COCKFACTS

THE HOME OF ESPORTS AND RACING

Welcome back to The Big Field and what a joy it is to be back with (hopefully) three teams donning the mighty red and white and three big wins to celebrate along with it. It’s days like this that make this great club of ours what it is, but this week and those to follow will be slightly different in that we will be missing a dear friend of ours, as this is the first home game we will be hosting without Broomy.

It was with the heaviest of hearts that we found out recently of Broomy’s passing and I don’t think there is a person in the club that wouldn’t have felt a pang at losing another of life’s good ones. I can’t tell you the amount of times Broomy would catch my eye and it would be a wink, followed by the firmest of handshakes (Lord knows those mitts could do damage!) and if I had a pound for every time he told me the story of him and my old man trekking from one end of the Melbourne tramline to the other just to kill some time before they got back on the beers again, well readers, I’d be pretty well off. I’d genuinely trade in every penny, however, to hear him tell it one more time. That and the story of him meeting former Welsh Captain, Colin Charvis in a Sydney toilet, shocking fellow tourists when he brought him back to their table epitomise the sort of bloke he was.

Another member of that infamous touring party down under, Dave

BROUGHT TO YOU BY GEORGE EVANS AND SCOTTY RICHARDSON

He was a true gentleman off the field and one of the most uncompromising to wear the Red and White. Rest in peace butt.”

Challice, regaled us with his own Broomy anecdote below: l l l l

“I have heard many stories over the past week or so about what a kind and lovely man Gary was. This will not be one of them.

It was in the early 90s on the training pitch at DRFC during one of the infamous Thursday night full contact games at the end of the training session. Gary and I were competing for one slot in the up-and-coming Surrey Cup team and we were both looking to catch the eye of both Captain and Coach. Lying on the ground, I seized the moment to steal the ball from the bottom of a ruck, but I didn’t realise I was being watched like a hawk by…guess who? Just as my hand touched the ball, Gary stamped on my fingers removing the flesh from the tip of my middle finger. He couldn’t control his laughter as I squealed like a little piglet. “Guess you won’t be playing Saturday,” he said without an ounce of sympathy or regret.

Players who played with and against him breathed a sigh of relief when he finally hung up the boots, which gives every indication of the type of ferocious player he was in his time. I dare say there may be a few referees that are experiencing similar emotions too, knowing they won’t have to cross paths with him any more, but we here at Cock Facts HQ and The Big Field will be there to send him off with a minute’s dedication before the 1s kick-off today and it will not go unnoticed that there will be an absence felt by all.

Please join us in raising a glass or two to one of our favourite Welsh imports and in sending our best wishes to Gary Broom’s nearest and dearest, the rest of his family and those that held him so dear to their hearts here at the club.