For the third month running the GROGS Committee had to go to the substitutes bench for a replacement after the original guest speaker was forced to call off and for the third month running a super sub emerged! Stepping forward at quite short notice came Heather Dewar, a much respected sports journalist and broadcaster, whose special interest in sport is rugby, something she had in common with everyone else present at this, the final lunch of the very successful 2023/24 GROGS season. This was also the AGM of the GROGS which Chairman, Fergus Neil, conducted with his usual aplomb. He outlined the success of the year, with an average monthly attendance of well over 100, and obtained approval of the Committee’s proposed charitable donations. It was clear from the beginning that Heather was no stranger to the microphone. She spoke easily about her life and career that had recently culminated in her being voted both the Journalist and Sports News Writer of the Year. Here was a very interesting lady who spoke about her whole life’s experience in detail, from her early childhood in Hong Kong, where the Hong Kong 7’s instilled in her a passion for the game. Confessing that John Jeffrey was a hero of hers in those days she hinted that he lost that status as an administrator. She was heavily involved in other sports which stood her in good stead in her future career as a sports commentator. She travelled a lot, studied a lot and worked a lot in a succession of different jobs but never far away from journalism Heather spoke with remarkable honesty about the ups and downs in her life including some of her darker moments but her optimism, determination and positivity were obvious. Covid put brakes on her broadcasting career but before long she was offered a sports journalist position with the Daily Mail. In Heather’s own words “the rest is history”! She referred briefly to her coverage of the MCC and Scottish Cricket scandals but ended with Scottish rugby and the SRU. Clearly not a fan of the outgoing Chief Executive and his unwillingness to accept certain responsibilities she has, nevertheless, faith in the future of Scottish Rugby, with the caveat that the right person is appointed as the new CEO. As one GROG remarked, a “tour de force” with which to end an outstanding season.
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There was a sense of déjà view when 117 members gathered for the penultimate Lunch of the year. Gavin Scott had been forced to withdraw because of an urgent SRU commitment and the Committee found itself once again having to pull a rabbit out of the hat at short notice. Duncan Weir, the popular Scottish international and Glasgow Warrior fly half stepped into the breech without, in his own words, quite knowing what he was letting himself in for! In the event, it was a triumph for both parties. The assembled GROGs loved the easy style in which this “Cambuslang boy” described his rugby journey and Duncan (or Dunky as the Chairman insisted on calling him) seemed to enjoy being there. Duncan started his rugby career with Cambuslang RFC at the age of 7, where he had the “best first experience” of rugby he could have wished for. He ended up playing for the 1st. XV but a serious knee injury (gruesomely described) put an end to his Cambuslang career. This start to his rugby life laid the foundations of the rugby ethos and special bonds which are still very much part of his life. He started playing again with Glasgow Hawks and Scotland representative teams. When he moved to Glasgow Warriors as a professional, Duncan had feared nothing, not even Ronan O’Gara, whose social graces he didn’t rate highly, and he wishes he could be as cavalier now as he was back then! We admired the honesty of his ‘hero to zero’ story when he recounted his match winning drop kick against Italy in 2014 and his hash of a pass against France the following week. He now preaches consistency. We heard of “special coach” Vern Cotter’s severe training methods, including freezing in the Pyrenees and killing rabbits for food. All very entertaining! Duncan described his time at Edinburgh when he was an “angry wee man” as not being a happy time but when he transferred to Worcester everything settled for him again. We got an honest insight into the dark time he experienced when he returned to Warriors and needed the help of a sports psychologist and we were pleased to hear that all is well again. Duncan Weir was one of our most popular speakers who gave of himself in an honest, informative and entertaining way and who more than deserved our thanks and a bottle of Special GROGS Whisky. There was an almost tangible sense of disappointment when the Valentine’s Day date of choice, Gavin Vaughan, was forced to pull out as guest speaker due to a priority demand for his presence on international team duty. Many of the 100+ GROGs in attendance had relished the opportunity of hearing an expert’s view on the infamous “grounding” controversy from the recent Scotland v France match. However, all was not lost as the Chairman, Hugh Dan McLennan, had a super sub ready on the bench. Paul Mitchell, a well known BBC sports commentator, accepted Hugh Dan’s invitation, to come and save the day with less than 24 hours notice. What a save it was! Here was the consummate professional who entertained his audience with humour, tales of personal experiences, facts, figures and sporting observations. He is a former scrum half and now an experienced rugby commentator. It doesn’t stop there either as he’s also a skilled commentator on a number of other sports including football, ice hockey, horse racing, rowing, golf and American football inter alia and is about to add basketball to his impressive list.. As he inferred himself, is there nothing this man won’t do for money? He even confessed to being a complete banker having passed his banking exams when he had a proper job! In talking about his life, career and interests, Paul was interesting, educational, thought provoking and humorous in equal measures. He might be the only person who played rugby, then took up commentating before becoming a qualified referee because he felt he needed to understand rugby better. It was a novel concept - a referee who understands the game! Paul explained he doesn’t get much chance to apply his skills nowadays and claimed to be the worst referee in Scotland challenged, perhaps, by one in a (very) recent International at Murrayfield! His audience growled in agreement. He posed a question about where the game of rugby is going with all the technology in place now. If there is a problem, might it not lie with the technicians rather than the technology? Paul ended on a light note, having a go at Whitecraigs RFC which even some of the Whitecraigs stalwarts laughed at. If there was ever a speaker who deserved a bottle of Special GROGS Whisky, it is Paul Mitchell. A more generous club would have given him 2 bottles! The GROGS policy of diversity and inclusion broke new barriers at the first Lunch of 2024 when Rosa Innes and Megan Gaffney from the School of Hard Knocks charity addressed a record January attendance of 120 GROGs. Acting as a team, these young ladies described an aspect of rugby which most of the audience were unaware of. Since 2017, the School of Hard Knocks has used the medium of rugby to reach out to people of all ages living in challenging circumstances. However, it wasn’t just the charity we heard about, the bonus being that Megan was a much capped Scottish rugby internationalist with 45 caps who could teach us all a lesson about the supposedly disappearing work ethic. At the beginning of her international career she also studied for a Master’s Degree at Edinburgh University and worked in a pub to earn the money that rugby didn’t provide. She didn’t play rugby for the money or the glory but because she loved it. Being an influence on youngsters is also very important to her. Playing for the Barbarians was Megan’s career highlight and although she is retired from the top level she still participates in club rugby. She explained how she has been heavily involved in the SoHK for the last 4 years before seamlessly passing the microphone to Rosa to explain more about the charity. Rosa quickly established that not many in the audience had heard of the SoHK and set about explaining its purpose and ethos. They use rugby to help marginalised, disadvantaged and vulnerable people of all ages and without exclusion to attain certain ambitions in their lives. Rosa may not have played rugby but she is certainly an excellent speaker and her enthusiasm for her work was almost brimming over. She explained about the origins of the charity and the 2 programmes they run - an 8 week course for adults and a full school year course for schoolchildren. Currently there are 350 youngsters deemed to be “at risk” on the programmes. She described some of the re-humanising elements to these programmes to help people get their dignity back and read parts of a moving letter from a 64 year old who had participated in, what he called, the ‘rough and the rougher’ of the programme to help in his healing. Both Rosa and Megan dealt skilfully with a number of good questions from the floor and more than earned the bottles of Special GROGS Whisky they were presented with for their sparkling deliveries. There is a happy GROGS tradition of fun filled Christmas Lunches and Chairman, Hugh Dan MacLennan, and guest speaker, Andy Nicol, made sure that 2023 was no exception. There was a fantastic attendance of 139 enthusiastic GROGs. There would have been a new record if sickness and Cal-Mac had not intervened! Under Hugh Dan’s skilful chairmanship the proceedings got off to a rollicking start and remained in that vein all afternoon. The GROGs and guests present enjoyed the traditional community Sing-a-Long-a-Grogs musical interlude, the “Best Christmas Sweater” competition and some general hilarity before settling down to fine Loks Christmas fare. After lunch there was more of the same including the “Best Christmas Hat” competition with some outrageous entries. Then it was time to sit back and be royally entertained by former Scotland captain, British and Ireland Lion and current TV pundit, Andy Nicol who had been the first ever guest speaker at GROGS, in April 2002. He retired from rugby one year after that, imagining that he couldn’t achieve anything better. Well he could, and did …. at the GROGS Christmas Lunch on 13 December 2023! After the earlier build up, Andy endeared himself by describing the lunch as the most bizarre he’d ever been to. He thought he’d been misdirected and was at a Lunch for the Living Dead! No offence was intended and none was taken. In fact, given their average age many GROGs took being bizarre as a compliment. Promising to reminisce and speaking, apparently without notes, Andy went on to give a tour de force to a rapt audience. He spoke about rugby of the bygone days, his introduction to the sport in Dundee at the age of 6, the rules and standards he was imbued with then which are still with him (they were more values than rules, he said) and fascinating descriptions of some highs and lows of his career. Andy always enjoyed his rugby, particularly at Bath where he was in the company of stellar players and where he “won stuff”. He had some polar opposite experiences, playing in front of a crowd of 800 one week and 62,000 the next week. Now, that’s bizarre! We heard about his club career, his international career and, with refreshing honesty, his (very) brief Lions career. His first rugby heroes were his brother and his grandfather who was capped for Scotland but, when asked who was the best player he’d ever played with/against the surprise answer was - Jeremy Guscott. This report cannot do justice to Andy Nicol’s contribution to a great event. It was terrific! He went away with our heartfelt thanks, a bottle of Special GROGS whisky and a promise not to bother him again for at least another 21 years. There was a November record turnout of GROGs to hear international rugby referee, Mike Adamson, talk about his career as a player (GHK, Hawks, Warriors and Scotland 7’s) and as a referee.. Even although he had a splendid playing career, Mike was fairly unassuming in his description of it. How many others would highlight that their playing career with Warriors lasted all of 5 minutes …. in a losing side? Mike gave a wide ranging talk covering his impressive playing career and an equally impressive, though still unfinished, refereeing career. He incorporated equal doses of humour, pride in his achievements, gratitude for everything rugby has given him and interesting details of his experiences. His rugby career was highlighted by his 30 Scotland international 7’s caps. He had many happy memories of that time although being in the losing side to Chinese Taipei at the Hong Kong 7’s was not one of them! His first big break in refereeing came when, out of the blue, he was asked to referee a bounce 7’s match between Australia and Wales before the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Naturally he said ‘yes’ and since then his star has continued to rise. Mike felt timing favoured him when 7’s was included as an Olympic event. He was recognised as having expertise in that area and in 2016 off he went to enjoy an amazing experience in Rio as a “Technical Official”, refereeing the opening match of Australia v France. From there he moved on to 15 a side rugby and we got a sense of the proud but eerie feeling he experienced in his first 6 Nations match when England played Italy at Twickenham in 2021 when pandemic rules excluded the presence of a crowd. After a few more memories and a couple of confessions, Mike moved on to discussing the recent Rugby World Cup and had some interesting comments to make. Not the least among these was his view on the newly introduced Bunker system, a view clearly in line with that of a vociferous number of those present. Potentially a good idea but ahead of its time. Mike gave an articulate and interesting presentation before moving up a gear to take questions from the floor. Although the questions were all knowledgeable, Mike wasn’t fazed by them and answered with clear insight and authority. We wished him well in his career with a bottle of the much desired Special GROGS whisky As a club of rugby enthusiasts, GROGS was honoured when Franco Smith, current Head Coach of Glasgow Warriors, and former Head Coach of the Italian national team, agreed to be our guest speaker for October. It went beyond an honour for the 111 GROGs present to listen to one of the top exponents of coaching in world rugby today and to hear his thoughts in these interesting times. Following a very full and well researched introduction by Chairman, Hugh Dan MacLennan, the preferred format of the day, a Question and Answer session, got off to a fun start when Franco apologised lest his South African accent made it difficult to follow what he was saying. To a room full of hearing aids this was the least of the problems! In the event, he was heard and understood loud and clear. There were some who wondered about the value of a Q & A format but the quality of the questions both from the Chairman and the floor and the depth and detail of the answers eased any doubts. Franco didn’t spend much time talking about his playing career but concentrated on describing his development in the coaching side of the game and his progress to becoming Head Coach of Glasgow Warriors. For some reason it seems that he wanted to come to Glasgow! He explained that the mission he brought to Warriors is “not to lose” and described how he introduced the novel approach of the players becoming shareholders of the club. In listening to his straight answers to some well-directed questions we realised we were being given an insight into a hitherto unfamiliar level of top club rugby. The technicalities and strategies of the modern game might have been a bit bewildering to some of the gathered stars of yesteryear but, by and large, we got the gist of what Franco was saying. Although we ran a bit over time no-one seemed to notice, or care. His address ended with some very diplomatic answers about his forecast for the outcome of the World Cup and the standard of refereeing at it. Franco is a man with an easy outgoing demeanour who well deserved the standing ovation and the presentation bottle of Special GROGS whisky he received. A celebratory mood pervaded Loks Restaurant when the GROGs returned for the first meeting of the 2023/24 year. Celebratory because the GROGS was celebrating its 21st. year as a Lunch Club for rugby enthusiasts. Chairman, Fergus Neil, gave a very potted history of the early days when a turnout of 30 members was considered a success. Nowadays the average monthly attendance of likeminded ‘Geezers’ is in excess of 100. Fergus took a moment or two (or three) to express his lack of admiration of the organisation of the Rugby World Cup currently taking place in France, a sentiment clearly agreed with by many of those present. Thus vented, Fergus allowed the lunch to be served - and a very fine lunch it was too! The guest speaker was the youthful looking Lee Jones, a young man who had enjoyed a glittering career in both club and international rugby, particularly whilst representing Scotland in the 7’s tournaments. It must have been very daunting for Lee to look at the sea of faces in front of him, every one being from his grandfathers’ generation! Daunting or not, Lee gave a very good account of himself describing his career at all levels and talking about the influences some well known characters in the sport had been on his playing career. Here was a very likeable young man, happy to express his gratitude to the game of rugby which had given him so many opportunities in life, both on and off the pitch. Growing up in Selkirk, he benefitted from great coaching and was selected to play for Scotland under 18’s. Although he missed out on Academy selection his life was consumed with rugby, both playing and training. His skills were recognised and he was signed by Rob Moffat, Head Coach of Edinburgh Rugby. He confessed to having had a youthful naivete in his early play which he quickly grew out of, playing multiple games for his club and country! Lee talked about his best experiences in what he called “a special game”, not including being seriously concussed against Ireland in his first full international year. Becoming surplus to requirements at Edinburgh he went on to enjoy a rewarding 5 year career with Glasgow Warriors and a return to the International platform. Although now retired, this is surely not the end of Lee’s involvement in rugby! In possibly the understatement of the year, GROGS Chairman, Fergus Neil, described guest speaker and fellow former referee, Professor Lorne Crerar, as “a man of many parts”. After retiring through injury from playing up to international level, he took up refereeing at the behest of former GROG, Allan Hosie. He was then appointed as a citing officer for the SRU and the 6 Nations Board before becoming an international Judicial Officer and then chairing the Standing Committee on Governance of the SRU. An early achievement was surviving as a referee mentee of the late Murray Clayton, a much loved GROG and stalwart of Whitecraigs RFC who had pressed Lorne to speak at GROGS. All this whilst looking after his day job as a lawyer and a Professor of Banking Law at Glasgow University. He told a self deprecating story of being accosted by a former law student who, having sat through Lorne’s “boring” lectures, felt he was entitled to have a drink bought for him. As his speech went on, it became obvious that he would not be faced with a similar demand from any of the GROGs present. Rather surprisingly, we learned that such a figure of respectability had been expelled from Kelvinside Academy, not once but twice. Fortunately his skills at rugby allowed him to be welcomed back to complete his education there! Rugby was, and is, his passion. On becoming a referee. He had humble beginnings officiating at the likes of the Cumnock/Dalry derby before officiating throughout the UK, Europe and the US. Lorne confessed to a wonderful career in rugby combining ideally with his law career. He recounted a number of memorable experiences as a Judicial Officer in the sport including sitting in judgement on high profile cases like the Phil Vickery citing case and the infamous Dean Richards/Harlequins “bloodgate” case. During one of these he was even “outed” as a cross dresser named Lorna (not true of course). Lorne ended with a full account of his involvement in the long awaited change in the Governance of Scottish rugby and his role as the Interim Chairman of the new SRU Board. All in all, a very interesting, informative and entertaining address by one of the leading lights in Scottish rugby and well deserving of the bottle of GROGS whisky he was presented with in appreciation of a fine speech. The much heralded ‘Rigby show’ came to Loks when Chairman Brian Rigby introduced Colin Rigby (no relation), the President of the SRU, to the 120 GROGs gathered for the usual high quality lunch to hear about events in Scottish rugby. Colin Rigby, who was elected to the office of President the previous August, talked about the honour and privilege it was to serve the sport that had given so much to him. His first day as the 130th. President of the SRU saw both the men’s and the women’s international teams jump up the world rankings without any effort on his part thinking that being President might be easier than first thought. Of course, it isn’t! His first 6 weeks in office were “eventful” on both the playing and management fronts. He described the current development of the game up to the recent report on the governance and structure of the SRU by Professor Lorne Crerar (next month’s guest speaker) and welcomed the changes that had taken place as a result of the recommendations. There is a widespread campaign being conducted to recruit 2 Club Custodians to the newly created Scottish Rugby Union Board. The silence from willing volunteers was deafening! The importance of the Club Rugby Board (CRB), the players themselves and, crucially, the role of the referees were covered in detail with special mention made of Hollie Davidson, a recent GROGS speaker. He stressed that women’s and girl’s rugby is a key growth area with considerable financial backing being made. Colin briefly summarised the successes, and otherwise, of all the representative teams in the past year and looked forward to the prospect of more excitement in the forthcoming game against Ireland. He ended an interesting and informative talk by outlining what he saw as the challenges being faced in Scottish rugby. With dwindling numbers of players, participation needs to be addressed. Other areas include how the game is played, the growth and involvement of women’s rugby and the overall wellbeing of the players. Several reasoned questions were asked and answered by Colin and Keith Wallace, Vice President of the SRU, who was another welcome guest. In appreciation, Colin was gifted the only bottle of Famous GROGS whisky available but the Chairman hoped that Keith would be the recipient of one currently in the distilling process when he might return in an elevated status. |
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