Hawick Rugby Club is now in its 151st year. In that time it has produced some of the greatest Scottish players of all-time. Over the last fifty years alone there has been Jim Renwick, Colin Deans, Tony Stanger and Stuart Hogg along with countless others who have gone on to represent their country.
There remains lots of interest in the famous club as shown by the impressive sales of the book ‘Voices of Hawick 1873-2023” edited by outgoing president Ian Landles and Murray Watson.
Landles, 71, is a positive man but like many in the Borders he has concerns for the future of Scottish rugby.
When the man who has been associated with one of Scotland’s greatest rugby clubs all his life - and stood down as president at the club's AGM this month - tells you they are being ignored by the SRU and there is a disconnect between Borders clubs and the governing body you have to worry.
He said: “I am sure if you spoke to those at Jed-Forest, Kelso, Gala and most other Borders clubs they would say the same thing, that the SRU have turned their backs on the Borders.
“In fact, when I think about it, I bet if you go up and down Scotland there will be lots of players and committee men who will feel the SRU have turned their back on club rugby full stop.”
During our half hour conversation Landles continues to hope for the best but fears for the future.
“I always said that Scottish rugby would be strong if the south was strong and the south would be strong if Hawick was strong,’’ he continues.
“We are strong but the south morphed into Southern Knights which was a disaster.
“Think back to 1984 and the Borders players in the Grand Slam team, Roy Laidlaw, Keith Robertson, Peter Dods, Roger Baird, Alan Tomes, Alister Campbell, Jim Aitken, Colin Deans. In the 1990 Grand Slam team there were Gary Armstrong, John Jeffrey, Craig Chalmers, Tony Stanger and Derek Turnbull.
“The border boys were hugely influential in Scottish rugby but during the last Six Nations there was not a single Borderer in the team for three or four games which is very sad.
"I accept that Darcy Graham would have been involved if he had been fit but even so we used to have lots of Scotland players coming from our area in the national team but times have changed.”
When asked to give an example of how the SRU has treated his own club badly, he uses as an example what happened to them in the Scottish Cup that they have won back-to-back.
“The Scottish Cup has lost its romance,’’ said Landles.
“We were the only borders club to go into the Scottish Cup in the season that has just finished as the rest of them were scunnered over a number of things like the costs of going to away fixtures and there being no financial incentive for doing well in the Scottish Cup.
“For example we went to Dundee for a fixture and in theory the club shares the gate but there was no gate, nobody was taking money.
"If they had an announcer, which they didn’t, announcing the names of the crowd to the players would have been better than the other way around.
"There was no atmosphere whatsoever and we had to pay £700 for a bus to get there and back.
“When we got to the finals day we were badly treated with our final starting at 7.15 on the Saturday night. That was a hopeless time for a family club with a bit of a way to travel like us. The Scottish Cup men’s final should be the showpiece of the finals day and played at a reasonable time in the afternoon. If it had been then we would have taken more than one bus.
"In the first of our back to back Scottish Cup finals we didn’t even get into the main Murrayfield dressing room.
"We were shunted out to the one at Murrayfield Wanderers. The boys got a bag of food thrown at them at the end and it was not much better this time.
‘This year we didn’t get the main dressing room but at least Accies got the main one and we got dressing room three which at least was in the Murrayfield complex but the boys weren’t too pleased about that either.
"It was fantastic to win but by the time we got back due to a 7.15 kick off it was almost midnight and there was no way we could celebrate in the club rooms at that time of night.”
Landles wasn’t impressed by the response from the SRU after he wrote to them to complain.
“I wrote on behalf of the club on the Monday after the Saturday game to John McGuigan (chairman of Scottish Rugby Limited) who is a really good guy.
"He replied and said he had taken it on board and he was sure that Gavin Scott, Keith Wallace or Vicky Cox from the SRU would get back to me to look into our concerns in detail but none of them did.
"After about a month I went back to John McGuigan and said none of them had responded. I then got a wishy washy response from Vicky Cox after that.’’
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Landles felt the introduction of the semi-pro league was a disaster for the Borders and he was happy to see it brought to an end.
“You see far more people on a Friday night watching a junior Border league game than you ever would at Melrose for a Southern Knights game,’’ he said.
“There were six Hawick boys who went to Southern Knights but didn’t fancy it and came back to us.
"They were playing before three men and a dog. If the franchise been a South of Scotland franchise folk would have bought into it more but it was a Melrose thing.
“As a club we do not get a lot of help from the SRU. We feel ignored, especially when Super6 was there.
"Hopefully things will change this season coming because clubs like us are the poor relations of Scottish Rugby yet the standard is good.
"Only now is the SRU trying to show a bit more interest in club rugby as the Super Series has gone down the plug hole.’’
The SRU have been contacted for a response.
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