30. 1999 to 2000

There was good news for the netball section with the official opening of two new netball courtsin September 1999. These replaced the original court built in 1991, which had suffered from problems with its surface and had become dangerous to play on. The courts cost approximately £75,000 (plus VAT) and were funded through grants from the National Lottery and the Foundation for Sports and Arts, and our own fund raising. Other good news for the netball section was that the club gained an international player when Kelly New was capped for England and was later voted Midlands international player of the year in 2001.

Arnold Lodge School also made a contribution to the courts in return for them being allowed the use of them. Reciprocal arrangements had existed with the school for many years, in particular their agreement that we could use their fields for mini and junior rugby on Sunday mornings. Sadly this all came to an end when the school informed us that they had applied for planning permission to level their pitches using landfill soil, for which they were to be paid through Landfill Tax credits. The exercise required them to have access over the club's land for the soil tipping and they sought our permission for an access road along the edge of the field and agreed to pay us for the disturbance. Although we knew this would cause disruption for two years we were promised that new and better pitches would become available by the 2001/02 season. Many years later and after much acrimony, the pitches are still unplayable, have been sold by the school and are not available to us any more. Even worse is the adverse effect that the scheme has had on the drainage of the Arnold Lodge field onto our pitches, in particular the third team pitch has been unplayable at times due to surface water running across it.

Having been relegated for the second time in three years it was important that we should begin to turn things around and start climbing the leagues again. In Midlands West 1, we were meeting a number of old rivals, including Bedworth, Stratford, Keresley, Evesham and Old Leamingtonians. Having played some of these sides the previous year, in cup and friendly games, we knew it would be a very tough league and we would have to play well from the start. The RFU had announced that the leagues were to be restructured again the following season to facilitate games being played on a home and away basis. Details were not known but it meant that leagues would reduce from about 17 to 12 teams and there would therefore be a "cut" made, with all teams going "up" or "down" according to their finishing positions.

Bob Hickman continued as Rugby Chairman and Greg Melville (right) took over as first XV and club captain. New coach Tony Smith began to reshape the side with a to view giving it more stability and a cohesive playing style. Simon David, Dave Brown, John Gibson and Dicky Davies, provided a solid core and younger players coming through included scrum-half Matty Davies, Danny Birks, Justin French and James and Stuart Pearl. Reinforcements came in the shape of Fran Hemmings, a huge presence in the second-row and Dave Smith in the centre.

A good start was made with five wins in the first six league matches. The opener was against Telford and everything came together in a 52-0 romp. Old rivals Stratford provided a much sterner test in the second match and led 15-3 with three unconverted tries, but we stayed in the game and a converted try by Simon David and two penalties from David Brown snatched a narrow 17-15 victory. Things were looking really good when we trounced Woodrush 76-0. The Staffordshire side were no mugs, having won against previously unbeaten Keresley the week before, but they could not cope with our all-round game and we scored 12 tries - Alex Carroll leading the way with a hat-trick and Simon David, Robbie Cox and Danny Birks claiming a brace apiece.

Staffordbrought our run to an end by snatching a late 17-14 win after we had led for much of the game. We got back on course the next week with a 15-12 win over Aston Old Edwardians, but it took two close- range tries from the back of the scrum by Matt Davies and Scott Conduit to clinch the game, after missing a lot of kicking opportunities. A 44-10 win over Kings Norton followed, in bitterly cold conditions, but hands stayed warm enough to score three tries in each half. Things then started to take a turn for the worse and a narrow 16-12 loss at Birmingham Exiles was followed by a 24-3 defeat at home to Keresley, whose forwards turned the screw on us and dominated the game. To make matters worse a trip to the Bedworth graveyard resulted in the usual outcome as Bed'th applied their usual ten-man game and restricted us to four penalty goals by Dave Brown. Despite a number of breakouts by the backs and going agonisingly close to securing the winning try, we did not get the run of the ball and lost 14-12. This put us in fifth place going into the Christmas break with promotion beginning to look unlikely.

In the NPI Cup we were drawn away at Balsall & Berkswell at their new ground. The pitch was not the best and coupled with a strong wind it made for a tight game, which we won 5-0, due to a Bill Unsworth try. Oadby Wyggestonians were beaten by 18-7 in the second round and we then came up against Ilkeston again. The Derbyshire outfit had beaten us on their way to the semi-finals the year before and they did it again with a most impressive performance, as we went down 46-5 with only a Fran Hemmings try to show for our efforts. Our first game of the new Millennium was on 3 January against Old Laurentians. It proved to be the best game of the season with both sides playing fast and open rugby. The lead changed hands several times, but as the game moved into its final stages, with the scores locked at 28-28, the Rugby side scored the winning try.

League games resumed with a 21-21 draw at Newcastle under Lyme and a comfortable 24-0 win over Evesham. The next game was at joint league leaders Shrewsbury who played the M6 card by organising a traffic jam which kept the coach stuck on the motorway for an hour and half before the game. With a late kick-off and no time to prepare we quickly conceded an 11 point lead and our problems were compounded by serious and deliberate stamping injuries to Dicky Davies and Justin French, which put them out of action for some time. Despite all these problems we almost pulled off an unlikely victory, but went down by 14-11. A disappointing 15-8 defeat at home to Old Coventrians put us down to eighth place and well out of the promotion picture, but we then had a welcome 8-7 win over Old Halesonians, followed by another against neighbours Old Leamingtonians in our first competitive game for several years. Two late tries separated the sides by 28-17. The final game was at Selly Oak, who had already won the league. Although we led at half time the champions showed their worth to win 33-22 in an excellent game. This left us in seventh place out of seventeen with 8 wins, a draw and 7 losses. To sum up the season, we were good at home but not so good away, where we suffered a number of very narrow defeats against the top sides. Although slightly short of promotion level we were perhaps better than our position suggested and had the fixtures been reversed, with more of the easier opposition played away, we might have gone close.

In the Warwickshire Cup we began with an excellent 25-18 victory over Newbold who were playing in Midlands 1. We built up a good lead with tries by Simon David, Robbie Cox and Richard Labatt and seemed to have the game in the bag, but Newbold came back and left us hanging on at the end. In the quarter- finals we went down 36-10 to Barkers Butts, although the score flattered our Midlands 1 opponents, who only pulled clear in the final minutes.

The Extras, Spartans and Stags all had successful seasons. The Extras had the best record winning 20 of their 32 games and were led again by the inspirational Dave Ward. They had a good run in the Warwickshire 2nd XV Cup, beating Shipston and Kenilworth before losing unluckily to a penalty in the last minute of the semi-final to Old Laurentians, who won the final easily. Julian Morris captained the Spartans and they had a similar record, winning 18 of their 30 games. After a number of early defeats they picked up from November onwards and won most of their matches, including big wins over Towcestrians (63-0) and Old Leamingtonians (48-5) in March. The Stags didn't have the best of seasons, winning only 10 of 23, but most of their defeats were by less than 10 points and they faced huge disruption in the turnover of players. There were good wins against Bedworth (19-7), Kings Norton (60-3) and Southam (50-0) who caught the Stags at their very best. Harbury must have had spies at the match because they played their first XV against them a few weeks later, and won 60-0. Over 80 payers turned out for the side and of those only captain Hugh Smith, Alan Phillips, John Rawlings, John Hill, Mark Jones, Bali Atwell, Mike Devlin and Des Dillon managed more than 10 games. Hugh only missed two games and that was because he had to referee them. The season ended with a mini-tour to Cambridge, with Norman David managing to sneak into the party. In addition to the Saturday sides Peter Gray again captained a popular midweek veterans' team and they lost to Rugby in the final of the Warwickshire Veterans tournament.

The player of the year was dynamic back-row forward Dewi Bassett who led the first XV for part of the season. The most improved player award was shared between second-row forward Dave Smith, who progressed through the sides into the first XV and Stuart Pearl who made a successful switch from the back row to hooker. On the representative front, James Hadfield and Jai Purewal both played for the Warwickshire senior XV and Stuart Pearl and Dave Smith played for the under-20 side. Nick Maxwell, Jai Purewal, Greg Melville, Peter Griffiths, Matt Davies, Alistair Speight, Alex Carroll and Matt Dale all played for South Warwickshire.

On the social side, Cabaret 2000 was a great success building on the popularity of the previous year with performances up to the usual high standard. Tony Barton and Mick Brain put in an appearance as "The Management" and Elvis attended for the second time. Current chairman Hugh Smith performed an excellent rendition of Whispering Grass with John Rawlings.