...than he was back on his bike down to Langley Park for a game of touch just to keep his fitness ticking over before the serious stuff starts at the end of June. Just in case there was any doubt, he was, of course, one of the volunteer squad who came down at the weekend to pick up a paintbrush and smarten up the club as part of the NatWest RugbyForce initiative. No awards or prizes for this – just some thanks for making the effort and a rather lurid purple T-shirt.
For commitment and passion, you’ll go a long way before finding a more compelling personification of the amateur rugby club ethic than Linny.
Part of that is about sticking around when times are tough and Linval has been constantly involved in recent years when he feared that the club he loves was heading in several wrong directions. However, as a revitalised Old Dunstonian community emerges from the shadows, there are many green shoots of revival that point to better times ahead for a club with a proud heritage and the desire to prosper both on and off the field.
For example, the Awards Dinner at the end of last season attracted over 100 attendees and included a number of the successful 1987 side, celebrating 30 years since reaching the final of the Kent Cup, which was narrowly lost to Blackheath. A proper club landmark that could easily have been forgotten in the turbulence of recent years. Young players mixed with their predecessors, some returning after self -imposed exile, to resurrect the sense of continuity and tradition that the club has always nurtured and handed down from generation to generation. At the AGM, scene of last year’s ‘Kristallnacht’, the committee was fully endorsed to continue for another term. Team managers and captains were asked to carry the torch for a second season and build on last season’s success, buoyed by the strong league finish in the spring, anticipated player retention and the promise of new recruits for the new season. Personal player ambitions and commitments were pinned to the mast at a players’ review evening during which individual enthusiasm for the coming league challenge was palpable. This has subsequently been confirmed by social media reports of fitness runs and gym sessions undertaken in the close season. The general optimism has been backed up by an unusually high participation in the perennial summer touch rugby sessions which have attracted some new faces, raising hopes for more player strength in depth, better availability and, dare we say it, the prospects of a regular Ex A XV. The news of the Pink Elephant’s Ball scheduled for October 14th indicates that the rugby club’s social calendar is also in good shape.
The proof of the OD summer pudding will be in pre-season training which begins Thursday 29th June. Players can expect a stern and varied examination of their fitness and endurance in preparation for a tough start to the league and cup campaigns in September. Expectations are high but built on these propitious signs of a new club spirit and purpose. If players take a leaf out of the Linval book of motivation, determination and perspiration, all will be well.
Old Dunstonian Rugby – where ambition meets fun and tradition