Another Holiday Highlight 2015

15 May 2015

If you are in England and near the town of Rugby in Warwickshire it really behoves you to pay a visit, right? So this year I did and after a night in the nearby village of Dunchurch a visit to Rugby on its Market Day was a must - and fun.

Every shop and stall had a rugby 'sign' outside it. I took a lot of shots which may or may not be used sometime - but in the end all visitors like me are drawn to the impressive Rugby School, right in the centre of town. Here it is said the young scholar William Webb Ellis spoiled a football game by 'picking up the ball and running with it' in 1823. Thus the idea of the game of the Rugby's Games Rules were started.

The statue in the street was put in place for the 1999 Rugby World Cup and these days is a popular tourist attraction. I had to wait while a film crew did a 'piece to camera' but then it was my time... A nice souvenir followed.

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Every day there is Rugby History 16 December 1905

Click to show All Blacks unbeaten run is ended.

On the last game of their UK tour in Cardiff, Wales beat NZ by 3-0. Ted Morgan scored a try for the home team which the All Blacks disputed forever more.

A-Z of Rugby

Click to show ALCOCK, ARNOLD

Guy’s Hospital and England
1 international for England 1906

Arnold Alcock was a ‘one cap wonder’ whose one game for his country came about in rather unusual circumstances.

Alcock was a useful enough club player for Guy’s Hospital who, it is insisted, never had aspirations at all of becoming an international. Imagine his surprise when he received in the mail an ofﬁcial invitation to play for his country against the touring 1906–07 Springbok team.

Alcock was initially shocked but then felt honoured and on the great day of the game he duly turned up at Twickenham all set to play. Upon seeing him, the secretary of the Rugby Union realised that the man before him was not the man the selectors had thought they were getting. Apparently they had chosen L.A.N. Slocock of Liverpool, and only by a typing error did Alcock receive his invitation to play. By then, of course, it was too late to summon Slocock from the north, so Alcock took the ﬁeld for England. By all accounts he played sensibly and tolerably well. However, it was not a major surprise when Alcock was not invited to play for England again. Slocock was. In fact, Slocock went on to play the next eight internationals.

Arnold Alcock later had a distinguished association with the Gloucester club, for which he was president for nearly 50 years.