Old Alleynian FC
leagues. The 2nds continue to punch above their weight, playing and often beating the 2nd XVs of bigger clubs. The 3rds play a competitive level of rugby and provide an opportunity to players developing and those who cannot quite make the commitment needed for 1sts or 2nds but still want a serious game of rugby. The 4ths are the definite social side and have formed a nice tight group who really enjoy playing for each other. I am very glad to see that they once again organised a tour to the continent. Anyone who has seen the videos will remember touring shenanigans but be thankful that in the past it generally wasn’t captured on film. Our Development team continues to provide an excellent pathway to transfer players from the Juniors to the Seniors and is one of the real success stories of recent years. We need to thank Dulwich College for their continued support. Without additional parking and training areas we would be unable to deliver rugby playing opportunities from U6s-U18s on a Sunday morning. We hope to renew our arrangement to use the Trevor Bailey Sports Ground next season and have heard many requests from members about the need for more playing space. That is great, but we also have to acknowledge from humble beginnings that we have a sizeable youth section. We have never had to cap player numbers at any age group, but at the lower age groups this may be something we have to consider, as at some point you do run out of space. This season we have had circa 600 Youth players and in the spirit of our “One Club” ethos we are now seeing players transfer from the youth into
the senior seamlessly on a well- established pathway and this bodes well for the future of the club. We have some very talented young players and the Dulwich College / Alleynians U21s won the Cronk Cunis Cup in August 2015. Each age group has had some successes and the feedback at the end of season awards was that everyone has loved playing and being coached at OAs. All concerned with this are volunteers and the Club is really appreciative of their dedication and contribution to the local community, rugby and our Club. In Minis Rugby, a form of rugby union, 11 Festivals were attended and many age groups toured. Our Girls squads had a very successful season, with their fixtures generally played around that Pitch-up and play events for girls in Kent and Surrey. The success amongst these age groups is very much one of participation and ensuring that the rugby is enjoyable. The success on the pitch is such that the Trophy cabinet is full and we recently had to remove some of the older cups to make way for more. On the social side we had a very well attended Ball summer 2015, it was organised by members from both the senior and junior side of the club. We have teams in every age group in our Juniors and we are even talking about having to restrict numbers as we are getting too popular. We do have some challenges as a club but we are working to address them and I can see a bright future for rugby on Dulwich Common.
Chairman: Mike Lobb Treasurer: Siva Pillay (73-81) Secretary: Tim Wood
I think it is fair to say that the 2015/16 season at the OAFC has been challenging. The 1st XV were moved over to London 2 South East Division. A number of teams in that league were familiar to us from playing them in our lower sides. In an experiment to try and make sure all our games were played on their intended dates we re-arranged some of our fixtures so that all our games in the winter months would be away, I do not think this really worked, we had too many home games in the beginning and a very long run of away games at the end. We also had a very poor patch mid-season where we went for a very long run without a victory. At the end of the season we became involved in a relegation dogfight and it was only victory in two of our last three games that secured our place in the league next year.
Final Stats for the 1st XV Played 22 Won 7 Lost 15
Bonus Points 9 Final Points 37
Our 2nds, 3rds and 4ths and Development XV were all respectable mid tables in their
Owen McEntee
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