Monday 3rd May 2004
A crack of dawn start from The Rectory for Northampton and the final of the National colts plate competition.
In the early morning the coach looked ok and off we went, players and about thirty supporters. Ivor White, Tiny Lister, Dave Burgess, Mick Edwards and my self went as club supporters all the rest were parents.
One of the parents who knew something about busses thought all was not well but made nothing of it. May be he should have done because we crawled to the top of Haldon hill and from there to Bridgwater we stopped about seven or eight times. We stopped, turned off the engine, changed gear and moved off again for a few more miles and then repeated the operation.
Eventually we limped in to a services near Bridgwater with a knackered gearbox.
The journey should have taken us four hours or so. We were already about three quarters of an hour behind. The driver phoned base for replacement transport, “it’s on the way, ten minutes behind us,” he said.
An hour or so later they turned up. The boys got in to the bus deemed faster and everyone else got in to the other one. Off we went at the normal speed.
We phoned through a progress report to John Williams who had gone up by car. We were due to arrive at 13.15 for a 13.30 kick off. Not a good preparation for such an important match.
At first the organisers seemed to be suggesting that we would have to play on a pitch somewhere else because they could not delay the start.
Nigel Chivel had also gone up by car so that he could go to the pre match meeting about next year’s competition. He seemed to be able to persuade them that a game like this could not be played on any old pitch. So they agreed to set back the start by 15 minutes to 13.45. There was rain in the air, but it did not arrive, and the sun came out as we arrived in Northampton.
The boys had changed on the coach. They alighted and shortly afterwards went out on to the pitch at Franklins garden for ten minutes warm up.
Tiny, Ivor and myself were invited up in to the alacadoos room for something to eat and drink prior to the game. Naturally Ivor found someone who had played for Services back in the earlier part of the century.
Before we knew it the game kicked off. They scored in the first four minutes or so to put us seven points down. Their forwards had rolled over the line.
As they scored their try Tom Arscott took a bang and probably should have come off, he played the next ten or so minutes with only one eye available and not quite sure where he was.
Matt Anstis put over a penalty to make it 7 ~ 3.
We weathered the storm until half time when they went over for another try but it was disallowed because the lad did not touch down properly and the linesman said it was a knock on.
Really the lads were struggling to run the bus out of their legs, but good defence kept them in it.
The Scottish line out was incredibly good and our normally safe line out became a mess.
However, in the scrums we had the edge and Phil Wilson took four against the head.
We were also better in the forwards loose play.
They had the edge on speed in the backs but hardly used it. We had the kicker.
After the break we were on the attack when they intercepted and ran in under the posts, and a 14 ~ 3 lead.
Things looked bad, but determination kicked in and Matt pulled back a another penalty. At 14 ~ 6 we started to get it together and put the pressure on. Then they found a loose ball and fly hacked on, no one was able to catch their man as he kicked on a couple of times. Fortunately he kicked once to often and it went dead.
If he had scored that would have been it.
That he didn’t spurred on the boys more and we scored the best try of the game.
From our own 22, Tom Arscott beat the first up defence and made it to their 22, passed to Jason Stead, a forward, who set it up for flanker Will Brown who took it on to pass to Peter Evans who scored. Matt put over the conversion to take it to 14 ~ 13.
As full time neared and only some injury time remained, the pack was dominating their forwards and set the ball back to Matt who went for the drop goal from just their side of the half way.
The world cup final sprung to the minds of everyone in the crowd and the ball sailed over the posts to take the lead 14 ~ 16.
We attacked for another six minutes of injury time to take the game and break the hearts of the London Scottish.
The London Scottish players ate all the food so by the time our boys were ready there was nothing left, bad organisation by the organisers.
Still I do not think they really cared that much having won the game.