Last night at Goldington Road, ten of us from the Bedford v Llanelli (12-28) match back in 1975 were the official guests of the Club and it was our job to turn on the new floodlights. The old ones were first on show for that Llanelli fixture.
The crowd last night for the friendly was 3,003. Back in 1975, we had to delay the start of our game for 20 minutes as the queues stretched back and down Goldington Road. Over 6,000 came to see Phil Bennett and his great side.
Of our original XV, John Howard (centre) died climbing Mount Everest and John Mawle (2nd Row) now lives in Oz. We failed to locate Jo Davies (scrum half) and Andy Hollins (No.8) whilst Richard Chadwick (centre) was on holiday.
Those who made it yesterday then were:
Chris Bailward, Norman Barker and Brian Keen (England)
Bob Wilkinson (England)
Budge Rogers (England & British Lions; former President, RFU) and Foster Edwards
Neil Bennett (England), Danny Hanson, YT (England) and Brian Page.