Phoenix
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Phoenix
RUGBY FOOTBALL CLUB
Phoenix RFC is a community rugby club running mens adult,
vets senior, junior and mini teams. Rugby Club Magazine recently
caught up with their Chairman Ken Nathan to find out more
about the good work that they’ve been doing lately.
Involvement
He told us, “I’ve been at Phoenix RFC for 25 years. As an
ex-footballer, I had absolutely no inclination to get involved in
rugby. I had pretty much given up sport due to various injuries
and, although I’d played rugby at school and university and,
on the odd occasion when football had been called off, for my
brother’s rugby team or my school’s old boys, rugby was the
last thing on my mind.
I had a young family and had just started my own business,
so my thoughts were definitely elsewhere. One of my sales
girls was married to a young man who was looking for a rugby
club to join and asked me if I wanted to come along to training
at a local rugby club called Phoenix for moral support. After a
few weeks of nagging, I finally gave in and went with him to
a training session. To be fair, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but
I was still not contemplating a return to sport, let alone rugby.
The then 1st XV captain, Billy Duncan persuaded me to turn
out on the wing for the 4th XV, purely because they were short
and ‘promised’ me it would be a one-off thing! I wonder how
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many of us have fallen for that old line. Anyway, the Saturday
came around and instead of a gentle game on the wing for the
4th XV, I found myself at fly half for the 2s.
I was 30 then and I had my last game when I was 47 (apart
from last Saturday when I cameoed for 10 minutes for the 2nd
team at 55)! It is the most friendly, sociable and welcoming
club that I have ever had the privilege to be involved with and
the only regret I have is that I didn’t find it earlier.”
Present
“The mood at the club is excellent. We have always had a
fantastic esprit de corps and a very strong social side. So we
sing even when we lose! The season is on track for us. A few
years ago we had an ageing side and we had a lot of retirements
at the end of the season, which hit us hard as we’d just been
promoted.
The club decided to rebuild with a young, inexperienced
team. We knew it would be a few seasons before we got back
to winning ways, but we are definitely seeing the fruits of that