Find that lost slice of 50s life at Ealing

TRYING to celebrate your 150th anniversary with the usual array of dinners, golf days and social gatherings during a global pandemic is no easy matter, so for the time being Ealing Trailfinders are concentrating on the present.

That means arguably the biggest game in their history, against Saracens this afternoon, an occasion that might, however, soon be surpassed with a rematch later this season if the two sides make their way to the Championship promotion play-off.

There are plans simmering away for the sesquicentennial celebrations once the country gets the green light for the cessation of all lockdown restrictions. September 11 has already been ring fenced as a day of major festivities but in the meantime I sincerely hope some club member can track down an infamous missing German video.

No, not that kind of video. Back in the early 50s the splendid Michael Green used to ‘play’ to use the term loosely for the Ealing B XV and many of his Art of Coarse Rugby stories and characters relate to those happy days.

Mike’s other great passion was acting and the Questors theatre, and in the early 50s he was hosting a German documentary crew filming episodes of post-war life in Britain.

When they were finished with the thespians at the Questors, Greene insisted they film another group of eccentrics and visit Ealing for a training night and then a full scale match on a spectacularly wet and muddy afternoon. This was followed by a biblically liquid post-match session and late night jazz session. The epitome of 50s amateur coarse rugby.

The evening apparently ended with mischievous First XV flanker Mike Williams being asked what he loved about Ealing RC. Deadpan Williams replied, “it was the money!” The documentary made it onto German TV but nobody at the club has seen the footage. It’s out there somewhere, a lost jewel of social history.