Then you notice that there are international games on TV and that the English team were in one of those periods where they were doing well in a one dimensional Bill Beaumont style. Then, in commentary by cliché you hear that “there’ll be dancing in the streets of Leicester tonight” following the exploits of one WH (Dusty) Hare.

It actually hadn’t occurred to me that there was a club structure under the international level until that point! A little research showed that the local team were actually good, and the pester factor set in until my mother agreed to take me to a game. Until that point we’d been staunch football fans, but had stopped attending Filbert St because a football ground in the seventies was definitely not the place to take a kid.

So, we turned up at Welford Rd to watch the John Player Cup 1st Round match against Northampton. Tigers had been beaten in the final the previous year against Gloucester and were amongst the favourites again. If you’d been used to watching football in the seventies, when you went to the rugby two things hit you – the fact that everyone wore the teams colours (you didn’t do that at football unless you were some sort of martial artist or suicidal) and the mix of people, old folks, kids etc, all mingled cheerfully together. (Three things – admission prices were ridiculously low! Four things – the players loved talking to the fans and would stand and autograph things forever!)

Also, the way Leicester played Rugby was a different game to the England model. The Tigers forwards were relatively weak, so the game plan had to be to get the ball out and run the opposition around, and in Les Cusworth they had the fly half to do it. Magical player – OK, you could argue that he wouldn’t last five minutes today with the giant back rows running at him all afternoon, but of his time the best there was.

Needless to say we were hooked. We saw the Tigers win three cups in succession and keep the trophy; take the inaugural league Championship in 1987/88 and have success on an intermittent basis since then. Until recent years I thought being a Tigers supporter was like being in a crude positive reinforcement experiment – you kept going because they always won something just when you were beginning to despair – actually you kept going because the club had won a place in your heart and you couldn’t give it up.

The whole family now goes; my wife is as hooked as I am and far too much of my life revolves around the goings on at Welford Rd

When I started going we had the best team, should have won the Cup in several more seasons, and then fell away from the very pinnacle. Now we have the current dominance – enjoy it, long may it continue, but remember – once a Tiger always a Tiger – so if things start to go wrong, stick with the club and you’ll be rewarded down the line.

(By the way, we beat the Saints 29 – 3 that day. Some things never change.)

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