My memories of this season can be encapsulated by the weather in what would become my final game of the 2019/20 season for Uxbridge. I was dehydrated from the sun that morning, drenched from the tepid rain that had engulfed our warm up, my skin stung as hail whipped me and I was shivering from the vicious cross wind that howled across the pitch.

I looked across at my teammates with that odd sense of pride that comes from having just played a bruising game in these sorts of conditions, a game we were about to triumph in- and it strikes me now that the different extremes of weather and the tangled way the game against West London had gone that day mirrors our season.

Sport is a microcosm for life; the highs and lows, the old and new, the efforts and the lulls, the spectacular and the mundane, all so often protracted in our day to day lives, are played out at ferocious speed between kick off and full time.

That final game, as well as the 2019/20 season for me had all those back and forth elements; I was saddened when stalwart and skipper Jake Lamport moved on, but excited at getting to play a full season with new captain Ieaun Jones, and so pleased for Matt Cowper when the tempestuous green and white sea of Ealing opened up for him in that diaphanous stadium; yet so appalled by the intercepted pass that led to the try that took the game away from us (thrown by me, but that’s just a minor detail).

These ebbs and flows of rugby matches and seasons that seem to hyper-lapse life also embody themselves in what our squad of young and not so young have achieved this season: of those new to the game it has been a pleasure to watch Graeme Bartlett grow and grow on the wing, and to be there when Adam Dender finally learnt to catch and barge through a tackle at the same time.

Of those who have been playing a while, both Kyle Buckingham and Simon Coldwell have rolled back the years with stints in the centres and even Gareth Wiggins managed a cameo. And those somewhere in the middle? Matt Coker’s purple patch at the beginning of the season of try after try will always inspire, as will the memory of a superbly worked team try against Cuffley being finished in the corner by Dan Evans.

I feel that this season has been a bridge between so much of the club’s tradition and all of the future that it promises. A few seasons ago I played in Mark Davey’s final game for Uxbridge and was on the receiving end of what was probably his final pass (he didn’t make many), I’m honoured to have passed the ball on to his son Jack numerous times this season too.

This season has gone from one extreme to another, but was ultimately well balanced and we can be rightly proud of fourth and rightly disappointed it wasn’t higher, which leads me to my final musing.

In the scorching heat of the first game of the season I’d made a break and was pegged 10 metres later, “a few years ago you’d have made that,” observed Niall McLoughlin as I panted past him back into position. It made me think, “Could this be my last season? I have a family now, work is creeping into my weekend and more aches and pains on a Sunday than ever before.”

On balance the to-and-froing of this season, the old and the new, the satisfaction and the hunger for more means I know I won’t be hanging my boots up just yet. And McLoughlin, a few years ago I wouldn’t have made that break last either!

Roll on next season, roll on this exciting and evolving team, and roll on the ebbs and flows that make up this benevolent and brutal sport.

Tom Rainey

Year 5 Class Teacher