FROMFYLDETO TO THE STEEL C
playing against them for Fylde. I had had the misfortune of playing against them at their home ground, Abbeydale, in late December. For various reasons, we had not taken a full-strength pack over the Pennines and we had a torrid afternoon getting pushed around by the strong Sheffield pack and lost 31-3. Undoubtedly, the worst part of the afternoon was listening to their front row singing Christmas carols as they pushed us down the hill in the scrums. When our coach pulled out of the Abbeydale
Sheffield v Plymouth Albion, 1991
I started my rugby career at Fylde as a colt in 1981 and went on to play nearly 50 games in the 1st XV before taking a job in Sheffield once I had graduated from Leeds University. I thoroughly enjoyed playing at Fylde from the first day I turned up at the Woodlands as a young 18-year-old from Blackpool. I made my debut for the 1st XV at Gloucester on Good Friday 1983 and, after getting 10 stitches in my head after a “stray boot” caught me in a ruck, I realised that I had found a game that appealed to my strange sense of pleasure and pain. In the following 2 seasons I played in Fylde 1st XV in the back row alongside Mark Hesketh, Andy Macfarlane and Tony Simpson. After that I played all my rugby in Yorkshire - one season at Headingley whilst I finished my degree and then 6 great seasons at Sheffield after graduating. Both of these clubs had fixtures with Fylde every season and it always felt quite strange playing against my home club. When I turned up at Sheffield in the summer of 1987, I did not really know the guys at Sheffield but had one very strong memory of
Fylde v Liverpool, Lancashire Cup Semi-Final, 1983
car park I honestly would have been happy never to visit Sheffield again. Little did I know that I would actually spend most of my rugby playing career at Abbeydale. By 1987, National Leagues had been formed to replace the Northern Merit Table. Sheffield and Fylde both started off playing in the National League 3 and so, had home and away fixtures against each other. Sheffield had been the established side in South Yorkshire for many years but even before payments to players were allowed, teams like Rotherham, Doncaster and Sheffield Tigers had started making their
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