dulwich boys at the world cup

[mishadreams]

Hi all,

just in case you were unaware ! there are 2 Dulwich boys playing in Paris tonight, Nick Easter and Andy Sheridan, both played for Dulwich college 1st XV as schoolboys. makes it personal doesn't:))

[AllforNun]

Anyone from Nunhead in the squad ?

[Alan Dale]

mishadreams Wrote:

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> Hi all,

>

> just in case you were unaware ! there are 2

> Dulwich boys playing in Paris tonight, Nick Easter

> and Andy Sheridan, both played for Dulwich college

> 1st XV as schoolboys. makes it personal doesn't:))

Has anyone from Dulwich College ever played professional football?

I realise that rugby is a fringe sport with only nine international teams taking part but I am still surprised that a single private school could provide two players in the current national team. Too much of a coincidence surely. Is the game perhaps a bit elitist?

I think that if England keep getting to the final then rugby might become popular enough to draw the interests of state school children and then I expect that Dulwich College will rarely be represented again.

Victims of their own success so to speak..

[mockney piers]

I know one of the Alleyn's Old Boys dines out on the time he played in the FA Cup. I don't think it was top flight stuff though.

[Keef]

Alan, I played rugby at a state school, and we played against plenty of other state schools. Reason the private schools would always be miles ahead was that they had better facilities, offered scholarships to boys with promise from 14+, and gave them a lot more training/coaching.

Can't see that changing.

[Alan Dale]

Keef Wrote:

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> Alan, I played rugby at a state school, and we

> played against plenty of other state schools.

> Reason the private schools would always be miles

> ahead was that they had better facilities, offered

> scholarships to boys with promise from 14+, and

> gave them a lot more training/coaching.

>

> Can't see that changing.

You may have played rugby at school but I'm sure the best sportsmen in your year played football. (No offence!)

[Muttley]

John Emburey of Peckham went on to represent England in at least one (cricket) world cup. For a while he played for Tulse Hill (the ground near The Harvester).

[blinder999]

"You may have played rugby at school but I'm sure the best sportsmen in your year played football. (No offence!)"

We played rugby at my school (a selective state grammar) - football wasn't even on the curriculum.

The team regularly played and won against private schools, including Rugby school. Nothing to do with facilities or coaches, our team was just quite good.

Mind you, rugby seems only to be played at grammar schools or ex-grammar schools, and private schools (and in the Army?), so no wonder it's got a snobbish image.

[Alan Dale]

I'm not sure many of the England football team would have got into grammar school either.

I should have said:

'I think that if England keep getting to the final then rugby might become popular enough to draw the interests of comprehensive school children and then I expect that Dulwich College will rarely be represented again'

My comprehensive school had a rugby team. The lads who played were the fat kids and the hairy, early developers who were crap at football.

[Jah Lush]

I had the choice of representing my school in football or rugby at my comprehensive and chose football, simply for the fact that I was much better at it and wanted to be a professional. You may have a point there Alan about the lesser sportsmen ending up in the rugby team. It was certainly the case at my school.

[*Bob*]

Colin Charvis of Wales trod on my head when I was but a lad. My rugby claim to fame.

[mockney piers]

We did rugby at school, which was a modern comprehensive. The best sportsmen tended to be in both the footie and rugby teams.

I made the rugby team much to my own chagrin as it condemned me to too many saturday mornings freezing to death on the wings with bob hope of ever actually seeing the ball.

Alumni have gone on to play in the premiership, though none, as far as I know, ever made it in the rugby world.

[Keef]

We had no footy team at my school. We had inter-house football, but didn't play other schools. It was a former grammar school (Aske's) with a big rugby tradition (and cricket in summer, but I never really got in to that). We had some great athletes who ran for England, and they were usually the wingers on the rugby pitch.

These days I am admittedly unfit and wouldn't mind loosing a stone, but believe it or not, back then and all the time I played rugby I was actually rather fit... I also played in the 1st XV for 3 years so there!

Alas I gave up playing when I was in a team in Liverpool who basically turned up in the hopw of a fight.

For the record, I am sh!t at footy, because I never liked it when I was in primary school. I had no interest in the game at all til I was in my teens.

[Dulwich_ Park_ Fairy]

Has anyone from Dulwich College ever played professional football?

I realise that rugby is a fringe sport with only nine international teams taking part but I am still surprised that a single private school could provide two players in the current national team. Too much of a coincidence surely. Is the game perhaps a bit elitist?

I think that if England keep getting to the final then rugby might become popular enough to draw the interests of state school children and then I expect that Dulwich College will rarely be represented again.

Victims of their own success so to speak..

There's a lot more than 9 teams that play international rugby Alan, but you're right that rugby has been pretty elitist in the past, although that is changing (most of the 2003 team were not privately educated). I can't see rugby ever competing with football though as its basically a rural sport and we live in a predominantly urban society.

[Alan Dale]

Dulwich_ Park_ Fairy Wrote:

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> There's a lot more than 9 teams that play

> international rugby Alan,

I thought it was just the six nations and the trinations. 6 + 3 = 9. Am I missing something?

[Keef]

Argentina to be fair.

[Jeremy]

Argentina, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa...

[Asset]

Can I just point out that in Scotland pretty much all the schools, state and private, play rugby and in no way is it seen as an elitist or posh sport there.

[Brendan]

Or in Wales for that matter.

Other countries that have international rugby sides include Spain, Portugal, Italy, Canada, USA, Namibia, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, Georgia, Japan, Romania, Belgium, Botswana.

And probably many more.

[DaveR]

Or in France, Italy, etc.

I played for a team in Italy years ago, and there it was seen as a way to be different in a country where football is an obsession. Similarly, I once toured in the US, and a lot of the local players had made a conscious choice not to play American football because they thought it was boring. In both countries, playing rugby was also associated with drinking lots of beer, which I'm sure was part of the appeal!

Rugby will never take over from football because you can't play on tarmac

As to the best athletes, these days the physical demands are so different, it's not an issue.

[Dulwich_ Park_ Fairy]

I was always under the impression that Scottish Rugby was dominated by the famous Public Schools such as Stewarts-Melville etc.

[peckhamasbestos]

errr......peckham panthers (until recently) - elitist?

[diddley]

"Rugby will never take over from football because you can't play on tarmac"

I hear that following a string of poor performances on grass and now astroturf, it is being considered to re-lay Wembley stadium with a lush layer of tarmac!

[Asset]

Dulwich fairy - The Borders has a long tradition of rugby and of producing players for the national team. Not just the private schools in Edinburgh.

When I was at school in Edinburgh my PE teacher was the captain of the Scottish rugby team and it was most definitely not a private school.

[Ted Max]

John Emburey of Peckham went on to represent England in at least one (cricket) world cup. For a while he played for Tulse Hill (the ground near The Harvester).

The name of the cricket club was actually Honor Oak - who played (from about the 1920/30s onwards, I think) on the pitches opposite the stables on Duwich Common, and before that, of course, were in Honor Oak proper. Tulse Hill was the name of the hockey club which shared the club house and played on the pitches in the winter, in the days when hockey was still played on grass.

Nowadays, Honor Oak CC exists in name only as part of a merged club with Alleyn Old Boys and Old Alleynians. And the hockey club has also merged, this time with Dulwich Hockey Club, based out of Dulwich Sports Club off Burbage Road.