Bridgwater and Albion RFC v Wellington RFC Saturday 4th September 2021

BRIDGWATER & ALBION RFC v WELLINGTON RFC SATURDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 2021

IT’S A GREAT WELCOME BACK TO RUGBY FOOTBALL AND A SOMERSET DERBY TO BOOT TO KICK OFF THE 2021/22 PROCEEDINGS At last – after an 18-month hiatus Bridgwater & Albion can welcome back its players, members, supporters, friends and of course opposition to College Way. It seems a long time since the 1st XV last outing in Newton Abbot on 7 March 2020 and which culminated in a resounding 43-19 away victory. It was the United XV which played the last game on this ground against Cheddar on 13 March 2020 on an emotionally filled evening following the sudden and sad death of David Norman just two days before. The club’s passion strongly showed and there we left it until resumption today.

It is fitting that Wellington are our visitors today – old friends and rivals since the 1870’s – Wellington were founded in 1874 – the third oldest club in Somerset after Bath (1865) and local rivals Wiveliscombe (1872). Bridgwater & Albion, Taunton, Weston-super-Mare and Chard were all formed in 1875 as the rugby football craze swept through the West Country.

There have been strong links between the clubs over these many years not least the regular fixtures between the club at all levels with 1 st XV matches on a home and away basis until the late 1960’s. The introduction of leagues upset fixture planning and matches became spasmodic and in fact the clubs’ last meeting was in the Somerset Cup as long ago as February 1995.

Wellington arrive as the promoted champions of Western Counties West from the 2019/20 season. Although fellow promoted club St Austell obtained more points in the league campaign, they had played more games and so Wellington were the converted winners on average at 107.78 and with a fine 16-4 record and 582 points gathered. Wellington started league life in Somerset 1 in 1987 and it took them several years to reach the regional stage where due to their proximity to the Devon border, they played in Devon/Cornwall league. In 2009/10 Wellington were the champions of that league with 26 wins out of 26 and a magnificent 1086 against 107 points record. They settled in well in Western Counties West in the next season finishing third but then drifted for several years and also suffered a conversion to Western Counties North in 2015/16 before being relegated from WCW in 2016/17. However they bounced back in the only respectable way by becoming champions of Devon and Cornwall league in 2017/18 with an impressive 24-2 record. They did not make the same mistakes again and were third in Western Counties West in the next season and promotion in 2019/20 was obtained.

It may be coincidental that the rise of Wellington rugby is at a time when the monument to the Duke of Wellington near the town has been restored at a cost of £3.1M – the 175 foot obelisk is part of Wellington’s emblem.

Several players have graced both clubs. As long ago as the late 1880’s/early 1890’s then one SMJ Woods – a dual rugby football (England) and cricket (Australia) international played mainly for Bridgwater but also for Wellington and Wiveliscombe. In the early 1960’s Tony Corner was an accomplished full-back for both clubs; Clive Webber and Chris Tooze joined the move up the A38 to Albion with the former becoming club captain here and the latter moving on to Somerset Constabulary. In the mid/late 1970’s Keith Wilson and Bill Sherwin provided great service to Bridgwater & Albion with the latter still involved on Wellington’s playing side in a director capacity. Add in brief sojourns by Carl Puzey, Jason Vernon and more latterly Micky Norman in 2016/17, then the links are almost complete but Matt Ranson likely to be appearing in our XV today made the reverse move from Albion to Wellington for the 2012/13 season and part of the next before returning to his roots. He will be eyeing this season with some relish as he is hoping to accomplish the award of his club cap – needing another 12 appearances to secure it.

Over the years Wellington have had tremendous supporting patronage mainly through the pen of the late Arthur Scott whose eloquent and descriptive reports conjured up something Betjemanesque with a touch of Arlott through his prose with frequent references to scrum workers (No 9’s); the brickmen (as he called Bridgwater & Albion); dotting down (tries); and majorising – kicking the conversion. We welcome Wellington to College Way after such a long time and wish them well in their league campaign – perhaps they will start dotting down and majorising from next week onwards.

Bridgwater & Albion enjoy the benefit of double home fixtures with Chew Valley visiting next week. The reverse double away matches come in December.

The club welcomes back its loyal members and supporters and thanks everyone concerned for their whole-hearted support of the club during the long lockdown periods. Members will notice many changes – hopefully improvements around the club and we hope that performances on the field can enhance that. In the curtailed 2019/20 season Albion finished 7th in this league with an 11-9 record from their 20 matches. The United XV finished fourth in Somerset 1 with an 11-4 record from their 15 games.

Carl Rimmer has taken over the role of head coach assisted by Richard Bright and Wayne Sprangle as player coaches. The mainstay of the 2019/20 squad is retained and supplemented by several newcomers who will be displaying their skills in the weeks to come.

Sadly South West One West league is reduced to 13 clubs with the withdrawal of Stroud who had been promoted from Western Counties North – the Gloucestershire side club having some difficulty in maintaining a competitive 1 st XV. It appears that they will be continuing with their 2nd XV in Gloucestershire leagues and we wish them well and hope that they can recover and come back up the leagues. Wellington and St Austell are this season’s promoted clubs and Old Patesians make a cross transfer from SW1 East. These clubs replace Hornets (promoted to SW Premier) and Newton Abbot and Cleve (relegated). 2019/20 was also a 13 team league with the withdrawal of St Ives.

SIDES AND ASIDES BRIDGWATER & ALBION v WELLINGTON HISTORY As indicated in the main narrative of this programme, then fixtures between the clubs abounded for many years and since 1965 the following results have prevailed from the Bridgwater & Albion point of view.

23.9.65 19.4.66 27.9.66 6.4.67 23.3.68 21.9.74 24.9.75 5.9.79 16.9.81 19.2.95

A H A H H A H H H H

W 8-0 W 20-0 L 5-6 W 16-3 W 13-3 W 16-15 W 13-4 W 32-6 W 24-9 W 25-9

Wellington Centenary B&A Centenary

SCRFU Cup - 4th round

In the September 1966 match – the last time Wellington won – then their full-back Guy Vickery – who still supports the club – kicked two goals. Your scribe remembers the occasion well having been summoned as a travelling reserve – there were no replacements in those days. However the result did him some good as few weeks later he was making his 1 st XV debut. In September 1974 Albion visited Wellington to celebrate their centenary and hung on to win 16-15; in the next season Wellington returned the favour by playing here in our centenary with the home side winning 13-4. The last match between the clubs was in the Somerset RFU Cup fourth round in February 1995 with Albion winning 23-9 when our XV was:-

D Buller; Burge Tarr B Gouldby Vickery; J Gouldby Goldsborough; Steward GJB Williams Gurnett Rackham G Buller Hayes Rees Sharland.

Goldsborough (1) and G Buller (2) scored tries with D Buller kicking a penalty and conversion and J Gouldby a dropped goal.

FOR THE RECORD The 2019/20 final details escaped publicity due to lockdowns but for those who are interested in the records then here are the details.

BRIDGWATER & ALBION RUGBY FOOTBALL CLUB 2019/20 SOUTH WEST ONE WEST

LEAGUE CUP

P

W

L

F

A

20 1 21

11 1 12

9 9

417 34 451

452 20 472

7th place

11

4

318

205

4th place

UNITED XV 15 SCORERS (League and Cup) 125 50 25 24 21 20 15 14 12 10 5

SC HEAL (2T 17P 34C) WJ MONRO (10T) S HONEY (5T) W SPRANGLE (5T) TJ FOURNIER D‘ALBE (3T 3C P) PENALTY TRIES (3) R BRIGHT (4T) SA MAHONEY (3T) GW SLUMAN (3T) D THORNE (3T) EJ TREBBLE-WESTLAKE (3T) O WHITE (3T) J OWENS (4P C) JW COLLINGS (2 TC) S ADCOCK (2T) J BULLER (2T) D EVANS (2T) R BARNETT (T) T BLADES (T) R DRABBLE (T) LJ PHILLIPS (T) O STEWARD (T) E WESTHOFF (T)

Bridgwater & Albion opponents have scored 36G 31T 17P and 2 PT – 472

APPEARANCES (includes those as substitute or replacement) 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 37 PLAYERS

GW SLUMAN MR RANSON EJ TREBBLE-WESTLAKE TJ FOURNER D’ALBE R BARNETT SC HEAL WJ MONRO DJ KEMMISH T HOPKINS LJ PHILLIPS W SPRANGLE J OWENS SA MAHONEY R DRABBLE S HONEY* O WHITE* S ADCOCK T BLADES* E WESTHOFF* JW COLLINGS GS KNIGHT G SLORANCE* R BRIGHT J BULLER GF BASSON G MUSGRAVE O STEWARD K DEVITT D EVANS* K URBONIS D THORNE* J BUSSELL J BRAKES H DERBY A NEWMAN K POLLEY B WEBB * = DEBUT IN 2019/20

The leading career appearances of players who appeared in 2019/20 is:CAPPED 412

DJ KEMMISH

BADGED (75+) 238 158 123 122 114 112 104

MR RANSON SC HEAL R DRABBLE GF BASSON EJ TREBBLE-WESTLAKE TJ FOURNIER D’ALBE J BUSSELL

100 95 85 83

R THOMPSON GW SLUMAN GS KNIGHT LJ PHILLIPS

NEXT MATCHES ON THIS GROUND Saturday 11 September 1st XV v Chew Valley

Kick-off 3 pm

Friday 24 September United XV v Wellington II

Kick-off 7.30 pm

Saturday 25 September 1st XV v Devonport Services

Kick-off 3 pm

Saturday 2 October United XV v Cheddar Valley

Kick-off 3 pm

Home Team: 1. Lewis Phillips 2. Gavin Knight 3. Matt Ranson 4. Tom Hopkins 5. Alex Payne (C) 6. Shaun Mahoney 7. Karolis Ubonas 8. Ethan Trebble-Westlake 9. Jon Hill 10. Stuart Hill 11. Louka Viala 12. Jake Knight 13. Will Monro 14. James Brakes 15. Roger Drabble 16. James Palmer 17. Simon Buck 18. Dan Lang All the above are available for sponsorship please e-mail emma@barfc.co.uk to arrange.

Away Team 1.

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Ryan Marke Joe John Dyke Martin Walker Regan Walker Christopher Kitto Danny Lee (c) Liam Phillips Cameron Venn Dan Goldstone George Hodgson Robert Hooper Vinny Gordan (vc) Will Hodgson Alex Johnson Alex Davey Ben Price Ollie Price Will Hinchcliffe