Nothing too much trouble for Colin

RUGBY lost a great and good servant earlier this week when Colin Herridge died suddenly of a heart attack aged 82.

Colin put his shoulder to the wheel in every conceivable capacity for long decades at Harlequins and, along with his good mate Roger Looker, they got Quins – with its strong amatuer maverick ethos – fit for pupose on the eve of professionalism and beyond.

Despite a considerable business career which included founding and running the Slug and Lettuce pub group and being a director of my old crowd at Hayter’s Sports Agency, he also found time later in his career to be a guiding light at Esher.

And of course he was England’s first-ever press officer and undertook that role in his own unique, laid back way. He gave his services free of charge and that devotion to duty also included picking up the tab for his flight and accommodation on England’s 1994 tour to South Africa. Different times.

You always smelt Colin before you saw him! He invariably had a fat cigar smouldering away and conversations were often held through a cloud of smoke. It gave him the rather raffish air of a friendly West End agent, which he quietly enjoyed.

Nothing was too much trouble. I recall one distraught young BBC TV producer discovering to her horror that the entire day’s recording at an England press day somehow was wiped. One very panicky call to Colin and disaster was smoothly averted, her career back on track. England’s Mr Fix-It instantly commanded the great and good of English rugby to line up for emergency interviews after breakfast the following day. The lads trusted him implicitly.

Colin was of enormous assistance when I penned the official Quins history a few years back and also did me up like a kipper when unwisely I expressed a vague interest in a few old Quins programmes, cuttings and committee minutes he had in his garage. The following day he delivered a vanload of largely rotting, dusty and unreadable Quins paperwork and insisted there was no need whatsoever to return it. His broad smile as he drove away said it all.