After years of tinkering with the league structure and the size of divisions, the RFU finally agreed on a more fundamental review for 2000-01. Leagues went down from 17 to 10 (or 12) teams, with matches played home and away for the first time. Midlands 1 remained as a single league, Midlands 2 was split between East and West, and Midlands 3 was split into four. We were placed in West 3 (South)based on our finishing position the previous season. The new division included a number of local derbies, including Bedworth, Keresley, Evesham, Stratford and Old Leamingtonians. With smaller leagues and an upward feed of two leagues into one, there was only one automatic promotion slot for each league, with the runners-up having to play-off for a second promotion place. In addition to the new structure, the ten-minute "sin bin"was introduced as an experimental law change. Several of our players were to become used to the walk of shame to take up position behind the dead-ball line and serve their time as the rule was applied and it began to influence results.

Centre Alex Carroll (left) was the new first team captain and he led a side with a number of additions to the playing strength - South African forward Chris Lahey provided options in the second and back-row, and Ben McMurdo and Tony Bristow added to our back-line. It was also good to see scrum-halves Kenny Johnson and Rob Shuttleworth return from Banbury and Old Leamingtonians respectively, but they were both injured and played little part in the campaign. On the downside, James Hadfield moved to Coventry.

After an opening friendly against Birmingham Exiles, we began our competitive season with a visit by Keresley in the NPI Intermediate Cup. It was not the best of starts and after the lead changed hands several times we went down by 18-30. The league season kicked-off the following week and we opened with a comfortable 28-0 victory against Old Leamingtonians. The old boys had a lot of possession but couldn't turn it into points, whereas we took our chances with tries from Jai Purewal and two from Dewi Bassett, who had an outstanding game at No.8. The Extras and Spartans both scored over 50 points against the OLs, making it a very enjoyable day. Our next game should have been against Woodrush but they withdrew from the league due to lack of players and their games were declared void. Keresley then became our second opponents and we had an early chance to gain revenge for the NPI defeat. Simon David scored a try which Tony Bristow converted and he added three penalties on his debut to ensure a 17-5 victory. A 21-13 win over Bedworth made it three in a row, but our emerging promotion hopes were then given a severe dent when we went down 5-28 to unbeaten Old Coventrians, who had the edge in all areas of the game. Stratford then visited Moorefields and ran in five tries without response, with their forwards dominating possession, to win 39-3.

Whilst the automatic promotion slot was now looking doubtful we were still in contention for the runners-up position and a smooth performance at Evesham brought a 22-8 victory and the beginning of a five match winning run. Bottom side Kings Norton were our next visitors and their miserable season continued as we crushed them by 94-3, the record for a league game, scoring 15 tries in the process. Winger Simon David led the way with 5 tries. Victories against Nuneaton Old Edwardians and Evesham came next and in a reversal of our earlier loss to Old Coventrians we beat them by 20-15. In a see-saw first half, tries from Ben McMurdo, Gareth Renowden and a brilliant effort from Simon David put us in the lead on the stroke of half time and a further score from Chris Lahey clinched the game in the second half. Scrum-half Renowden had joined us from Old Leamingtonians, having played for them against us early season, but he was a former junior player with Leamington and it was good to see him return and to develop into an outstanding player for the club.

This moved us up into second place but as usual a visit to Bedworth set us back again. Prop forward Terry Curran was forced to go off early suffering from double vision and a closed eye following a scrum (how could that have happened?) and with the pack disrupted we were 17-0 down by half-time. Despite a strong rally in the second period, we could not get back on terms and went down 17-20. A visit to league leaders Stratford came next and after our drubbing early in the season hopes were not high against a side that had scored over 360 points in 10 games. It proved to be the best performance of the season with the forwards showing tremendous resilience in defence and a James Pearl try, plus three penalties and a conversion from stand-in stand-off Matt Dale secured a shock 16-8 victory.

Unfortunately, it was down to earth again the next week with a 20-23 defeat at Keresley, despite a hat-trick of tries from Simon David. The match was overshadowed by an injury to Tony Bristow, who was brought down in the tackle and as a ruck formed over him the opposition wing forward (nicknamed "Damage") stamped on his face a number of times causing a deep laceration to the lower jaw. Unfortunately the incident was not seen by the referee but Tony, who was an ex-Keresley player, knew who had done it and other Leamington players witnessed it. Because of the seriousness of the injury (Tony's good looks are still enhanced by what looks like a duelling scar) the club took the unusual step of citing the Keresley player for foul play and the case was referred by Warwickshire to a full RFU disciplinary panel. Although a successful outcome was a bit of a long-shot in the absence of a referee's report or video evidence, the panel surprisingly and bravely upheld the citing and suspended the Keresley player for three months.

As the season reached its finale we drew 3-3 at Old Leamingtonians in a dour game dominated by defences, in which hooker Dicky Davies was sent off after 30 minutes play. This left us needing a win at home to Nuneaton Old Edwardians to effectively clinch the runners-up slot, with our final game against Kings Norton looking like a formality. Nuneaton were still in contention themselves and caused some concern when they led 8-3 at the break, but a re-shuffle of the side following an injury to centre McMurdo did the trick with Gareth Renowden moving to the wing and scoring the winning try. The Kings Norton game was duly won and we finished as runners-up to Stratford, with Keresley third and Nuneaton Old Edwardians and Old Coventrians next.

First XV - 2000-01 Tony Smith (coach), Terry Curran, John Gibson, Scott Conduit, Ges Robinson, Chris Lahey, James Pearl, Danny Birks, Stuart Pearl, Nick Maxwell, John Hibben (Chairman) Chris Collett, Ben McMurdo, Tony Bristow, Simon David, Dave Smith, Alex Carroll, Matt Davies, Marcus Pask

This put us into a promotion play-off, but we were still in the Warwickshire Cup, having beaten Dunlop in the first round in early March. A major Foot and Mouth epidemic had broken out in February and played havoc with the fixture, list both nationally and locally, causing a lot of postponements. In addition to this problem there was an extraordinary amount of rain throughout the season which required us to limit the number of games we could play on the pitches, which restricted the opportunity to play midweek and Sunday games, particularly affecting the Veterans and the Youth Section. Due to these problems the much delayed quarter-final ties were not played until 6th May and we were drawn away to Old Laurentians. We were up against it from the start but hung on well and went into the lead towards the end of the first half with a Simon David try. But two tries in quick succession just before the break, put the Rugby side into a commanding lead and we could make little impression in the second half and lost 17-34.

The league play-off against Stafford did not take place until 19th May, by which time players had become unavailable and or had mentally switched-off for the summer. Stafford had finished as runners up in Midlands 3 West (North) with a similar record to our own, but they scored 3 more points than us (from 2 more games - the withdrawal of Woodrush not counting and tipping the balance in their favour) which unfairly gave them the critical home advantage. The game was something of an anti-climax and started disastrously with two tries for Stafford in the opening ten minutes. A Richard Labatt try and a penalty from Bristow put us back in contention before half-time but another burst of two tries finished us off in the second period and we lost 10-32.

The Extras and Spartans both had successful seasons as usual. Dave Ward continued to lead the Extras and doubled up as Club Captain. The Extras scored over 900 points and passed the 40-point barrier on nine occasions. Their biggest win was in the Warwickshire 2nd XV Cup when they beat GEC Marconi 82-0, with Chris Lowe converting 11 of the 12 tries scored. In the next round they beat Balsall & Berkswell 46-0, before losing 21-22 to Old Laurentians in the last minute of the semi-final, for the second year in succession. The Extras faced a big deficit after playing against a strong wind in the first half but gradually turned the game around to go 21-19 up just before the end, but from the re-start the Laurentians gained a kickable penalty and won the match with what was the final kick of the game.

Julian Morris captained the Spartans and they had the best playing record in the club with 21 wins, including two 50-point victories over Old Leamingtonians, and only 9 defeats. Hugh Smith continued to skipper the Stags but they were only able to play 23 games and their list of opponents bore little resemblance to the original fixture list, with so many games cancelled or rearranged. Due to the increasing difficulty in getting a side together they linked up with Harbury 2nds and fielded joint sides in a lot of the games. Peter Gray continued to lead a Veterans side for the third year (having been unbeaten in the first two) with a 6 game fixture list - the results are not known. There was no Colts side, but Tony Timms coached an under-17 team with view to them graduating into a Colts team next year.

Overall this was probably our best season for results since the mid 1990's and we were unfortunate that the new league structure only allowed one automatic promotion. We were developing a young and spirited first team squad due largely to Tony Smith, who had been instrumental in recruiting a number of good players and was beginning to make a big impact in his second year as club coach. The experience of Bob Hickman was also important and he completed a three-year spell as Rugby Chairman. The player of the year, for the second year in succession, was back-row forward Dewi Bassett who proved to be a powerful force at No.8 and scored some vital tries. The most improved player was James Pearl who made the full back position his own. On the representative front, Nick Maxwell played for the Warwickshire senior XV and Dave Smith played for the under- 20 side. Simon David was leading league try scorer with 13 and Tony Bristow top points scorer with 67.

A pleasing aspect of the season was that there was a full club tour at Easter for the first time for several years. The touring party crossed the Channel to Liege and Maastricht, with players required to travel in "Elvis" costume. Organised by Joe O'Meara, Dave Ward and Stuart Chamberlain, the tourists were issued with various useful phrases to help with the situations they were likely to encounter with locals, including "Mien is teen dubbel, salut Hercule" for the bar and "Ist u transvestitesche?" for those trying to pull in the nightclubs. There is no record available of how they did on the field

There was sad news at the start of the season when C W "Pip" Moore diedon 29th August. Pip was the man who put the "Moore" into Moorefields and was the Club's longest serving member, having joined in 1931/32. He moved on to play for Rugby just before the war but, after serving with the Royal Navy during the conflict, he returned to Leamington on the resumption of activities and became one of the mainstays of the club, serving as both Treasurer and Chairman. But what really singled him out, was that he was always around to do whatever needed doing, whether it was marking out the pitches, cleaning the baths, or clearing the cow dung off the pitch at the old ground.

The club had reached the milestone of its 75th birthday on 26 April 2001 and although we had not been rewarded for finishing as runners-up with promotion in the play-off game, we looked forward to the prospect of achieving this in our jubilee season. Tony Smith continued as club coach for a third term and he was assisted by Matt Williams, a Coventry player rehabilitating from injury, who helped with the forwards. Fran Hemmings was the new 1st XV captain and there were also changes behind the scenes with Stuart Chamberlain (and later John Hodgetts) succeeding Rob Hickman as Chairman of Rugby and Dave Warrilow taking on the new role of fist team manager, responsible for sorting out the match day arrangements for the side.

The team was more or less the same, with the main addition being Jonathan Richards a skilful fly-half from Wales, who unfortunately was prone to injury. Another new recruit was Simon Brand, a powerful No.8 forward. He too was injured for most of his first season, but was to prove a great asset in subsequent campaigns. Simon has the distinction of being the first player to be recruited via the club's website, which had been set up a couple of years earlier.

In our opening competitive game, we were drawn away to Stratford in the NPI Intermediate Cup. In a tight match, a James Pearl try put us in front with five minutes to go, but Stratford came back with a furious response and after a number of scrums on our line they forced their way over to recapture the lead. There was still time for us to come back, but deep into injury time a Pearl penalty into the wind dropped just short of the crossbar and we lost by 8-10.

The cup game showed that we were in good shape for our first league game against Old Leamingtonians and tries from Simon David and Billy Unsworth secured an excellent win at Bericote Lane. This was followed by a strong performance against Silhillians, when, after falling behind early on, we stormed through with scores from Dave Smith (2), Ben McMurdo, Alex Carroll and Gareth Renowden, to win by 24-10. A 22-10 victory at Keresley made it three in a row. This was a much anticipated game in which trouble was expected following our citing of one of their players the year before. The Warwickshire Referees Society came mob-handed with three match officials and an observer, but in the event the game was played in good spirit and we rarely looked in difficulty as wingers Carroll and David and Greg Melville all touched down.

A rare win at Bedworth followed, although it took four Richards penalties to see us home by 12-7. A crunching win by 37-12 against Old Coventrians made it five in a row with tries coming from forwards and backs, with Carroll, Smith, Lahey, Curran and Hemming all going over the line. A draw at Pershore retained our unbeaten record when a converted try by Gareth Renowden and three penalties from Bristow were all we had to show for our afternoon's efforts. Frustration developed as two seemingly good scores were ruled out by the referee. With only minutes to go Jonathan Richards thought he had won the game with a massive drop goal but unfortunately the referee was the only person on the ground that didn't see it had gone over. Things could have been worse when Pershore hit the bar with a last-ditch penalty attempt.

Back on the winning trail, Evesham and Birmingham Exiles were comfortable victories but we then came unstuck at home against Nuneaton Old Edwardians. An injury to Richards during the warm up did not bode well and two Tony Bristow penalties were not enough against tries by the opposition in both halves. The following Sunday we went out of the Warwickshire Cup at the first hurdle going down 16-28 at Old Coventrians. Having already beaten them once in the league we were hoping for a repeat but two early tries put the hosts in the driving seat and we were forced to play catch up. Three penalties from Tony Bristow gave us hope, but an interception try finished us off and a late consolation score for Simon David was not enough.

We got back on the winning trail against Evesham in the final game before Christmas in a tight match with a Derek Jones try and a James Pearl penalty being the only scores. As in our earlier game, mid-table Pershore proved a real handful and we were lucky to retain top position after another tight game in which we trailed 3-6 for a long time and were fortunate that Pershore did not convert a number of other kickable chances. Prop forward Greg Melville came to the rescue however, forcing his way over for a try with three minutes to go to put us in front and we hung on despite a late scare. We then got our revenge and a double against Old Coventrians on their ground, winning 11-0 through a Jones try and penalties from Richards, which took us into the key games of the campaign.

The match against third placed Bedworth was played in a high wind on a heavy Moorefields pitch. We dominated the first half with the aid of the wind but finished it only 9-7 ahead thanks to three Bristow penalties. With the wind in Bedworth's favour in the second half we were forced to repel wave after wave of attacks, before breaking out to score a vital penalty to clinch the game. A 21-0 win over Keresley put us two points ahead of Silhillians and three ahead of Bedworth with three games to go. The next game at Silhillians was the potential championship decider and we put down our marker with a Bristow penalty and a Bassett try to go into an early lead. With the Sils having to run possession to get back into the game we finished them off with the try of the season when Alex Carroll read a dummy pass and intercepted to score from within our own half. Two injury time tries caused some late anxiety but we were 19-12 winners

Old Leamingtonians were our next visitors and they did not come to join in our victory parade. Although we had several key players out it was expected to be a routine win against the mid-table side but it proved to be a close game and with the scores locked at 15-all a penalty won the game for our neighbours and ensured a nervous ending to the season. Our penultimate game was at Nuneaton Old Edwardians. The Old Eds had beaten us at Moorefields and it was close again with the scores level following an exchange of penalties. But it was Leamington who found a rhythm and Jonathan Richards sidestepped two defenders to make the vital score. Theleague was wrapped up in stylewith a comfortable win by 32-0 against Birmingham Exiles. Two tries in the first half, from Richards and Birks, settled our nerves and Smith and Renowden added to two more in the second period. Bedworth lost at Pershore we finished three points ahead of them.

The following week it was party time and our second ever league topping performance was celebrated at the club's 75th anniversary Jubilee Dinner, attended by over 165 people and held in a marquee by the clubhouse on 20 April 2002. The guest speaker was John Bentley, who held the unique distinction of playing for England and Great Britain at both rugby union and rugby league. The player of the year award was given to the first team squad as a whole for their efforts in gaining promotion. Overall they won 21 and drew 1 of their 31 games and scored a total of 698 points - 158 of them against Balsall & Berkswell in two friendly matches! The most improved player was ex-colt Tom Back, who proved very versatile, playing in several positions. The winning line-up over the season was - Tony Bristow (or Tom Back) Simon David, Alex Carroll, Dave Smith, James Pearl, Jon Richards, Gareth Renowden, Greg Melville, Nick Maxwell, Terry Curran, Chris Lahey, Fran Hemmings, Danny Birks, Dewi Bassett, Scott Conduit

Dave Ward continued as Extras and club captain, supported by Gareth Eastham, and their team scored nearly 950 points the best haul for any club side for many years at an average of nearly 30 points per game. Their biggest totals came in successive weeks with a 64-24 win over Broadstreet followed by a 68-13 win against Dunlop in the Warwickshire Second XV Cup. In the next round, the quarter finals, they lost 14-34 to Barkers Butts. The Spartans also piled on the points, scoring 702 and winning more than half of their games. Their biggest score was an 83-0 win over Silhillians, with Stuart Chamberlain grabbing a hat-trick and skipper "Boz" Morris two of the thirteen tries scored. A major disappointment was that we were unable to field a fourth team with the Stags playing only one game: against Old Leamingtonians. This was to be the Stags last season. Having only recently fielded five regular sides (and occasionally six) it was sad to see the decline in numbers but this was not unique to Leamington and in fact we had managed to keep a fourth team going longer than most comparable clubs. Once again we fielded an occasional veterans' side led by Peter Gray, playing four matches under floodlights.

After several years of disappointing results it was encouraging that we were now moving in the right direction again. The big questions were: how could we build on our success and could we get back to into Midlands 1? Since we achieved promotion to that level a decade earlier the rugby world had changed and it was now a semi-professional league of clubs operating with large playing budgets. A meeting of coaches and players was held in April to consider our playing policy. It was agreed that we were opposed to the principle of paying players at this level of the game, but we were not opposed to paying reasonable out-of pocket expenses to players who were recruited from outside the area, who would not have played for us in normal circumstances and had to travel to training and matches. We could obviously only pay what we could afford and the feeling was that priority should be given to strengthening the coaching support. One initiative was to join up with Rugby Lions FC to have joint training sessions with a view to benefiting both clubs by the potential exchange of coaches and players - the outcome of course was that our players and coaches went to Rugby and little came the other way!

First XV - 2001-02 Bob Howe (President), Bill Unsworth, James Pearl, Gez Robinson, Marcus Pask, Fran Hemmings, Dewi Bassett, Danny Birks, Terry Curran, Chris Lahey, Nick Maxwell, Greg Melville, John Gibson, Tom Back, John Hibben (chairman), Jon Richards, Scott Conduit, Derek Jones, Matt Dale, Tony Bristow, Dave Smith, Gareth Renowden, Charlie Taylor, Alex Carroll (captain) Tony Smith (coach)

Promoted to Midlands 2, mercurial centre Alex Carroll took over as captain from Fran Hemmings for a second spell in charge, with Tony Smith and Matt Williams continuing to provide the coaching support. New players coming in included centre Dorian Ward, winger Steve Whyte, full-back Dan Law and second-row Chris Valentini, who arrived in February

A narrow win in a friendly against neighbours Old Leamingtonians put us in confident mood at the start of the season in what was to prove to be a very competitive league, with most sides able to beat one another, dependent on form, injuries and the bounce of the ball. We could not have had a more difficult start than away to favourites Hereford, where we were heavily beaten by 43-9, although the score did not reflect the balance of play. The second game was against Old Laurentians who won comfortably at Moorefields with our only score coming from a last-minute consolation try by Gareth Renowden.

We then made a quick exit from the NPI Intermediate Cup, going out 28-11 to old rivals Barkers Butts. Leading after half an hour and looking good we were hit by a four-try burst either side of half time and although we came back strongly with tries from Richard Labatt and Dave Smith the match was well beyond us. It was a similar story in the next league game, with Sutton Coldfield hitting us with a three-try burst within 10 minutes to clinch the game and make it three losses in a row.

Things turned around with a rather lucky win over in-form Camp Hill. After dominating the first half hour and with tries from Paul Archer and Billy Unsworth we were well worth a 23-12 lead, but with 20 minutes to go Camp Hill came back to score three tries without reply and go in front. With the game into injury time and the referee's whistle at his lips, Derek Jones went over to level the scores and Tony Bristow kicked the conversion to win 30-28. This started a run of six wins and a draw in our next nine games. Newbold were well beaten on their own patch with our pack dominant in the scrums and Renowden pouncing on the opposition mistakes to set up Carroll and Richards for a try apiece. Against Stafford we appeared to be heading for victory through tries from Jones, Renowden and Carroll, until an injury time score by the visitors cruelly denied us a third win in a row and nicked the game by 25-22.

With several key players missing, a trip to Bedworth was not what was needed next but the pack was in tremendous form and Carroll chose his moment to clinch victory with the only try of the match. Steve Whyte celebrated his promotion to the team with two tries to secure a victory at Stratford, which was followed by an easy win against struggling Wolverhampton. Playing so well, it then came as a surprise to go down at home to strugglers Dixonians, when we again we fell victim to a scoring burst either side of half time. A second win against Wolverhampton put us back on track but it took until the second half to get going after we arrived late. Two penalties from Bristow and a try from Renowden enabled us to squeeze through 11-6.

In the Warwickshire Cup we were drawn away at Old Coventrians for the second season in a row and there was not much Christmas cheer around in a bad tempered game on a cold, wet and windy December night. Being forced to play the game in mid-week, between two crucial league games, was not a popular decision and did nothing to enhance the importance of the competition. We went down 28-0.

The final league game before Christmas was a 21-21 draw at home against Stafford, which left us in a comfortable position at the half-way stage, having secured a good haul of 13 points from 12 games and well off the bottom two places. Lurking in our minds however was the concern that we did not know how many teams would be relegated. This would be determined by which teams came down from above and which leagues they would naturally drop into. The indications were that an unusual number of west midlands teams were at risk in the national league and these might cascade down through Midlands 1 into our league and increase the number of relegations from it. Therefore it was vital to finish as high as possible

Things started badly with a 37-5 defeat at Derby prior to the new year and then, following a two-week break due to bad weather, we lost at home to Newbold and Bedworth, both of whom we had beaten away earlier in the season. We recovered somewhat against Sutton Coldfield in a game we snatched out of the fire when a late score from Dewi Bassett, charging over from short range, took us within a point of the lead and then Tony Bristow held his nerve and put over the conversion to win 22-21.

Further losses, to Stafford and Camp Hill, started to drag us down into the relegation zone and with fixtures against promotion contenders Old Laurentians and Hereford to come, things were getting serious. Old Laurentians despatched us easily by 32-0 and for the visit of Hereford changes were made, in particular with Carroll and Renowden switching positions. It very nearly worked and we played some of our best rugby of the season, but confusion in the midfield defence led to two crucial scores against us and despite a late recovery it was not enough, and we lost 21-29. Things reached rock bottom against tail-enders' Dixonians and a 44-19 defeat meant that survival was now out of our own hands. A final defeat at home to Derby was no surprise, but we played well with plenty of spirit, but the opposition took their chances and we didn't.

We won only one game in the second half of the season and in the final reckoning we finished three from the bottom - above the normal relegation slots and level on points with Stratford and Camp Hill above us. The peculiarities of the "cascade effect" resulted in an unprecedented number of 6 of the 12 teams in the division being relegated.This caused such a furore, with similar situations occurring elsewhere in the country, that the RFU undertook an emergency consultation exercise to avoid it happening again and came up with a new "cluster system" which set the number of clubs to be promoted and relegated from each league at three and dealt with the cascade problem by moving clubs sideways if there was a geographical imbalance among the teams relegated. This was introduced in 2003/04, but it was too late to help us.

First XV - 2002-03 Brain and Kath White (sponsor), Dorian Ward, Danny Birks, David Lea, Greg Melville, James Pearl, Scott Conduit, Richard Ogden-Wetherall, Dan Law, Chris Lahey, John Gibson, John Hodgetts (chairman), Tony Smith (coach) Marcus Pask, Richard Labatt, Paul Archer, Dave Smith, Dicky Davis, Gareth Renowden, Dewi Bassett, Tony Bristow, Alex Carroll, Nick Maxwell.

The Extras and Spartans both had reasonable seasons, winning more than they lost. Dave Ward continued as Extras captain and led a useful side comprising his core of seasoned veterans, along with some emerging talent, including Simon Harry, Mark Warrilow and Bobby Darbyshire in the forwards, and Adam Preece, Tom Back and Chris Murphy in the three-quarters. Murphy and Back, playing in the centre together, sparked off some of the most exiting rugby seen at Moorefields for years. Against Hereford and Dixonians the team scored over 80 points and Murphy grabbed five tries in both games. Because he was not old enough to play in league games, Chris played his rugby in first team friendlies, Extras and Colts games and scored an estimated club record of 45 tries in 31 matches.

Boz Morris captained the Spartans but was injured early on and Des Dillon filled in. They won 15 of their 27 games and like the Extras they provided opportunities for emerging players to come through the ranks. As the season progressed the ability to speak French became a job requirement for the skipper as the club gradually acquired a French Connection, with the recruitment of Julian Destable, Jerome Cotte, Didier Pruvot, Antoine Guernieri, and others.

Among the individual achievements, Alex Carroll made his debut for Warwickshire against Cumbria at the end of the season and he and Matt Dale were invited to represent Wales in an amateur touch rugby tournament in Japan at the end of May. Matt only accepted because he thought the touch rules would reflect his tackling skills and because the hard pitches in Japan would not cause his knees to get dirty.

Again we were unable to field a fourth team or a Colts side but progress was being made towards reinstating Colts rugby through a joint under-17 team with Old Leamingtonians, which played a number of fixtures using players from both clubs, as neither could field a stand-alone side. They made it through to the final of the Warwickshire under-17 Cup, losing narrowly by 10-13 to Earlsdon. This group graduated into a joint-colts side the following season, which included fly-half James Robertson, who was capped by Warwickshire Colts whilst playing for the under -17s. Efforts were also being made to help keep girls involved once they reached the age of 13 and were no longer allowed to play in mixed junior sides and a combined Leamington-Kenilworth-OLs team was formed and played for a couple of years.

2002-03 was the 30th anniversary of the formation of the mini and junior(now known as the Youth) Section. In February, a dinner-dance was held and was attended by more than 110 parents and invited guests, to celebrate the anniversary. Maurice Goymer, who was the second chairman of the Section, spoke about how mini and junior rugby had come about and recalled some of the players who had come up through the club, including Peter Gray who started in the under-7's, went on the captain the 1st XV, and was now coaching his own son Charlie as a mini player.

The Section was continuing to thrive against a background of falling numbers of young rugby players nationally. Contrary to the experience of some of our neighbours, our membership was stable and if anything increasing and totalled over 200 boys and girls, playing through from under-7 to under-17. The mini festival continued to be a popular and successful event and had run consistently throughout the 30 year period. In 2000-01 we introduced a junior (under 13-15) tournament for the first time which continued as an annual event for a few years. This is not to say that everything was coasting along nicely and a particular difficulty was the loss of pitches due to the continuing unavailability of the Arnold Lodge field. Also the requirements within the game to ensure the safety of young participants through the introduction of Criminal Record Bureau checks for coaches and the expectation that they would be properly qualified to undertake this work was an ever increasing administrative burden. The RFU brought this together with the introduction of their Child Protection Policy and their Seal of Approval quality assurance scheme, which Leamington were one of the first clubs in the country to acquire, in 2003.

A lot was going on within the club to help with this and to foster the development of game generally. In 2001 the club was officially appointed as a Coaching Centre of Excellence by the RFU (one of only two in the county) meaning that coaches throughout Warwickshire came to Leamington to attend their courses. By this time 32 people were actively engaged in youth coaching at the club (many of them current or former senior players) with 25 of them holding recognised qualifications at various levels.

Through the efforts of Paul Ford and Tony Timms a lot of hard work was undertaken to create links with local schools in order to encourage the re-emergence of the game. This included after-school training sessions and projects such as Tag Rugby, aimed at introducing youngsters to Rugby by playing a non-contact version of the game. This was originally funded through a Millennium Fund grant and sponsorship from Target Cleaning and has since become a regular event hosted by the club in conjunction with Warwick District Council and involves over 300 boys and girls each year. Another initiative was an agreement with Leicester Tigers for them to hold a mid-summer coaching course for the area at our ground. This started in 2002 and has continued successfully every year since.

After suffering relegation, the first team set about the task of regaining Midlands 2 status. Alex Carroll continued for a second year as captain with coach Tony Smith now assisted by Tony Bristow. It was thought that we had recruited Nuneaton and Warwickshire second row Alan Roberts as a player and forwards' coach to add to the team, but after impressing against Broadstreet in our pre-season trial game they lured him away before the season started, although he did come back to provide some help during the season. Tony Timms took over as Rugby Chairman.

Silhillians were our opening league opponents and the game was dominated by the Leamington pack, with newcomers Neil McMillan and Pete Blunt having excellent games in the back row, as did and ex-colt Richard Blunt at hooker and Chris Murphy in the centre. Tries by McMillan, Pask, Bassett and Renowden clinched an opening away win by 26-8. Pictures from the game show Pask, Blunt, Bassett and Renowden (left) and Carroll, Conduit, Smith and Renowden (from the left above).

Due to a successful appeal against relegation the league organisers were forced to promote two extra sides from Midlands 4 to 3 West, with Old Leamingtonians and Southam moving up to our league, making 12 sides in total. Old Leamingtonians had clearly not finished celebrating their first and so far only "promotion" when they visited Moorefields in the second game. On a beautiful sunny day they looked a poor side as we won comfortably by 21-13. Marcus Pask scored two tries with skipper Carroll getting the other.

Our usual away draw in the NPI Intermediate Cup took us up to Mansfield where we fielded a young side including five colts, with debuts for Phil Muir, Bobby Darbyshire and Mark Warrilow. Mansfield dominated the game and won by 22-0. Returning to league action, it was end to end stuff at Droitwich, with the lead changing hands several times. When the home side went a point ahead with five minutes to go it looked glum, but full-back Dan Law came to the rescue with a brilliant run from the half way line to score the winning try on the stroke of full time. Another Dan Law special was the difference between the sides as we beat Camp Hill 11-0 in our next game.

An outstanding performance by flanker Pete Blunt inspired the forwards in an early top of the table clash with Old Coventrians and the backs took advantage of plentiful turnover ball to run in five tries, through Murphy (2) Dale (2) and Carroll as we picked up our fifth victory in a row, by 27-18. Our first ever league game against Shipston proved to be a real struggle with our advantage in the scrums neutralised by the visitors' strong mauling game which gained them lots of territory. In the end it took a slick three-quarter move and a try by Phil Muir to grind out win number six.

Our unbeaten record came to an end when Stratford visited at the beginning of November. They caught us at a bad time with several players missing and Tony Bristow having to come out of "retirement" to slot in at full-back. Stratford took advantage of our disrupted teamwork and once they were ahead they never let us back into the game, winning comfortably by 30-10. Another tough local derby followed at Southam where we appeared to be heading for an easy victory once tries by Muir, Richards and Pask had built up a lead, but Southam, with former Leamington captain David Brown marshalling the backs, came back well with two late scores to make it 21-13 and a nervous ending.

The clubhouse was filled to the rafters two weeks later when England took on Australia in the Rugby World Cup final and the roof almost came off the building when Jonny Wilkinson's drop goal went over in the last minute of extra time. The RFU had given a general dispensation to postpone games so players could watch the final and have celebratory drink or two afterwards. Our game against Keresley was therefore called off and only Aussie Tony Bristow was unhappy with the outcome of the match. England's homecoming celebrations included a game against New Zealand Barbarians just prior to Christmas and in recognition of the work we had being doing to promote the junior game and being one of the first clubs to comply with the new RFU Chartermark, our under-11 side were given the honour of demonstrating their skills prior to the match and then forming the guard of honour for the world champions as they came out.

The World Cup triumph did not provide much inspiration for the first team as we slipped to a surprise home defeat to Pershore in the next game and the following week our promotion hopes really started to look shaky with another loss, this time at Ledbury. In a game in which we totally dominated possession at both scrum and lineout, the high wind caused havoc and we somehow managed to go 13-0 down in the first quarter and from that point on, every effort to turn the game around was frustrated by the bounce of the ball or crucial scoring decisions going against us. Bristow and Renowden both managed to touch down but how we managed to lose by 17-20 was hard to understand.

Our revival began with big wins over Keresley (44-5) and Southam (69-5) and we were back in the promotion race by Christmas, one point behind Old Coventrians and just ahead of Stratford and Droitwich. Coming up quickly after a poor start were Old Leamingtonians, who had strengthened their side considerably and were on a roll. A narrow and unconvincing victory over Silhillians made it three wins in a row and we then travelled to Stratford for one of the key games of the season. With a powerful first half performance we built up a fifteen point lead through tries by Dave Smith and Dan Law and despite a fight back by Stratford in the second half they could not rescue the game and we won 18-10 to overturn the result earlier in the season.

After a comfortable win over Shipston, with tries from Renowden (2) Murphy and Pask we went head to head with leaders Old Coventrians. Things were looking good when we moved into an early 10-0 lead through a converted try from winger Dave Smith and a penalty from Bristow, but we took our foot off the pedal and the OCs rallied with a devastating burst of three tries before the interval. There was no further score and we lost 10-20 to go three points behind and looking at the runners-up spot as our most likely promotion chance.

We picked up our winning ways in a furious game at Camp Hill, where this time we had to come from behind. Marcus Pask continued his scoring streak with our first try but Camp Hill held out until five minutes from the end when a Chris Murphy try made it 16-12 to secure the points. Droitwich were dismissed from the promotion race with an easy 22-0 win which could have been much more. No.8 forward Simon Brand was improving in every game and was becoming a dangerous attacking force off the back of the scrum. He went over for two of our tries with Murphy grabbing the third. Warwickshire Colts fly-half James Robertson was promoted into the side for this match and he looked the part as he controlled proceedings with his kicking and excellent distribution of the ball. Revenge was gained over Pershore in ding-dong match at the end of February. This time, Robertson showed the running side of his game with two tries and he was brilliantly supported by the back row of Bassett, Blunt and Brand, the latter of whom got on the score sheet again as we won 27-20.

And so we came to the return game with Old Leamingtonians. Since playing them in September they had achieved a run of twelve wins on the trot, including a 40-6 demolition of Stratford, before finally losing to Old Coventrians the week before. Three points behind, they were still in a position to overtake us if they could win and if we slipped up in either of our other remaining games. Played on a sunny but very windy day we had the elements in our favour in the first half and although suffering some disruption in the scrums we moved into an 11-0 lead at half time, via a Bristow penalty and a Renowden try. A forwards' try got OLs back into it in a disjointed second half, but with five minutes remaining it looked as though they had run out of ideas until a poor Leamington kick ahead was turned into a counter attack with the OLs full-back chipping ahead and catching his own kick before moving the ball wide in a sweeping move which resulted in their winger Simon Magill scoring in the corner. Still 11-10 ahead, the game ended in controversy when deep into injury time with a line-out due to be played the referee gave OLs a penalty under the posts following an intervention by the linesman. This was kicked to give them a rather fortunate 13-11 late win.

There was no room left for mistakes and there weren't any. In the final home game, Ledbury never looked likely to repeat their pre-Christmas success as our forwards tore into them from the start. With loads of possession the backs ran riot and tries kept on coming - from Renowden (3) Murphy (2) Carroll, Brand and Curran. Even replacement prop Chris Collett got in on the act as we won 60-0. Keresley were potentially a very difficult final hurdle and they had produced a shock win at Old Coventrians the week before, but we produced another scintillating display to win by 46-5, tearing apart their once vaunted pack and Chris Murphy helping himself to a hat-trick and Simon Brand and Gareth Renowden scoring two tries apiece.

This secured the runners-up spot and with it a play-off against Sutton Coldfieldfrom Midlands 3 West (North) who had been cascaded down from our league the year before, despite finishing sixth from the bottom. They had a similar record to us and on their ground our chances were rated at no better than even. However, played in glorious sunshine, the team produced its best performance for years, totally dominating the game from start to finish. Having made the mistake of leaving James Robertson out against Old Leamingtonians, this time he was picked at fly-half and lined up against him was Dan Lockley, who as an 18 year old had destroyed Leamington in the 1996 Warwickshire Cup Final. History was not to repeat itself and this time it was the Leamington tyro who stole the show by kicking a succession of penalties and orchestrating a display of free flowing rugby in which man of the match Alex Carroll scored a hat-trick. Gareth Renowden added another as we ran out 37-3 winners. The line-up was - Dan Law, Chris Murphy, Alex Carroll, James Pearl, Dave Smith, James Robertson, Gareth Renowden, Terry Curran, Nick Maxwell, Marcus Pask, Chris Lahey, Fran Hemmings, Dewi Bassett, Pete Blunt and Simon Brand

Overall, with 19 wins from 26 games it was one of the club's most successful seasons and we played some excellent rugby with a good balance between forwards and backs. Chris Murphy scored 15 tries in the league and was voted the club's most improved player. Chris added to his CV with call-ups to the Midlands and Warwickshire Colts and the full Warwickshire side at the end of the season. Gareth Renowden was not far behind Murphy in the try scoring charts and with 12 league tries and he was chosen as player of the year.

In the Warwickshire Cup we had a comfortable win against Dunlop in the opening round. We then drew Newbold and paying the price for fielding an inexperienced side we lost 34-0. The few friendly games remaining on the fixture list were also used as an opportunity to rest players and to give experience to youngsters, most notably James Robertson, but also including Mark Warrilow, Danny Keogh, Phil Muir, Ian Anderton, Tom Fitch, Alistair Childs, Simon Whitely, Bobby Darbyshire and Ben Ruddy.

Gareth Eastham did sterling work in captaining the Extras (otherwise known as the 2nd/Development XV) and also managing the Spartans and Stags. The Committee chose him as Clubman of the Year in recognition of this work. The Extras had a mixed season winning just under half of their games. In the Warwickshire 2nd XV Cup they beat Balsall & Berkswell and Sutton Coldfield before losing to Barkers Butts. The Spartans won 17 of their 27 games but they made the mistake of taking on the Stags on a Saturday when both sides' fixtures were cancelled and lost 7-14 to the junior side. It was a bonus that we were able to field a Stags/Veterans side on several occasions in the second half of the season. When in Veterans mode they were captained by Peter Gray and they won the inaugural South Warwickshire Veterans Cupand represented South Warwickshire in the Sweet Chariots tournament at Rugby Lions on May bank holiday, which was part of the World Cup winning celebrations

An Easter tour was organised by Simon Parsons (who had moved to Bologna with his job) and Derren Nisbet with over 30 players travelling to Treviso in Italy. We played only one game and lost to local side San Dona. Amongst the useful Italian translations supplied to the tourists were the lyrics to "Bevela completamento, guerriero di Zulu " and a number of chat-up lines such as " Sono appeso come uno stallion", which you should be able to work out. The joint under-17 side with Old Leamingtonians graduated into Colts and played fairly regularly prior to Christmas. Afterwards they integrated successfully into the senior sides, but came back together to play in the Warwickshire Colts Cup, beating Silhillians, Bedworth and Barkers Butts before losing narrowly by 20-22 to Rugby Lions in the final. Bobby Darbyshire, Richard Blunt and Mark Warrilow played for the Warwickshire under-19 development side and coming up behind them were Nick Hart, Will Wood and Tom Secher who all played for Warwickshire under 16s and 17s. Our under-17 side reached the final of the Warwickshire under-17 Cup losing 13-8 to Silhillians in one of the last games to be played at Coundon Road.