THE DAY WE BEAT SEDBERGH AWAY AND OUR BELATED RETURN TRIP

BY NICK BROWNLEE (76-86)

As Malcolm Forbes once said: “Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat”. I have no idea who Malcolm Forbes is –his words came up on a Google search for “quotes about victory” – but he is right. And here’s why.

According to the song, RGS was founded in Bluff King Harry’s reign, which means that for almost 500 years the 1st XV rugby team had never beaten Sedbergh away. That changed on a crisp autumnal Saturday in 1985, when a rusting minibus headed for Cumbria, for what your correspondent naturally assumed would be the ritual biennial hiding.

In my defence, the omens were personally daunting. I was playing No 10 back then, but two years previously I had made my debut in the hallowed hooped shirt as a callow 16-year-old scrum half for Ian Hasson’s (74-84) team. Away to Sedbergh. On the way across, the tense, fearful conversation was all about someone called “Carling”, and what damage he would wreak. ‘Who is Carling?” I finally asked, as we turned off the M6 and headed inland towards the snow-dusted Pennines. “Do not ask questions that cannot be answered, boy,” a whey-faced Hasson muttered from the back of the bus.

Will Carling was waiting for us at the school gate with a blonde named Cindy. After a crushing handshake, the future England captain dismissively waved us to the dining hall where we were fed debilitating amounts of stodge, as was the Sedbergh way.

“So, er,” I remember prop Carl Greener (79-84), one of our hardest lads, tentatively asking one of our hosts through a mouthful of suet pudding, “what position is Carling playing today?”. The smile on the Sedbergh man’s face was akin to that of a well-paid hangman. “Full back, fly half, or centre,” he sneered. “He hasn’t decided yet”. In the event, Carling played all three positions and scored a hattrick in each. The only time I touched the ball was to put it in the scrum, which Sedbergh won: final score, 50-0. Hasson, his spirit broken, would later retire to a sanitorium in Switzerland, Greener to a career in the Navy.

So, as the minibus containing Ed Gregory’s (81-86) team spluttered to a halt outside the school two years later, I was already deeply in the throes of what would later be diagnosed as PTSD (Post Traumatic Sedbergh Disorder). Initially, it seemed that history was repeating itself. We were greeted at the gate by Sedbergh’s captain, a 6ft, square-chinned Adonis, standing with a blonde named Cindy. We were marched to the dining hall, where steaming plates of carbohydrates awaited us. Then, like condemned men on their way to the gallows, we were marched to the changing rooms.

And there you’d expect the story to go: “We were beaten 50-0, as usual”. Except. Ah, what a glorious word! The match began. Sedbergh had at us, and the baying hordes of Barbour- and tweed-clad parents hugging the touchlines started up their chant of “Come on, Brown!”. We were bamboozled. The Brown machine scored. But then came the huddle behind the posts which changed everything.

“Who the f*** is Brown?” asked lock forward Jeremy Rowarth (79-86), a quizzical expression creasing his honest Northumbrian brow. “And what position does he play?”. At which point it dawned on me that we might have a chance.

Because we were a new team, one which did not have the weight of history – or fear – upon our young shoulders. Hasson and Greener were ancient history. We had Rowarth, Aidan Dunstan (76-86), Dave Erhorn (79-86), Rob Caller (76-86), Dickie Palmer (76-86), Euan Menzies (76-86), Andrew Robinson (74-84) and the rest – and unlike me, they didn’t know about Carling, Cindy, or the sickening inevitability of defeat at Sedbergh. To them, Sedbergh Away was just another fixture to be won, like Ponteland Away, or Dame Allan’s Away.

In short, the scene was set for a victory which, I have always thought, merits an extra verse in the school song. Against the run of play Erhorn scored twice from the wing. Two conversions and a penalty later, it was all over, 15-9. We embraced. In the primitive visitors’ changing room our coach, Paul Ponton (Staff 71-09), handed out four cans of out-of-date Harp lager, which he had been saving in his kit bag in case the unthinkable happened, to share between us. To add relish to the occasion, their team was immediately sent on a 10-mile run up the nearest fell and a disgusted Sedbergh parent deleted the match video.

Only later did the significance of the victory become apparent. My memory might be playing tricks here, but on the following Monday morning every member of the team was awarded full colours, some for the second time, having been borne into assembly on shields held aloft by a conglomerate of cheerleaders from Church High, Central High and La Sagesse. Mr Cox (72-94), the headmaster, may well have fallen on his knees in gratitude as skipper Gregory crossed the stage, punching the air and kissing the woven silver badge of his purple blazer.

Or maybe not. I suspect the significance was all in our own minds. But in the intervening 37 years, it has grown to the extent that on 1 April this year eight of that mighty team returned to Sedbergh to revive their rapidly fading memories of glory. Messrs Gregory, Palmer, Dunstan, Menzies, Robinson, Rowarth, Caller and Brownlee spent a highly enjoyable day in hostile territory. We invaded the pitch, re-enacted the winning try, and even meddled with the scoreboard to reflect the final score on that famous day. Sedbergh school had broken up for half-term, of course, and the only people watching us were a couple of quizzical groundspersons. And later, in the pub, few were interested in our recollections.

But who cares? Malcolm Forbes, whoever he is, was surely writing about us when he penned his victory quote. Such is the glory of sport, the fleeting nature of youth, and the enduring power of friendship and memories. Fortiter defendit triumphans, as the song goes – and whatever that means enjoy it while you can, I say.

The team: Caller; Erhorn, Eaton, Dunstan, Graham; Brownlee, Palmer; Scott, O’Forster, Robinson; Rowarth, Turner; Gregory, Menzies, Harrison

Tries: Erhorn (2)

Conversions: Brownlee (2)

Penalty: Brownlee