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Match Day Refreshments Crew

Match Day Refreshments Crew

John Huyton20 Jan 2017 - 18:09
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https://www.orrellrugbyunion.c

Match Day Refreshments Crew

Match-Day Pop-Up Clubhouse Crew

An opportunity to get to know a little bit more about the crew:

Angela Howarth

Perhaps the best known crew-member of the team to all of our club supporters. When not selling teas, coffees, hot Bovril etc., Angela will be seen among the spectators, cajoling them to participate in the match-day raffle. Only the hardest-hearted resist her charms. Angela is a Bristolian and has a Rugby background. She was around the Memorial Ground clubhouse from an early age as her family were heavily involved with the Bristol Rugby Club for very many years, and where her uncle, Jim Bryan, was President of the club for 14 of those years. Uncle Jim and Eric "Mr Orrell" Smith were great chums. When in her 20's, Angela worked in promotions for John Player & Sons (some will remember this company used to sponsor Rugby's knockout cup in the late 1970's). As a member of the promotions team, Angela was a driver for the John Player No6 Hovercraft Racing Team! Angela was given a "Volunteer of the Year" award by Lancashire RFU in 2012. Angela's professional background is in Recruitment, and together with husband David, set up their own company in Manchester which they operated for 24 years.

Sue Robinson-Todd

Sue is another of our better-known crew members, who like Angela, when she is not selling refreshments from the gazebo, she will be found out among the spectators selling the match-day raffle tickets. Selling raffle tickets is something of a near-lifetime calling for Sue, having been active and supporting many folk clubs in the North-West such as the Bothy in Southport (from where she hails). Along with folk-performer husband Ged, they founded and still run the Swinton Folk Club and also ran the associated Folk Festival for many years. As singers, they performed at the Orrell Folk Club in the 1970's which was held in the Edge Hall Road clubroom. During the summer months Sue used to propel her family around the country to various North West Clog Morris Dancing competitions with the Rivington team. Sue is a stalwart chorister at the parish church in Westhoughton. Professionally, Sue has a banking and financial services background.

Jane Taylor

Of all the match-day refreshments crew, Jane can perhaps claim to have the earliest association with Orrell RUFC. As a young girl she was brought by her father (Keith Flannery) to watch the club at Edge Hall Road in the days when Orrell was starting to establish itself in the higher echelons of the game. On match days, Jane is the quiet one who is mostly hands-on with the refreshments, keeping track of the details, and stoking the other crew members with hot drinks and food. Along with husband Keith, Jane is an active folk festival supporter and organiser (an example being the Fylde Festival). Jane is a bee-keeper, producing wonderful honey of renown on her home ground of Salford. Professionally, Jane works in the Social Care Education/Training sector and, helpfully, she has Health & Hygiene catering qualifications.

Keith Taylor

Keith is the Mr. Fixit of the team, when a knot needs tying, a table-leg needs fettling, then Keith is your man. A very good gopher - being a reliable kettle boiler and urn filler, especially so when others detailed to this job get distracted. Keith is a man of many and diverse talents and interests. As well as being active in the folk world, Keith is a keen photographer and can often be seen firing his Canon at events on the pitch. Sharing bee-keeping duties with Jane is only a small part of Keith's interest in entomology (insects). As such he is also a lepidopterist - butterflies and moths in particular fascinate him. In addition he's a knowledgeable ornithologist, a collector of orchids and is a prolific allotmenteer as well! As if all that isn't enough, Keith is a member of the British Stick Making Guild, and every year he produces 30 or so of the highest professional standard Christmas holly wreaths for friends. A Salfordian, Keith previously worked in the Construction Business and now works in the Educational Support sector.

Lucy Jorgensen

Lucy is Jane and Keith's daughter and is another of the friendly faces you'll see making the brews. A Salfordian, Lucy is a long-serving Orrell supporter and has 2 young children, Luke and Dayna. Lucy is a busy lady juggling 3 roles i.e. managing her family, volunteering as a healthcare support worker, as well as working part-time in a Walkden community friendly cafe.

Ged Robinson-Todd

First-of-all a revelation - even though he is from Southport, he played rugby for Waterloo as a kicking fly-half. Then he realised that the position also needed rugby-player's hands rather than a musician's! It was his voice which attracted attention in the folk world and subsequently Ged has had a long and respected association with folk music, its personalities and performers. Playing in many line-ups down the years, he currently performs with the Staff Folk, Feet in Mouth, and an occasional ceilidh band. His hands have now found their metier in the folk world with both the guitar and penny whistle. Along with his folk singing, Ged has kept up historical cultural pursuits having recently collected his 30 years' badge for dancing with the Abram Morris Men, as well as being the colourful Miser with the Abram Pace-Eggers for nearly as many years. Ged is also a campanologist - a bell-ringer - at the same church where his wife Sue is a chorister. Professionally, Ged qualified as a Chemist, but was attracted to IT many years ago, and latterly he was in Technical Operations/Support for the company which maintains most of the High Street retailers' computerised till/point-of-sale equipment.

David Howarth

Refreshment supplies sourcer-in-chief, urn-filler, gazebo-minder and pitch litter collector. Being from Nelson, David was almost completely ignorant of Rugby Union until taking up a teaching post at Marlborough Grammar School where his first teaching periods just happened to be autumn term 5th & 6th year games - i.e. rugby! Fortunately the master in charge had been capped as an England Colt at under-15 & under 19 levels. Joining the Marlborough Rugby Club helped mitigate further embarrassing episodes whilst teaching rugby. David became a representative in the pharmaceutical industry which led to him playing, mainly at Wimborne, but also with a few games here and there. e.g. visits home to Nelson provided the opportunity to turn out on 3 separate occasions as an unregistered player with Colne & Nelson, where he scored 2 unlikely tries from the unfamiliar No 8 position. However, a little-known but fond achievement, is that David was the coach of the team winning what is believed to be the first-ever televised women's rugby match. The game appeared on Swindon Viewpoint TV way back in 1975 and it was a charity match between Swindon Ladies and Marlborough Ladies.

The Beginning

All members of this crew have been together from "our beginning", which is true in the sense of providing refreshments from when the club arrived to play at St. John Rigby College.

Times were glum in the latter times at Edge Hall Road when Dave Whelan restricted access to the clubhouse. Against the odds, some noble diehards managed to keep catering efforts going by putting up match-day gazebos beside the stand - selling burgers / hot dogs as well as beers etc. As Angela and Sue had already started selling raffle tickets by this time, it can be supposed that this is the active link to current match-day efforts at St. John Rigby.

Orrell kept going after the retreat from Edge Hall Road and, with grit and determination from committee, remaining players, resurrected coaches, some nip and tuck, and grace of the Anvils; St. John Rigby became the club's new home in 2008. Those early games were a great statement of defiance and intent. The club started playing on the college's top pitch - the furthest away from any facilities, changing or utility.

From the off, the club still attracted good numbers of spectators, so Angela and Sue carried on regardless with their raffle efforts. It became clear that the raffle itself was linking to supporters, chatting to, and getting them involved, even to a small degree into the new setup. At times like those, the important role of the clubhouse (or lack of) became clear. Nobody in the crew seems to remember which bright spark first said "surely we can do something about this!"

This was the beginning of the pop-up clubhouse. Among other things: Angela and David provided a back-garden gazebo and (underpowered) generator, Sue & Ged provided kettle(s?), Jane & Keith a pasting table to replace the original picnic tables. David toddled off with his Makro card to buy tea, coffee, cups, sweets, biscuits - and the first hot-water urn. The games before the arrival of the trolley were a logistical nightmare getting these items backwards and forwards in the car from home storage. Water monitors would be seen trekking backwards and forwards from pitch to college to fetch more water to supplement the hot water flasks brought from home. When the trolley arrived after a few months there was "fun" in the mud, man-handling it through the gates and up the gradient to the top pitch. Importantly, a visible club "structure" was present for each home match, and the club made enough money from refreshments to cover the rent of the college facilities.

After a couple of years, the club got the use of the college's first team pitch, and the trolley-hauling distance shortened very considerably (relief!), and an electricity supply was available making the generator redundant. The match-day pop-up clubhouse then took up position more or less where it appears nowadays.

The club has since survived well and has gone on to where a new clubhouse is planned (with a kitchen!). Fresh life has now run through playing and committee ranks ensuring the club's future. The match-day effort of trolley-pushing by the crew is restricted these days by backs, ankles, knees etc to not much more than merely leaning on. To those who now help give the trolley an effective shove - a heartfelt thanks is given. Some may have noticed at recent games, that the crew has been augmented by volunteers from the Junior Section. It has been agreed that the Junior Section will be taking over the match-day refreshments "sometime in the near future" and the profits generated will go towards funding their growing number of activities. i.e. Orrell's life blood which is starting to course again. There were 6 Orrell Juniors in Lancashire County age teams in 2016. Such wonderful news.

Thanks to everybody who has supported all our efforts - so far! Keep it up!

Our Best Regards

The Crew

Further reading