Nigel Pinder, a powerful no.8 and graduate of Roger Arthur’s colts, was 1st XV captain for the 1999-00 season with Pete Duff as Club Captain. There was a clutch of new sponsors including Will Moulder’s Power Tool Supplies, Whisky Walker’s Plumbing and city pubs The Eagle and The Noahs Ark. The club purchased new shirts with sponsors also providing green shorts (until this time you brought your own).
There was real-life drama before the season started when former skipper and firefighter Mark Hunt was involved in the dramatic rescue of a man threatening to jump off the Tamar Bridge. he received Chief Officers Commendations at a special ceremony in Exeter.
On the field, The Chiefs had a reasonable season, finishing 5th in the Devon 2 league of 10, with 8 wins from their 18 fixtures. There was a promising warm-up win over a combined Plymouth Police side in which the free-scoring Darren Wills featured heavily. In the league however it was a very slow start with only one win (83-3 over a severely depleted YMCA side) in the first 6 matches but thereafter only 1 defeat from the next 6. Having secured safety there was only a couple more victories culminating in a fine 47-15 home win against Dartmouth, tries from Phil Hall (4), Mike Louise (2), Dominic Hill, Paul Venkort (a prolific scorer this season) and Danny Morgan. The Chiefs went out to Civil Service in The Lockie Cup.
There was a feeling that the side was perhaps not fulfilling its potential and at the end of the season coach Andy Davey resigned, citing training numbers as one of the major issues. Discipline was also a problem – the club had to attend four Devon RFU disciplinaries in the season.
The Tigers, captained by Chairman Paul Pring, had a decent season managing to fulfil the majority of their fixtures. This included a fine 48-0 win over Tamar Saracens II in the early season. The side also reached The Pedrick Cup Final after beating Liskeard-Looe II 8-0 in the semi-final, fly half Andy Rees with all the points at Lux Park. In the final, held at The Rectory, Old Techs second string were just a bit too strong and run out comfortable winners in the end.
Bristol-based British Aerospace were April visitors to Bickleigh Down whilst the Annual Easter Tour was to Cardiff with a trip west to play Swansea uplands on the Saturday with Llandaff North on the Sunday. This completed the ‘Five Nations’ Tour. At the end of the season, on a very hot July evening, the club played a Charity match against Hazlewood Hornets. The match, organised by Colin Hickson, was in aid of The Crohms and Colitis Charity.
The social front included a Scalextric event and a very successful Millennium party. The Bar Chairwoman reported that barrel-age was once again down (around 30 barrels, including 5,896 pints of lager) but it was noticeable that the club’s tastes were widening with a plethora of bottled drinks. One item standing out is the 64 bottles of Cockburns Ruby Port alongside another 10 of the front-row’s favourite tipple from the optics! Bearing in mind that club members were also doing their bit to support 2 sponsor’s establishments in town, then this was a fair effort!
At various points during the season, the committee were informally approached by OPMs, Tamar Saracens and Plymouth Albion with a view to using the furthest pitch at Bickleigh Down. Although currently used for football, there were plans to convert back to rugby, but nothing came of it in the end.
There was a concerted effort by the club this season to get better coverage both locally (regular reports in The Herald) and further afield (features in Rugby News and Rugby World). The club also made tentative steps to establish a presence on the ‘new-fangled’ internet with basic pages on the RugbyLegends.net platform being established over the summer.
The end of season Dinner and Dance was held at The Novotel, at which the following awards were made:
Captain’s Trophy: Paul Venkort
Player’s Player: Paul Venkort
Effort Award: Toby Liberson
Clubman: Mick Organ
Jenny Daniels Award: Jo Cooper
Most Improved Player: Mark Foster
Teddy Thrower: Mike Louise
