The Pre Match Warm-up Past and Present

Interesting, surprising, and often revealing are the articles found in a visiting team’s changing room after a match. Shorts, socks, underwear, and training tops are standard items placed in the Lost Property box.  

Occasionally however, abandoned amid the debris of grass, mud, strapping, and water bottles, you can come across a gem of an item which takes the mind back so many years and reminds one of the differences between today and yesteryear. And, I confess, a discarded, typed match day timetable of what the players must do for an hour before kick off does raise a smile.

At 13.45pm the players are advised to do “light stretching, skill units working together and gentle warm up” and, following a team meeting, they are then to undertake “dynamic stretches, forwards and backs split, two versus ones and three versus twos, defensive drills, a team run, and hits on bags” before returning to the dressing room prior to kick off.

In days of yore my experiences in both League and Union were somewhat different.

Half an hour before kick off in the St.Helens RL dressing room our Great Britain winger, Mick Sullivan, would be completing details of his “Yankee Bet” from the racing pages of the then Daily Herald (Sun newspaper today) and ensuring that the gatekeeper took the betting slip and his money to the bookmakers close to the ground on Knowsley Road. Our hooker, Bill Sayer, might be looking at and costing a piece of scrap metal offered to him by another player, while our prolific try-scoring South African winger, Tom Van Vollenhoven, would sit quietly in a corner and probably be drinking a cup of tea. Oh yes, and our legendary loose forward, Vince Karalius, wouldn’t be there! Vince only arrived at five minutes before kick off, pulling his coat off his back as he walked down the corridor into the dressing room and always insisting, ”somebody pass me my jersey”.

In rugby union I well recall being selected to play for the North West Counties v South Africa at Maine Road, Manchester and being asked on the invitation card to arrive at 1.30pm for a 2.30pm kick off.

I duly arrived, met my second row partner, Mike Evans of the Wilmslow club, for the first time in my life, discussed with him where we should both stand in the line out and on which side of the scrum we would pack, and then went out to play against the Boks!

What a difference today. Now if only I and my playing colleagues of both codes could have taken advantage of “dynamic stretches”, twos on ones, and hits on bags what better players we all might have been!

Ray French

October 2013