@clive-hurren With a score like that there must have been lots of tries, seemingly unlike most RU games where kicking goals seems key to a win.
Looks like we've shared a similar educational journey - starting at Linthorpe School in Middlesbrough and ending at Prior Pursglove in Guisborough 🙂
As for rugby - my interest in the game was killed at an early age when as a 12-year old we were required to play in the winter during games even if the playing field was 6 inches deep in snow and the temperature was below zero.
Despite the cold, we were only allowed to wear the standard school sports kit of shorts and a thin nylon shirt - which led to most of us secretly bringing in extra jumpers to wear underneath to avoid hypothermia. Still, after ten minutes of picking up the oval ball out of the snow your hands were completely frozen and numb and incapable of picking up anything. Nevertheless, our sadistic PE teacher would often stand on our hands if he thought we weren't 'trying' hard enough to pick the ball up - usually followed by an insult comparing us to girls.
So for some reason I never developed any remote love of Rugby Union despite several years of being forced to endure a strange attempt at 'manning' us up for the future by inflicting torture on small boys who much rather be kicking a round ball. Well it seems to work in public schools but didn't cut the mustard at our comprehensive!
@werdermouth Ah, the good old days! Looking back, educational establishments had some strange views on how to nurture children.
Do you think we were at Linthorpe and PPC at the same time? I started at Linthorpe in 1959/60 but we moved to Nunthorpe in the summer of 1962 so wasn’t there for long.
I went to GGS in 1967 and was there when it became PPC - I left after A levels in 1974.
In those days, I seem to recall, a try was only worth 3 points, so yes, there were plenty of tries! If only my team had tried!
Unfortunately our paths never crossed as it looks like you started your journey about 8 years before me so you were the trailblazer 😉
Certainly was a lot different back then and quite a few teachers were of Victorian views to put it kindly - with a few quite expert in the art of throwing various objects at children to catch their attention or administrating random discipline with a board ruler. I suspect several would be seeing the inside of a courtroom today on charges of assault - but hey the seventies was a different world altogether!
I found this worth a read, if only to move away from rugby.
Come on BORO.
@clive-hurren As a member of the same house team, I can attest that I was not happy, especially when Clive told me many years later that we could have stopped at 88 - 0, our dignity intact. Well maybe not quite.
@werdermouth Ah, the good old days! Looking back, educational establishments had some strange views on how to nurture children.
Do you think we were at Linthorpe and PPC at the same time? I started at Linthorpe in 1959/60 but we moved to Nunthorpe in the summer of 1962 so wasn’t there for long.
I went to GGS in 1967 and was there when it became PPC - I left after A levels in 1974.
I may well have been at Linthorpe at the same time. I did the whole of primary - from about 1959 - but left in the summer of 63 before year six to go down south as the family moved away from Middlesbrough.
UTB
I found this worth a read, if only to move away from rugby.
Come on BORO.
A great supporter of the club but not much about future plans. I wonder how long he will stay on as Chairman and what will be his exit strategy.
UTB
@martin-bellamy - Martin, there was a try-fest last night in Wales 32-26 Fiji with both teams getting a bonus point for scoring 4 tries. Cracking game, too and very tense as Fiji (higher in the international rankings than England, Wales and Australia) strove to get a final converted try that would have completed their comeback. The red defence held out and so did my heart but it was touch-and-go.
Scotland didn't really threaten to score against world No 2 South Africa, and lost 18-3. So I was happy and my wife, born in Bridge of Allen, was not, at the results. We now have a few days off until Rugby "hostilities" resume at the tail end of the week. So it's back to soccer (though Yorkshire are currently 372-3 at Cardiif against Glamorgan in the County Championship.
Looking at that list of likely top earners, I can’t believe the likes of Chalobah, Amorebieta and (checking my blood pressure before writing this) Gestede (!) were a) top of the list and b) on such phenomenally silly wages. Not one of these was worth their starting place.
We’re far from the only club to engage in this kind of madness, of course. But no wonder football is in such a state financially, and no wonder we now have no money left after wasting so much on players of limited ability who made such meagre contributions.
Your mention of Coatham School (aka Sir William Turner’s) brought back happy memories of my time there from 1959 to 1967. I enjoyed both the rugby union and the cricket and I was fortunate that during the period that I was playing the school had pretty decent teams at both sports. Playing other schools was a very competitive business and there were always grudge matches against teams like Ampleforth, Scarborough Grammar School, Newcastle RGS and Barnard Castle.
I liked the rugby because it was a good excuse to give the opposition a bit of physical intimidation and work off some energy provided of course that the opposition weren’t bigger and tougher than me. As for cricket I was quite good at the game and in my final years at the school we had a first team that beat almost every other school we played.
I kept up playing both games after leaving but dropped rugby before cricket. I played cricket until in my early 30s I went to work and live in Singapore for a while. I had intended to carry on with cricket so ventured down to the Singapore cricket club so see what it was like. There was a game going on which I watched for a bit. Singapore is hot and humid and so the pitches were always a bit lively and on this occasion there were a couple of Asian fast bowlers sending down some very quick and aggressive deliveries that were flying around the batsmens’ ears. It was then that I decide to give up cricket and buy a boat!! I still miss playing cricket now at the age of 75. It is the greatest game.
Rugby is being ruined by the game’s bureaucrats. It is a physical game and much of the inevitable physical contact is being taken out of the game bit by bit. Without the physical aspect it will become a much lesser spectacle and will probably be consigned to history like so many other things…..
@boroexile - I remember in 6th Form going to Ampleforth. The cricket team scored about 105 or 110 batting first but Ampleforth won by either 9 or 10 wickets. The result was never in doubt! The sports facilities were good there, with the cricket pitches on beautifully tended terraces going down from the school. In those days Ampleforth was always referred to in the Press as the "Roman Catholic Eton". After more recent disclossures of sexual abuse there in decades gone by, it might now have a different tag.
The rugby at Coatham (which the older boys would have called it) or SWT (the younger ones) was a different thing, though, with School a match for virtually any other school in the wider region. There was one Big Side game against RGS Newcastle which I remember was shown live on Tyne Tees TV - I'm sure it was ITV not the BBC - (I have no idea why as a mid-afternoon game between schools would hardly expect a big TV audience. Maybe "practice" for the TV sports staff).
I never played rugby again after leaving College at the age of 21. I played hockey until I was 40 when I got a Boro Red Card which would have made that a stupid and an expensive waste of money to carry on. I thought it would have been foolish as a 40 year old attempting to chase down the wing fit twenty year old University students from Teesside, Durham, & Sunderland as well as similarly aged players from other teams from Cumbria, Northumberland, Durham and Teesside. It would have been the cause of a heart attack! It was also at a time when the beer drinkers in the team were at risk of being outnumbered by young lager drinkers. At the end of a game the teams would have a meal (nothing great - just a hospitable pie and peas or in places like Slazengers' near Wakefield, something like a casserole, accompanied by a jug of "beer/lager/whatever you want to drink", and the other team would then reciprocate by filling the jug with the team's preferred liquid). I gave up social cricket (village cricket and lawyers' friendly teams) probably at about the age of 50. The game has somehow survived the loss of my gentle wobbling middle pace and occasional leg breaks, and my sedate batting (I only ever hit one six in a competitive game). I kid myself that I was bred to be (even if never used) as a Test player rather than a T20 man. The truth is that I was a million miles from either.
It’s interesting how Coatham which was what could be considered a less known little provincial grammar school in Redcar was consistently more than a match for other bigger, well known prestigious schools at cricket and rugby. If only the Boro could find the same winning formula!!