ࡱ> RTQ I7bjbjVV ;B<<I/||1('''''''$))+'  ''h#h#h# 'h# 'h#h#h#p0w9U!*h#'(01(h#,",h#,h#4<h# l\''R#1( ,| : 30 years as Fixture Secretary at the Vale of Lune Rugby Club. In 1978 the call came that Brian Cauwood was leaving the post of Honorary Fixture Secretary of the Club. After 5 years since Id stopped playing and being in the Team Secretarys post I was asked to take over the position of Fixture Secretary. A tremendous task. Especially following in the footsteps of such a renowned figure as Brian. Lancashire Committee, Vale County Representative, RFU Schools and being involved in so much outside the Club he would be a hard man to follow. I agreed to take the job on. Brian passed on to me the details of all the Clubs we were involved with, Fixture Secretaries names, telephone numbers (no internet at that time, in fact no automatic calling everything through the operator), shirt colours they played in etc.etc. all written up in an exercise book by hand. He was a school teacher I was just a lad How could I emulate such efficiency - ?. Answer I couldnt. My first season was to cover the 78/79 programme. A lot of fixtures were set year on year following the same dates, these being the easy ones. All fixtures had to be negotiated and the system used was pretty time consuming. Letters to the appropriate Fixture Secretary offering dates etc. hoping for a reply. I must say in 90% of the time replies were received. Usually in the negative as the task involved getting the better Clubs onto our list. At that time our list consisted, on a regular basis, of games against Vickers SC, Heaton Moor, Wigan, St. Helens etc. We also had regular fixtures against all the top Yorkshire sides, some on an irregular basis but the contact was there. Headingley were the ones we wanted. The list was left season to season purely and entirely in the hands of the Fixture Secretary (Myself). Each Saturday in a four week month was detailed a number 1 to 34 as I remember. These were set Saturdays and it followed that your set fixtures actually followed these Saturdays. The exceptions were when a month had five Saturdays, then the extra Saturday was given an X number i.e. X1, X2 etc. These were the Saturdays that were open to picking up fixtures that traditionally were not on the list. The work involved working on these Saturdays, maybe 3 or 4 a season to get Clubs onto our list with a view to getting them onto a regular basis a good game, hospitality, making them welcome etc.- would all help in establishing a fixture with them on a regular basis. My ambitions were probably set higher than Brians, he of course had been in the job for a number of years and it became easy just to use the set dates year on year without any disruptions. After setting up my first season, easier said than done as sides wanted to drop us and sides were, wanting to play us. O.K. at the start with in effect a blank sheet, except for fixed dates we could have done with changing some of our oppositions , but more difficult when you had virtually completed the list with only 3 or 4 Saturdays outstanding. The urgency here to fill every Saturday became important. We didnt want any blank dates on our list at the start of the season. A season consisted of something like 34 to 38 Saturdays. A lot of Clubs we played through the sides i.e. 1st 2nd etc., difficulties occurred when we hadnt got this situation. Fixtures needed to be set up with 1sts at home, 2nds away etc. This became quite a difficult task, but generally it was worked out satisfactorily. REMEMBER NO INTERNET AND ALL CALLS THROUGH LANDLINES. NO MOBILE PHONES GENTS !! Having survived the first two seasons without too much controversy, I decided we should be looking to improve our list and our scope. We didnt have fixtures against the top sides in Lancashire, Sale, Waterloo and New Brighton at that time. Orrell were to come later. I felt we should be playing these sides. Liverpool as they were then only gave us a fixture intermittently- remember the X dates. In Yorkshire I felt we needed established year on year fixtures with the top sides but definitely Headingley. We had games against sides in the North East, Brian had set a year on year fixture with Northern, but Gosforth were a problem. At that time David Bennetts had taken over as Skipper followed by B.J.P. McCann and then James Ashworth. The playing strength of the Vale was improving season on season. To accommodate this improvement and in fact to retain our players apart from the necessity to recruit more we needed to strengthen out Fixture list. I decided on a policy of trying, firstly, to obtain fixtures against all the top sides in the North, ultimately we achieved this with Headingley and Sale being the final pieces of the jig saw. We had them all on a year to year basis. Where next, I felt we should maybe have fixtures North, Midlands and South. Two in Scotland, two in the Midlands and two in London. My first success in Scotland was against the West of Scotland Club, we spent many happy times with this Club. Kelso and Gala followed, so we had now established two fixtures in Scotland on a year to year basis. In the Midlands I was in touch with a number of Clubs, we had games against Solihull and Birmingham intermittently but the crucial one was Rugby. I was chuffed when they offered us a fixture. London was next and I managed to set up Streatham Croydon followed by London Irish who in fact travelled to us for the first fixture. Setting up a fixture with Rosslyn Park followed and after our first visit to them they followed up the return to the Vale. Martin Offiah was on the wing for them at the Vale. We were establishing a strong list to enable our players to enjoy top Rugby. At that time we were in fact the top Club in our area, having beaten, Fylde, Preston Grasshoppers and Kendal some 10 years in succession. In fact we had some controversy with Hoppers when we put our second XV out against them, actually beating them. Accusations of arrogance were levelled against us. I remember Bill Beaumont ringing to suggest we set up a North West Club involving Hoppers, Fylde and ourselves, we were going well, and resisted. At this time we established fixtures in Northern Ireland and played Instonians and Collegians on an alternate basis Home and Away each season. The trips to Ireland were fantastic only stopped when the troubles took over. You can see that we were now established with some great Fixtures covering the 4 corners. A major problem had to be, and was overcome. We were having to drop sides who had been on our list for years, Hoppers down to one fixture, Kendal down to one fixture, Manchester off our list etc. etc. It was important to drop these sides in the right way, whilst we were leaving these sides and Clubs on the way up we would need them again on the way down. I must say we succeeded in doing this successfully. We maintained friendships with all of them I would suggest. They generally accepted the position we were in. In the 80s a major development was taking place. League Rugby was being discussed and the top Clubs in the country were talking of setting up Leagues. In fact it would involve only two Leagues, leaving Clubs such as ourselves out of the mix. Subterfuge meetings were being held at the Nuneaton Club headed by Taff Thomas President of Nuneaton. Clubs such as West Hartlepool, Plymouth Albion, Metropolitan Police were invited to these meetings. Initially we werent, until our friends at West Hartlepool suggested we should be involved. We attended !! A meeting a month entailing regular trips to Nuneaton on Sunday mornings. The top two Leagues were established and the sides involved in the Meetings at Nuneaton set up a 3rd tier unofficially National Division (C) . Again a dramatic change in our fixture list was on the cards. Arrangements made to play the likes of Plymouth Albion, Metropolitan Police, Exeter and Nuneaton, plus others had to be made. I am convinced if the pressure from these Clubs hadnt taken place the top two levels would have spit off and left the rest of us in isolation. One of the main voices in this small group at Nuneaton was Brian Baister of Metropolitan Police. He eventually took over the Chairmanship of the R.F.U.. We had now a man on the inside League Rugby throughout our game was on the horizon. Apart from these things, in the first season of National Championship Division C we won it. What a fantastic achievement.!! We were in the top 20 in the country. Annual Meetings were held at the Moseley Club. We were there. Fixtures were being arranged and we picked up Bath, Wasps and Harlequins, Northampton, we were warned off Gloucester. Remember we were already playing the Irish, Scottish, Rugby and London Welsh were in fact in Division C. We played them at the Vale. Northampton in fact opened the next season at the Vale. We beat them 6 points to 3 points, in the return we got stuffed and with further developments in the League structures we werent to play them again. We visited Bath twice, a great experience, but they didnt return to the Vale. After two visits to Wasps they re-paid with a visit to the Vale, in fact they had played at the Vale some 30 years earlier. A National Cup Competition was in being. We drew Coventry at home who at that time, were indeed one of the countrys top sides. We played them at the Vale, in the next round we had drawn Leicester at Home but of course we needed to beat Coventry. Referee Geraint Jones didnt help us here with a sending off. I meet him in cricketing circles and he still talks of the incident, has he a feeling of guilt. Two weeks before the Coventry game Leicester were in touch. Did they expect us to beat Coventry ?? Would we have parking and facilities to accommodate 1,500 followers. Of course we would was the reply. No problem !! What a pity we lost to Coventry, at least wed gained a fixture with them the following season. Youll remember above, whilst all these massive changes to our list were occurring, we were dropping some historical fixtures from our established list. This had to be carried out diplomatically, no-one liked being dropped. Also as above it was becoming increasingly difficult to set up Home and Away in respect of the other sides in the Club. Clearly we were not able to set up 2nd XV fixtures with a large number of Clubs that were now on our list. We did manage to sort this, but at times there were gaps in the junior Fixture lists. During this time discussions were afoot regards professionalism, and developments were taking place regards a National League structure. It took place and our games against the Baths, Northamptons were lost to our Fixture List. In the scheme of things we were placed in National 3 but endured some demotions and we are where we are. We had enjoyed our time at the top table. Fixture making was now carried out centrally at 1st XV level, the only thing your humble Fixture Secretary had to do was to sort out the junior fixtures. Then of course along came the Fairclough Homes Leagues, now The University of Salford Leagues. In the first years Fixture Secretarys had to set up all their own fixtures in these Leagues, then along comes the genius Barry Allen (Broughton Park RUFC), who had devised a programme to set up the Fixtures in these Leagues alternating home and away in relation to our 1st XVs. A fantastic magical programme. Now all our fixtures, in fact all in the North West are set up firstly by the RFU and then secondly by The University of Salford Organisation. The responsibility of the Fixture Secretary had been reduced to simply setting up, warm up games pre-season, confirmation of fixtures the week before the fixture was to take place and in many cases confirming the Referees for the games. The excitement of obtaining and improving Fixture lists was now over. Now to improve your lists the responsibility was and is down to the players. As they gain promotions inevitably they will be playing better Rugby and better sides. Come on you lads at the Vale we need a promotion this season !!!!! Fred Swarbrick. Hon. 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