The Bromley District Rugby Squads, supported by the Bromley Rugby Development Group (BRDG), were made up of young players who had been to Kent County trials, but had not made the final Kent squads for their age groups. The squad receive additional coaching and a team was selected to represent the borough.

The process began in 2006 and was helped along by a grant of £5,000 from the National Lottery’s ‘Awards for All’ programme. The grant was awarded to establish district sides at Under 14, 15 and 16 and was used to purchase essential equipment, kit and coaching. The original clubs making up the BRDG were Beccehamians RFC, Beckenham RFC, Bromley RFC, Old Elthamians RFC, Orpington RFC, Park House RFC and Westcombe Park RFC.

The idea was to support the development of talented sub-county players in these age groups and provide additional coaching to help move them closer to county level and provide games at a level above club level.

The BRDG had played fixtures against West Kent, which had been formed by Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge Juddians, Aylesford, Cranbrook and Seven Oaks. Nigel was encouraging the formation of two further districts East Kent and Kent Metropolitan and was being supported by Kent Rugby.

Within the squad I coached at my own club (Whitstable)at the time of the meeting we had 4 – 5 players that were clearly at a level above the rest of the squad and yet despite 2 making it to the final county trial none were selected. As such they were back at Whitstable playing with their team mates. It might have been no coincidence that within 6 months of the final trail one of the two had decided to give up rugby.

I quickly concluded that this regional rugby was a perfect concept to move players to a level above club rugby. I moved quickly across the room to intercept Nigel and find out some more details, I was followed by Roger Dengate, but both of us were too slow Bob Russell of Canterbury had already grabbed Nigel. We all sat down with Nigel who was fantastic, he agreed to share with us the documentation the BRDG had generated and outlined briefly how he had gone about organising the BRDG. Bob, Roger and I all agreed this was a great idea, but disagreed how to go about organising it, Bob favoured writing to the chairman of the Junior sections of the clubs in East Kent, I wanted to bring together club coaching coordinators and coaches and Roger felt the East Kent fixture group should be involved.

There was one thing we felt very strongly about and that was that one club could not be seen to be leading or running the process, it had to be a multi club effort.

The first meeting on the 5th February turned out to be made up of people with a mix of roles from the various clubs. Not everybody shared the same evangelic zeal as Bob, Roger and myself had developed following Nigel’s presentation but we did our best to pass on his enthusiasm.

We met again on the 12th February with representatives present from Ashford, Canterbury, Folkestone, Sittingbourne, Thanet and Whitstable. One of the key points that BRDG had insisted upon was that no coach who had a child in the age group could coach that age group in the region to avoid accusations of nepotism. The BRDG model called for a manager of each age group a lead coach who ideally should be a level 2 coach and two assistant coaches. There should also be a Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary for the region to take care of administration.

Here we hit our first stumbling blocks, we did not have enough level 2 coaches and we had coaches arguing against coaching a different age group to the one they were familiar with. They pointed out that knowing the best players in the age group was a positive. We appointed Bob as Chairman as he was the man willing to the job. I was to lead the U16 group assisted by Joe Connelly of Ashford, Jez Michaels of Canterbury was to lead the U15’s, and Bob would lead the U14 age group assisted by Neil Beech of Ashford and another as yet unidentified Canterbury coach. The names of all the players in the area nominated by their clubs that had failed to get into the county were held by the Kent RFU office.

Bob generated an invitation letter and Sylvia Taylor sent them out from the Kent RFU. The next issue was floodlights and access to them. In the end we agreed to run the training sessions on a Wednesday through March and April up to the two games we would organise with BRDG and West Kent at Canterbury for the U14,s at Ashford for the U15’s and at Thanet for the U16’s.

There was a train of thought to put the process off until next season, but others felt that having come this far and having reached a consensus we should go for it accepting that there would be things wrong but using 2008 as a learning process.

The response to the invitation was good from the U14 and U15 players, but only 5 responded from the U16 group, as a result we decided not to run U16’s in 2009.

Due his deteriorating health Bob called me and asked me to coach the U14 squad together with Joe Connelly, it was not ideal as both Joe and I had players in the U14 squad, but Bob felt that Neil Beech would keep us honest which he did.

From the player details available, we knew that we were short of props, locks and centre’s and so we asked all clubs to send along players in these positions that were top players but had missed out on selection for a county trial. As a result we ended up with around 36 players at the first training session.

We started every session with a 20 minute warm up before splitting into backs and forwards, coming together for the last 30 minutes to play a controlled game. The session began at 7:30 P.M. and ended at 9:00 P.M. This quickly revealed a need for equipment, bibs (strong enough to play in ), balls, cones, tackle shields and bags, etc. As club coaches we had some of this kit and made do as best we could.

The intensity of the rugby was extraordinary compared to club rugby, the first sessions were like trials with everybody being greedy and trying to run in their own, but that settled down after a couple of weeks as the players got to know each other and started to work together and to work out each others levels.

Bob had been assured that shirts would be made available by the county for the games, but as the first game approached against Bromley we were unable to get hold of any shirts. In the end the U15’s played in Ashford shirts and the U14’s borrowed a set of red training shirts from Bromley district. The U14 team had no water bottles and the food and drink at Canterbury was organised and provided by the coaches and their families with equipment borrowed from other clubs.

The U15 team faired better at Ashford as food was laid on by Ashford RFC.

Both the matches for both age groups against Bromley and West Kent were close run. The rugby was played at a high level and despite being formed at break neck speed our sides were competitive with the best non county players in the other regions.

After the first games against Bromley district, the games against West Kent were just as enjoyable and if anything the standard of rugby moved up another level.

Sadly shortly before the matches with West Kent Bob Russell passed away, had he been able to attend the East Kent matches I know he would have been extremely pleased to see young players from all over our region come out and play such fantastic rugby.

What was most impressive was the positive feedback from players and parents there was real enthusiasm for the set up and the opportunities it gave to the players. It was great to work with a player who was one of the best in his club team, but who had some core skills issues that kept him out of the match day 22 for the first match day and to be able to pick him to start 4 weeks later because he had fixed the issues during his time with the East Kent squad.

The East Kent U14 and U15 teams were established that season due to the good will and hard work of a few people, in order for it to become a permanent setup we have to establish a more solid framework going forward.

We played players on match day from every team involved in the district on merit.

Given the positive feedback from all concerned every year I very much feel the district side is a good thing, but it requires the support of the clubs and more importantly the people in the clubs to do this.

We need to identify and appoint new chairman, secretaries and treasurers on a regular basis as well as other committee members. We need to identify and persuade the best coaches that we can get to lead the coaching teams as well as appointing team managers for each team.

If you feel the urge to help out don't hesitate to get in touch with us you will not be disappointed.

Tony Taylor