Some in the GROGS brotherhood feel that our luck would soon change trying to find substitute speakers at short notice. Well, not this month because, after Gavin Scott of the SRU was unable to be with us when we had to reschedule the Lunch, the Speaker Gods smiled on us again and sent us a prize in the not inconsiderable size and talent of Glen Tippett, Head of Commercial at Glasgow Warriors. Glen made an impressive entrance by coming into the room with gusto and the 1872 Challenge Cup Trophy, won by Warriors for the third year in a row! Once the audience got used to his New Zealand accent, Glen was a delight as a speaker talking about the “Golden Thread” of rugby and calling it the best sport in the world for culture, teamwork and discipline. Steeped in many sports from childhood, he loves rugby the most and is so proud to be involved in it. Like many Kiwis he left New Zealand for the European rugby tour, which included coming to Scotland. Faced with 2 choices on 2 separate occasions – whether he and his wife of 24 years, Frances, should live in Boston USA or East Kilbride and whether he should join Watsonians or Ayr rugby clubs. He seems happy with his picks of East Kilbride and Ayr RFC, being there at the beginnings and continuation of Ayr’s ascendancy. Moving on to his role as a Development Officer with the SRU he rattled off a list of clubs he had linked up with and made positive comments about the burgeoning women’s game in Scotland! Glen has been with the SRU for 12 years, in different capacities, the last 3 of which have been with Glasgow Warriors in “the best job in the world”. With 3 good years in a row for the club, he was clearly pleased with himself, especially after the recent success of beating Toulouse. In a wide ranging conversation Glen talked about rugby in general and the position of Glasgow Warriors in particular stressing that they are operating with good but limited facilities at Scotstoun and considerably limited finances compared to most of the other clubs they play against. Hampden and an imaginary generous benefactor were mentioned but even they would not be the long term answers to keep Warriors competing with the big boys. He praised the skills of Franco Smith and Duncan Weir and, in both cases, said “watch this space”. Glen ended a very interesting talk by answering some very direct questions with equally direct answers and was gleeful in his acceptance of the traditional bottle of GROGS Special Whisky with our grateful thanks.
