GLORY DAYS AND GORY
DAYS IN THE BORDERS
THE LAMBING SEASON was in full flow when I caught up with Jim Currie, the energetic farmer who was one of the pivotal figures behind Peebles being granted admission to the Border League in 1996. But this stalwart figure at the Gytes has long been accustomed to wearing as many hats as Audrey Hepburn and, whether starring in the front row on the pitch, carrying out his duties as club president, or coaching the youths on Sundays, rugby is in his blood. Thus it was, in the course of a wide-ranging conversation, that I discovered how Peebles had become the first organisation since Kelso joined the event in 1912 to receive the opportunity to lock horns with the giants of Hawick, Gala and Melrose on a regular basis in league competition. Currie and his colleagues had responded to that challenge with the sort of indomitable attitude which justified their inclusion alongside the other seven teams. Indeed, even if one accepts that the standard of the competition is no longer at the exalted heights it reached when the Green Machine was one of the country’s most feared institutions, Peebles have tasted glory on a frequent enough basis, whether defeating Gala, who fielded a young Chris Paterson at stand-off, in their maiden season, or prevailing on a fairly regular basis against their opponents while also unleashing some exhilarating displays in various cup tournaments.
On the evidence of Currie’s brisk, no-nonsense response to a variety of questions, he is cut in the traditional Borders mould of somebody who bows to nobody and treats people as he finds them, which helps explain why he was never daunted when Peebles embarked on their odyssey in 1996. They slipped to a 28–20 defeat in their first match against Selkirk, but responded to falling behind with a scintillating late surge which forced the Souters on to the defensive, and highlighted that they belonged in this company, not that their skipper had ever doubted it. ‘We had a good group of players, our coach, David Kilshaw, had worked his socks off behind the scenes, and was instrumental in getting us fit and ready for Border League action, and we were so excited about the prospect of being involved in the competition that there wasn’t any time for nerves,’ said Currie, who flitted between the front and second rows, and established an efficacious partnership with the Scotland A prop, Stephen Ferguson, who was a paradigm of solidity in the Peebles cause. Currie continued:
We were also driven by the fact that some of the senior clubs struggled to accept we were on a par with them, and there were a few sarky comments flying around at some clubs, which simply motivated us all the more to make them eat their words. I suppose we had been brought up with chips on our shoulders – in the 1970s, the club had been in the East section of Division 5, at one point – and we also discovered that the bigger clubs tended to have more of the big [refereeing] decisions going in their favour. It’s similar to Hearts in football: they get accused of complaining too much about officials, but then you look at how many decisions go against them and how many seem to work to the Old Firm’s benefit. It occasionally made us a bit frustrated, and I still believe that Stevie [Ferguson] would have won 15 or 18 international caps if he had left us and joined another club, because he was a really talented player, but although we might have complained about some things, it was both fantastic to be involved in the Border League and even better when we recorded out first victory at the Gytes.
That materialised on a typically dreich evening in late autumn when Currie’s men tackled Gala, in what turned into a magnificently pugnacious contest, with the balance shifting one way then the other as the combatants searched for the winning gambit. Such a close-fought encounter had appeared improbable during the opening 40 minutes, with the hosts dominating and bossing their rivals, scoring tries through Colin Kerr, Steven Brockie and the unstinting Currie, who crashed over from close range for a touchdown, which enabled his team to advance to an imposing 19–0 lead at the interval and the cheers of the home faithful were no more than the Peebles effort had merited.
Yet if Gala seemed marooned, the club which had already defeated Hawick and Jed-Forest in the campaign were a different proposition upon the resumption, orchestrating a string of fine tries from Richie Scott, Craig Townsend, Alan Bell and David Changleng. Peebles’ sole response was a penalty from their prolific kicker, Paul Rutherford, which meant they trailed 24–22 as the game advanced towards its denouement. For a spell, it looked as if Currie’s personnel were staring at another honourable loss, but their skipper urged his men to launch one last offensive and his unstinting aggression paid dividends. He recalled:
We just kept pushing forward and we pegged the Gala boys back and they attempted to run the ball from out of their own territory, but only succeeded in conceding a penalty in injury time. The place fell silent and Paul had to keep his nerve, because there are no easy kicks in these circumstances, but he struck the ball sweetly, the cheers from our fans told their own story, and we had beaten the mighty Gala by 25–24. It was a fantastic evening thereafter, as you might imagine, and it was the first time I kissed my girlfriend, Fiona, who is now my wife, and that match will never be forgotten by anybody who was there. It was the spark which we needed and we played 14 games in the league that season and also got the better of Selkirk, Hawick and Langholm, so nobody could possibly argue that we hadn’t proved we deserved to be in the competition. We kept it going in the next few years, with victories over Kelso, Langholm and Gala again, before we headed to Mansfield Park and beat Hawick in the Millennium Cup and if they were making sarcastic remarks at the start, the ground was pretty quiet by the finish!
These boisterous, bellicose Border tussles offered a reminder of why rugby continued to flourish in the South, even when the Scottish club game suffered a slump in attendances and a crisis of confidence on either side of the start of the 21st century. Quite simply, even at the same time as Scotland were parachuting in ‘Kilted Kiwis’ such as Brendan Laney – ‘I used to go to all the Murrayfield internationals, but that started the rot,’ said Currie with a resolve which suggested that he will not be easily swayed back to the stadium – the likes of Peebles were revelling in the exploits of ordinary heroes. And while fellows such as Jim Currie knew they were never going to be bracketed in the same company as a John Rutherford or a Gary Armstrong, so what! What mattered was that Jim and Stevie and David Kilshaw, allied to the enterprise of a batch of talented youngsters including Murray Blackstock, Chris Shaw and Steven Clapperton, offered their all for Peebles, and so nearly beat Heriot’s in the Scottish Cup, prior to the international stand-off, Gordon Ross, landing a last-ditch penalty to save the Edinburgh side from embarrassment.
The Scottish Cup tournament was a terrific innovation for the grass roots circuit, not least because the original sponsors, Tennent’s, marketed the event so successfully that even rugby agnostics found themselves glancing at the faces of participating players on the sides of Edinburgh buses. Better still, from a historical perspective, Hawick, whose ruthless efficiency of the 1970s and 1980s had ground to a halt while they struggled to keep pace with Jim Telfer’s Melrose maestri, viewed the radical new competition as an opportunity to reassert their traditional authority and duly set in motion the campaign which eventually conveyed them to Murrayfield, in the company of thousands of their townsfolk, for a lip-smacking showdown with Watsonians in the spring of 1996.
Quite simply, this was one of the grandest occasions in the history of Scottish club rugby and those of us who witnessed the arrival of a seemingly endless cavalcade of buses could detect that something special was in the air. The Green Machine’s progress had been clamped for a significant period, but that had simply heightened their determination to demonstrate they were still the premier force in the country and, as their long-time secretary, John Thorburn, told me: ‘Hawick had a proud record to maintain. We had been the first team to win the Border League, the first to win the Scottish championship [in 1974] and we wanted to be the first club to win the cup as well. But, even so, I don’t think anybody could have imagined how it would capture the town’s imagination.’
In many respects, it was reminiscent of the cricketing village Freuchie’s triumphant visit to Lord’s in 1985, when the population decamped to London en masse and left a solitary local bobby to look after the place, while they won the National Village Cup. In Hawick’s case, this maiden campaign soon turned into a crusade, and especially following the Teris’ impressive victory over Melrose at the penultimate stage which set them on a collision course with a star-studded Watsonians line-up, featuring such Test luminaries as Tom
Smith, Scott Hastings, Duncan Hodge, Cammy Mather, Derrick Lee and Stuart Grimes. On paper at least, Hawick looked hopelessly outgunned, even if they were able to call on the services of Grand Slam hero Tony Stanger. And yet, even while the Borderers set about the task of composing special anthems and prepared to bring a marching band to Murray-field – oblivious to whether it contravened any health and safety regulations relating to spectators lugging musical instruments into the ground with them – the feeling grew that this match might be settled as much by pride in the community as it was by the impressive cap tallies on the CVs of the Watsonians line-up.
As for the travelling hordes, the cup might have been a new phenomenon, but such was their faith in Hawick’s ability to traverse any barriers or obstacles that they made up their minds that the visit to Edinburgh would not simply be a sporting occasion; it would be an impromptu mini festival of raucous songs, bands in full swing, and poetry readings. And, as the Mansfield Park’s chronicle of the day related, what a swell party it was!
The build-up to the final involved the whole town, as shops carried displays of the team colours and memorabilia of past successes, and the club’s own shop opened on demand to make available jerseys, hats, scarves and strips for supporters to identify themselves on the day. There was desperation to find tickets, which would place the holder in the Teri section of the crowd, yet a main talking point was where the large number of buses, required to carry all those supporters to Murrayfield, was going to be found.
Much was made by the Scottish Rugby Union of the great contribution which Hawick made to the atmosphere on Finals day. The Saxhorn Band’s contribution throughout the afternoon was immense; Hawick’s Poet Laureate, Ian Landles, led the singing in the tents; and the excitement in the crowd seemed tangible. In the Scottish tradition of supporting the underdog, the neutrals also seemed to be backing Hawick, just as they had done at Netherdale [in the semi-final, where the Green Machine had prevailed over their Melrose rivals by 28–15]. The stage was set! It was said by some people that Hawick had enjoyed the easier path to the Final [they defeated East Kilbride 46–6, Duns 22–3, Biggar 52–17 and Preston Lodge 26–11 in the earlier stages of the competition], but, at the end of the day, they had to beat both the fancied teams and earned the applause.
All the same, not even the 28 busloads of supporters and factory’s worth of cars which departed from the Borders on the morning of May 11 – some wag stuck a sign on a lamp post at the exit to the town, which read: ‘Would the last person to leave Hawick turn out the lights?’ – could have countenanced the fashion in which their heroes were left clutching at shadows in the early stages of the match. Indeed, Watsonians looked capable of humiliating their rivals when they raced into a 15–0 advantage, with Hodge providing a try, a penalty and the conversion of Scott Hastings’ touchdown. At that juncture, it felt as if the Myreside club were simply too powerful and purposeful to be denied. But, as had happened so often before, the Borderers knuckled down and gradually began to make inroads through the towering performances of their unsung front row, Jim McDonnell, Jim Hay and Andrew Johnstone, and when Alistair Imray surged over for a try out on the wing, shortly before the interval, the decibel level cranked up around the ground.
In itself, the attendance – which was in excess of 22,000 – was remarkable, considering that this was greater than the entire population of Hawick, while Watsonians were not exactly renowned for filling up their own stadium, let alone anywhere else. But the more the fans chanted and screamed their backing, the better the Border team rallied and thrived. Entering the last quarter, the Hawick No 15, Colin Turnbull, came into the line and Scott Welsh converted to reduce the deficit to only 15–12. Then, as the racket from the bandsmen and their aficionados swelled up to ear-shattering proportions – and the din reached rock-concert proportions when the band launched into a lusty rendition of ‘Up wi’ the Banner High’ – the ubiquitous Welsh took a quick tap penalty inside his opponents’ 22, and forced his way over. His team led and although Watsonians huffed and puffed in the climactic moments and did their utmost to engineer a drop-goal position for Hodge, they were blown away by the dynamism, the collective will and the physical exertions of the Hawick pack, who never budged an inch amid the denouement.
Even those of us who were not Borderers could empathise with the swirl of emotions which reverberated throughout Murrayfield at the death, as the victors and their effervescent captain, Brian Renwick, lapped up the delirious adulation of the crowd. Written off in some quarters in advance, this was not a million miles removed from the 1990 Grand Slam decider at the same venue, though one shudders to think how Will Carling’s side might have fared if they had gone three scores clear in the first half an hour. ‘There was a lot of pressure on our shoulders. No other club in Scotland has a history like ours,’ said Renwick when (a semblance of) normal service had been restored. ‘But today, a lot of young players came through and made their own history.’
There was no disputing that assessment, nor the skipper’s praise for the wholehearted, Musketeer-style commitment displayed by Hawick, while they rallied from their initial setbacks and rose to the challenge magnificently the longer that the proceedings continued. Watsonians, in contrast, seemed to be dwelling under the delusion that 20 minutes of quality was enough before they took their feet off the accelerator and duly paid the price.
Understandably, that Saturday evening was marked by exultant revelries from the new cup holders. On the journey back home, the team bus passed by hastily-prepared banners of welcome at Newton Farm and on Wilton Hill. The decision was taken to go round, via Wilton, to deliver the club’s ex-president Barrie Laidlaw direct to his door, and the mood was euphoric as the festivities stretched on until heaven knows when the following morning. Yet, having savoured the triumph, the next task for men such as John Thorburn was to ensure that the team’s success gained due recognition from their community. And the manner in which they went about their task was typically practical and sensible.
We decided that it would be a terrific idea to have an open-top bus parade around Hawick with the players and the cup on the Sunday, but we had to work out how many people would show up and how quickly we could spread the message round the town. So we phoned up a few of the local ministers and asked them if they would announce what we were planning and they did so from their pulpits. Time was short and you can’t just arrange something like this without consulting the police, the council and health and safety, but everything moved smoothly and, in the space of a few hours, word got round that the townsfolk would have the chance to acknowledge the fantastic job that the boys had done. This was in the middle of May, so we weren’t sure how many people had gone away for the day, or organised other things, but we needn’t have worried on that score. More than 5,000 people, including men, women and children of all ages, turned up for the celebration and it showed yet again what rugby meant to so many folk in the town.
Overall, it was a phenomenal achievement, because the billboards in Edinburgh had been full of pictures of the Watsonians stars, and they were perceived as being clear favourites, but I think that just geed up our own lads. It also helped that, after knocking Melrose out in the semis, we sat down and drew up a plan and part of that was to get our local town band involved and make sure our supporters were sitting next to them, and it all helped to create a tremendous atmosphere, which definitely boosted the team.
There must have been a feeling around Mansfield Park that these resplendent occasions would carry on indefinitely, especially when Hawick continued their impressive march by claiming consecutive championship titles in the 2000–01 and 2001–02 campaigns, the latter of which yielded a treble success with the Teris also lifting another Border League title and repeating their earlier heroics in the Scottish Cup, sealing the latter with a nail-biting 20–17 victory over Glasgow Hawks after extra time. Yet, amid a mounting financial crisis in the Scottish game, the next few years saw a shift in the power base away from the Borders with the Premiership being shared between Glasgow Hawks, Currie, Boroughmuir and Ayr. In itself, this development was bad enough to inspire complaints from the traditionally hard-to-please Hawick fraternity, but they were suffering more than a minor blip as became evident when the spectre of relegation started to hover over a club which would once have laughed at the notion of not feasting with the elite.
Yet, by the time it was confirmed in December 2008 that the Borderers had sacked their coach, Jim Hay, after their president, Donald McLeod, and director of rugby, Doug Jackson, made it clear to the former Scotland hooker that they were not prepared to countenance the club dropping out of the highest echelon for the first time in their existence, Hawick were already on such a slippery slope that no quick search for scapegoats was going to rectify the situation. In the bigger picture, those responsible for dismissing Hay, a man almost as closely associated with the town, whether in the role of player, captain or coach, as the greatest figures in the Green firmament, were entitled to demand why a community with such an apparently vibrant structure, including three more adult clubs, and a network of age-group sides and links with local schools, was faring so poorly on the Scottish circuit.
But Hay, who has never shirked a tackle in his career, was equally robust in fighting his corner and doing so in the public domain:
I have not been sacked because of my coaching ability. A new person [McLeod] came in to run the club and the results were just an excuse to get rid of me. I am a realist and the person at the top of the tree takes the rap, but you have to ask why a club like Hawick couldn’t find anybody else when I wanted to step down last year.
There is too much politics in Hawick rugby and that makes it very difficult for this club. But I’m not bitter with Hawick rugby. It has been my life and it is a wonderful club, and I have done the best I can to help us move forward. Now I am looking forward to spending more time with my family and watching my son playing in the local park.
If the blame had rested solely with Hay, his former employers might still have escaped the trapdoor to ignominy. But, on the contrary, I visited the community in March 2009, as the team slid closer to the precipice and it was obvious that they were suffering from a variety of problems, whether in the migration of several of their best young talents and coaches to rivals in Edinburgh or further afield, or the fashion in which the supply lines, which used to churn out an apparently inexhaustible supply of world-class players, were in urgent need of restructuring. In their defence, Hawick had already started to address these problems and their officials spoke defiantly as the axe loomed, but nevertheless, it was sad to behold the apathy of many of the youngsters on that brief visit and even more dismal to behold the fashion in which they duly plummeted into the second tier following a 29–18 defeat at home to Stirling County, who suffered the same fate.
‘The flags aren’t at half mast, but there is a real sense of disappointment about the town and the worry has to be that we will struggle to improve from here,’ said Jim Renwick, more in sorrow than anger, and that was another common thread among the customers at bars such as Callaghan’s, where one long-term supporter told me: ‘We’re hurting about this, of course we are. But this has been coming for a number of years and the biggest problem is that young kids these days want to go to Glasgow or Edinburgh – or England – and sign a professional contract when they are 19 or 20. They don’t care that Hawick helped them reach the standard they are. All they want is to get out of here and when you look at the unemployment level in the Borders, you can’t really blame them.’
The last rites were duly performed by Watsonians, in a contest which was a mirror image of these sides’ classic confrontation 13 years earlier. Here, it was Hawick who came roaring out of the blocks, all pace, passion and pent-up frustration, and mighty impressive in building a 17–0 lead through tries from Craig Neish, Dan Landels and Neil Renwick. Yet, once the visitors’ initial fizz had vanished, they were routinely swatted aside in a flurry of touchdowns from the Myreside men, in the guise of Michael Fedo, Ben Di Rollo, Richard Minto, Dougie Brown and Andrew Skeen. There was an anticlimactic air at the finish, if for no other reason than Hawick had offered lashings of perspiration and their veteran captain, Kevin Reid, deserved better than to be inextricably linked with the team that got Hawick relegated. But sport can be a cruel business sometimes.
On a positive note, there was not anybody stupid enough to argue that Hawick were ‘too good to go down’; a line which has been trotted out by a string of (usually doomed) managers, mentors and coaches within every team sport since time immemorial. Instead, the evidence from these meetings with Stirling and Watsonians was that the Border giants might benefit from a season in Premiership Two, just as long as they came back up immediately. In the event, they achieved this objective, before ditching Gerry McGuinness, the man who had piloted their path out of Premiership Two, and attained a degree of solidity and respectability in the 2010–11 campaign, though the use of these latter words will probably induce apoplexy among the Hawick traditionalists. But, for the moment, the Green Machine has stalled in second gear and while one would never write them off, they have slipped significantly behind Melrose, just as they did in the 1990s, and their priority must lie in closing the gap through their homegrown players over a period of years, not months. But they have done it before and the fashion in which these organisations have plotted regeneration has been an abiding feature of Borders lore.
At least Hawick’s difficulties were restricted to rugby-related matters. Selkirk, on the other hand, suffered a crisis of almost biblical proportions in 2003 when the town was struck by a torrential deluge of rain, accompanied by thunder and hailstones (at the end of May!) during a four-hour period, which deposited massive torrents of foaming water down the hillsides, engulfing not only the rugby field and the adjacent club rooms, but also the nearby properties in Ettrickhaugh Road, Bannerfield and the Yarrow Valley. This was a serious matter for the whole town, and Philiphaugh had been in the eye of the storm, to the extent that the whole pitch was flooded, while more than £350,000 worth of damage was caused to the club’s facilities. The situation would have been serious enough for a senior football club, and rugby has always had to deal in smaller budgets. Yet their president, John Smail, is one of life’s resourceful chaps and the manner in which he and his fellow officials (and their townsfolk, many of whom had suffered their own privations) acted was an object lesson in the values of communities rallying together in adversity. Smail described the operation thus:
Players, officials and supporters were quick to volunteer their services in the post-flood clean-up, with local contractor, Elliot Henderson, and chartered surveyor, Chris Highton, both members of Selkirk’s general committee, at the forefront of efforts to co-ordinate the mopping up and rebuilding efforts. Offers of help from fellow Border rugby clubs and other sporting organisations were greatly appreciated, as was the financial assistance pledged by Selkirk’s Common Good Fund, Ettrick and Lauderdale District Sports Council and the Scottish Rugby Union. Interest-free loans and donations were also forthcoming from club members and supporters and, within ten days of the flood, the water covering the main pitch had been drained off and, shortly afterwards, the pitch’s contaminated surface was mechanically stripped, verti-drained, injected with sand and reseeded. Meanwhile the changing rooms, toilets and shower area, under the stand, were given a complete facelift and replaced by a magnificent new elevated clubhouse. This structure was designed by Chris Highton and Jim Harold of Allied Surveyors, whose initial ideas were sketched out on the backs of beer mats over a drink in the Town Arms Inn. The new clubhouse continues to win plaudits for its style and character.
However, if Selkirk imagined their problems were over, they were dealt a further grievous blow only 16 months later when history repeated itself, this time with flood water from the nearby Long Philip Burn sweeping through the club’s premises following days of persistent rainfall in the midst of another saturated summer. On this occasion, only the rugby club bore the brunt of the elements, and it was asking a lot of people to dig deep into their pockets for a second time in as many years. But, lo and behold, they again rose to the challenge. ‘When news of Selkirk RFC’s predicament spread around the town, members, players, supporters and the local public were soon turning up at Philiphaugh to lend a hand,’ added Smail, who was typically reticent about his own unstinting efforts to enable the beleaguered Souters to transcend these tempestuous times. He went on:
The offer of two pumps from Scottish Borders Council was immediately accepted, and retained fire-fighters from Selkirk also lent a hand. Meanwhile, a squad of volunteers set about rescuing items from under the stand and transferring them to the new lounge, with ex-club captain, Scott Tomlinson, removing doors to facilitate the sweeping of water from the building, while prop, Steven Renwick, brought a tractor and bowser down from his family’s Craig Douglas farm and began sucking up the flood water from the back pitch. The success of the clean-up operation could be seen eight days later when Selkirk took on a touring side, Thurrock, on the main pitch, which appeared to be in perfect condition. Because flood insurance had been withdrawn [after the 2003 deluge], Selkirk RFC was faced with repair bills running into many thousands of pounds. But once again, the Common Good Fund kindly offered financial support, which was matched by Scottish Borders Council. The club had once again lived to fight another day.
These words epitomised the never-say-die spirit which kept these clubs afloat in periods of turbulence. They also highlighted the fact that while the various Border towns retained their keen rivalry, they were quick to help others out when a genuine emergency came along. It was a tangible illustration of the merits of the ‘Big Society’ years before any politicians used the phrase and it is surely worth recording in these pages.
Yet, if there was a concerted effort to rescue Selkirk from their plight, one team in the region started to stride away from the others as the decade continued and how the rest of the Borders must envy the resources and expertise which are currently available to Craig Chalmers at the Greenyards. For the last five seasons, the former talismanic Test star has steadily, impressively, moulded a squad, which has engaged in a series of Herculean struggles with the likes of Ayr, Currie and Glasgow Hawks. Chalmers, as has been mentioned elsewhere in these pages, is unlikely to receive an excess of Christmas cards from his peers anytime soon, and, absurdly, the Melrose stalwart was not even nominated in the ‘Coach of the Year’ category at the SRU awards in the spring, but he is one of life’s winners, a restless perfectionist, whose constant striving for new standards might occasionally create rifts, and yet who has created a team in his own image.
Certainly, as far as the 2010–11 campaign was concerned, the absorbing battle between Chalmers and the Ayr coach, Kenny Murray, possessed all the necessary ingredients to suggest that these ambitious little coiled springs of boundless industry will be vying for the major prizes on the club circuit for some considerable time. In the Scottish Cup, it was the Ayr men who were flying slightly higher, en route to a 25–21 triumph, courtesy of a brace of tries from the gifted teenager Mark Bennett, who has now departed Scotland to join the Clermont-Auvergne Academy, while there were other touchdowns from Steven Manning and Damien Kelly, the latter of whom will also not be at Millbrae for the 2011-12 season, following the Australian’s extended stay in Burns country.
Chalmers, who paced the touchline with a mixture of angst, aggression and admiration, saw his charges score two tries from Nick Beavon and Hayden Mitchell, with Scott Wight – another to leave the club circuit, en route to Glasgow Warriors – adding another 11 points. But, although Chalmers embraced Murray at the end and was civil enough in the aftermath, it was evident that he was churning inside in the wake of another Murrayfield defeat. Make no mistake, this fellow utterly detests losing – and I can recall bumping into him following a thrilling try-fest against Heriot’s at Goldenacre when his side lost 44–38 and he responded with one four-letter word – ‘Crap!’ – to my suggestion that it had been a great advert for the Scottish club game. To his credit, he walked up, a few moments later, and could not have been more affable in discussing what we had just witnessed. But that was only after – or so I learned later – he had gone through his players like a dodgy curry. And what’s wrong with that? It is this burning desire to iron out mistakes and persuade his players to be the best they can be which fuels his passion and when Melrose are good, they are very, very good, as they demonstrated while triumphing in the Premiership, the Border League and beating South African rivals in the final of the Melrose Sevens.
The first of these prizes was only secured at the climax of one of the most engrossing title pursuits in recent memory, with the outcome in doubt until the last day of the campaign, when Melrose renewed hostilities with Ayr, only a week after their cup disappointment. In the build-up, Chalmers talked up the qualities of his opponents, as if determined to release the pressure on his club, who had not won the championship since 1997 when the 28-year-old No 10 was still at the height of his powers. But, privately, he was preparing them to launch a ferocious onslaught and the game duly developed into another stirring, red-blooded exchange between two meaty packs and some coruscating backs.
The hosts had identified Kelly as a major threat, but they could not prevent the rampaging lock putting Ayr in front with a try, converted by Ross Curle. Yet if that incident exasperated Chalmers, his men regrouped and advanced into a 12–7 lead at the interval with four penalties from Wight. It was still too close to call, and the one-man wrecking ball, Kelly, crossed for another try, even as a deluge of rain descended from the skies in the South of Scotland, but, in circumstances where many other teams would have panicked, the Greenyards collective kept nagging away at their opponents like a persistent itch and eventually gained their reward when Gary Elder and Ross Miller seized touchdowns, and Wight added another seven points to establish a decisive lead. Even then, Chalmers refused to allow any hint of complacency to creep into his ensemble and still seemed agitated when Ross Curle notched a penalty and try. But the latter only arrived in injury time, and there had been no way back for a while for Ayr, whose lengthy season had caught up with them. Melrose emerged with a deserved 29–20 win, the prelude to an explosion of champagne corks popping through the town.
This result should have been applauded elsewhere in the Borders – although one doubts that it was – because it was the first championship success by one of their number since 2002 and arrived at a time when Selkirk were being relegated from the top flight, the likes of Jed-Forest and Kelso were growing used to life outwith the highest tier and Langholm had virtually slipped off the radar altogether. In which light, Chalmers was entitled to proclaim it as a vital outcome for his region. ‘This is a great result for Melrose and the Borders. We kept our heads and kicked our kicks. I think Scott Wight controlled the game and the referee was very strong. There were a lot of shenanigans going on last week and we didn’t let them get away with it again,’ said Chalmers. ‘I’m a greedy so-and-so and I wanted to win the cup final as well, but this was the title we really needed to win and this is the one that we have been working towards. It evoked all sorts of memories of 1997, and it was nice to win in front of our home crowd.’
In so many respects, this was a throwback to the halcyon period when Chalmers, Redpath and their compatriots regularly enjoyed demolishing their domestic adversaries. After all, 20 of the 22 players involved in their title achievement were Scottish, while Telfer is still doing his bit by encouraging the Melrose Wasps under-18s, who will doubtless present their country with some gifted talents in the future. And that ‘greedy’ word used by Chalmers was similar to the mentality espoused by Telfer in his prime. Most of the best coaches have this voracious appetite for prizes, and one suspects that Chalmers, who is still only 42, will not hang around in Scotland forever if, at some stage, the chance to fight for the right to coach his country does not become a genuine possibility.
Yet, for the moment, he and his charges are on a substantial upward curve, whether in the 15-a-side or the abbreviated version of the sport. Occasionally, the Melrose Sevens can feel more akin to a social event – albeit a distinctly pleasant one – than a genuine test of sporting mettle. But the 2011 contest belonged firmly in the latter category, most notably when the hosts secured the famous Ladies Centenary Cup for the first time in 13 years by overcoming the powerful South African guest side, Hamilton, by 31–26. There was little love lost between the teams as the climax raged on, with the visitors taking the lead through Terry Jacobs, prior to the elusive Wight replying with a break of his own.
That ebb and flow continued with a Jeffrey Williams score being countered by a brace of tries from Calum Anderson, which were cheered to the rafters by the usual packed crowd, who were treated to something distinctly unusual from a Scottish team – a tough-as-teak ruthlessness in exploiting opposition weaknesses – and the Scots were indebted to the lung-bursting exertions of the rugged veteran John Dalziel and the spontaneity of Jamie Murray for allowing Wight to establish a decisive advantage. All that remained was for Hamilton’s Jandre du Plessis to be yellow-carded and for Alshaun Bock and Allan Dodds to swap tries before Janno van Zyl scored again, but too late to influence the outcome. Once again, a Scottish contingent had proved they could flourish against southern hemisphere rivals. And once again, Chalmers was the architect of that success. Perhaps it is overdue for his qualities to be properly acknowledged. The best coaches do not need to be loved; they need to be respected and, to some extent, feared. And if the choice lies between glory days, inspired by a streak of arrogance and some forward thinking, or gory days, hamstrung by the ‘Aye-been’ philosophy, it should not take long to decide which option is more required by Scotland at the moment.