This afternoon we welcome President Gordon Leitch and other friends from Riverside Park. Jedforest are sadly struggling this season but we will still be in for a tough Border derby which will be played for custody of the Skelly Cup.
Our Club Doctor Morag Robertson is moving north in the New Year and at today’s hospitality lunch we had the opportunity to say a huge thank you to her for the countless unpaid hours she has so willingly devoted to our players over the last thirteen years. Mansfield Park just won’t be the same without you, Morag. We wish you well and in the words of the auld Scots song we hope that “ee’re no awa’ ti bide awa’” and that “ee’ll aye come back and see us”.
It was disappointing that our game against Currie couldn’t go ahead last Saturday. It has now been re-scheduled for Saturday 6th January. The Force boys also had a weekend without a game but they are very much on course for being crowned champions of this season’s very successful resuscitated Borders Junior League. It’s good to see both the Linden and the Quins being competitive in their League and huge congratulations to Hawick Youth on their under-16s and under-18s teams winning their semi-finals in the National Youth Cup and the National Youth Shield respectively.
There is a great family atmosphere about the Club and we are going to be hosting a Christmas party for the children on Sunday 17th December. We are also having a Family Day on Boxing Day and a disco at night – watch out for further details on the Club’s social media.
Our 150th anniversary “Voices of Hawick Rugby” book is selling well. It would make an ideal Christmas present. It costs £25 and is available from the Club shop, Dorward’s, ILF Imaging or Bannerman Burke. Boxing Day was traditionally the date when Hawick played Jedforest. Sadly that is no longer the case as life has moved on. In the book that great Jed stalwart Donald Miller recalls a very personal memory of his first Boxing Day game –
“I’ll never ever forget it. This was my debut against the Scottish Champions directly facing the Scottish stand-off Colin Telfer. Most kids can’t sleep the night before Christmas but I couldn’t sleep on Christmas night such was the excitement of playing Hawick tomorrow. I honestly can’t remember too much about the game but as it entered the last 5 minutes I had not one but two chances to win the game with difficult but definitely kickable penalties. Sadly, the nerves got to me and I missed both chances and the game finished 12-12. I have never felt as down as I did in our changing room as there were guys in that room that had never beaten Hawick in their career and I had just cost them that opportunity. I didn’t want to go into the bar after the game to face the Jed supporters that I had let down, but it was the done thing in those days to buy your opposite number a beer. I hadn’t been in the bar long when from nowhere appeared Colin Telfer with two beers in his hands. He knew exactly how I felt and spent the next hour cheering me up, pointing out the things I had done well during the game and highlighting things I needed to work on to become a better player. I had never met Colin before and it blew me away that a Scottish internationalist took the time to seek me out and spend an hour of his time to cheer up a young lad he didn’t even know before the game. And cheer me up he did leaving me with my admiration and gratitude for the man that he was. He helped shape not only my career as a rugby player but me as a person and I will be eternally grateful for that.”
That sums up the spirit of this great game of ours. Long may it prevail.
