Volume 3, Episode 2

Autumnal meanderings

Dearly bee-loved, its week 5 of the 22/23 season already, and at half time on Saturday we will have completed exactly a quarter of our scheduled playing time in league competition for this season. I have waited until this point in the season to make any further Presidential Pronouncement following my initial meanderings back in June, as, after last season’s traumas, I thought it was only fair to allow this season’s squad and management team some time to bed in.

Obviously, none of us are delighted with the results so far and four losses from four fixtures tells its own story. However, it is far from doom and gloom at the Hive. The boys have shown some patches of form, individually and collectively. Thus far, aside from the not too pleasant results, the general feeling is that we are “not far off” from being competitive. We are possibly not helped by the fixture list throwing us another game against an undefeated opponent in Moortown, this Saturday, after our game against table toppers, M&N, last week. But, and that’s a big but, I believe we are on a far firmer footing this season than we were last while retaining the core of players who stayed with it week and week out and through thin and thinner last year.

After this Saturday’s joust with Moortown, we get a week off (Saturday 8th October) and our next fixtures are against two of the sides immediately above us. Morley on Saturday 15th October, over at their spot - followed by a home tussle with Old Crossleyans at Wagon Lane on the 22nd.

Morley have won a single fixture from the three they have played. They gave Old Crocs a thick ear to the tune of 45-10 in the season opener but have since finished second against Pontefract (28-10) and Scarborough (22-19). Their fixture against Pocklington on 10th September was postponed as a mark of respect to the passing of the Queen. They play Selby at Selby on Saturday.

Crossleyans have played three of their four fixtures on their own patch and have lost all four games. Their home defeats were against Morley (45-10), Old Brods (16-12) and Pontefract (30-12). Their one road trip was a 59-17 defeat at Pocklington. They face a road trip to Scarborough on Saturday.

It goes without saying that if we at the Bees are going to dig our way out from the hole we are currently in we need to target the “low hanging fruit” of the sides immediately above us and also start to win our home games. Moortown are obviously going to present a tall order this week, but the rest of the season starts here, and we remain optimistic, with 18 league games still on the slate.

We had encouraging numbers of players coming to the club during pre-season and aside from the very obvious challenge of getting that first “w”, a major focus is to get a decent second team out as often as we can to underpin the Senior XV. We need that Second XV to get as many players as possible getting a game every week and to act as a conduit to players stepping up from the Colts, while still being an integral part of the social fabric at Wagon Lane.

Bizarrely, I know we already have 51 Senior players registered with the RFU on the Game Management System (GMS) aged between 18 and 32. However, over the opening weeks of the season, we seem to have had at least 25 of those declaring themselves unavailable, which is a phenomenon I simply can’t understand. This reluctance to pull your boots on must at least in part explain why we are currently not seeing a regular Seconds on the park. However, we have a squad running out at Heath this weekend, so possibly a corner has been turned.

Anyway, moving on to a more positive outlook…There are new faces in the Senior Squad this term and we have more to come as the Rugby League and Cricket seasons have now finished. The sad demise of Old Grovians has helped us, with three of their number having already featured for us as new players – Joe Simpson in the centre and Jimmy Nicholas and Innocent Mazhambe in the back row. I believe there are two or three more OGs available to us, with possibly another brace pulling their boots on this weekend. We also saw the return of the DeVittoris brothers, at least one of whom was a member of the OGs last season..and not forgetting the return of our token Welshman, Mr Alastair MaDonald who has rejoined us as forwards coach. Despite his insistence that he had hung up his boots, Ali put in a fine shift last weekend over at Malton when pressed into service.

Grovians have not been our only source of fresh blood. Aiden Scully returned to us last week after about a decade on the dark side playing Rugby League and I understand he may have persuaded one or two more players from the 13 a-side game to come down to Wagon Lane, with possibly one of that number making a debut for us this week - a large Australian gentleman it is rumoured.

Away from the playing side of things, the return of the Bingley Weekender helped to shore up the club’s finances and we are currently engaged in a programme of refurbishment, largely financed by the Weekender monies, to improve our facilities. Those improvements, we believe, will help us grow as a business and guarantee that we have a sustainable Rugby Club for years to come.

We are focussing initially on the “top room” at the club as that is where we draw most of our income from functions and other events. I have heard mutterings from certain quarters that the club will not look like a rugby club when we have finished with the new décor, but unfortunately the reality of life in 2022 is that just being a “Rugby Club” will simply not hack it. Yes, the club used to be massively busy back in the 80s, but according to my fingers and toes, we are 32 years removed from the Eighties and we don’t field six sides every Saturday like we did. So, the income generated from club members and regular rugby followers simply does not keep the lights on and we must pull in money from wherever we can.

However, we are intending to keep the “bottom bar” very much a clubhouse style bar and we are currently looking at the feasibility of extending the opening hours for that bar, and to try and build up our “regulars” who may or may not really have much connection to Bradford and Bingley RFC.

We hope to have “phase one” of the refurb complete in time for the England v All Blacks game on Saturday November 26th. The Bees host Selby that day too. So the plan would be that we will have a pre-match lunch which gets you into the club for the day. At 2.15 we host Selby. Then at about 5pm or so, the All Blacks game is on the Telly and if that wasn’t enough we have a band, The 1960Four on at night. Be there or be rectangular.