Roy Tomlin - All Rounder

Right, we now have another local sportsman, Roy Tomlin and Roy has very kindly agreed just to say a few words. So Roy whereabouts were you born, was it Rushden or Higham?

No, I was born in Raunds and I came to Rushden when I was four so I've lived in Rushden virtually all my life.

And what are your earliest memories of sport?

Playing cricket in the entry of where I used to live in Washbrook Road with Mike Dilley county fast bowler hurtling down my garden and bowling bouncers at me.

So you started really early on?

I did, yes.

A baptism of fire was it?

It was yes, if you faced Mike Dilley. He was a couple of years older than me and I learnt to duck.

Didn't he make the England team?

No, he played for Northants, played for some years for Northants, yes.

I remember the name.

Yes, he used to live about ten doors above me in Washbrook Road so we were always together, either in my garden or bowling down an entry which probably made him bowl straight or down at Spencer Park.

So you went to the boys' school?

No, I went to the grammar school at Wellingborough.

Right and was there one particular person there who encouraged you in sport or was it just generally a. . .

Geoff Butterfield. Yes. Ex-England rugby player, he was the main, the main person involved with my sports development.

And he encouraged you into which sport?

Well, rugby mainly.

Mainly rugby?

Yes, yes he was a rugby international and he took the rugby at grammar school and I started off when I first started there on game two and started off at hooker the first game scored two tries so I was promoted to game one so after that Geoff Butterfield was my idol. So really he started me in rugby.

Did you stay as hooker?

No, no I played fly half because I scored two tries I was moved from the scrum out to the three quarters so I played at fly half and full back most of my life.

So you played for the school.

Played for the school.

Then you graduated into a rugby team?

Went to Rushden, played for Rushden and Higham for about twenty years. And of course Bedford is the big bogey round here isn't it.

Did you play against Bedford?

No, well we played against Bedford second team. Playing Rushden and Higham we were a junior club playing against senior club second teams. Saints second team, Bedford second team and then the Leicester teams, Coventry all the local Midland teams.

Yes, and in an era when sport is becoming less important in peoples' lives Rushden and Higham rugby club is still going strong is it?

Well, when I was there, there was no junior development at all other than juniors playing with the seniors but now they've developed the junior sections down to under eights, under nines, under tens, under elevens all the way through.

So they're being schooled and properly trained?

The training now takes place at the clubs rather than the school, when I was teaching the training was done in school. The coaching was done in school and they wouldn't go up to senior level until they'd probably got to fifteen, sixteen years of age.

To your mind is this a good development or would you rather see it still in schools?

I would rather see it in schools but now they seem to be reducing the number of subjects and selling off all the playing fields and to me that's not a good thing. You do get those who are enthusiastic involved with the clubs but enthusiasm doesn't substitute for knowledge of the game and the way it should be taught.

Do you think that's largely due to parents who've played themselves in the past?

Yes, sure it is. Yes, yes they've had a good time they've enjoyed their life at clubs and now they're putting something back into the game, that's a good thing but whether they're up to the standard of coaching that's a matter of opinion.

If that's the system now though it seems quite a lot of talent will slip through the net?

I'm sure it does, there are people who, when they were at school, were more than encouraged to play rugby and they were good players, excellent players. Had they not been pushed into the game they probably wouldn't have gone into the standard that they were playing.

As far as you're concerned what were the real benefits to you from being involved in a team sport like that?

Responsibility to other people, not letting them down as opposed to the individual sports where you are just looking after number one. It's the team, yes it is.

And your mates?

Yes, and the after match events.

I was going to say in the skiing you 've got the after ski.

That's right, well, yes you've got after rugby as well and that's all part of it.

And that's where you learn to sing?

Yes, I learnt a few songs but my voice doesn't really go for singing I'm afraid but. . .

So you 're not going to sing for us now?

I'm afraid not.

Oh dear, well what do consider your finest hour, I mean a moment of excellence or a moment of achievement?

Losing to Hinckley in the qualifying rounds when the first RU cup was started we reached the pre-qualifying stages and got to play against Hinckley and Hinckley then went on to the first qualifying round proper, we lost six nil. Two penalty goals and it was really good game, we gave them a good game they were a different standard to us but we gave them a good game.

Well fought?

Well fought, yes hard, very hard.

And did they congratulate you?

They did, yes, yes.

True gentlemen?

Yes, definitely, you usually got that after the game even though you'd knocked seven bells out of somebody else but yes.

Do you have children of your own?

I do yes, two girls.

Two girls?

Yes.

Are they involved in sports?

My eldest daughter, Sally, she was manager of the ski slope which is no longer there so they now go into alternative sports, it's mainly involved with skiing and sports involved with skiing all over Europe and the States so she works from home now instead of working from the ski club and my other daughter lives in Ireland. She's married lives in Ireland, she's not interested in sport at all, she's involved with work all the time.

What about grandchildren though?

No, we've got no grandchildren at all, no, no not yet, no.

But if you had would you encourage them to play sport?

Certainly, certainly yes, especially team sports, in team sports you build up something.

But it's not just the benefit of the physical improvement there's also as you said good friends.

That's right.

There's the quality of courage, of developing character.

That's right they were the things I was involved in mainly with school teaching so trying to develop those traits in young people.

So really your main interest has been rugby?

Rugby and cricket.

Yes, oh and cricket.

And cricket, yes, I played for the town.

Oh, so you were active both summer and winter?

Oh, yes, yes but I packed up playing cricket. I was involved with coaching athletics, coaching athletics was the main thing outside, well inside and outside of school and judging, athletics judging. So I was involved with internationals at White City and Birmingham and various places but it was coaching young people really.

Yes, tell me a wee bit more about that; when did you as it were, look about taking up sport as your profession?

Whilst I was at college. I was at teacher training college and I would prefer to be outside rather than inside things have changed now but I decided to go onto the PE side and I knew Bert Catlin very well.

A big rugby man.

A big rugby man, yes. I knew him through the rugby club and he said if ever I wanted to go into Rushden Boys' school there was a job so I took him up on that and I was there for thirty years until they amalgamated and went down to the girls' school.

So you must have seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of local children come through your hands, what were the first indications that someone was going to make a good sportsman?

Interest for a start, interest in the subject. You can tell those who walk through the door whether they're interested in sport or not.

Was it a certain aptitude of character or what?

Not necessarily, no you got various characters. You got the, I've seen all sorts go through Rushden boys' school and you got the intelligent ones and people like Matthew Lawrence, he's a very intelligent lad and he's now playing full back for Millwall. Andy Fenton he was playing cricket and football and he went to various clubs played in the second and third division football. Athletics was my main speciality and one of my protégées is here today, that's Dianne Elliot.

Oh, Dianne is one of your protégées?

Well, I started Dianne off.

Ah, it must a source of great satisfaction?

Oh, it is when you see ...

To think that the initial interest engendered by yourself.

Possibly.

And then you shepherd them along?

That's right.

And then you see them achieving?

Yes, with Dianne she was at school while I was coaching but she was at the girls' school and she came up to the boys' school for coaching; there are one or two who did that, the ones who were extremely keen.

Yes.

They knew that I was a three As coach and they were either shepherded up to me and I looked at them and tried to encourage them into athletics.

It must have been really quite exciting for you to come across someone who has a real talent.

Oh, it is, and you think this one is going to go far. But the worst thing is those that have got the talent and you can see they're never going to use it, that's a real disappointment.

And there's nothing you can do?

Nothing, nothing at all it doesn't matter how much encouragement you give them they're not going to be interested.

What is that spark that says to a person well I've got the talent, I'm going to use it?

Possibly the sense that they could get to the top and they've got to have the ambition to get there and a lot of them just haven't got that spark to get there. They can see what's available to them, all the perks that these internationals get but they don't realise they have to work for it and they have to work damned hard to get there and you've got to have the dedication.

And I suppose in a sense, in a time of our country's evolution where everything has got to be instant that doesn 't really figure much does it?

No, no.

You can't have instant success.

No, no I'm afraid you have to work for it and a lot of them wouldn't work for it, they get to a certain level and then drop out. With me, involved with the boys' school, as soon as girls came along that was it.

As soon as the hormones started kicking in?

That's right.

Again that must have been a disappointment to you to see people who've got the talent.

Oh, it's a great disappointment, really is.

And of course years and years ago many of the factories had their own cricket teams and football teams and of course all that's gone now.

Well, I can remember playing in the Rushden knockout, the teachers from the boys' school had a team and we won two years running I think against all the factories, Totectors, Dentons the like and there was a good turn out every Wednesday evening.

Of course you didn 't have TV in those days.

Oh, yes we had one or two, we only had one channel though.

Well Roy, thank you very much for talking to us today, those memories are real gold dust because there are other people who will sort of relate to them and there are hundreds and hundreds of people in this town who thank you also for your investment in them and the encouragement you have given them.

Sports Personalities Interviewed 2003