I was recently contacted by a lady living in Grange-over-Sands, who rang to say that she was having a clear out of her house and she had found a couple of documents relating to our club, so would I like to have them?
Those documents duly arrived in the post a couple of days later and one of them has inspired this week’s “Throwback Thursday”.

So, this week, we turn back the clock to the weekend of September 3rd and 4th 1988 and the Official Opening of the New Clubhouse at Wagon Lane, as I have here the Souvenir Programme from that weekend.

The Clubhouse was then an endeavour sponsored by the Bradford and Bingley Sports Club, which was a partnership between the Rugby and Cricket clubs which call Wagon Lane home. The Sports Club was ultimately disbanded in the summer of 2015 and the Rugby and Cricket Clubs have gone their own separate ways since that “divorce”. We are endeavouring to build better relations with the Cricket Club as our fortunes will remain interwoven to a greater or lesser extent by both clubs being sited at BD16 1LT and both clubs being the tenants of the Craven Family Trust.

The grand opening weekend was a joint celebration with both Cricket and Rugby “sections” doing their bit to salute the official opening. However, I will focus on the Rugby half of the proceedings in my witterings herein.

The main event as far as the Rugby side of things was concerned was a fixture against Edinburgh Academicals on the Saturday afternoon. Included in the program was feature compiled from various snippets from the Telegraph and Argus talking about previous encounters between the Edinburgh Accies and Bradford clubs around the 1884/85 seasons. I won’t replicate the full article here. But one paragraph that did jump out at me, on the subject of a game in November 1885 read as follows:

“a historic encounter, a tremendous battle – but it was also just too vigorous. Who were responsible for starting the rough stuff is not clear – one report says the Academicals were responsible for doing so but adds that they were incensed at the unfair tactics of their opponents (which makes the obscurity more obscure). But once it was started each side gave as good as they received. One one occasion, during a particularly stiff and prolonged maul the ball was suddenly hooked and sent down the field, upon which the maulers broke up, leaving however, to the amusement of the spectators, the centre forward on each side hammering his opponent’s shins, oblivious to the fact that they were alone and in full view of the field”

Anyway, back to the main event. The games between Bradford and Bingley RFC and the Edinburgh Academicals. The Bees side lined up as follows:

Malcolm Vincent, John Fletcher (captain), Richard Wareham, Andy Guest, Sid Burnhope, Sam Waddington, Jonny Moore; Mark Waddington, Richard Petyt, Andy Worger, Chris Hemsley, Phil Deacon, Tim Wood, Simon Scull. The Bench was Doug McGill and Jonny Priestley.

I think from my memory of the Bees XV at the time, that starting line up remained fairly static for a couple of seasons, although I think Richard “T-Shirt” Petyt went to Otley soon after and Andy Worger and Tim Wood were not two names my memory would have immediately put in the side, without any disrespect to those two gentlemen – Jimmy Lawrence and Michael “Curly” Wellington on the wings, perhaps? Anyhow, I have no record of the score to hand, but I would put money on there being a pushover try from the Bees or at least a score from less than 2 metres out from Jonny Moore.

The programme notes give a bit of an insight into the Bees coaching set up at the time. The programme mentions Mike Elford, Keith Jones, Geoff Wappett, Dave Lightowler and Allan Birbeck as the coaching team, but from my memory of those days it was very much a team moulded by the vision of Elford with the emphasis on the power upfront, although Jonesy added a sprinkle of Welsh wizardry beyond all that huffing and puffing.

The introduction to the Programme was written by the Rugby Club’s then President, Steve Crossley-Smith. His welcoming notes describe our Clubhouse as being “one of the best certainly the most innovative in the country” and his hope is that the Clubhouse would be the “generator that will produce the finance to allow the Clubs to encourage and further our games”.

Steve’s notes also bemoan the decreasing availability of Sport in school and hope that the club can fill that void and be attractive to parents. He could have been writing this in any year between 1988 and now, I believe.

The programme also included a message from the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Councillor Smith Midgley, a former Keighley RUFC player who was a member of the Council planning Committee that approved the development.

And, dear reader, would you like to know how much the whole thing cost?
Building: £148,000; Infrastructure and Land Purchases: £22,000, Bar and Fixed assets: £33,000, Furniture and Kitchen equipment: £10,000, Professional Fees: £11,000.
that totalled £224,000.

The Saturday festivities were to be rounded out, according to the programme by a Disco-Disco-Disco in the clubhouse, which I am sure was marvellous.

Another Page which caught my eye details the Rugby Club’s Leisurewear. Top of the Shop, retailing at a princely £20 was a Lambswool Sweater. Available in a choice of colours as long as its black.
For those who could not quite stretch to a lambswool sweater, the club offered “Courtelle” Sweaters. These retailed at £16, and were available in Black, Maroon, Silver and Grey.
Moving downscale from these Sweaters, a club Sweatshirt was a princely £13, a Sportshirt was £13.50, Club ties were £4.50, Umbrellas were £16.50 and a Blazer Badge would set you back £12.50.

After all that ale and jigging about the disco, Sunday featured two games. The first, which was no doubt a bit of a punch up or at least a poor advertisement for Health and Safety, featured the Colts against the Vets.

The sides lined up as follows:
The Vets XV, which featured 3 players who would become Presidents of the club (in bold). From 1 downwards:

Micky Coggan,Steve “Stan” Gerwitz, AN Other, Jack Hodgson, Ken Foster, Alan “Grouser” Partridge, Tony Rae, Dennis Duttine; Ian Kelt, Mick Waterhouse, Chris Lunn, Steve Oddy, Stuart “Boogie” Booth, Paul Hellowell, David “Lolly” Lightowler.

I would wager that the AN Other might turn out to be Ray Allen, who would have slid in at hooker, giving us four future Presidents in the line up!

The Colts read like this:

C Dine, R Pickles, K Naylor, L King, A Rushworth, S Hall, R Verity, M Carman; G Martin, G Hodgson, P Jones, M Hodgson, J Weir, J Kenny, R Gott.

I assume this was Chris Dine at Prop. The programme has him as “C. Ding”. If there was a “C Ding” playing at the Bees in 1988, my apologies.

The second game of the day had a Presidents XV:

J Seedhouse, N King, R Spilsbury, R Harrison, M Atherton, C Miller, A Boag, J Hartley, N Cummins, M Bentley, J Kenny, G Georgiou, S Mason, P Adams, AN Other.

Against the Academicals our students, not more from Edinburgh:

J Priestley, G Seedhouse, F Heaton, A Murphy, J Shakespeare, D Hornsby, M Carman; N Worger, A Russell, J Walker, J Stones, D Kassapian, T Wood, A Jackman.