I’m fortunate to have this space to voice opinion on what’s going on in the club and in the 1st VX from the club captain’s perspective. I played my first game for the 1sts at 22, I think it was in October 1982 after working my way up there from the 4ths, yep in those days we ran a 4th team occasionally a 5ths and colts.  I’ve witnessed the highs and lows over the years and there have been plenty of both. Having just watched a very competitive inter club game between two junior teams makes me realise that despite the pessimistic view of some this is a club with a future and there are a lot of people working hard to make sure that things stay that way, players, coaches, team managers, parents etc.      

Saturday’s performance by the 1st team was nothing less then inspirational and I am proud to be the skipper of such a team.  The award (toilet seat) for Aldermaston’s less then best player of the week has to go to yours truly, the captain that didn’t have a contingency for ‘what happens if the skipper has to leave the field in the first five minutes of the game?’.  So what did happen? The remaining 16 players in the squad gelled together and gave the best performance of any Aldermaston team for a long time.  Nathan Thomas (hooker) was forced to leave the field with a serious knee injury which meant that front row replacements had to come from within the 15 left on the field.

I stood on the touchline and watched those 15 produce an awesome if not heroic display of gritty determination and teamwork; I saw a number of players receive injuries that warranted replacement playing on evidently suffering rather than leave the field and weaken the team further.  Players changed position to compensate for injuries and others stepped up to fill the gaps and play in positions they had never played before or hadn’t played for a long time.  Such a spirited performance would have secured victory over opponents from previous weeks but not on this occasion. 

There was no ‘Man of the Match’ as no one player could be singled out. I want to take this opportunity to personally congratulate and thank those 16 players for reminding me why I love this game, this team and this club. Here’s to: Nathan Quelch, Ben Hillier-Thornton, Paul Castle, Lawrence Jones, Toby Borrowclough, Glynn Gregory, Ian Martin, Neil Martin, Wesley Nesbit, Danny Vince, Brin Filer, Jon Hursthouse, Jo Gibson, Matt Wickens, Rob Mitchell and Nathan Thomas. Unfortunately looks like my bicep has become detached from the top of the radius well I think that’s what the doc said and may need an operation to sort out so I’m going to give training a miss this week, see how it is Saturday.

Tank.