who refuse to give school rugby tour
captained by England lock Bob Wilkinson. We had Maurice Colclough, Mark Keyworth, Jacko Page, Derek Wyatt, Ollie Campbell, Dugald Macdonald, Phil Keith-Roach, all sorts of people.
“At the last minute the majority of the tournament was switched from Latvia to Tbilisi – Georgia was then part of the Soviet Union – which for some reason made the travel and visas much more difficult although the Penguins still had to fly to Moscow first. In the end the Russian Federation telexed to say we could only take a manager and a referee – Roger Quittenton – in addition to our 23 players, so Tony travelled as manager and I stayed behind.
“By all accounts it was tough going but one of our finest moments.We won all five games including two victories I would place right up there in our history, 20-9 against a full strength Romania and 25-13 against the USSR, the latter played in extreme August heat back in the Olympic Stadium in Moscow.”
Mention of the Penguins always brings the name of Martin Offiah to the fore and his tale is always well worth retelling as it all happened very quickly with Penguins playing a huge part in launching one of the most illustrious Rugby League careers in history.
It started with Offiah beginning to make a name for himself with Rosslyn Park, always prime recruiting territory for the Penguins. The flying wing answered a last-minute call to play a midweek match against Oxford University at Iffley Road and caused havoc amongst the students with three tries in 15 minutes and a fourth by the final whistle.
On the strength of that he was immediately signed up for an assault on the Hong Kong Sevens the Penguins had planned early in March, although it was touch and go whether he travelled because his mother wasn’t wonderfully keen on him missing studying time at college. Tony Mason had a word but still Mum wasn’t convinced and eventually the club asked Offiah’s college tutor to write a letter encouraging her son to embark on a “relaxing” rugby trip in the Far East.
Fast forward to Hong Kong and Barbarians president Micky Steele Bodger was watching Offiah and immediately chased him down with an invite for their Easter tour of South Wales with the gala match being against Cardiff. Suddenly Offiah’s career was taking off in spectacular style and with a fine sense of occasion he then steamed in for a spectacular hat-trick.
Offiah was hot property, a glittering England career awaited but suddenly the suited men from up North arrived in their Black Maria and made Offiah an offer he couldn’t refuse. Having signed on the dotted line for Widnes RL, the rest was hysteria.
Sevens – and the Tens tournaments that often accompany the Sevens circuit – have always loomed large in the club’s DNA with the culmination probably being the club’s two victories in the Middlesex tournament in 1999 and 2000. Surprisingly it wasn’t until that 1999 tournament that they eventually wrangled an invite to the tournament after a direct approach to Peter Yarranton and, determined to make a splash, the Penguins recruiter-in-chief Bill Calcraft went in pursuit of Sevens legend Waisale Serevi.
Eventually he tracked Serevi down to Mont de Marsan in France where he played after his short spell with Leicester. Much to their surprise the great man immediately agreed to fly over for the tournament and all was going well until breakfast on the Saturday morning when Serevi pulled Calcraft aside for a brief chat.Wright takes up the story:
“Waisale told Bill that it was a great pleasure to play for the Penguins but he would have to leave after the semi-final and fly back to France. Firstly I loved his assumption that we would be making the final but was a little alarmed at losing our key man at such a stage of the tournament. Apparently he had double-booked himself and was urgently needed back in France on Sunday afternoon for a vital play-off match. He hadn’t wanted to let us down so had flown over to England anyway but Mont de Marsan had to be his priority.
“There had to be a solution and after an hour zapping the phones we came up with it. Heathrow hotel Saturday night, dawn flight to Toulouse and a car waiting to rush him back to Mont de Marsan. He played like a dream, led us to victory in the Sevens and on the Sunday afternoon contributed 17 points to his club’s play-off win. All in all it rather summed up the Penguins approach to things.”