The Gypsy Code by Mike Woodhouse

Author:Mike Woodhouse
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241357262
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2019-04-03T16:00:00+00:00

17

A great social event took place every year at Norwich RFC. It was called ‘Back to Norwich’ and involved a reunion of veteran players forming a scratch team to play against the current development squad. It was such a simple but effective idea, and not to be missed. The banter in the changing rooms before the game was typical of rugby friends. Despite not seeing each other for months, sometimes years at a time, that special bond was still strong. I always felt especially grateful to be invited back as I’d left the club acrimoniously after a disagreement with the management.

When I’d first arrived at the club we fielded up to seven teams every Saturday. Then the sport turned professional and outfits such as Norwich, with delusions of grandeur and a bit of quick cash, went bonkers. Without need they started paying first-team players and rewarding them with suits and sponsored cars. What they failed to appreciate was that the entire squad loved the club, and would have played for them regardless of any reward. All they achieved was the alienation of the lower teams. Why should they be paying subs and putting money over the bar when the club was tipping it down the nearest drain as fast as possible? Officials had openly said that they’d be happy running a one-team club, with reserves and a development side. No time for social teams.

After a very public argument about the future of social rugby, I left and set up Apache RFC, a side made up of half a dozen veteran players and guys from down the pub. And I mean literally from out of the pub. Guys who hadn’t played since school, or had never played at all. As we had no ground we always played away from home. But we invariably took huge numbers of supporters with us so the hosting club had a good take over the bar. It was a great success for the two years I ran it and proved my point that, given the right format, there was plenty of life left in social rugby. We’d generated more than a hundred new players who went on to join local clubs.

I combined my visit back to Norfolk with a couple of days in the office at Saracen. It was good to see things were going really well, but it did make feel a bit, well, obsolete.

Still, I had the rugby to enjoy. As in previous years, the veterans had the edge on the youngsters. The generous passing created some lovely flowing rugby, and the older heads made the game look easy. Despite the greater speed and fitness of the younger lads, the veterans were smarter, moving the ball into the open spaces while the headstrong opposition crashed into rucks and tackles. After the match came the highlight of the day: a few well-earned beers. We traded stories and caught up on news. We were a crowd of smiling faces, and after we’d drunk enough beer to drown a bull elephant it was decided we should head into Norwich city centre.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.