Continuing our countdown to the new season, Owen Morgan looks across the border to London Welsh – a club that could have been part of an expanded Guinness Pro League. Instead they are so far down the English ladder, you may not have spotted them.
It’s not unusual for unwanted material to drop into my email spam folder. But this particular email was unwelcome for different reasons.
The communication in question was a London Welsh RFC newsletter.
Nothing awful about that, I hear you say. In other circumstances you would be right.
But it was the stark reality of the information in this newsletter which was unwanted.
“Men’s first home game vs Staines RFC, 16th Sept 3pm”.
Of course, I knew what had happened to the club last season, and I knew the consequences of their liquidation for this term.
But seeing it in black and white was difficult to take in, especially as this isn’t even a pre-season friendly. It is the first home league match of the 2017-18 season at Old Deer Park.
London Welsh v Staines. It just doesn’t seem right.
I mean no disrespect to Staines or the London SE Division Herts and Middlesex Division One in which they play.
But London Welsh should not be in this position.
One of the most famous names in the history of rugby should not be playing in the ninth tier of English rugby.
For those who don’t remember, London Welsh were one of the most successful sides in Britain during the 1960s and 70s.
They were six times Sunday Telegraph English champions, twice Sunday Telegraph English Welsh Champions, Western Mail Welsh Champions for 1972-73 and Whitbread Welsh Merit Table Champions for 1971-72.
This is the club which provided no fewer than SEVEN members of the 1971 British and Irish Lions touring party which conquered New Zealand in their own back yard.
I’m not saying mistakes haven’t been made, and perhaps the club thoroughly deserves to be in the position it is in. But, surely, something could have been done to avoid this?
The opportunities have been there, not just to save this once great club, but to turn it into a genuine force in British rugby, whether that was in the English league set-up, or through welcoming the Exiles into the Welsh fold.
London Welsh were promoted to the Aviva Premiership in 2014. Pic: Getty Images.As an ordinary rugby supporter looking in from the outside, perhaps I am being phenomenally naïve and ill-informed. But couldn’t a way have been found to get the club, RFU, WRU and league administrators around the table to thrash out a solution to secure the professional future of this great club well before the situation got to this stage?
If we can have two Italian clubs and two South African provinces playing in what was once known as the Celtic League, surely we could have had an English club with such deeply embedded Welsh connections competing alongside them?
Or, if London Welsh were determined to stay in the English set-up, surely there was something the WRU could have done to support them, and some and way of the RFU accepting that support?
The WRU have gone to great lengths to help secure the future of the Dragons and to nurture the fledgling RGC 1404 team in North Wales. I wish both those ventures the very best in their futures.
But there could have been massive potential benefits in the Union supporting London Welsh in a similar way. This is a club with 132 years of heritage, a track record of providing a production line of players for Wales, including three captains and 16 Lions. This is a club firmly established as a “brand” in one of the richest cities in the world
What has happened is in absolutely no-one’s interests.
The Ospreys had tried to establish a link between themselves and London Welsh in 2010, but the partnership sparked concerns from the WRU and RFU and it was subsequently scaled back.
Could more have been done to help the Exiles in their hour of need ahead of their first season in the Aviva Premiership in 2012?
Having earned the right to be promoted to the top flight on the pitch in May, they were initially told their new home at Oxford United’s Kassam Stadium – necessitated because Old Deer Park wasn’t up to Premiership standards – did not meet league requirements due to primacy of use.
The club appealed and was only officially granted promotion at the end of June. The massive jump from Championship to Aviva Premiership is difficult enough when clubs have a whole summer to prepare, but due to the uncertainty over their promotion, Welsh weren’t able to recruit sufficiently to be competitive at the highest level.
Indeed, they were eventually docked five points for fielding an ineligible player.
One of the complaints about Welsh rugby in recent seasons is that promising regional players are warming benches rather than getting the experience they need.
Could a way have been found to place players at London Welsh to supplement their playing staff, or to support the club further in other ways?
Even if it hadn’t been possible during that first season in the top flight, which ended in relegation, was an opportunity missed to support the club when they bounced back into the Premiership against all the odds in 2014? A strong Exiles side playing at the top level of English rugby would have been a huge boost to Welsh rugby in general.
I remember travelling to Oxford to watch the Exiles play Saracens in their final Aviva Premiership match in May 2015, having lost every one of their previous league matches. The disparity between the two squads was almost embarrassing.
Had it been a boxing match, it wouldn’t even have been allowed to start, let alone be stopped.
London Welsh had a team of solid journeymen professionals that most fans outside of the Exiles faithful would have had difficulty in recognising. I mean no disrespect to Olly Barkley, an excellent international player and the most notable name in the home line-up, but this match was played seven years after his last England appearance.
The Saracens side, however, resembled an international invitational XV. Their starting line up included Alex Goode, Chris Ashton, Marcelo Bosch, Dave Strettle, Owen Farrell, Neil de Kock, Schalk Brits, George Kruis, Jacques Burger and the brothers Vunipola. Oh, yes, and on the bench they had Charlie Hodgson, Richard Wrigglesworth and a youngster by the surname of Itoje.
The saddest part of that afternoon wasn’t watching a phenomenally spirited Exiles side eventually being well beaten by 17-68, but seeing the dozens of young age-grade players in London Welsh kit watching their club make its exit from the top flight.
Those age-grade teams will continue under the new set-up, as will the women’s teams, but where will the cream of those players now go once their talent has outgrown the London Welsh amateur sides? They will be lost to the club and those with Welsh heritage may be lost to Welsh rugby.
I wish new director of rugby Sonny Parker, the players, officials and supporters every fortune in their bid to rebuild the club and lift the team through the amateur ranks to their rightful place amongst British rugby’s elite.
But I can’t help thinking “what if? And I’m not trying to apportion any blame to any of the individuals or organisations involved. I’m sure there are reasons beyond my knowledge and understanding why things haven’t turned out differently.
But, as a simple, passionate, idealistic, rugby supporter, it feels like a huge opportunity has been missed, or at the very best, delayed indefinitely.
It feels like something very special has been lost from the game at the highest level especially at a time when so much concern had been voiced over fears the new Pro14 structure would mean an end to the “traditional” festive regional derby matches.
Well, Llanelli v London Welsh, which became a regular Boxing Day clash, used to be one of the biggest fixtures in British domestic rugby. It may have been difficult to describe it as a derby seeing as the teams were based over 200 miles apart, but it felt like one, and there can be no questioning its tradition, which dated back to 1886.
One of the most famous encounters was played on Boxing Day 1971. The London Welsh team that afternoon included six members of the triumphant Lions tour to New Zealand and 12 Welsh internationals in total, including JPR Williams, Gerald Davies, John Dawes, Jim Shanklin, Billy Hullin, Geoff Evans, Tony Gray, Mervyn Davies and John Taylor.
The Llanelli side wasn’t too shabby either, featuring Andy Hill, Roy Bergiers, Ray Gravell, Phil Bennett, Barrie Llewelyn, Derek Quinnell and Delme Thomas! Indeed, it was Llanelli who ran out 20-10 winners in front of a packed Stradey Park.
The match was seen by many as an unofficial Welsh trial with the “Big Five” selectors in attendance. When the Welsh team to play England was announced a couple of weeks later, eight of the players on show that day were selected.
Admittedly, the fixture has already been missing from the calendar for many years, but wouldn’t it have been a wonderful occasion to see a full strength Scarlets side taking on an equally strong London Welsh side at Parc Y Scarlets, whether that was in the Guinness Pro League or as an Anglo-Welsh clash in Europe?
Sadly, we are unlikely to know the answer to that question, at least not for the foreseeable future.
Instead, the immediate future will see the good rugby men of Staines following in the footsteps of true giants of the world game for a league match at Old Deer Park on September 16.
