In every club in the land, there are unsung heroes. They beaver away in the background, mostly unacknowledged, but without them, these clubs would be all the poorer. One such ‘unsung hero’ is John Taylor, who has been fixture secretary at Vigo RFC for 4 decades. To a certain extent, I think John probably enjoyed the old days before the Leagues (Sorry, Rita, I have to go to the Fixture Exchange again. Oh dear. Such an imposition having to spend hours in the pub trying to arrange fixtures !!!!) every now an again, John would come up with some real doozies – Rosslyn Park III, or Harlequins Vets,or some team that no-one had ever heard of and turned out to be Rehabilitating Psychopath and Serial Killers First XV – but mostly John got it just right. I am sorry to see him go, but obviously 40 odd years is pushing it a bit really. I asked John for a few words and here they are

By the end of this season, I will have served 42 years as fixture secretary. During that time the system of arranging fixtures has changed out of all recognition. In the early days fixtures were arranged by visits to the London Fixture Exchange at Caxton Hall, by telephone, or sometimes by post. This led to some very interesting fixtures against sides such as Rosslyn Park, where our first team would play Rosslyn Park 4ths. Travel in those days into London was a little easier, although would still take often much more than one hour. It was also difficult to gauge the strength of some sides and it was not easy to approach some of the more elite clubs to request fixtures, especially as our facilities at certain times in our history were very limited, not to mention the challenging pub licensing hours (the Vigo and other pubs opening at 6.00pm).
With the relatively recent development of leagues, the arranging of the bulk of the fixtures is done by the league organisers, just leaving me to arrange a number of friendly fixtures. One of the great inventions for me has been the text. This means that you can arrange and confirm fixtures without having to wait to speak to someone and with both sides having written confirmation of the arrangements, although this means that much of the original personal contact is lost. This is why I always try to attend the fixture league meetings in June each year, both to arrange friendly fixtures and to meet the other fixtures secretaries.
As regards our club, It has been a pleasure and honour to work with such a committed and dedicated team of committee members and captains over the years who have worked towards creating the club and the facilities we have today.
The only problem is that most clubs, including ours, are not able to field the number of sides that were possible 25 years ago. This is a pity as it means that less people are able to enjoy the game and the camaraderie that we shared at that time.
I wish Vigo every success for the future and I look forward to coming to watch games without having to arrange them first.

So, on behalf of all of the Club members, all the players and spectators, thanks, John. You deserve a rest.