Al Kellock, guest speaker at the first Lunch of 2023, was no stranger to GROGS as he had first spoken to us 8 years previously. 115 members were eager to see if ahe had changed during the intervening years. Certainly there was a certain hair loss but he had gained in poise and confidence. Previously he had spoken as a player, a former internationalist and a highly successful captain of Glasgow Warriors whereas now he appeared as Managing Director of the Warriors, having retired from playing one month after he had last addressed GROGS. Speaking as a top club official suited him and he spoke with an authority reflecting his overall experience. What had not changed was his clear love of the game and his enthusiasm for Club rugby. Telling the story of his rugby journey from first playing at Allan Glen’s school up to the peak of his career whilst captaining Scotland, Al held his audience’s attention by peppering his story with fun anecdotes about some of his playing colleagues along the road. Tommy Hayes might not appreciate the world knowing about his efforts in making sure the Hughenden pitch was declared frost bound so that he and Gordon Simpson could have a long lie one Saturday morning after a heavy night! Although he saw much of the world in his international career, he didn’t travel too far in his club rugby, travelling from Allan Glen’s to Edinburgh Rugby before returning to Glasgow to play for, and then captain, Glasgow Warriors. His career at Warriors was “a phenomenal time” in his life and he relished being made captain. He confessed he wasn’t the best player in a Warriors shirt but he strived to be one of the hardest working. This paid off as he was team captain during the most successful period of the Warriors’ history. However, all good things have to come to an end, even for Al Kellock, and he finally hung up his boots but not before playing for, and captaining, the Barbarians against Australia in November 2014, “the single best experience of rugby in his whole life”. The Chairman wished Al the same success in his administrative career as he had enjoyed in his playing career and presented him with a bottle of the unique GROGS whisky to set him on his way.
0 Comments
An unprecedented number of GROGs signed up for the 2022 Christmas Lunch, an event that has developed into a “must attend” feature in the social calendar. Like many of its predecessors, this one did not disappoint. Perhaps the presence of guest speaker, former Scotland and British and Irish Lions captain, Gavin Hastings, had something to do with it but, then, so too did the fun filled atmosphere and lusty community singing. Gavin’s popularity was well reflected in the number of GROGs who formed orderly queues both before and after lunch to purchase a signed copy of his most recent book. His publisher would have been well pleased! Among the ‘well pleased’ were all those in attendance who enjoyed a fine festive lunch and who were able to hear Gavin at his best! He was aware that his brother, Scott, had been a previous, and extremely popular, guest speaker at an earlier Christmas Lunch and he immediately got him in his sights with some comments of a sibling rivalry nature, much like the Royal Princes but with obvious fondness present! He started by acknowledging that Scott had more Scottish international caps than himself but when caps for The Lions were added, Gavin assumed his rightful position! He shouted how proud he is to be Scottish and chastised those who play down the greatness of the country with such boasts as “the best small country in the world”. Not in Gavin Hastings’ opinion. It’s simply the best and we should be proud of our nationality, he said. A trip down Memory Lane where he recalled being properly hit by Mickey Skinner and missing the easiest of penalties in the 1991 World Cup semi final resulted in a 10 second silence while others remembered these incidents too. Gavin’s Anglophobia was on display but so were his pride and his sportsmanship when he recalled those moments without bitterness. He entertained his audience with tales of his long rugby life at the top and of many of the characters he had been honoured to meet but he kept his best comments to an articulate appreciation of his son Adam and the values he had endeavoured to instil in him before ending with a heartfelt toast to the late, great, Doddie Weir. He accepted a bottle of GROGS whisky offered to him by his very appreciative audience. In starting his address to the 120 GROGs present, Craig Redpath, one of the foremost coaches in the Premiership, described himself as being a shy person who was not used to speaking in public and warned that they should not expect anything witty or funny from him. He promised to talk honestly about the game of rugby and the simple principles he has always applied from his early playing days right up to the present time as coach of the current titleholders of the Premiership, Marr RFC. He didn’t stint in details of his lifelong rugby career and was fulsome in his praise of many he had played with, played against and had been coached by. These included his brother Bryan, whom he described (with no sense of bias) as “one of the best scrum halfs Scotland ever had”; the GHK team of the 90’s, “the most talented team of the era”; Craig Chalmers “a phenomenal player who made the most of his talent” and, of course, the Melrose coach, the great Jim Telfer, who was quite simply, “nuts”! An interesting snippet he let drop was that, if the current HIA rules had applied at the time of the famous 1990 Grand Slam win, Craig Chalmers would not have been allowed to play as he had been knocked out the previous week. The things you hear at GROGS Lunches! Craig loved being involved in the national set-up. Being a full back he competed against greats like Gavin Hastings and Peter Dods and never received a full cap. He has no bitterness about this and said he would not want to be awarded something he didn’t feel he had earned. He described his time as a player as having been very simple, very humble and very fortunate, full of hard work and enjoyment. His coaching career started off with 4 years at East Kilbride, an eye opening experience in more ways than one, followed by 5 years at Ayr RFC where he felt he failed because he didn’t win anything. After taking a year out he settled in at Marr RFC, attracted by the sheer volume of raw talent available …. and the rest is history. In Craig Redpath we saw an honest, likeable and inspiring man who fully deserved the loud applause and the bottle of GROGS Special Whisky which the Chairman almost forgot to give him. In the pre-lunch publicity about the October Lunch we were promised an “interesting” speaker and that’s exactly what we got, in the shape of Tavish Scott, the former leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. That, however, is not his only claim to fame as he is currently Chief Executive of the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation and was previously Head of External Affairs with the Scottish Rugby Union. As one might expect from an accomplished politician and a native of Shetland, Tavish managed to weave stories from all of these areas of his personal history, including his association with the 3 other top table residents, into a well thought out, entertaining and seamless talk He was able to express his gratitude to GROG Scott Grier for his time as Chairman of Loganair, running a very efficient service from Shetland to Edinburgh, which Tavish called his “no. 44 bus”! Although rugby is not the main team sport on the island of Shetland it’s played enthusiatically by men, women and youth teams who travel regularly to the mainland to fulfil their commitments. It’s not often the SRU is the beneficiary of praise at GROGS lunches but Tavish was fulsome in his appreciation of the financial support it gives to the local teams allowing them to travel as often as they do. There was a good story told about Gregor Townsend, the Scotland coach, travelling as guest of honour to present the awards at the annual Sports Dinner. Gregor was a very popular visitor but wasn’t recognised in his own right by all the local worthies, especially the one who couldn’t understand why Holywood star, Woody Harrelson, had been invited to the Shetland Sports Awards event! As said, Tavish mixed his stories about sport, industry and political experiences with consummate ease, including one about being at a dinner given in Downing Street when he was sat next to Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who immediately asked his opinion about Vladimir Putin who had been in Edinburgh the previous day and had spoken about the importance of human rights. The irony was not lost on this audience. Tavish ended with the optimistic views that rugby will endure and that GROGS will be here for decades to come. “Not this one” forecast one gloomy GROG! This speaker well deserved the bottle of the much prized Special GROGS Whisky he was presented with and our appreciation for honouring a long arranged commitment. Unfortunately, holidays and hospital appointments conspired to affect the number of GROGs present at the first Lunch of the new season. Nevertheless, there were still 92 present to enjoy a fine meal and entertaining talk from former internationalist and current Glasgow Warriors’ skills coach, Peter Horne. Peter explained that he hadn’t been quite sure what to say and that, as he had come along at relatively short notice, he had little time to prepare it anyway. He needn’t have worried because his solution to those problems was as interesting as it was novel. With a sideways swipe at Whitecraigs RFC in his father’s playing days, Peter described his introduction to rugby and how he had come to love the game so much. As he had played for Warriors for 14 years he thought he’d describe the dream team he would put together, chosen from among his team-mates during that time. Intriguing information and fun stories followed starting off with how he had managed to knock out one of his own side with a ball kicked to the back of his head - Gordon Reid, his choice as loose head prop! There isn’t room here to describe each selection because, with each one there was a background, or occasional dressing room, story, most of which would never have been printed in a Club programme or a rugby magazine. It was fascinating to hear so many behind the scenes stories of such well kent names such as Leone Nakarawa, Rob Harley, a previous GROGS speaker, whom he fondly described as “a complete weirdo” and Josh Strauss, among others. Many of Peter’s choices might have been predicted by the rugby savvy audience but one which did raise the collective eyebrows slightly was his choice of fly half. The popular guess might have gone for Finn Russell but, no, Peter favoured Dan Parks, a player he has tried to model himself on both on and off the pitch. Peter’s description of this dream team was peppered with superlatives and told with clear fondness. He finished with a Q & A session, handled with knowledge and aplomb. Peter’s speaking career has got off to an excellent start which proved to be a bonus to GROGS and well deserving of the bottle of Famous GROGS Whisky he was then presented with. Without doubt, after a challenging year for GROGS, the season ended on a magnificent high! When first asked to speak, Malcolm Offord was an enthusiastic Greenock Wanderers man with rugby in his blood and with excellent credentials. By the time he came to speak, he was Lord Offord of Garvel, an equally enthusiastic Greenock Wanderers man with rugby in his blood and with even more credentials and a thoroughly impressive CV. His professional life had been mainly in finance culminating in founding and chairing the Edinburgh based private equity company, Badenoch & Co. If you want something done ask a busy man and so he became a Trustee of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, a Board member of the SRU and Chairman of London Scottish Rugby Club. In a thoroughly entertaining way he described his early rugby career at Greenock Academy, Greenock Wanderers (which raised a cheer from the small but enthusiastic contingent), Edinburgh University and then London Scottish. He was undoubtedly the only person present who had toured both Brazil and Argentina where he recalled London Scottish playing against a local club by the name of Belgrano! Seemingly without notes, Malcolm spoke knowledgeably about each aspect of his life and involvements making equally good use of facts, figures and humour by way of illustration. He is immensely proud of his involvement with London Scottish and is concerned about the challenge it faces in the English set-up even after such an illustrious history producing 4 British and Irish Lions captains and 224 players capped for Scotland, a world record for any one club. He did not, however, restrict himself to talking about rugby. He began with an explanation as to how he had arrived at his chosen title after discovering that both “Greenock” and “Ardgowan” were taken. He robustly defended the role of the House of Lords explaining that the institution “does not make law but makes law better” and explained that his new role as Parliamentary Under- Secretary for Scotland was to make the Government communicate better with Scotland, all very interesting to his knowledgeable audience. This was a tour de force presentation covering a range of topics not often aired at GROGS. The good Lord well deserved the presentation of a prized bottle of the Famous GROGS Whisky which he might share with his fellow Peers. Albeit a day late, GROGS celebrated International Women’s Day in fine style in the company of Scotland’s foremost female referee, Hollie Davidson. Hollie delighted the audience with a gentle account of her story from being a sports mad youngster to becoming the SRU’s first full time professional women’s referee. Her first love was football which she was obviously good at as she was picked to play for an under 17 ladies team in Deeside, aged 11! Introduced to rugby at school, it quickly became her passion. Football’s loss was rugby’s gain. A Scotland v Wales international at Murrayfield sealed the passion and she was hooked! Her University experience was not unfamiliar to some GROGs - a lot of drink and a lot of rugby which she enjoyed, playing at scrum half, but, unfortunately, the injury gods didn’t smile on her and her promising career was cut short by a series of shoulder injuries. Hollie was refreshingly honest in describing how her disappointment with this setback outweighed her determination to “get back on the horse”. Refereeing called to her when she watched other matches and thought she could do better than some of the performances she witnessed. Deciding to put her money where her mouth was, she joined the new SRU course for women referees and the rest is, as they say, history. Her crossroads decision was whether to stay in a secure banking job or follow her heart and progress in rugby. As the GROGS would never have invited her to speak if she had stayed in banking, we were delighted that she made the ‘right’ decision. In listening to Hollie, one word would quickly come to mind - modesty. She gave luck a lot of credit for the success in her career but, when she reeled off her appointments for the coming year, it was obvious that luck is a minimal factor in her success. Hopefully one day, she said, a woman will referee a men’s international match. Meantime, Hollie’s target is to be a good referee and not just a good female referee. Knowledgeable questions were asked which she answered equally knowledgeably and sensibly. Chairman, Brian Rigby, thanked her and presented her with a bottle of GROGS whisky, expressing his relief at her confession to the drinking experience in her time at University. From the jaws of possible disaster, the Committee managed to record a Lunch saving win when, after Covid and other emergencies had interfered with the planned programme, Rob Harley, Glasgow Warriors and Scotland, came to the rescue at very short notice. In spite of his inexperience in this role, Rob was a great success! With the lack of preparation time, he agreed to participate in a Question and Answer session with Hugh Dan MacLennan, Committee member and professional broadcaster, agreeing, at equally short notice, to act as question master. Such was the slickness of their dialogue together, no-one would have been surprised to learn that the “Hugh Dan ‘n’ Rob” team had performed together multiple times. That was not the case. Although Hugh Dan is a consummate interviewer, neither of them had any opportunity to plan or rehearse what turned out to be a sparkling insight into the life of the most capped Warriors player who also had 23 full Scotland caps and 15 U20 caps to his credit. The questions were wide ranging, insightful and entertaining and the answers were interesting, informative and equally entertaining. Pleasing news, for Warriors fans especially, was that Rob felt he was coming to the end of his injury lay-off period and expected to be back in action in a couple of weeks. He was asked about his rugby history. Other than school, he had only ever played for 2 clubs - West of Scotland and Glasgow Warriors and had played in a number of positions before settling down as a flanker. Having entered the Warriors Academy at the age of 17, he has now spent almost 15 years at the club, an achievement his wildest dreams had not thought possible. Rob was modest in saying that he felt luck had a part to play in this longevity. Having been a pupil, learning from such big names as Al Kellock, John Barclay and Dan Parks he now finds himself in the role of teacher, a role he particularly relishes. After describing his winning Scotland debut against Samoa, Rob admitted to Hugh Dan that the best player he had played with was the Fijian Leone Nakawara, a choice approved by the knowledgeable GROGS audience. There were more questions from the floor than there was time to answer, proof, if such was needed, of the popularity of this rugby role model and Honours Graduate in Classics. 2 anniversaries were celebrated on 8 December when 110 GROGs braved the elements, and the bad press, to meet up and celebrate Christmas slightly early. It was exactly 3 years since the Club moved from its traditional meeting place of Braidholm rugby ground to the new, more spacious and welcoming Loks Bar and Restaurant and it was 6 years since Robbie Duncan wowed the members with a virtuoso performance which blazed a trail away from rugby-only orientated speakers to set a high bar for quality entertainment for future Christmas Lunches. Those who remembered him from his previous visit wondered if he’d manage to scale the heights once again. There was no need to worry …. he did! With consummate ease, Robbie kept the audience in stitches as one crack, quip or story after another was delivered in the same couthy way as we remembered from last time. No wonder he is the much in demand After Dinner Speaker and Burns Night performer that he is. On a serious note, Robbie explained that he is a football man first and foremost. It was the way he was raised, he pointed out. However, he expressed his respect and admiration for the ethos of the rugby fraternity, so much so that he introduced his own son to the sport (and not just because he thinks that rugby players are the modern day rock stars). There was a wonderful moment in his presentation when, in the middle of a description of a rugby club dinner, he realised that one of the main characters he was going to describe was actually sitting in the body of the hall. There was a lot of laughter about this though possibly not for the reason he had planned! We never did get to hear his comments in their entirety! The GROGS Club is very honoured, and grateful, that such an entertaining and modest man should be willing to travel from Kilmarnock to join us during what must be a busy time for him. To back this up, Chairman Hugh Dan MacLennan presented him with his second bottle of The Special GROGS whisky, the first man ever to have received this honour twice! To quote a regular sketch line from Monty Python, it was a case of “now for something completely different” at the GROGS November Lunch. Not for the first time, there was a move away from guest speakers with a clear rugby link when over 100 members gathered to welcome Campbell Elliott, the well known PGA golfer and professional at Haggs Castle Golf Club. With his very entertaining style of delivery, Campbell showed that his skills are not restricted to the golf course but included oratory. If after dinner speaking was to be measured in the same way that golf is then Campbell would certainly be playing off scratch! After a glittering introduction, he regaled his audience with stories of his own golf experiences interspersed with some old jokes well told, some new jokes equally well told and reminiscing on his career. Campbell is a Clydebank boy who has fared well in the world of golf and is obviously proud of his achievements as a Scottish Internationalist, both at amateur and professional levels. It was interesting to listen to the stories about the famous golfers he has played with and fun to hear about his room sharing with the great Colin Montgomerie. He was proud of the fact that between them they managed to amass a grand total of 50 International caps (Campbell had 2). Many of his stories were told in a self-deprecating manner to the extent that even when he said “true story”, as he did when describing an encounter with Seve Ballesteros, one couldn’t help but wonder if that was the case. Before accepting a bottle of The Famous GROGS Whisky, offered in gratitude for a very entertaining presentation, Campbell offered this advice to all golfers:- “There is no such thing in golf as a bad shot. You might not like it but your partner will love it!". |
Archives
March 2024
|