Lasswade
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Of necessity, the Club developed
a youth section starting with the
Colts (16-18yrs) but this steadily
extended to the other secondary
school age groups and then on to the
Primaries. Lasswade High School is
taking Rugby much more seriously
now and has taken the lead for
midi rugby but in partnership with
the Club. The Club still directly
organises and runs a thriving mini
section from Primary 1 right through
to P7.
The SRU League structure was
also fairly new back in ‘76 and
Lasswade had been allocated to
Division 5. The Club was holding its
own at that level but that was not to
last. I recall one season when playing
in the 1st Fifteen where we lost
every league game except the very
last when we spoilt the celebrations
of the already promoted Division
Champions – a case somewhere
between saving the best till last if
you’re an optimist or too little too
late if a critic. This marked a slide
and slightly prolonged stay in the
lower reaches of Scottish Rugby
with the climb back to a higher level
having to wait until the 1990’s where
we bumped along until the Two
Thousand and Noughties.
The (now not so) new Millenium
has seen a steady change in the
Club’s fortunes from several angles.
In common with most Rugby
Clubs up and down the country,
playing membership has more or less
halved in my 40 years. This is partly
simple demography – we Baby
Boomers are now mostly drawing
our State pension – and partly the
broadening of choice of other sports
and distractions. Three pitches were
no longer needed and so land was
sold in 2003 and almost all of the
proceeds re-invested in the playing
facilities. We now have a stadium
worthy of the Premier Division and,
indeed considered suitable for some
B internationals.
At about the same time our
results on the field took an upward
turn. Contrary to the understandable
but overly cynical suspicions of our
opponents and critics we were not
using our profits to pay players.
The improvement was started
by more focussed and committed
coaching initially from Graham
Wright but latterly from bringing in
coaches with experience at higher
levels. We also found effective
captains in Mark Billingham and
Richard Borthwick. Thus it is that
since 2007 we have been promoted
six times with one brief demotion
from which we bounced straight
back.
Our playing strength throughout
and presently was and is over 95%
“home-grown” with the remaining
5% being almost all people who have
moved to the area and opted to play
for their new local side.
If asked to summarise the
Club now I would simply refer to
its legal status as a Community
Amateur Sports Club. It meets the
full definition of each of those four
words.
I have never had cause to regret
my decision to join nor to consider
leaving.
Article provided by Richard Payne