Melrose Rugby Bulletin - 5/9/2024
Afternoon Folks,
Hope you are all having a great week, it’s definitely beginning to feel a little Autumnal today – a nip in air. That certainly wasn’t the case on Saturday when the sun beat down on the Greenyards, I believe it was pretty toasty in the stand! We took on Heriots in our first Premiership match of the season, we didn’t get a win, but there was some encouraging rugby played. Please CLICK HERE for Iain’s report along with a gallery of photo’s courtesy of Andy Mclean.
Congratulations to Rhuairidh Lindsay who was named Melrose Player of the Match.
Saturday started with a FABULOUS pre-match brunch, it’s the first time we’ve done a brunch & we were delighted that so many of you booked in, Ally & her team did a stellar job & produced a FEAST! A massive thank you to Ally, Kirsty, Holly & Billie for all your hard work!
The U18 Wasps were in action on Saturday against Selkirk Youth – they had a great opener and won 38-19, well done Wasps. Last night they took on Peebles Development Team and had a huge win – so a successful opening campaign for the U18s – Congratulations boys!
This week's Rugby
This Saturday sees the 1XV Away to Currie - it's a 3pm kick off and there is a bus heading up. The bus leaves the Greenyards at 11:45am & will stop at Earlston & Lauder - it will be £5 per head, no need to book, just be at the bus stop from around 11.50am in Earlston & 12pm ish in Lauder. Good luck to the boys on Saturday!
Six Nations Away Tickets:
The Six Nations Away Ticket application forms are now live on the website. This is for the England v Scotland games on February 22nd & the France v Scotland game on March 15th.
We don’t have maximum ticket numbers, but we aren’t guaranteed our full request. The club has to pay for the tickets before they are issued, so when we know our allocation, we’ll be sending out payment details. Ticket applications must be in by Thursday 19th September. Please see below for ticket price information that has been supplied to us.
ENGLAND V SCOTLAND – Saturday Feb 22nd - Twickenham
CATEGORY
PRICE
Premium (very limited availability)
£199
Cat2
£145
Cat3
£117
Cat4 (limited availability)
£89
FRANCE V SCOTLAND – Saturday March 15th - Stade de France
CATEGORY
PRICE
Cat2
£105
Cat3
£80
Cat4
£60
CLICK HERE to request your tickets …
Welcome to the Club!
A big Melrose welcome to our 2 newest players who arrived in the country yesterday! Evan Davies & Andrew Caballos have joined us from Canada. We look forward to seeing them on the pitch!
Ladies Day - Saturday 28th September
We’re looking forward to welcoming as many of you as possible to Ladies Day on Saturday 28th September when we play Selkirk. Festivities start at 1pm. Enjoy live entertainment, delicious sharing platters & a complimentary drink on arrival.
Tickets:
· £35.00 for Members
· £40 for Non-Members
Visitors to the Club
We’ve had some lovely visitors to the Club over the last week. A French family who were delighted to be in the home of Rugby 7s and had been inspired by the Olympics, they explained that 7s wasn’t that big a thing in France but they felt that after this year’s Games they’d see a lot more! One of the ladies came from Vannes & was delighted to learn that one of our former players, Rudi Brown was now playing for her team!
Earlier this week, we had two sisters and their husbands from Northern Ireland, their grandfather & Great Uncle had played for Melrose – George Yea & his brother Bert, the Grandfather had been in the famous Border League winning team of 1911. Coincidentally we had visitors from the States back in July, again, 2 sisters, whose Grandfather – John Simson was in the same team as George Yea, they all loved seeing their relatives on the wall!
LOST PROPERTY
We’ve had some Apple Airpods handed in to the office – if you or your child is missing a pair, let me know! I’m also going to try again with a couple of good coats that have been hanging in the office for some months! –
· A brown padded Barbour Jacket (brushed cotton) - CLAIMED
· A black Tommy Hilfiger jacket
Please let me know if it’s yours – otherwise we’ll do a charity shop run at the end of the month. If your child has lost kit, we have a big bag that anyone is welcome to go through – just pop down to the Club and have a rummage!
Membership
If you haven’t signed up for membership yet, you are welcome to pop into the office and I’ll get that sorted for you, or you can sign up online – CLICK HERE. Once you’ve clicked on purchase – page up and click on the little shopping cart at the top of the page to fill your details in, then just keep clicking on ‘continue’ until it asks for your card details!
The Hornets Festival - from Fraser & Paul
On behalf of the organisers, we'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to all our players, coaches, referees, volunteers, parents / guardians and sponsors (Michael Ramage Forestry, St Andrews Building and Timber, Blackport Investments and the Asda Foundation) for helping to make the Hornets Festival such a success this year.
It was great to see so many kids getting the opportunity to play in a relaxed and fun environment. Thanks as well to all those family and friends who came along to support and who helped to create such a great atmosphere.
Big thank you to all of you that volunteered during the course of the weekend with special mentions to the following groups / individuals:
ELC4/P1/P2 for the cake / candy / traybake stall;
P3 for the How fast is your pass stall (sponsored by The Trophy Guy)
P4 for the kit stall
P5 for organising registration & player food boxes
P6 for the tombola and fundraising stall &
P7 for the BBQ
Thanks as well to Keith Robertson and the grounds crew for the excellent job they did marking out pitches on the Triangle and Gibson Park;
To George Runicman for sourcing additional bins;
To Hils, Doug & Iain in the office for all their help in the build-up and on the day;
To Rob Moffat & Neil Crooks (Scottish Rugby) for setting up and bringing along the Calcutta Cup and Doddie Weir Trophy;
To the Asda Foundation for the generous donation towards the cost of food for the players;
To Robyn Hodgson for liaising with all the visiting clubs / teams;
To Paul McLean of PMGD Graphic Design for the original programme design and to Paul Wheatley for all his hard work updating the programme this year; and
Last but not least to all the senior players and coaches who gave up their time to come down and help out / interact with the kids. It was hugely appreciated and the kids absolutely loved having you there #oneclub #black&yellow
It was fantastic to see so many people from right across the club working together to put the Hornets Festival on.
The new Hornets, Queen Bees & Wasp parent forums will be getting going soon so if you have any feedback or ideas as to how we can improve the Hornets Festival next year then please keep an eye out for the dates of the Hornets forum and come along to have your say.
Thanks again.
Fraser & Paul
Our next home match is against Watsonians on the 14th of September - we look forward to seeing you then!
Very best wishes
Hilary
PS - Country members, I'll try and get your membership card out over the next week or so!