Club News and Events (2000-2001)

President: J Austin
Chief Executive: K Laidler
Hon. Secretary: N.S. Foster
Hon Treasurer: A. Cuthbertson
Club Captain: K Johnson
Club Coach: A. Gledson

Orbituaries

Tom Stainthorpe

Tom died peacefully at home on Wednesday 23rd May 2001 , aged 74 years. Tom has followed Tynedale for many years and not too long ago was a frequent traveller on the 1st XV away trips. In recent years Tom was responsible for the manning of the gates until illness forced him to stand down. Tom's cheery, friendly personality will be sadly missed.

John (Jack) Charlton

Peacefully in hospital after a short illness on November 11th 2000, aged 74 years. Jack played with distinction for Tynedale in the post-war years and captained the club in 1955.

Andrew Fisher

The Club was stunned to learn of the tragic death of Andrew after a "hit and run" incident in the early hours of Sunday 17th September 2000. Andrew was a very likeable quiet young prop who joined the club last season and played for our Hadrians XV.

Keith Millar

Keith, our Club Steward, and Liz's husband, died suddenly on Friday 21st July 2000 at the age of 41.

Iain "Chippy" McConnell-Wood

Chippy died suddenly whilst at Henley Regatta in late June, aged 67. Chippy had a noteworthy playing career as a formidable prop forward where he served the club with distinction at every level. Chippy for a period was also a past vice-president of the club.

Bits and Pieces

England Training at Tynedale

Tynedale Rugby club hosted the England "A" squad at Corbridge for their training build up prior to the "A" international between England and Scotland.

The squad, which bristled with top level up and coming players and experienced internationals arrived at Corbridge on Tuesday February 27th complete with an array of training equipment, coaches and an extensive support team.

Unfortunately the severe weather conditions curtailed several of the intended sessions and cumulated in the actual match being switched from Kingston Park to Headingley.

Tynedale were delighted to have been chosen as a training venue at international level, it is a great start to Tynedale's 125th anniversary year and further raises the profile of the club which has thriving sections at mini, junior, junior girls, colts and senior levels.

Female Rugby - Historic First Fixture

History was made at Tynedale Rugby Club on Saturday 13th January 2001 when the Club's first ever girls contact rugby fixture took place between Tynedale's Under 16 West Northumberland side and Westoe based South Tyneside, Blyth also provided players for the South Tyneside team. Tynedale have been delighted by the high numbers turning out at the recent training sessions and the high calibre of the players, the players were true to form and produced a great performance to win the game by 8 tries to 3.

Both teams enjoyed the game and a return match will be played before the end of the season, however the weekend did not stop there! The following day the players attended trials for the North East regional squad, incredibly 11 players from West Northumberland were chosen, representing almost 50% of the total selected!

The success of this first historic weekend of girls rugby cannot be denied, in addition to the 22 West Northumberland players that took part, there has been a surge interest from girls in year 8 from Middle schools in the district. Tynedale are busily building up a big support team to firmly establish the girls rugby section for years to come.

Finally, a further point for the history books - 8 West Northumberland players were founder members at the West Tynedale club based at Haydon Bridge High school back in the middle nineties - well done West Tynedale!

Sat Jan 27th - Tynedale 88 v Durham 0

Tynedale - the family club

The 1st XV which started the match at Walsall on Saurday 14th October 2000 contained no less than three sets of brothers.

The "veteran" Parker brothers, Richard and Edward, have played together for many years in the front row and Mark and John Fletcher have played together many times during more recent seasons (Mark's the prop!). The new pairing of brothers against Walsall was skipper Keith Johnson and his younger brother Alistair who was making his first senior start.

A fourth set of brothers should shortly be a feature in Tynedale senior side with young Andrew Murray (who was on the bench against Walsall) pushing for a regular 1stXV spot whilst elder brother Jamie (who was an established 1st teamer prior to injury) should be fit in the new year.

An analysis of the starting line up against Walsall emphasises the importance of Tynedale's feeder system - namely the Colts, the local schools, and the mini/junior section -twelve of the fifteen players who started the match were "home grown".

Cup History

Tynedale 12 v Worcester 76 - Nov 4th 2001

Tynedale won through to the fourth round of the Tetley Bitter Cup for the first time in the Club's history and were drawn at home to National Division One leaders Worcester.

The huge gap between a full-time professional Worcester side and Tynedale was cruelly emphasised in this match when a brave Tynedale side was taken apart by a slick moving Worcester side who were drawn against giants Saracens in the fifth round. The scoreline, whilst probably a record reverse for Tynedale, was no cause for embarrassment as this Worcester side as shown they can take apart teams with a far higher league standing than Tynedale in a similar fashion.

Adrian Skeggs (the Worcester Coach) had a bit to say about Tynedale in his column in the Worcester Evening News :-

"...It's fair to say they don't get any bigger than Saracens but
I must say I was impressed with our hosts on Saturday at
Tynedale. They are a great example of how an amateur rugby club
should be run. They have four or five pitches there, have got it
all there for the juniors and they've got senior teams as well.
They had the real down-to-earth values of a proper club and that
to me was fantastic, it is a great place. It was a fantastic
experience to go to a club like that and all their players never
let their heads drop despite the hefty defeat... "

Overall it was a proud day for the Club and many friends were made as can be seen from the following communications received following the match:-

Subj: Thank You
Date: 06/11/00 08:36:16
From: rugby@wrfc.co.uk (Nicky Goodwin - Worcester Rugby)
To: tynedalrfc@aol.com
Dear Tynedale fans, players and committee members
Thank you for your kind messages, it was a pleasure to visit your ground and we wish
the very best success for the future. Long live English cup rugby!
Best Wishes
Worcester Rugby Club

 

Worcester visitors
Mary --&-- Steve
8:56 pm sunday november 5, 2000
What a fantastic day at Tynedale.
Thank you to all who made it such a great day out.
Best of luck in the League.
We hope to visit you again or see you at Sixways so we can
return the hospitality.

 

Thanks for a nice day out TRFC, apart from the 11 hours
travelling, I think we all had a good day.
You have a nice club there, we were made to feel very welcome BUT
one 'small' complaint!
Why did 'some of us' have to walk back to the entrance to pay??
It was a bit embarassing to have to say to the people on the
gate "We appear to have got in for nothing, how much is it?" and
then pay our admission. We could have had a 'free day'!
It was going to be a good payday for your club, and we HAD to
search out someone to pay! I know that a lot of Worcester fans
did this, but I'm sure a few of them (and your fans) 'didn't'!
(=Loss of revenue for your club)
My idea for better organisation in the future could mean
collecting the admission charges from the clubhouse area, buy
your ticket/programme with the first beer!
Seriously though... Thanks for a good day out. Best wishes to
your club and players for a sucessful season.

 

Good effort Tynedale especially bearing in mind that Worcester put out a full
strength side (apart from not having an uninjured a fly half).
I expected the committment, but was surpised by the level of
fitness maintained into the second half - a tribute to your
coaches.
A very pleasant part of the country - and you even put on ideal
autumn weather. My only complaint is that you managed to run
out of Black Sheep *before* the match started - did you forget
to mention to the Steward that there might be an extra one or
two in the crowd today?

 

Reply-to: TonyBanks1@compuserve.com
To: Tynedalrfc@aol.com
Time: Mon, 06-Nov-2000 18:55:22
Many thanks to all at TRFC for the superb hospitality &
friendship extended to us Worcester supporters on Saturday. You
have an absolutely superb club, and there was a feeling of
warmth from the moment we arrived (and that wasn't caused by
the 'Black Sheep'!).
We hope that we will in the not too distant future be able to
repay your hospitality if we get the opportunity to welcome you
to Sixways.
Best wishes for a very successful League season.

 

Subj: Thanks...and a message for Tony Curtis.
Date: 09/11/00 14:00:06 GMT Standard Time
From: dave.bradley@bbc.co.uk (Dave Bradley)
To: tynedalrfc@aol.com ('tynedalrfc@aol.com')
Thanks to all at Tynedale for a smashing day out on Saturday. Ok so
Worcester won but as soon as we walked into the ground we were met with
friendly faces, had a good natter with a lot of locals, sat in the stand
where a very nice lady handed out the sweets, bit of banter, and a hot toddy
afterwards. In fact we stayed at Haltwhistle, then Slaley Hall and went up
to Bamburgh for the Monday, nearly blew our heads off but a great week-end.
One of the guys I chatted to in the bar was Tony Curtis, and we found his
mom was born in the same village as myself, Martely, where the big green
lorries come from (although his Mom was born a long time before me!).
Could someone pass on that my dad remembers Tony's family well, he even
recalls her Dad, Tony's granddad, looking after the horses, and the house
they lived in, much rebuilt it has to be said, is now the home of Steve
Taylor, who runs the lorry business now Dad Don has retired.
Don by the way is a big Worcester Rugby Supporter and will have been
disappointed to miss out on the week-end 'up North'.
Thanks again to everyone on Saturday, I can honestly say I would much sooner
come to Tynedale than go to Watford on Sunday with those snobs from
Saracens.
Hope to see you all again someday.
Dave Bradley
Producer/Presenter
BBC Hereford and Worcester

Player Records

38 different players represented the 1stXV (from 22 matches) whilst 67 different players represented the Raiders (from 18 matches).

The 1stXV's top points scorer is Alan 'Remi' Moses with 206 points (including 6 drop goals) whilst the top try scorer was Simon Clayton-Hibbott with 7 tries. For the Raiders, Simon Allen was top points scorer with 101 points whilst Paul Rigby was top try scorers with 9 tries.

International Schools Rugby Competition

Colsten Collegiate, Bristol won the second International Schools Tournament hosted by Tynedale over the weekend of September 2nd & 3rd 2000. They defeated a Connacht Schools XV from Ireland 15-0 in the final to end an exciting day's rugby. (see full results)

Sixteen schools from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland took part in the competition which was won in 1999 by Scottish Champions Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh. Chris Davey of Kings School Tynemouth described the event as "probably the best schools tournament in the country, as it has attracted top class schools".

The final of the tournament was refereed by Ian Ramage, Scotland's World Cup referee whilst the trophies were presented by Dodie Weir (Newcastle Falcons & Scotland) and Epi Taione (Newcastle Falcons, Tonga & ex-Tynedale).

Tynedale District Council presented each school with a framed certificate and donated the winner's cup which was presented to Colston.

Runners up Connacht Schools were presented with the Hexham Courant Cup.

Edinburgh Academy received the Newcastle Building Society Plate trophy and Tynedale Schools the JustSport shield as runners-up in the Plate competition.

The sixteen schools taking part in this year's competition were:-

England
St Edwards, Oxford
The Royal Grammar School, Newcastle
Kings School, Tynemouth
Dame Allan's School, Newcastle
Colston Collegiate, Bristol
Barnard Castle School, Durham
Yarm School, Yorkshire
Arnold School, Blackpool
Rossall School, Fleetwood
The Tynedale Schools XV
Scotland
Fettes College, Edinburgh
Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh
Edinburgh Academy
Wales
Glantof, Cardiff
Christ College, Brechon
Ireland
Connacht Schools
 
This year's full programme included:-
Saturday 2nd September
Coaching - at TRFC
Barbecue - at TRFC (7.30pm start)
Entertainment by The Steel Panners from Haydon Bridge High School
Sunday 3rd September
Rugby Competition (10.30am - 6.00pm)
 
Click to view full results
 

The Tournament was partially sponsored by:-

Wm Thompson of Prudhoe
Grant Thornton
The Territorial Army
Robson Print
Polar Crush
Edwin Doran Sports Travel
The Boys Brigade
 

Andrew Blyth

Andrew suffered a serious neck injury whilst playing for Sale against Saracens on Sunday 12 March 2000. Although Andrew did not suffer any broken bones there was damage to Andrew's spinal chord which meant he had no feeling from the neck down.

Thursday 2nd November 2000

Andrew left hospital and has returned to Ian and Val's at Hexham. Andrew has made great progress and can walk with the aid of his crutches. He will continue with his physio treatment as an out-patient at Hexham Hospital

Sunday 26th November 2000

Andrew was at yesterday's match at Tynedale against Sedgley Park and was going well. He seems to get around on his crutches without apparent difficulty, an activity which appears to give him quite a thirst!

An article by Andrew features in issue 3 of the Tynedale Newsletter - Click Here to view the article.

Note: Click Here to visit Andrew's website