Gav took his Varsity blues out on France
NEITHER Covid nor an unexpected cold snap – nor even the threat of Storm Arwen dipping a little further south than forecast – could stop Cambridge University Rugby Club kick-starting their 150th anniversary season in style.
Over the course of a hectic week 1,700 diners were entertained at three separate shindigs in the ‘Big Tent’ at Grange Road as the Cambride women hosted the inaugural ‘88 match’ against Oxford, followed 24 hours later by the annual Steele-Bodger’s game which was a suitable warmup for the Friday night Gala anniversary dinner.
The rugby itself was very decent with the Cambridge women, beginning to fire after a slow start to the season, defeating the old enemy in their BUCS game which is of course separate to the Varsity match itself which this season will be held in April.
With the two teams destined now and in the future for regular BUCS showdowns it was thought right and proper to give that game a cache and status of its own and this opening encounter of the 88 Challenge resulted in an 18-0 win for the Light Blues, 1988 being the year the Oxford and Cambridge women first played each other.
The Steele-Bodger game saw Cambridge go down 21-14 but a much improved performance augurs well for the rest of the season.
As for the dinner, it was all you might expect when 500 Cambridge rugby folk gather together to take wine and chew the cud. Or perhaps not quite. As more than one old Blue commented when they staged a dinner to celebrate the centenary after a match against the Barbarians, no women that they could recall were allowed to attend.
At this function at least a third of the gathering were women and the noisiest tables – ie those who appeared to be having the very best of times – were definitely those where old colleagues from Cambridge women’s teams were kicking back and reliving their youth.
The star speaker on the night, by common consent, was former Cambridge lock Tammy Samuels – now a high flying lawyer – whose daughter Hannah also won a Blue in 2019. The first mother and daughter double up of its kind although as a further example of how times have changed Tammy’s appearance only merited a half Blue while in more enlightened times Hannah earned a full Blue.
Gavin Hastings was another popular speaker and fessed up to putting the mockers on his side at the 1985 Varsity match. With five consecutive wins under their belts the Light Blues were going for a record six straight wins and Hastings, not yet an international but clearly a star man, was feeling under pressure as their skipper to deliver an inspiring pre-match speech or motivational gesture.
He opted for the latter and had taught the team Flower of Scotland – which had not then been adopted by Scotland as the national anthem – but alas it had no inspirational qualities whatsoever when belted out on match day. Hastings missed a sackful of kicks as Oxford scraped a shock 7-6 win. A month later he landed six thumping penalties from all angles on his Scotland debut to help them to a famous 18-17 win over France.
Among many other things, the evening under canvas also served as a 60th anniversary celebration of the remarkable 1961 side which remains the only Light Blues team to reach the Varsity match with a 100 per cent record, a run they continued on the big day with a hardfought 9-3 win over Oxford.
The class of 61 are rightly revered but sometimes get a little overlooked in the rush to heap lavish praise on the brilliant all singing all dancing running sides of the 20s, 30s and indeed the 1980s when the Light Blues’ back play was such a feature. They were, however, a formidable outfit full of internationals past and present although their USP was arguably their physicality, efficiency and mature approach – not necessarily the mix you associate with Varsity rugby.
With the likes of fiery Welsh forwards Brian Thomas and Roger Michaelson, and John Owen and Nick Drake Lee who were capped by England in the very near future, nobody messed the Cambridge pack around while behind the scrum flyhalf Gordon Waddell junior was a player of the highest quality, already a Lion and Scotland lynchpin by the time he went up to Oxford. He had starred in the 1960 side that also reached the Varsity match unbeaten although three of those games were draws.
Waddell was a meteor who was not to be constrained by mere rugby, he was soon off marrying Mary Oppenheimer – whose father Harry owned De Beers diamonds empire. In no time he was a director of E Oppenheimer & Son Ltd and then a member of parliament in the South African legislature. His scrum-half at Cambridge was Lydney’s Trevor Wintle who was to win five England caps, while centre Mike Wade was capped just a few weeks after the game although a serious knee injury curtailed his career. Another stand out was future horse training guru Ian Balding – think Mill Reef – who was not the first nor the last attacking full-back to be produced by Millfield.
If some of their early season games appear a little soft by today’s standard it should be noted that Guy’s Hospital and St Mary’s were still decent sides 60 years ago while the fixture list got progressively stronger with some real heavyweights on the English and Welsh club scene falling by the wayside. Micky Steele-Bodger during this era would also rustle up a team groaning with internationals for the annual game bearing his name.
Imagine, just for a minute, a University team “nilling” Coventry, Gloucester and Northampton in the space of a few weeks and also beating Cardiff, Bedford, London Scottish, Newport and Harlequins, the latter at Twickenham where Quins then played some of their prestige home games.
Not that they had it all their own way in the Varsity match itself which is of course no respecter of form or reputation although Oxford themselves has a pretty tasty side that year.
The Light Blues beat a team including John Wilcox at full-back, American wing Peter Dawkins of the torpedo pass fame, Jock McPartlin, Richard Sharp, Peter Stagg, Nick Silk and John Curry to name but a few. Halcyon days.