeat. Simon David scored a try which Tony Bristow converted and he added three penalties on his debut to ensure victory. A win against Bedworth made it three in a row, but our emerging promotion hopes were then given a severe dent when we went down 5-28 to unbeaten Old Coventrians, who had the edge in all areas of the game. Stratford then visited Moorefields and ran in five tries without response, with their forwards dominating possession, to win 39-3.

Whilst automatic promotion was now looking doubtful, we were still in contention for the runners-up position and a smooth performance at Evesham brought victory and the beginning of a five match winning run. Bottom side Kings Norton were crushed by a record league score of 94-3. Winger Simon David scored 5 tries of 15. Victories against Nuneaton Old Edwardians and Evesham came next and in a reversal of our earlier loss to Old Coventrians, we beat them by 20-15. Scrum-half Gareth Renowden made his debut, having joined us from Old Leamingtonians, for whom he played against us early in the season. He was a former junior with Leamington and it was good to see him return and develop into an outstanding player for the club.

This moved us up into second place but as usual a visit to Bedworth set us back again. Prop forward Terry Curran was forced to go off early suffering from double vision and a closed eye following a scrum (how could that have happened?) and with the pack disrupted we were 17-0 down by half-time. Despite a strong rally in the second period, we could not quite get back on terms. A visit to league leaders Stratford came next and after our drubbing early in the season hopes were not high against a side that had scored over 360 points in 10 games. It proved to be the best performance of the season with the forwards showing tremendous resilience in defence and a James Pearl try, plus three penalties and a conversion from stand-in stand-off Matt Dale, secured a surprise 16-8 victory.

Unfortunately, it was down to earth again the next week with defeat at Keresley, despite a hat-trick of tries from Simon David. The match was overshadowed by an injury to Tony Bristow, who was stamped on the face in a ruck by the opposition wing forward (nicknamed “Damage”) causing a deep laceration to the lower jaw. Unfortunately, the incident was not seen by the referee but Tony, who was an ex-Keresley player, knew who had done it. Because of the seriousness of the injury the club took the unusual step of citing the Keresley player for foul play and the case was referred by Warwickshire to a full RFU disciplinary panel. Although a successful outcome was a bit of a long-shot, in the absence of a referee’s report or video evidence, the panel surprisingly and bravely upheld the citing and suspended the Keresley player for three months.

As the season reached its finale, we drew at Old Leamingtonians in a dour game dominated by defences, in which hooker Dicky Davies was sent off after 30 minutes. This left us needing a win at home to Nuneaton Old Edwardians to clinch the runners-up slot, with our final game against Kings Norton looking like a formality. Nuneaton were still in contention themselves and caused some concern when they led at the break, but a re-shuffle of the side, following an injury to centre McMurdo, did the trick, with Gareth Renowden moving to the wing and scoring the winning try. The Kings Norton game was duly won and we finished as runners-up to Stratford, with Keresley third and Nuneaton Old Edwardians and Old Coventrians next.

First XV – 2000-01 Tony Smith (coach), Terry Curran, John Gibson, Scott Conduit, Ges Robinson, Chris Lahey, James Pearl, Danny Birks, Stuart Pearl, Nick Maxwell, John Hibben (Chairman) Chris Collett, Ben McMurdo, Tony Bristow, Simon David, Dave Smith, Alex Carroll, Matt Davies, Marcus Pask

This put us into a promotion play-off, but we were still in the Warwickshire Cup, having beaten Dunlop in the first round in early March. A major Foot and Mouth epidemic broke out in February and played havoc with the fixture list, both nationally and locally, causing a lot of postponements. Also, there was an extraordinary amount of rain throughout the season which required us to limit the number of games we could play on the pitches. Due to these problems the quarter-final ties were not played until May and we were drawn away to Old Laurentians. We were up against it from the start but hung on well and went into the lead with a Simon David try before two scores in quick succession put the Rugby side into a commanding lead and they won by 34-17.

The league play-off against Stafford didn’t take place until 19th May, by which time players had become unavailable and or had switched-off for the summer. Stafford had finished as runners up in Midlands 3 West (North) with a similar record to our own, but they scored 3 more points than us (from 2 more games - the withdrawal of Woodrush tipping the balance in their favour) which unfairly gave them the critical home advantage. The game was something of an anti-climax and started disastrously with two tries for Stafford in the opening ten minutes. A Labatt try and a penalty put us back in contention before half-time but another burst of two tries finished us off in the second period and we lost 10-32.

The Extras and Spartans both had successful seasons, as usual. Dave Ward continued to lead the Extras and doubled up as Club Captain. The Extras scored over 900 points and passed the 40-point barrier on nine occasions. Their biggest win was in the Warwickshire 2nd XV Cup when they beat GEC Marconi 82-0, with Chris Lowe converting 11 of the 12 tries scored. In the next round we beat Balsall & Berkswell 46-0, before losing 21-22 to Old Laurentians in the last minute of the semi-final, for the second year in succession.

Julian Morris captained the Spartans and they had the best playing record in the club with 21 wins, including two 50-point victories over Old Leamingtonians, and only 9 defeats. Hugh Smith continued to skipper the Stags but they were only able to play 23 games and their list of opponents bore little resemblance to the original fixture list, with so many games cancelled or rearranged. Due to the increasing difficulty in getting a side together they linked up with Harbury 2nds and fielded a joint team in a lot of the games. Peter Gray led a Veterans side for the third year (having been unbeaten in the first two) with a 6-game fixture list – the results are not known. There was no Colts side, but Tony Timms coached an under-17 team with view to them graduating into Colts.

Overall this was probably our best season for results since the mid 1990's and we were unfortunate that the new league structure only allowed one automatic promotion. We were developing a young and spirited squad, due largely to Tony Smith, who had been instrumental in recruiting a number of good players and was beginning to make a big impact in his second year as club coach. The experience of Bob Hickman was also important and he completed a three-year spell as Rugby Chairman. The player of the year, for the second year, was back-row forward Dewi Bassett who proved to be a powerful force at No.8 and scored some vital tries. The most improved player was James Pearl who made the full back position his own. On the representative front, Nick Maxwell played for the Warwickshire senior XV and Dave Smith played for the under- 20 side. Simon David was leading league try scorer with 13 and Tony Bristow top points scorer with 67.

Extras circa 2001 Tom Back, David Lea, Krys Jilks, Matt Dale, Ali Speight, Ian Kimberley - xxx, Steve Johnston, Peter Griffiths, xxx, Andy Houghton, Derek Jones, xxx, John Hibben (Chairman) Tony Cowley (Coach) – Tony Manford (sponsor), Gareth Eastham, Nick Harrington(Sponsor)

A pleasing aspect of the season was that there was a full club tour at Easter for the first time for several years. The touring party crossed the Channel to visit Liege and Maastricht, with players required to travel in “Elvis” costume. Organised by Joe O’Meara, Dave Ward and Stuart Chamberlain, the tourists were issued with various useful phrases to help with the situations they were likely to encounter with locals, including - “Mien is teen dubbel, salut Hercule” for the bar and “Ist u transvestitesche?” for those trying to pull in the nightclubs. There is no record of how they did on the field, or in the nightclubs.

2001-02: 75th Jubilee Promotion

There was sad news at the start of the season that C W “Pip” Moore died on 29th August 2001. Pip was the man who put the “Moore” into Moorefields and was the Club’s longest serving member, having joined in 1931/32. He moved on to play for Rugby Lions just before the war but, after serving with the Royal Navy during the conflict, he returned to Leamington and became one of the mainstays of the club, serving as both Treasurer and Chairman. But what really singled him out, was that he was always around to do whatever jobs needed doing, whether marking out the ground, cleaning the baths, or clearing the cow dung off the pitches at the old ground.

The club reached the milestone of its 75th birthday on 26 April 2001 and we looked forward to the prospect of achieving promotion in our jubilee season. Tony Smith continued as coach for a third term and he was assisted by Matt Williams, a Coventry player, rehabilitating from injury, who helped with the forwards. Fran Hemmings was the new captain and there were also changes behind the scenes with Stuart Chamberlain (and later John Hodgetts) succeeding Rob Hickman as Chairman of Rugby and Dave Warrilow taking on the new role of first team manager, responsible for sorting out the match day arrangements. The team was more or less the same, with the main additions being Jonathan Richards, a skilful fly-half, who unfortunately was prone to injury and Simon Brand, a powerful No.8 forward. He too was injured for most of his first season, but was to become a great asset in subsequent campaigns. Simon has the distinction of being the first player to be recruited via the club’s website.

First XV v Silhillians 29 September 2001 Greg Melville, Terry Curran, Dewi Bassett, Simon Brand, Fran Hemmings, Chris Lahey, Tom Back, Bill Unsworth, Ben McMurdo, Tony Smith (coach) – Jonathan Richards, Dave Smith, Alex Carroll, Gareth Renowden, Lloyd Collett, Marcus Pask, Dicky Davis, Simon David, Nick Maxwell

In our opening competitive game, we were drawn away to Stratford in the NPI Intermediate Cup. In a tight match, a James Pearl try put us in front with five minutes to go, but Stratford came back with a furious response and after a number of scrums on our line they forced their way over to recapture the lead. There was still time for us to retaliate, but deep into injury time a Pearl penalty into the wind dropped just short of the crossbar and we lost by 8-10. The game showed that we were in good shape for our first league match, against Old Leamingtonians and tries from Simon David and Billy Unsworth, secured an excellent win at Bericote Lane. This was followed by a strong performance against Silhillians and a 22-10 victory at Keresley made it three in a row. This was a much-anticipated game at which trouble was expected following our citing one of their players the year before. The Warwickshire Referees Society came mob-handed with three match officials and an observer, but in the event the game was played in good spirit and we rarely looked in difficulty.

A rare win at Bedworth followed, although it took four Richards penalties to see us home. A crunching win against Old Coventrians made it five in a row and a draw at Pershore in November retained our unbeaten record, despite some frustration as two seemingly good tries were ruled out and Richards thought he had won the game with a massive drop goal, but unfortunately the referee was the only person on the ground that didn’t see it go over. It could have been worse, as Pershore hit the bar with a last-ditch penalty.

Evesham and Birmingham Exiles were comfortable victories but we then came unstuck, losing our unbeaten record at home against Nuneaton Old Eds and the following week we went out of the Warwickshire Cup at the first hurdle, going down 16-28 at Old Coventrians. We got back on the winning trail with our second victory against Evesham in the final game before Christmas. Pershore were our first opponents after the break and as in our earlier game, they proved to be a handful and we trailed for much of the game before Greg Melville forced his way over for a try with three minutes to go. We then got our Cup revenge and a league double against Old Coventrians.

This took us into the key games of the campaign. The match against third placed Bedworth was played in a high wind on a heavy Moorefields pitch. We dominated the first half but were only just ahead at the change and with the wind in Bedworth’s favour we were forced to repel waves of attacks, before breaking out to score a penalty to clinch the game. A win over Keresley put us two points ahead of Silhillians and three ahead of Bedworth with three games to go. The match at Silhillians was the potential championship decider and we put down our marker with a penalty and a Bassett try to go into an early lead. With the Sils having to run possession to get back into the game we finished them off when Alex Carroll intercepted a pass to score from within our own half. Two injury time tries were conceded to cause some late anxiety, but we were 19-12 winners.

Old Leamingtonians were our next visitors and they did not come to join in our victory parade. Although we had several key players out it was expected to be a routine win, but it proved to be anything but that and with the scores locked at 15-all, a penalty won the game for the OLs and ensured a nervous ending to the season. Our penultimate game was at Nuneaton Old Eds who had beaten us at Moorefields. It was close again but we found a rhythm and Richards sidestepped two defenders to make the vital score. The league was wrapped up in style with a comfortable win against Birmingham Exiles. Bedworth lost at Pershore and we finished three points ahead of them.

The following week it was party time and our league topping performance was celebrated at the club’s Jubilee Dinner, attended by over 165 people and held in a marquee, by the clubhouse on 20 April 2002. The guest speaker was John Bentley, who held the unique distinction of playing for England and Great Britain at both rugby union and rugby league. The player of the year award was given to the first team squad as a whole for their efforts in gaining promotion. (Tony Smith is shown accepting the trophy and the other picture shows Ray Ward, John Richardson, Tim Moore, our oldest member at the time, John Hibben and John Bentley). Overall, we won 21 and drew 1 of our 31 games and scored a total of 698 points - 158 of them against Balsall & Berkswell in two friendly matches! The most improved player was ex-colt Tom Back, who played in several positions. The winning line-up over the season was - Tony Bristow (or Tom Back) Simon David, Alex Carroll, Dave Smith, James Pearl, Jon Richards, Gareth Renowden, Greg Melville, Nick Maxwell, Terry Curran, Chris Lahey, Fran Hemmings, Danny Birks, Dewi Bassett, Scott Conduit

Dave Ward continued as Extras and club captain, supported by Gareth Eastham, and their team scored nearly 950 points, the best haul for any club side for many years, at an average of nearly 30 points per game. Their biggest totals came in successive weeks, with a 64-24 win over Broadstreet followed by a 68-13 win against Dunlop in the Warwickshire Second XV Cup. In the quarter finals they lost to Barkers Butts. The Spartans also piled on the points, scoring 702 and winning more than half of their games. Their biggest score was an 83-0 win over Silhillians, with Stuart Chamberlain grabbing a hat-trick and skipper “Boz” Morris two of the thirteen tries scored. A major disappointment was that we were unable to field a fourth team with the Stags playing only one game- against Old Leamingtonians. This was to be the Stags last season. Having only recently fielded five regular sides (and occasionally six) it was sad to see the decline in numbers, but this was not unique to Leamington and in fact we had managed to keep a fourth team going longer than most comparable clubs. Once again, an occasional veterans’ side, led by Peter Gray, played under the lights.

It was encouraging that we were now moving in the right direction again but the big question was – could we build on our success and get back to into Midlands 1? Since we achieved promotion to that level a decade earlier the rugby world had changed and it was now a semi-professional league with some clubs operating with large playing budgets. A meeting of coaches and players was held in April to consider our approach. It was agreed that we were opposed to the principle of paying players, but we were not against paying reasonable out-of-pocket expenses to players who were recruited from outside the area, who would not have played for us in normal circumstances. We could only pay what we could afford and the feeling was that priority should be given to strengthening the coaching support. One initiative was to team up with Rugby Lions to have joint training sessions, with a view to benefiting both clubs by the potential exchange of coaches and players – the outcome of course was that our players and coaches were drawn to Rugby and little came the other way!

First XV 2001-02 Bob Howe (President), Bill Unsworth, James Pearl, Gez Robinson, Marcus Pask, Fran Hemmings, Dewi Bassett, Danny Birks, Terry Curran, Chris Lahey, Nick Maxwell, Greg Melville, John Gibson, Tom Back, John Hibben (chairman), Jon Richards, Scott Conduit, Derek Jones, Matt Dale, Tony Bristow, Dave Smith, Gareth Renowden,

Charlie Taylor, Alex Carroll (captain) Tony Smith (coach)

2002-03: Half the League goes Down

Promoted to Midlands 2, mercurial centre Alex Carroll took over as captain from Fran Hemmings, for a second spell in charge, with Tony Smith and Matt Williams continuing to provide the coaching support. New players coming in included: centre Dorian Ward, winger Steve Whyte, full-back Dan Law and second-row Chris Valentini, who arrived in February.

A narrow win in a friendly against neighbours Old Leamingtonians put us in confident mood at the start of what was to prove to be a very competitive league programme, with most sides able to beat one another, dependent on form, injuries and the bounce of the ball. We could not have had a more difficult start than away to favourites Hereford, where we lost heavily by 43-9, although the score did not reflect the balance of play. The second game was against Old Laurentians who won comfortably at Moorefields with our only score coming from a last-minute consolation try by Gareth Renowden.

First XV – 2002-03 Brain and Kath White (sponsor), Dorian Ward, Danny Birks, David Lea, Greg Melville, James Pearl, Scott Conduit, Richard Ogden-Wetherall, Dan Law, Chris Lahey, John Gibson, John Hodgetts (chairman) - Tony Smith (coach) Marcus Pask, Richard Labatt, Paul Archer, Dave Smith, Dicky Davis, Gareth Renowden, Dewi Bassett, Tony Bristow, Alex Carroll, Nick Maxwell

We then made a quick exit from the NPI Intermediate Cup, going out 28-11 to old rivals Barkers Butts. Leading after half an hour and looking good we were hit by a four-try burst either side of half-time and although we came back strongly, the match was well beyond us. It was a similar story in the next league game, with Sutton Coldfield hitting us with three-tries to make it three defeats in a row.

Things turned around with a rather lucky win over in-form Camp Hill. After dominating the first half hour, we were well worth a 23-12 lead, but with 20 minutes to go Camp Hill came back to score three tries without reply and go in front. With the game into injury time and the referee’s whistle at his lips, Derek Jones went over to level the scores and Tony Bristow kicked the conversion to win 30-28. This started a run of six wins and a draw in our next nine games. Newbold were well beaten on their own patch with our pack dominant in the scrums. Against Stafford, we appeared to be heading for victory, but an injury-time score by the visitors cruelly denied us a third win in a row.

With several key players missing, a trip to Bedworth was not what was needed next, but the pack was in tremendous form and Carroll chose his moment to clinch victory with the only try of the match. Steve Whyte celebrated his promotion to the team with two tries to secure a victory at Stratford, which was followed by an easy win against struggling Wolverhampton. Playing so well, it then came as a surprise to go down at home to struggling Dixonians. A second win against Wolverhampton put us back on track but it took until the second half to get going after we arrived late and we squeezed through.

In the Warwickshire Cup we were drawn away at Old Coventrians for the second season in a row and there was not much Christmas cheer around in a bad-tempered game on a cold, wet and windy December night. Being forced to play the game in mid-week, between two crucial league games, was not popular and did nothing to enhance the importance of the competition. We went down 28-0.

The final league game before Christmas was a draw at home against Stafford, which left us in a comfortable position at the half-way stage, having secured a good haul of 13 points from 12 games and well off the bottom two places. Lurking in our minds however was that we did not know how many teams would be relegated and the indications were that an unusual number of west midlands teams were at risk in the national league and these might cascade down through Midlands 1 and increase the number of relegations into ours. Therefore, it was vital to finish as high as possible.

We suffered a 37-5 defeat at Derby prior to the new year and then, following a two-week break due to bad weather, we lost at home to Newbold and Bedworth, both of whom we had beaten away earlier in the season. We recovered somewhat against Sutton Coldfield, in a game we snatched out of the fire with a late try from Dewi Bassett, to win by a point.

Further losses, to Stafford and Camp Hill, started to drag us down into the relegation zone and with fixtures against promotion contenders Old Laurentians and Hereford to come, things were getting serious. Old Laurentians despatched us easily and for the visit of Hereford changes were made, in particular with Carroll and Renowden switching positions. It very nearly worked and we played some of our best rugby of the season, but confusion in the midfield defence led to crucial scores against us. Things reached rock bottom against tail-enders’ Dixonians and a 44-19 defeat meant that survival was now out of our own hands. A final defeat at home to Derby was no surprise, but we played well with plenty of spirit, but the opposition took their chances and we didn’t.

We won only one game in the second half of the season and in the finished three from the bottom - above the normal relegation slots and level on points with Stratford and Camp Hill above us. The peculiarities of the “cascade effect” resulted in 6 of the 12 teams in the division being relegated. This caused such a furore, with similar situations occurring elsewhere in the country, that the RFU undertook an emergency consultation to avoid it happening again and came up with a new “cluster system” which set the number of clubs to be relegated from each league at three and dealt with the cascade problem by moving clubs sideways if there was a geographical imbalance among the teams relegated. This was introduced in 2003/04, but it was too late to help us.

First XV 2002-03 Steve Whyte, Greg Melville, Gareth Eastham, Chris Lahey, Fran Hemmings, Scott Conduit, Alistair Speight, David Lea, Nick Maxwell, Tony Smith (coach) Marcus Pask, Jon Richards, Alex Carroll (captain) Derek Jones, Gareth Renowden, Paul Archer, Richard Labbatt, Matt Dale

The Extras and Spartans both had reasonable seasons, winning more than they lost. Dave Ward led a useful Extras side, comprising his core of seasoned veterans, along with some emerging talent, including Simon Harry, Mark Warrilow and Bobby Darbyshire in the forwards, and Adam Preece, Tom Back and Chris Murphy in the three-quarters. Murphy and Back, playing in the centre together, sparked off some of the most exciting rugby seen at Moorefields for years. Against Hereford and Dixonians the team scored over 80 points and Murphy grabbed five tries in both games. Because he was not old enough to play in league games, Chris played his rugby in first team friendlies, Extras and Colts games and unconfirmed guestimates credit him with 45 tries in 31 matches.

Boz Morris captained the Spartans but was injured early on and Des Dillon filled in. They won 15 of their 27 games and like the Extras they provided opportunities for emerging players to come through the ranks. As the season progressed the ability to speak French became a job requirement for the skipper as the club gradually acquired a French Connection, with the recruitment of Julian Destable, Jerome Cotte, Didier Pruvot, Antoine Guernieri, and others.

Among the individual achievements, Alex Carroll made his debut for Warwickshire against Cumbria at the end of the season and he and Matt Dale were invited to represent Wales in an amateur touch rugby tournament in Japan at the end of May. Matt only accepted because he thought the touch rules would favour his tackling skills and because the hard pitches in Japan would not cause his knees to get dirty.

Again, we were unable to field a fourth team or a Colts side but progress was being made towards reinstating Colts rugby through a joint under-17 team with Old Leamingtonians which made it through to the final of the Warwickshire under-17 Cup, losing narrowly by 10-13 to Earlsdon. We did manage to field a stand-alone team of Colts and under-17s to compete in the National Colts Plate and defeated Kettering before going out narrowly to South Leicester. The team is pictured below and included fly-half James Robertson, who was capped by Warwickshire Colts, although an under-17 player. Efforts were also being made to keep girls involved once they reached the age of 13 and were no longer allowed to play in mixed sides. A combined Leamington-Kenilworth-OLs team was formed and played for a couple of years.

Colts 2002-03 (versus South Leicester in National Plate Competition) Chris Murphy, Richard Blunt, John Wheelhouse,

Bobby Darbyshire, Simon Harry, Pete Burnell, James Robertson, Cairon Price, Simon Hemming – Richard Evans,

Michael Gibbs, Dean Taffe, Maredudd Martin (Captain), Ben Ruddy, Dave Johnson

2002-03 was the 30th anniversary of the formation of the mini and junior (now known as the Youth) Section. In February, a dinner-dance was held and was attended by more than 110 parents and invited guests, to celebrate the anniversary. Maurice Goymer, who was the second chairman of the Section, spoke about how mini and junior rugby had come about and recalled some of the players who had come up through the club, including Peter Gray who started in the under-7’s, went on the captain the 1st XV, and was now coaching his own son Charlie as a mini player.

The Section was continuing to thrive against a background of falling numbers of young rugby players nationally. Contrary to the experience of some of our neighbours, our membership was stable and if anything increasing and totalled over 200 boys and girls, playing through from under-7 to under-17. The mini festival continued to be a popular and successful event and had run consistently throughout the 30 year period. In 2000-01 we introduced a junior (under 13-15) tournament for the first time which continued as an annual event for a few years. This is not to say that everything was coasting along nicely and a particular difficulty was the loss of pitches due to the continuing unavailability of the Arnold Lodge field. Also the requirements within the game to ensure the safety of young participants through the introduction of Criminal Record Bureau checks for coaches and the expectation that they would be properly qualified was an ever increasing administrative burden. The RFU brought this together with the introduction of their Child Protection Policy and their Seal of Approval quality assurance scheme, which Leamington were one of the first clubs in the country to acquire, in 2003.

A lot was going on within the club to help with this and to foster the development of game generally. In 2001 the club was officially appointed as a Coaching Centre of Excellence by the RFU (one of only two in the county) meaning that coaches throughout Warwickshire came to Leamington to attend their courses. By this time 32 people were actively engaged in youth coaching at the club (many of them current or former senior players) with 25 of them holding recognised qualifications at various levels.

Through the efforts of Paul Ford and Tony Timms a lot of hard work was undertaken to create links with local schools in order to encourage the regeneration of the game. This included after-school training sessions and projects such as Tag Rugby, aimed at introducing youngsters by playing a non-contact version of the game. This was originally funded through a Millennium Fund grant and sponsorship from Target Cleaning and become a regular event hosted by the club, in conjunction with Warwick District Council, involving over 300 boys and girls each year. Another initiative was an agreement with Leicester Tigers for them to hold a mid-summer coaching course for the area at our ground. This started in 2002 and continued for many years.

2003-04: Play-off Triumph at Sutton

After relegation, albeit in strange circumstances, the first team set about the task of regaining Midlands 2 status. Alex Carroll continued for a second year as captain with coach Tony Smith now assisted by Tony Bristow. It was thought that we had recruited Nuneaton and Warwickshire second row Alan Roberts as a player and forwards’ coach to add to the team, but after impressing against Broadstreet in our pre-season trial game they lured him away before the season started, although he did come back to provide some help. Tony Timms took over as Rugby Chairman.

Silhillians were our opening league opponents and the game was dominated by the Leamington pack, with newcomers Neil McMillan and Pete Blunt having excellent games in the back row, as did and ex-colt Richard Blunt at hooker and Chris Murphy in the centre. Pictures from the game, which was won 28-6, show - Pask, Blunt, Bassett and Renowden (left) and Carroll, Conduit, Smith and Renowden (from the left above)

Due to a successful relegation appeal, the league was forced to promote two additional sides from Midlands 4 to 3 West, with Old Leamingtonians and Southam moving up. The OLs had clearly not finished celebrating their first “promotion” when they visited us in the second game. On a sunny day, they looked a poor side and we won 21-13.

Our usual away draw in the Intermediate Cup took us to Mansfield where we fielded five colts, with debuts for Phil Muir, Bobby Darbyshire and Mark Warrilow. Mansfield dominated the game and won by 22-0. Returning to league action at Droitwich, the lead changed hands several times before Dan Law made a brilliant run from half-way to score the winning try on the stroke of full time. Another Dan Law special was the difference between the sides as we beat Camp Hill in our next game. Flanker Pete Blunt inspired the forwards in an early top of the table clash with Old Coventrians and the backs took advantage of plentiful turnover ball to run in five tries as we picked up our fifth victory in a row, by 27-18. Our first ever league game against Shipston proved to be a real struggle with our advantage in the scrums neutralised by the visitors’ strong mauling game. In the end, it took a slick three-quarter move and a try by Phil Muir to grind out win number six.

Our unbeaten record came to an end when Stratford visited at the beginning of November. They caught us at a bad time with several players missing. Tony Bristow had to come out of “retirement” to slot in at full-back. Stratford took advantage of our disrupted teamwork, winning comfortably by 30-10. Another derby followed at Southam where we appeared to be heading for an easy victory, but with former Leamington captain David Brown marshalling the Southam backs, they got two late scores to cause a nervous finish.

The clubhouse was packed two weeks later when England took on Australia in the Rugby World Cup final and the roof almost came off the building when Jonny Wilkinson’s drop-goal went over in the last minute of extra time. The RFU had allowed clubs to postpone games so players could watch the final and have a celebratory drink or two afterwards. England’s homecoming celebrations included a game against New Zealand Barbarians prior to Christmas and in recognition of the work we had being doing to promote the junior game and being one of the first clubs to comply with the new RFU Chartermark, our under-11 side were given the honour of demonstrating their skills prior to the match and then forming the guard of honour for the world champions as they came out.

The World Cup triumph didn’t provide much inspiration for the first team as we slipped to a surprise home defeat to Pershore in the next game and the following week our promotion hopes really started to look shaky with another loss, this time at Ledbury. We totally dominated possession at both scrum and lineout, but a high wind caused havoc and we somehow managed to go 13-0 down in the first quarter and from that point on, every effort to turn the game around was frustrated by the bounce of the ball or crucial decisions going against us and we managed to lose by 17-20.

Our revival began with big wins over Keresley and Southam and we were back in the promotion race by Christmas, one point behind Old Coventrians and just ahead of Stratford and Droitwich. Coming up quickly, after a poor start, were Old Leamingtonians, who had strengthened their side considerably. A narrow and unconvincing victory over Silhillians made it three wins in a row and we then travelled to Stratford for one of the key games of the season. With a powerful first half performance we built up a 15-point lead through tries from Dave Smith and Dan Law and despite a fight back by Stratford in the second half they could not rescue the game and we overturned the result earlier in the season.

The RFU sent the William Webb Ellis Trophy on tour around the country and a group of our members got to see it at the Warwickshire dinner in May - Tony Smith, Peter Jones, John Hibben, Bob Howe, Norman David, Phil Marsland and John Lyons

After a comfortable win over Shipston, we went head-to-head with leaders Old Coventrians. Things were looking good when we moved into an early lead, but we took our foot off the pedal and the OCs rallied with a devastating burst of three tries before the interval. There was no further score and we lost 10-20 to go three points behind and looking at the runners-up spot as our most likely promotion chance.

We picked up our winning ways in a furious game at Camp Hill, where this time we had to come from behind and the home side held out until five minutes from the end when a Murphy try secured the points. Droitwich were dismissed from the promotion race with an easy 22-0 win which could have been much more. No.8 forward Simon Brand was improving in every game and was becoming a dangerous attacking force off the back of the scrum. He went over for two of our tries. Warwickshire Colts fly-half James Robertson was promoted into the side for this match and he looked the part as he controlled proceedings with his kicking and excellent distribution of the ball. Revenge was gained over Pershore in ding-dong match at the end of February. This time, Robertson showed the running side of his game with two tries and he was brilliantly supported by the back row of Bassett, Blunt and Brand.

And so we came to the return game with Old Leamingtonians. Since September they had achieved a run of twelve wins on the trot, including the demolition of Stratford, before finally losing to Old Coventrians the week before. Three points behind, they were still in a position to overtake us if they could win and if we slipped up in either of our other remaining games. Played on a sunny but very windy day we had the elements in our favour in the first half and although suffering some disruption in the scrums we moved into an 11-0 lead at half time. A forwards’ try got OLs back into it in a disjointed second half, but with five minutes remaining it looked as though they had run out of ideas until a poor Leamington kick ahead was turned into a sweeping counter attack which resulted in their winger, Simon Magill, scoring in the corner. We were still 11-10 ahead, but the game ended in controversy when in injury time, with a line-out to be played, the referee mysteriously gave OLs a penalty under the posts following an intervention by the linesman. This was kicked to give them a late and rather fortunate win.

There was no room left for mistakes and there weren’t any. In the final home game, Ledbury never looked likely to repeat their pre-Christmas success as our forwards tore into them from the start. With loads of possession the backs ran riot as we won by 60 points. Keresley were potentially a very difficult final hurdle and they had produced a shock win at Old Coventrians the week before, but we produced another scintillating display to win by 46-5, tearing their once vaunted pack apart.

This secured the runners-up spot and a play-off against Sutton Coldfield from Midlands 3 West (North) who were cascaded down from our league the year before, despite finishing sixth from the bottom. They had a similar record to us and on their ground our chances were rated at no better than even. However, played in glorious sunshine, the team produced its best performance for years, totally dominating the game from start to finish. Having made the mistake of leaving James Robertson out against Old Leamingtonians, this time he was in and lined up against him was Dan Lockley, who as an 18-year-old had destroyed Leamington in the 1996 Warwickshire Cup Final. History was not to repeat itself and this time it was the Leamington tyro who stole the show by kicking a succession of penalties and orchestrating a display of free-flowing rugby in which man of the match Alex Carroll scored a hat-trick as we won 37-3. The line-up was - Dan Law, Chris Murphy, Alex Carroll, James Pearl, Dave Smith, James Robertson, Gareth Renowden, Terry Curran, Nick Maxwell, Marcus Pask, Chris Lahey, Fran Hemmings, Dewi Bassett, Pete Blunt and Simon Brand

Overall, with 19 wins from 26 games it was one of the club’s most successful seasons and we played some excellent rugby with a good balance between forwards and backs. Chris Murphy scored 15 tries in the league and was voted the club’s most improved player. Chris added to his CV with call-ups to the Midlands and Warwickshire Colts and the full Warwickshire side at the end of the season. Gareth Renowden was not far behind Murphy in the try scoring charts, with 12 in the league and he was chosen as player of the year.

In the Warwickshire Cup we had a comfortable win against Dunlop in the opening round. We then drew Newbold and paid the price for fielding an inexperienced side as we lost 34-0. The few friendly games remaining on the fixture list were also used as an opportunity to rest players and to give experience to youngsters, most notably James Robertson, but also including Mark Warrilow, Danny Keogh, Phil Muir, Ian Anderton, Tom Fitch, Alistair Childs, Simon Whitely, Bobby Darbyshire and Ben Ruddy.

The Veterans in the Sweet Chariots Tournament in May 2004 – Andy John, Bob Jones (South Warwickshire RFU) Phil McGaffin, Steve Little, Joe O’Meara, Peter Gray, Tony Timms, Dave Ward, Chris Kempsey, Pete Elliott, Roger Crockford – Simon David, Andy Milner, Stu Chamberlain, Peter Griffiths, Gareth Eastham, Dudley Turner, Stuart Nunn, Derren Nisbet, Simon Walkedon – plus assorted off-spring

Gareth Eastham did sterling work in captaining the Extras (otherwise known as the 2nd/Development XV) and also managing the Spartans and Stags. The Committee chose him as Clubman of the Year in recognition of this work. The Extras had a mixed season winning just under half of their games. In the Warwickshire 2nd XV Cup, they beat Balsall & Berkswell and Sutton Coldfield before losing to Barkers Butts. The Spartans won 17 of their 27 games but they made the mistake of taking on the Stags on a Saturday when both sides’ fixtures were cancelled and lost 7-14 to the junior side. It was a bonus that we were able to field a Stags/Veterans side on several occasions in the second half of the season. In Veterans mode, they were captained by Peter Gray and they won the inaugural South Warwickshire Veterans Cup and as part of the World Cup winning celebrations, they represented South Warwickshire in the Sweet Chariots tournament at Rugby Lions in May, where (as pictured above) they finished as runners-up in the Plate competition.

An Easter tour was organised by Derren Nisbet and Simon Parsons (who had moved to Bologna with his job) with over 30 players travelling to Treviso in Italy. We played only one game and lost to local side San Dona. Amongst the useful Italian translations supplied to the tourists were the lyrics to “Bevela completamento, guerriero di Zulu “and a number of chat-up lines such as “ Sono appeso come uno stallion”, which you should be able to work out. The joint under-17 side with Old Leamingtonians graduated into Colts and played fairly regularly prior to Christmas. Afterwards they integrated successfully into the senior sides, but came back together to play in the Warwickshire Colts Cup, beating Silhillians, Bedworth and Barkers Butts before losing narrowly by 20-22 to Rugby Lions in the final. Bobby Darbyshire, Richard Blunt and Mark Warrilow played for the Warwickshire under-19 development side and coming up behind them were Nick Hart, Will Wood and Tom Secher who all played for Warwickshire under-16s and 17s. Our under-17 side reached the final of the Warwickshire under-17 Cup, losing 13-8 to Silhillians, in one of the last games to be played at Coundon Road.

Veterans (As South Warwickshire winners in Sweet Charity tournamant May 2004 – Roger Crockford, Peter Gray, Gareth Eastham, Phil McGaffin, Joe O’Meara, Simon David, Peter Elloitt, Dave Ward, Derren Nisbet, - Stuart Nunn, Stu Chamberlain, Simon Walkedon, Richard Messenger, Andy Milner, Steve Little, Andy John – Dudley Turner