President’s Report from the AGM

After the previous season’s frustration with so many matches being called off, the Border Junior League was formed and the Force have had an excellent season, winning both the new league and the Border Junior League Cup. The games being played on Friday nights has given members the chance to support both our teams. Coach Matt Landels, team manager Shovie Colville and the Force’s great champion Rory deserve our congratulations for this season’s great achievement.

I’d like to say a big thank you to our club doctor Morag and the other members of our medical team. By and large we were fortunate for injuries this season, but they played a vital role in getting our teams fit to take the field. We wish Morag well for her move north and with her continuing rugby medical career. She will always be welcome back at Mansfield Park.

The Flood Protection Scheme has continued to be the bane of our existence. Although still a fair bit away, we are hopefully not far from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. By the end of the year we should have a new wall at the river side of the ground, a new entrance gate, hopefully the road in front of the stand will have been re-tarred and through time we will have a landscaped area between the turnstiles and the clubrooms appropriately to be called “The Green”.

Off the field, a lot of work has been done. Grants from the SRU have helped us replace the old floodlights which were no longer fit for purpose and the marked improvement has been there literally for all to see at our night games. And work has been done, and is ongoing under the stand, to improve the changing rooms and other facilities. We are in the process of changing the Gents toilet to a disabled one. In response to a request from members the club are in dialogue with Turnbull and Scott with regard to installing a hand rail to assist entry to and exit from the stand. We have been promised a generous donation to help with this for which we are very grateful. We are also in the preliminary stage of providing a small playpark for the many children of players who now come to the games and create a great family atmosphere. At this point it is also good to highlight our establishing closer links with the Minis who have provided a guard of honour before several home matches.

We are also delighted that Mansfield is now home for the CLAN and if you have never been to watch their inclusive games this is something you should rectify. You will witness the true spirit of rugby and the joy that the game can bring.

Congratulations go as ever to our international representatives. Darcy has had a tough season with injury. We wish him well for the season ahead when hopefully a good Six Nations performance might see him in contention to become our next British and Irish Lion. It’s great to see Rory back in a Scotland jersey, Marcus and Hector are being rightly recognised by the scottish under-20s selectors and Lisa and Lana continue to do themselves, their families and the town proud, starring for the Scottish women’s team and it’s brilliant that Lisa is going to be in Paris with the British Olympic Sevens team. We wish her well. We also congratulate again those who this season received long overdue retrospective caps.

Mention of Sevens links in to our annual tournament reverting to its traditional April date. We had a successful tournament both on the field and financially in no small measure due to the Ladies Day for which Lauren Grant deserves our grateful thanks.

I’d like to thank all our sponsors without whom the club could not survive and also the Green Room who are great supporters of the club and we are very grateful for the financial donation they make every season.

The club are indebted to our clubhouse duo, Debbie, who unfailingly continues to conjure up culinary delights and Lindsey, who quietly and efficiently keeps us well watered. Craig Girvan is another great asset – never forget that their reputation for excellence attracts weddings and functions to Mansfield bringing in much needed revenue without which the club would struggle to continue.

I’d like to say a big thank you to the hard-working club committee and the sub-committees for all they have done and continue to do. We are an increasingly depleted band and we would be very grateful for reinforcements. This season we have lost three committee folk, Rob Douglas, who did a power of unglamorous work behind the scenes particularly on match days, Lynsey Neish, who was a key member of our medical team, and my wife Margaret, who was also our efficient minute secretary. We thank them for all they have done over the years.

My thanks go to past-President Rory who is always there when the club needs legal advice, to Roger for his work on the stand inspection and to him and his wife Ang, who are stepping back from their sterling work with the club shop; to Eileen for all she has done to make our hospitality lunches the great success they have been; to the two Hamiltons, new boy Gary and old boy Neil and really old boy Roy for their valuable support; to Gus for his meticulous work as membership secretary – in passing “clubzapp” has been a great innovation this season; consider downloading the app if you haven’t already done so; to Michael for manning the turnstiles so dependably with the help of Gordon, Robert, Stewart and Frankie, and to David for his careful and precise match day planning sheets, his handling of international ticket enquiries and to Jill and him for running the 200 Club; to Kevin Reid for all his work with the kit; to team manager Mick Gillan; to the many volunteers who give up their time to ensure match days go smoothly; to Dave Toogood and the other members of the Maintenance Crew, who keep the old ground spick and span and save the club a lot of money; to announcer Ned, to video man Ashley, to Rhys for his website help, to ace raffle ticket seller Maureen. We are blessed with all these willing volunteers, but we could always do with some more, so if you think you could help in some way, however small, please let us know.

I’m grateful to past president Neil Hamilton for giving me the opportunity to be President of this great club. He said it was thought that, as a historian, I would be a good man to be at the helm to co-ordinate this season’s 150^th Anniversary commemoration, and as usual I failed to find the word that gets ee oot o a’ sorts o difficulties – the wee word “no”.

How most fittingly to celebrate the 150^th Anniversary of the club engaged the minds of our HRFC 150 sub-committee for three years beforehand. There were many dreams and schemes suggested and many ideas didn’t come to fruition, but many did: the mural, unveiled by Greens legend Kevin Reid has been much admired; the re-enactment of the first ever game against Langholm with players in period dress playing, or at least supposed to be, to the laws of 1874, drew a large crowd to the cricket field and was greatly enjoyed by players and spectators alike.

The two great exhibitions celebrating what would have been Bill McLaren’s 100th birthday and Hawick RFC’s sesqui-centenary, attracted appreciative visitors to Hawick Museum. Curator Shona Sinclair and her staff, Murray Watson and past-President Ross Cameron put in a power of work to make these exhibitions two of the finest ever mounted in Hawick Museum. Murray was also co-editor with me of the “Voices of Hawick Rugby” book, in which over 170 folk associated with the club down the years shared what Hawick RFC meant or means to them. The book has sold well and had great feedback.

Appropriately, on the 11^th of November, a memorial bench was unveiled to remember the many club players and members who paid the supreme sacrifice in the two great Wars of last century. Now thanks to Bernie Armstrong, they have a superbly crafted memorial seat overlooking the Mansfield turf which meant so much to them.

Our Celebratory Dinner in the marquee on the pitch, was years in the planning and was truly a night which the almost six hundred people privileged to attend will never forget – a truly special occasion. a huge thank you must go to the Dinner sub-committee, for the countless hours of planning and organisation that went into organising this event. The big raffle; the lecture by Ron Smith and Allan McCredie; and club captain Shawn laying a wreath at the grave of Robert Michie who captained the first ever Hawick team, all added to the commemoration. It had been intended to play a Hawick v The South match, to culminate the celebration, but sadly fatigue at the end of a far too long season put paid to this. We still hope through time to be able to get the last piece into the 150th jigsaw if Hawick’s Flood Protection Scheme is ever completed. We intend then to instal an entrance pathway with all our internationalists names on individual stones along the lines of the hollywood “walk of fame”.

It is our hope that our 150^th Anniversary Commemoration has done justice to the players, including my great-grandfather, who pulled on the Hawick jersey in that first ever game on February 7^th, 1874.  I am sure they would have been pleased to know that a century and a half on from its founding, the club would still be going strong and be renowned throughout the rugby playing world.

Hawick Rugby Football Club, with its tremendous history and heritage, has a heart which still beats as strongly as it ever did, as has been evidenced by our teams winning four trophies out of five this season. As mentioned, there is a great family atmosphere at Mansfield Park, and when we see the players’ children run onto the pitch to greet their Dads at the end of the game, we know that the future is bright, indeed the future is green. On the field we have a very challenging season ahead, but with your support I am confident that the boys will once again do the club proud. My personal thanks to you all for your support and encouragement. Here endeth the president’s report.