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| Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Rugby Union
Amazonia Guildingii |
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HISTORY OF RUGBY IN ST. VINCENT
The St. Vincent and the
Grenadines Rugby Union Football Club (SVGRUFC) came This
all came about following a chance conversation between the incumbent
President and the girlfriend (fiancée) of Kirk Hobson Garcia at a
Christmas party. She had complained bitterly how she missed “her
man” being able to do those “silly man things” on a Sunday
morning. This stimulated an expatriate Englishman -Mr. John Townend- to
return from his Christmas 1997 vacation with plenty of enthusiasm and
two (rugby) balls. He contacted two Antipodean expatriates: - Mr. Kelly Glass, a highly accomplished rugby player from South Island, New Zealand and Mr. Geoff Hyde, an Australian tourism adviser, suggesting a game of touch rugby the following Sunday morning. There were seven (7) players at the first game; - Mr. Carver Alexander, Ernst De Freitas, Kelly Glass, Kirk Hobson-Garcia, Geoff Hyde, John Townend and Delon Williams, a local rastafarian who later became known as “Speedy”. After playing for two hours, the group retired to Villa beach with a crate of beer, to rehydrate (any excuse would do) and to soothe aching muscles in the sea. Rugby had been introduced to St. Vincent and little did we know what we had started! From the early days there was a strong interest from girls, who took an instant liking to the idea of “touch” rugby. The games then continued every Sunday, and it was soon found that in Kirk, Kelly,Andrew and Scott Hadley that we already had some excellent and accomplished players on the island. In addition we were able to attract other good players, namely Derek Hadley who was visiting from Australia and Father Pope Faifal from Samoa, working with the Catholic Mission. In terms of the girls, Jackie De Freitas soon joined, together with some Canadian volunteers, namely Janice Madill and Lisa Lilajehto One other girl who was to become a big favourite was Loretta “hot lips” Skrok. She became notorious for her trick of taking a swig of strong rum and “flame throwing” at parties. Peace corps volunteers, notably Becky Buster and Maria Caluag also became great team members. The local ranks were swelled by the contribution of Lorna “Turbo” Williams from Overland in the Carib community;Delia King from Calliaqua Police Station and Yvonne Bakker from Kingstown. In the early days we were definitely seen as an expatriate grouping comprising of Americans, Australians, British, Canadians, New Zealander’s. Trinidadians, Samoans, and a few Vincentians. Rugby was definitely perceived as a white mans sport and a relatively rough game at that. Despite our expatriate character it was the Vincentians amongst us, notably Andrew Hadley and Jackie De Freitas who took the early lead in developing the club, with help from Geoff Hyde. They decided to call the team “Amazona Guildingii” after the rare and graceful Vincentian Parrot, and selected the National colours of Green, Yellow and Blue for our jersey’s and shorts. Soon afterwards those that could afford it, purchased our own uniforms. The “Amazona Guildingii’s” had definitely arrived. The first official committee meeting was held on April 1st, 1998 when we selected an Executive consisting of Mr. John Townend – President, Mr. Geoff Hyde – Vice President, Ms. Jacqueline De Freitas – Secretary, Mr. Scott Hadley – Treasurer, Mr. Andrew Hadley – Public Relations Officer, Mr. Darrell Raghoo – Administrative Co-ordinator, - Other members co-opted onto the committee were Derek Hadley, Carver Alexander, Ernst De Freitas, and Mr. Kelly Glass. The club had twenty (20) other members. We opened our bank account in May 1998, with the main signatories being Jacqueline De Freitas, Kelly Glass and John Townend. We developed various sub-committees for fund raising, comprised of Ms. Jacqueline de Freitas Mr. Andrew Hadley, Mrs. Janice Madill, and Ms. Loretta Skrok. Organizing of food and drinks, Carver Alexander, Yvonne Bakker and Jacqueline DeFreitas. A sponsorship committee consisted of Ernst De Freitas, Andrew Hadley, Kirk Hobson Garcia and Geoff Hyde was also set up. Coaching was the remit of another sub committee consisting of Kelly Glass, Derek Hadley, Geoff Hyde, Kirk Hobson Garcia and John Townend. After Geoff Hyde’s contract ended in August 1998, he returned to Australia. So we selected a Lady Vice President, Mrs. Janice Madill, who played a very active role in developing the club. We also recruited new committee members in Ms. Delhia King and Mr. Dean Sprott. Coaches were appointed, being Mr. Kelly Glass, Derek Hadley and Mr. John Townend. In 1998 and 1999, captain for male team was Andrew Hadley, and female captain Mrs.Yvonne Bakker. In 1999 Ms. Jacqueline De Freitas became female captain. When Andrew Hadley left for England in June 2000, his brother Scott Hadley was appointed as team captain. With a large expatriate membership, it was inevitable that we would lose players, and the need to get the game into the local population was becoming more and more obvious. Mr. John Bates of the International Rugby Board visited on July 19th 1998. He assessed our progress in developing our Union and split us into two groups to discuss our strengths, weakness opportunities threats (SWOT analysis). This is updated in Section 2.0. of this development plan. It is interesting to compare John’s synopsis of St. Vincent Rugby following his visit and the present state of our development. A Development Plan Committee, consisting of Carver Alexander, Jacqueline De Freitas, Andrew Hadley, Janice Madill, Darell Raghoo and Loretta Skrok was then established to develop our first development plan. This formalised our goals, but only had a time frame of three months. The development plan focused on fund raising and demonstrating the game in villages in the countryside to make people aware of rugby. Although we all had a good time demonstrating the game at places like Bayabou and Camden Park, the problems with this strategy was not being able to follow up, once interest had been created. With the advantage of hindsight, we could have done with better follow up from the International Board and their development officers. There is a real need to push Unions to do their development plans and then for the Regional Development Officers to monitor implementation and make sure that individual unions have the means to improve. We were in fact visited by the first Regional Development Officer, David Rose, on the weekend of Bequia Regatta. We also had a visit from the Schools Development Officer for Trinidad Mr. Ian Jeffries, during the weekend of 5th-7th February, 1999.Although both visits were helpful in stimulating our interest, they did not help with the planning for development of the sport in the island. Travel budgets were clearly a restriction at that time. Since Mark Hewitt has taken over the role of RDO, we have noticed a more positive and practical approach has been adopted. The running of a coaching weekend in Trinidad during June 2000 was a great success and did a lot to spur our own development. The under 16’s tournament held in August this year has, at last, shown us the way to develop the sport sustainably. The response we have had from the local sporting community, the schools themselves and sponsors has convinced us that we are now on the right track, but it has taken us more than two years to work this out. GAMES AND RESULTS The
first game we ever played was against the British Navy Frigate H.M.S.
Newcastle, on the 8th February 1998. One female was brave enough to
participate in the game, one Ms. Lisa Lilajehto. Lisa later became
seriously involved with Derek Hadley one of our star players. They later
eloped first to Canada and then to Australia-one of the hazards of
having girls involved in Rugby. Needless to say, “Amazona Guildingii” won the match and treated the Naval ship to strong rum and a sing song at Beachcombers afterwards, in return for a shield which still hangs behind the bar there. The event was marred by one of the sailors diving off the Pier at Mariners Inn into shallow water. He required 43 stitches to his scalp and was very, very lucky to survive. On
the weekend of 20-21st June 1998, the team sailed to St.
Lucia in two yachts, “II Restless” a Beneteau 36 and “Joss” a
38’ Swan. It was a great trip and with 20 players, both male and
female. To our utter amazement, we won the St. Lucia Seven Seas 7
a’side Rugby Tournament, defeating both Barbados & St. Lucia to
win the championship. Much was owed to Kelly Glass’s inspirational
leadership getting the lads to believe in themselves and stay out of the
bars, the night before the final. Individual
awards were given out to Andrew Hadley – Player of tournament, Derek
Hadley – most promising player and Dermot Wilmott, for most points
scored. The ladies played an exhibition game and were presented with a shield to commemorate the event. Picture 3 shows Lisa Lilajehto collecting the trophy from the Captain of St. Lucia, whilst Picture 4 shows the girls all together with their plaque and other trophies. We were visited by the AFRI/ Canada RFC 1998 Caribbean Tour on December 2nd, led by Jim Fix. The team later journeyed on to Trinidad, where they won the Caribbean 7’s tournament. In December 5-6 1998, we took a squad of 17 players to Trinidad and played in the 7 a side tournament for the first time. Our President was known as “Joan” Townend” for bringing a girls team down. Nevertheless, the Girls defeated a Trinidad and Tobago team 35-12 pts and the announcer had great difficulty in getting the attention of the crowd back onto the main pitch where the men’s semi final was being played. (The final score would have been higher if we had taught them to touch down before they crossed the dead ball line!) This game virtually reintroduced Ladies Rugby to the Caribbean (See Picture 5) and it is pleasing to note that in the year 2000 Caribbean competition, some 8 to 10 ladies teams will be participating. At the end of the year, we proposed three players for Sports Awards- our Captain Andrew Hadley, Coach Kelly Glass and Lorna Williams, female sports person of the year. Lorna was awarded second place following her magnificent performance in the Caribbean International 7’s in Trinidad and Tobago. Kelly Glass came 3rd in recognition of his inspirational performance at the St. Lucia 7 a side tournament, which we won within six months of starting to play. That year, two guest teams arrived from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Force , as well as two sides from Barbados. The “Amazonas” were unable to play to their best ability and did not win the tournament. They were going through one of those patches where due to expatriates leaving, the sport was in a bit of a lull. The tournament was also marred by a relatively serious injury to the President, who although 52 years old had to play to make up numbers, and in the very last minute of the very last match, tore his medial collateral ligament badly in the right knee. We celebrated in the Sports Independence 1999 on 24th October, where we had a friendly match amongst ourselves supported by Mark Hewitt, the new RDO, who helped us to demonstrate passing drills We went to the Caribbean International Sevens in Trinidad with both a male and female team (22 players) on the weekend of December 4-5. 1999. Although the Ladies won there first match against Trinidad and Tobago, a stronger T&T side won the final 12-0 . |
