Hooper banking on true Bath men to bring back glory days
JON NEWCOMBE finds his boyhood club are moving back to their roots of growing local talent
AS a club with an illustrious past playing in the heart of a World Heritage site and an owner with a big cheque book, Bath has always attracted players from far and wide.
Even during their golden decade in the amateur era which delivered six league titles and ten cups, few of the key players originally came from the confines of the Roman City. The great John Hall of Oldfield and apprentice bricklayer Jerry Guscott were the exceptions rather than the rule.
Lancastrian John Horton pulled the strings at fly-half until Essexborn, Welsh-raised Stuart Barnes took over; Roger Spurrell spilled blood for the cause as one of several Cornishmen who wore blue, black and white with distinction, while out wide David Trick cut a dash from Kent. For back row grafters like Yorkshireman Paul Simpson, the Ring O’Bells in Widcombe was about as local as it got. But following the Freddie Burns deal, next season Bath will be able to field over half a side born within the city boundary or with strong associations to the place.
“They’ve got to be the right players, you wouldn’t just have somebody because they are from Bath,” said Stuart Hooper, below, the club’s former captain who heads up player and performance development.
“But rugby is hugely competitive now and everybody is working on very fine margins between winning and losing. “I firmly believe having that identity of who you are and where you come from and representing your hometown club really can be as good as any advance in medical science or strength and conditioning.”
For Burns’ soon-tobe half-back partner, Bath-born Chris Cook, the opportunity to run out in front of friends and neighbours never loses its appeal.
“It is a dream come true, it really is, as soft as that sounds,” he said. “All I ever dreamed of since I was aged six was playing for Bath and to run out at the Rec and I’m doing it now, which is really cool. I never want to stop playing for Bath, I’ll play for them as long as I can.”
The Rugby Paper spoke to Cook after a coaching session at Beechen Cliff School. Hall was a pupil there, as was Kane PalmaNewport and the Burns brothers, Freddie and Billy.
Olympians Amy Williams and Roger Bannister are alumni too, but it’s best known as a rugby nursery particularly since the delivery of the Academic and Sporting Excellence (AASE) programme.
“Bath is a rugby town but it was missing that link to the professional scene. It is there now, through the AASE scheme at Beechen Cliff,” said Cook.
“I don’t think it’ll be a one-off trend that there just happens to be some Bath guys in the squad, it will consistently produce more and more. And when kids in schools around here see that people like myself and Kane have made it into the first team, they realise what’s possible.”
Etched into Bath’s history are the names de Glanville and Ojomoh, and the next generation of those two famous rugby families could be about to add a new chapter to the story.
Tom de Glanville and Max Ojomoh, sons of Phil and Steve, are members of the club’s junior academy and appear to have a bright future under the guidance of Andy Rock.
Hooper added: “Andy’s picked up where Danny Grewcock left off. He’s had a fantastic impact already. We want to push our academy on to the next level with more and more true Bath men playing first team rugby.”