2018 AGM Presidents Address
I accepted the Presidency of this famous Club with great joy and pride. I’m always humbled when I stray into the Roughton Room and see the likes of Chas Chapman, Mike Payne, Cecil Sewell and the other true greats of this Club looking down on me. It makes me even more determined to help restore this Club to its former glories. Alas, I can no longer contribute on the field of play but I can make a contribution to the running of the club, representing the club on match days, organising events and generally keeping the morale of the club at a high level.
1st XV
The season started with great optimism with promotion on our radar. But these ambitions were quickly dispelled as a series of bad injuries to key players, retirements, players moving out of the area and defections to other clubs took their toll. After 13 games we had only won twice and had gone on a run of 7 losing games without a single bonus point. Before the last game of the year at Sidcup we had a mere 15 points and were second from bottom. The last game of the year away at Sidcup was a watershed and under new head coach Rob Lawrence we won 10-7. From there on in we became competitive and won 7 and drew 1 over the 13 games amassing 34 points. In the end this wasn’t quite good enough to avoid relegation.
We will take it on the chin and come back fitter, harder and more determined next year with the objective of gaining promotion at the first attempt. The players and coaches have responded positively to Rob Lawrence and the majority of players have already signed up for next season and I’m optimistic we will bounce back in style.
The 2nd XV had to pull out of the Zoo Competition half way through the season. Thereafter they played friendlies and put in a string of excellent performances. Their season ended with a convincing victory in the Kent Plate final against Thanet playing open running rugby which gives me great optimism for the future.
Thanks to the coaching team of Rob, Hughesy, Danny, Gareth and Simon; the physios Sam, Jade and Sarahjane; and the managers JWT and Mark Ley for all their efforts during a difficult season
Other Rugby
The worrying trend of decreasing playing numbers continues. We are now barely running 3 senior sides on a regular basis. It is one of Rob’s key tasks to reverse this trend and establish 4 senior sides running out each week with at least one team playing at home.
Meanwhile the Youth section goes from strength to strength but concerns remain that we don’t get enough players progressing to senior rugby. It is another of Rob’s key tasks to establish a proper pathway from Youth to Senior rugby and to get more home grown talent into the 1s and 2s.
Lunches
We put on 10 formal sit-down lunches during the season, including the VP’s and Christmas Lunches and they were well attended. The monies raised from the lunches, raffles and quizzes were all up on last year. We also put on 5 low key lunches in the Roughton Room and replaced the buffet with bangers and mash and cheese, which was very popular with our guests. Many thanks to Simone for providing excellent fare, to Denise and Vern for organising the lunches, Peter Heath our match day compere and quiz organiser, Barry, Beate and Dave and Krys for doing the raffles and the army of helpers who help set up the tables.
200 Club
We re-launched the 100 Club as the 200 Club and after much hard work we managed to “persuade” 115 members to join. We had 5 draws with cash prizes of £100, £50 and £25 at each draw doubled up for the Xmas draw. Over £1,000 was raised for additional security cameras and equipment. Thanks to Krys, Katy and Michael for their persistence!
Quiz Nights
We put on two quiz nights which were both well attended and raised £650 for the Wooden Spoon Charity. Wooden Spoon also hosted and sponsored one of our match-day lunches and raised further funds for this wonderful charity from an auction. We will continue to support Wooden Spoon next season. My thanks to Peter Heath for putting the questions together and for compering the evening. Also to the Cavali’s for keeping score and to Vern for keeping order.
City Lunch
The ‘Combe City Lunch at the East India Club was, once again, a great success. This is the 3rd time we have put this event on and it has quickly established itself in the Combe Calendar. Tickets are sold out within days and it has become an important fundraiser for the club. Many thanks to Denes for organising the event and to Dave and Krys for collecting monies.
VPs Lunch
The VP’s lunch was well attended but I would still like to get more VP’s to come along. It is the highlight of the President’s year where we can enjoy the company of old friends and reminisce about events of yesteryear both on and off the pitch. Thanks again to Vern for organising it and to JWT for officiating.
End of Season Party
Although we lost the final game of the season to Tring, it was otherwise a wonderful day at the club. Apart from a full house at the ‘Old Crocks’ Lunch, Vern had organised a 25 year Ilfracombe re-union and Frazer and Shaun had organised a players re-union. The bar was 3 deep from lunchtime until we ran out of keg beer early evening. Thereafter, the complete stock of bottled beer and silly drinks was completely exhausted. We took 4 times the normal weekend take over the bar and made oodles of money from two raffles and at the gate where the attendance was over 400 more than double the average. It just shows that when we needed it most the Combe faithful came out and supported us in droves.
Departed Friends
A number of cherished club men and close personal friends have left us this year. Peter Price, Gerry Grace, Lew Barnett, Jo Stevenson and Charles Pascoe. They will all be missed and never forgotten.
I would like to thank the Management Committee, the Operations Committee and particularly DenesNemestothyfor all the hard work and long hours they put into the running of the club.
Finally, I would like to thank all our club members and sponsors for their wonderful support at games and numerous socials throughout the season and the army of unpaid ‘Combe volunteers who do all those unseen jobs without which the club wouldn’t function. A particular thanks to Clare and her bar team for supplying us with much needed refreshments – you are all really appreciated.
Frank Meakin, President