ELTHAM COLLEGE – here I learned the game from great schoolmasters and Tony Mason, founder of The Penguins, one of the wonderful Invitation Teams I played for. Finished this stage by winning an England U19 Cap, then playing for Old Elthamians in a great drawn game vs KENT County a few weeks before going to Loughborough Colleges. A few weeks into the first term playing Sevens I was injured out for a year – shoulder repair surgery and change of life direction
OLD ELTHAMIANS and PUBLIC SCHOOLS WANDERERS – long recovery from surgery then back into action for OE’s with additional regular mid week games for PSW’s run by three great people Charles Burton, Charles Lowe and Brigadier Rolf James. These were good games very often both teams containing several international players. After one of these games Peter Ostling, many times reserve hooker for England, encouraged me to join Blackheath at that time one of the top teams in England.
BLACKHEATH – Playing for a top team I enjoyed five years regularly playing with and against current international players from England, Wales and Scotland. This fired my own ambitions but ill timed injuries took away that chance. Shame because I had developed a centre partnership with Paddy Mahon that in both attack and defence took on any of the several international combinations we played against. We enjoyed playing together and with the terrific players in Blackheath at that time – scrum halves Simon Clarke (England) and Barry Cull (NZ), fly halves Leslie Byrne and Ken Carter, Wings Peter Thorne and Mike Bulpitt (England), full backs Tony Jorden (England) and Mick Williment and Mike McCormack (both NZ).
A truly great squad of forwards included England internationals Tony Horton and Peter Bell and others like Peter Ostling fringing international recognition coupled with this great group of backs made for a great team
At this time there was no coaching system but soon after I joined I was able to introduce a playing/fitness program that attracted a lot of interest and the 1966/7 season was a major success. A photo of the squad gives me great memories but very sad that several have passed on, the latest being Tony Jorden (sitting at the front on the right) in October 2023.
This was a great team achieving great results at the highest level in first class club rugby competing against the best clubs in
England and Wales. When I left it was only for personal ambition – I went to another truly great club London Scottish
Phil Hayward, Peter Bell, Murray Meikle, Lionel Bailey
Mike Beckwith, Peter Piper, Jim Turner, Chris Bensted, Clive Hacking, Mike Newsom
Doc Kinsey, Iain Exeter, Bill Bending, Mike Bulpit, Leslie Byrne, Peter Thorne, Geoff Stringer, John Williamson
Alan Hunt, Tony Horton, Simon Clarke, David Stevens, Petr Ostling, John Mawbey Front Paddy Mahon, Tony Jorden
LONDON SCOTTISH – My ill timed injuries were frustrating (hamstrings, broken ribs, broken nose, dislocated fingers, broken collar bone) and sometimes very painful (broken lower 5 lumbar transverse processes, broken leg/dislocated ankle, broken jaw), nearly always in the first half of the season when the trials took place. And then Stewart Wilson, London Scottish, Scotland and British Lions encouraged me to give it a go at London Scottish. My mother was from the Outer Hebrides so Scotland could be a possible ambition. I made the move to Scottish late in the 68/69 season.
Scottish had a wonderful Sevens record and Sevens was my favourite rugby.
I won a place in the Seven following in the footsteps of one of the all time great Sevens
Scrum Halves Tremayne Rodd, a regular in the team that dominated the Middlesex Sevens throughout the first half of the 1960’s We went to the Melrose Sevens, played superbly but lost a brilliant semi-final to a very strong Gala team that between 170 and 1972 won 16 tournaments. Full of internationals they were known as The Magnificent Seven. A few days later we again played well narrowly losing the final of the Esher Floodlit Sevens to one of the first Sevens specialist invitation teams Oxford Thursday.
Sevens and Fifteens – selection at Scottish was very competitive, international players in every position, several were British Lions – Ian Laughland, Stewart Wilson, Sandy Hinshelwood, Mike Smith, Alistair Biggar, Gordon Connell – all Backs!
Scottish had internationals in all positions, especially in the backs – Jim Shackleton, Ian Robertson, Ian Smith, Arthur Orr and Gordon Macdonald had just won caps and Alan Freill was going to. Not so many players won a large number of Scotland caps in those days, Scotland selectors made frequent changes. Stewart Wilson had mentioned this to me.
‘anyone at Scottish is in with a chance for Scotland’. They obviously were because Stewart already had 22 caps, played 5
British Lion tests, including all 4 vs All Blacks, was only 26 years old and Scotland replaced him at full back with Gordon Macdonald Feb 69 and then Ian Smith Dec 69, both good London Scottish where Stewart was captain! Good players but not Stewart’s class. Scottish seemed like the right move to me!
During the 69/70 fifteens season I had a good share of first team matches but for me the highlight was once again the end of season sevens, especially with Public Schools Wanderers.
We won the Streatham Sevens and then to Edinburgh for the Murrayfield Sevens. We had a great team. Billy Hullin at scrum half. Capped once for Wales Billy would have had dozens of Welsh caps if Gareth Edwards had lived at a different time. He was a great sevens player, Peter Knight, a great Sevens winger, a smooth running flyer who could do it again and again as he had the week before for St Lukes winning the Middlesex Sevens. Won three England caps. Robin
Whitcombe Flyhalf, a great ball player who played for Richmond in a very strong era. Lyn Baxter a very mobile giant lock forward played for Wales vs Argentina the season before. Lyn was in the same Wales 18 Schools vs England match and we were next to each other in the teams photo. Alan Friell was the other prop. A tall, rangy centre from St Lukes then London Scottish he and Lyn gave us real pace in the pack. Our hooker was D M Barry and now my memory will not work. I think David? Oxford University? He was later with Harlequins. I will continue to research!!
It was thrilling playing at Murrayfield and we played really well to reach the final but we ran out of steam and lost to local side Boroughmuir.
Fit as we were the drive up from London in my overloaded car and a short nights rest did not help against a team that won the Glasgow tournament the week before.
We should have won but nonetheless it was a great experience. I treasure the little medal and I was ready for a big off season preparing for the Scottish challenge starting September
The 70/71 Scottish season started with a successful tour to Cornwall and I established a regular place in the first XV. After several successful weeks I was alerted that a selector would be watching us at Bedford in October where I would be up against the current England centres. In midweek training for that match I tore my Achilles tendon. Mike Smith, a British Lion and a junior doctor and my centre partner strapped me up for the match and gave me painkilling injections. These wore off after about 20 minutes and the rest of the game was agony, you had to stay on because there were no substitutes. I was out for the next ten weeks, another year effectively. Little did I know what was coming up!
In business we had taken on a massive old factory on the side of the Thames between Albert Bridge and Battersea Bridge and I was working in freezing conditions. When I recovered from the Achilles injury and was back playing I knew I was not in great health. Eventually I told Stewart that living just a few miles from Blackheath it was more sensible to train and play there. Despite the injury I had really enjoyed my two seasons at Scottish. They were very understanding when I left
Tony Jorden, captain at Blackheath, welcomed me back and put me straight into the 1st XV against Richmond, but it was to be my last first team game – two days after the match I collapsed at work – bronchial pneumonia and pleurisy, very serious, massive weight loss and set off asthma and mild hypertension that have been with me ever since, but no problem!
End of first class club rugby – I was 28 and took the view that it was fate, look for new ambitions! I decided to go back to my old boys club, Old Elthamians where, ironically, I played for the next twelve years almost injury free and enjoyed playing with some very good youngsters and enjoying some great Sevens success (details in Old Elthamians folder)
I continued to play for the invitation teams – Public Schools Wanderers, Penguins, Combined London Old Boys, Bosuns, Late Niters, Pink Elephants (great tours to Cornwall) and Blackheath Golden Oldies enjoying many more highlights during this third stage of my rugby life.
Right at the start, April 1972, I came as close as I could to my ambition to win the Middlesex Sevens, sadly without touching the ball! I could play any Sevens position and was reserve for PSW’s. In those days reserves only got onto the field if someone was injured and only in the next game. Come off with injury and your team played with 6 ! 1972 was probably the best Middx tournament since the epic contests of the early 60’s between Scottish and Loughborough. Nearly all the teams had international players. I was an admirer of J.J. Williams Wales and British Lions and desperately hoped someone else would be injured so I could play with him. Nobody injured in the ties through to the final that PSW lost to a London Welsh Seven who listed a squad of 10 in the program, 7 being internationals (4 British Lions)
Nine years after that Middx disappointment I played in the final of the Amsterdam Heineken Sevens aged 38. I was only the third oldest in our team The Golden Oldies Junior Colts and playing in the gear of The Late Niters! We were getting on in age but we knew how to play!
In the semi final amazingly we beat The Entertainers 18-13. They were the London Welsh team that lost the Middlesex final the week before. Their Captain Clive Rees, a brilliant sevens player, had added David Johnson, Scotland centre, to his team and Jim Williams who played very well for Borough Road students at Middx the week before.
Before facing us they had beaten the holders, Les
Cusworth and Dick Best’s team The Musketeers
We had played out of our skins but the excitement and the effort was too much for us, and we succumbed in the final too easily losing 30-0 to Steepholme a mainly Welsh international invitation side containing Paul Ringer, Eddie Butler, Gary Pearce and a very young Stuart Barnes.
This was our fourth year at the Heineken Amsterdam Sevens and this success confirmed a love affair with this tournament that finished only in 1994. During these years we contested six finals, winning two with many international stars playing for us but 1981 is a special year – finalists in the main tournament as detailed above, our Late Niters team won the Heineken Boot and our OE’s out drank and outsung everyone. More photos in the Heineken Amsterdam folder
The 1981 Amsterdam Final was my last major game. I continued two more years with OE’s then moved house to the Midlands. I was lucky to have played with and against many great players. I always loved competing with the best and will always remember those games
In my forties I played rugby only occasionally, for ‘Blackheath Golden Oldies’ and Late Niters but catered for my adrenalin rush by racing Porsches and Jaguars at all the major UK circuits and also in Germany, Belgium and Holland. Despite some good wins I would willingly hand over all my trophies in exchange for one more game of rugby
COACHING
Early experience. A year after I moved back to Old Elthamians I was invited to captain the team. Most of the players were newly out of school so it was natural I would coach them. We developed a very good team, fit and fast. At 13 stone I was one of the heaviest, so we were lightweights in old boys rugby – but we could run and we could really play. Many an opposition prop developed crossed eyes trying to follow us. Our youngsters surprised many teams when we won the aftermatch ‘boat race’ and out sang them. Great rugby spirit
We developed a very good Sevens squad winning several tournaments and always being close to the finals if we did not win through. Twice we were one round from winning through to the Middlesex finals at Twickenham
A special enjoyment was nearly winning the final of the Percy Rees Memorial Sevens Tournament when I was 38. My son Tim (16) played and only one of the team was even half my age.
In 1975 I was assisting rugby coaching at Eltham College and started mini and junior rugby for Old Elthamians. We were one of the first UK clubs to follow the ‘mini’ lead from New Zealand. Soon the word got round about the OE’s Minis and Juniors and it just grew and grew with tremendous support from parents and club senior (very young!) players. Moving to the midlands in 1983 it was hard to leave. Happily it has continued to go from strength to strength.
I remember many Mini and Junior successes, the most memorable being to win the South of England Junior Sevens at the Stoop, when Bob Hiller, after presenting the awards, asked me if our team would join Quins. Sorry Bob!
During my junior rugby period I coached several players who went into first class senior rugby, Martin Holcombe became Captain of Blackheath, Matthew (Bill) Watkins played for London Welsh for several years and my son, Tim. During the few years he had as a senior Tim played for Blackheath, Moseley, London Scottish, Scotland U21, and
Scotland vs France and was in Ian McGeechan’s 1989/90 Grand Slam winning squad, but broke his neck just before the first match. Another very good OE Mini rugby player Richard Whichello developed into a first class tennis player (Davis Cup) and tennis coach. He is credited with first seeing the potential of Emma Raducanu. In 1988 while I was in the Midlands a 9 year old youngster joined Elthamians for 5 years and went on to be Elthamians most capped player ever – 40 England caps, 2 Lions tours. Andrew Sheridan
It is great remembering the development of a mini/junior coaching team that helped all the youngsters to achieve a performance level beyond their own expectations. I hope the photos in the OE minis and juniors folder will show that
After moving to the midlands our annual trips to the Heineken Amsterdam Sevens became my rugby priority
Moving back to Chislehurst in 1991 I had a surprise
The coach at Blackheath was Kevin Short. While I was playing for OE’s in the seventies good players like Kevin were just starting their senior rugby career. I, as a former first class club player was a target for some. This was especially the case with Kevin. Playing for Old Citizens he was a big, fast, powerful No. 8. He targeted me very obviously and we had quite a few verbal and physical encounters. I don’t remember having a drink with him after games. I thought he had great potential and he almost made it with Ireland as a player. Later he was in their coaching team.
It was a very nice surprise when he asked me to come and coach the backs for him. It was a very good partnership, producing good results and good player improvement but it did not last very long because Kevin had to move away, a great pity. However, another quality back row forward, Danny Vaughan, took over as Head Coach and progress continued. Coaching was enjoyable and successful, we won league 3 and climbed high in league 2. That helped with recruitment and I was able to bring in several quality players, including several from Wasps.
It helped hugely that I had succeeded to bring over from Wasps the best ever Sevens Scrum half, Mike Friday, and that we beat Lawrence Dellaglios Wasps to win the London Clubs Floodlit Sevens and then beat them again at
Twickenham in the Middlesex Sevens. Friday developed greatly as a 15’s player with us and should have been capped. Obviously he was key in our Sevens successes in tournaments all round the country and it was no surprise he went on to captain and then coach England sevens. In recent seasons he has coached the USA Sevens team
Before coaching at Blackheath I took two or three teams each year to go to the excellent Amsterdam Heineken Sevens where during the eighties we contested six finals, winning two of them.
Some great players came with us and we always succeeded in welding them together into a great team and squad. For me the best ever team was actually a losing finalist. Because of the speed I had available – a very young Martin Offiah, Nick Chesworth and Tim Exeter – I surprised Gavin Hastings who thought he would be a prop. I asked him to play scrum half and Andy Cushing, Scotland A scrum half, who had been our 7’s scrum half since the 1981 final went to hooker. It worked brilliantly. This was the team of the tournament scoring fabulous tries and finally beaten by the top welsh internationals team aided and abetted by a Scottish referee, ironic because five of our team were Scotland or Scotland A players! Welding guest players from several sources into a winning team is a great experience. Many was the tussle we had with Dick Best who managed The Musketeers, another quality guest team in Amsterdam.
When, in the mid nineties, it was clear the game was going professional I took on the additional role of Director of Rugby at Blackheath and pushed harder still on recruitment, following on from the earlier success of bringing in young players like Owen Coyne (Eng U21) and Mattie Stewart who joined us as an Army man who knew nothing about rugby.
John Gallagher joined us and encouraged his former All Black colleague, John Schuster to join us. He introduced Abi Ekoku to us, Bradford Bulls winger and GB discus thrower, and later Hika Reid to join as a coach.
Despite the generosity of Frank McCarthy compared to the teams competing with us to get into the top tier we were seriously underfunded. We lost to the teams that won promotion plus the one underperformance in the season losing to a Coventry side we should have beaten. The Rectory Field is not a large ground and 2500 spectators is the reasonable limit. They squeezed in for every home game because we were a pretty spectacular team to watch. It was a tremendous pleasure to be involved with this great bunch of guys. They kept me fit and it was on their 1993 tour to South Africa that I played my last two games of rugby, playing for Blackheath Golden Oldies against Hamilton Seahawks in Cape Town and Former Springboks in Durban. 50 years old – that was a good way to finish
Several of this team went on to become Sports Directors at major schools and three have had standout careers coaching
- Mike Friday – England Sevens playing and coaching, currently Head Coach USA Sevens
- Toby Booth – London Irish and Bath in the Premiership and currently Head Coach Ospreys in Wales
- Alex Codling – the nomad. You need to go onto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Codling to see all the teams he played for and all the clubs he has coached! He played two years for us, a very good player who went on to win an England Currently Head Coach to the struggling Newcastle Falcons
For business reasons I moved to Czech Republic in 2000 but I followed the careers of the younger Blackheath players.
Several went on to play in the Premiership;
- Mattie Stewart to Northampton and Scotland
- Mike Friday, Chris Wilkins and Matt Griffiths to Wasps,
- Colin Ridgeway to Quins,
- Matt Salter to Bristol,
- Owen Coyne to Rotherham,
- Sam Howard to Exeter,
- Steve Pope to London Welsh
- Alex Codling to Richmond, Neath, Quins, Saracens, Bedford, Northampton, Montpelier winning his England cap while at Quins
I’ve probably forgotten someone. Please email me iain@age-fit.com and I will correct it and apologies – remember my age!
I still have many photos, programs and press reports so this folder will continue to see more and more memories added
