#04| Bordeaux, France (1980)

p2 |  w2 | L0

Essex - Bordeaux

tour memories of andy woolgar (#27)

I was on Tour #3, as a young 16 year old Prop playing for the 1st XV. 

We traveled across from Campion on a Lewins Coach. They were the company that provided coaches for the school. Mr and Mrs Lewin came on Tour, as he was the coach driver and she his assistant. 

The staff I remember touring were John Davies and Tony Bruton (One of the French Masters and an avid London Welsh fan)..

We played our regular opponents St.Marie Grand Lebrun in Bordeaux in a floodlit match that we won. It was an incredibly exciting match and a short tap and go penalty move won us the game and the move was forever called “Bordeaux” after that match. 

We also played their Old Boys in a bit of a grudge match to appease their pride. It was more like the Begles 1st XV (a local French Premiership rugby side).

I remember John O’Connel telling us “big guys fall hard when you tackle them low. This is really going to hurt for the first half but we’ll outrun them in the second half.”

He was right and we beat them after a brutally hard match.  We did some vineyard tours and had some magnificent dinners. 

Oddly, one of my lasting memories of the tour was the coach we toured on which had a toilet on-board that was forever getting blocked. 

results

P2 | W2 | L0 | 100% WIN RATE