Memories of the
RUGBY UNION BOB JENNER
TRADITIONALLY April was the Sunset Month for British rugby players; a month that the fifteens season finished, that the short game (sevens) commenced and that wannabe stay-at-homes (those players who found it difficult to be available for away games during the season) suddenly made themselves available for such trips as Leamington or Rugby.
For Macclesfield, the season never started, although there will be rugby played before next season starts!
In April 1981, the season came to its conclusion in both senses, as Spring ushered in first, unseasonably high rainfall, and then a blizzard!
In this meteorological carnage, on the pitch, a young 1st team, beat Bolton to make progress in the Griffon Plaque with Lol Mellor winning Man of Match.
The Griffon Plaque was a trophy sponsored by Broughton Park, open to junior clubs in the Manchester area.
Apart from the trophy itself, the winners obtained a pre-season friendly with Broughton Park, as the trophy was all part of Broughton Park’s drive to run a rule across talent in the area - that they then might poach. Which is why Broughton Park were part of the fourteams sequence that opened Priory Park.
The first team then managed to record a big win over Shrewsbury before the freak blizzard brought a premature end to the season.
Whilst all this was happening the U14s and U16s went on tour to South Wales.
Twenty years earlier (April 1963) a strong Macclesfield Seven appeared in the 31st Manchester Sevens. Over the past sixty years clubs’ fortunes have ebbed and flowed and so fixtures look more-or-less daunting today, back then Liverpool and St Helens were two different clubs playing at the top end of the game.
As were Manchester, Fylde and Broughton Park, with the strong North West clubs such as Waterloo, New Brighton, Preston Grasshoppers all taking part making this a significant competition.
The Macclesfield seven featured Dai Jones (Welsh schoolboy Honors), Peter Holland (Cheshire) and two of our own: Peter Jones (father of 1st team coach Richard Jones and David Miller ( who has sometime been confused for Philip ‘Nemmy’ Jones, albeit only in Nemmy’s lunchbox!).
This talented squad over ran Old Salfordians 15-3 to advance to a game against Grasshoppers. They squeezed past Grasshoppers 8-5 and then more convincingly Hull and East Riding 9-0.
Sadly, they came unstuck against Waterloo, 8-6 in the semi-finals, this being no disgrace as Waterloo went on to thrash Broughton Park 19-8 in the final.
During the following decade the Club combined end of season sevens with end of season touring, when in April 1978 a large contingent boarded the Steam Packet for the Isle of Man Easter tournament.
Besides returning with some silverware, the Plate, several of the party earned kudos that would never leave them.
Abiding by tour rules names are omitted but a former President/Chairman “knows most things about most things” and who currently resides in Sandbach earned the moniker “Biggles” for his refusal to return by Steam Packet, and insisted that he would return by plane.
This crisis of confidence was seemingly related to digestive problems during the rougher than usual outbound journey.
In April 1984 the Colts team made another visit to the final of the Colts Shield.
This time to play a fancied Birkenhead Park team who had the rare privilege of playing a final