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History of ERE Issue 5
By Glen Leat
July 18 2007
You can always tell it's a time of year when I'm struggling to think of something to write about because I fall back on an old favourite of mine, The History of ERE. Well I've reached Issue 5 and it must be May 1992 because we have a picture of a dejected Chris Patten on the front cover.

This edition was something of a major step forward for Clive and myself as we secured our first ever interview, with dear old Victor Ubogu: in fact we were so chuffed with this issue we headlined it "16 page bumper edition". I'm sure when I prepared the front page I was thinking of my childhood days of reading the bumper summer "spectacular" editions of the Beano and Dandy. Sitting in my Dad's old Hillman Minx, off down to Sidmouth for a week's holiday, when it took as long to drive to Devon then as it does to drive to Manchester today, devouring the exploits of Desperate Dan and The Bash Street Kids - great days (or is that daze?).

Victor's (very basic) interview took place after the league game at Rugby - how times change - and included incisive questions such as:

What was your reaction to your disallowed try?

I wasn't too impressed. It was quite a good burst only for the linesman to call it back for some barging off the ball which didn't influence the try at all.

When was the last time you were allowed to run a tap penalty?

That's difficult, last season I think. Playing mainly League and Cup games we've tended to be rather cautious. (Hmm, what would Victor have called JC2s style of play if he thought we were cautious back in 1992? Oh, and by the way, we did the double in 1992!)

Are you tempted to go for it (tap penalty) anyway?

I've been very close!

What is your favourite ground?

Definitely The Rec because of the atmosphere there which gives me a really good feeling.

What is your pre-match routine?

I usually wake up late and then have a huge breakfast before going to the team meeting. (Ah they days of the amateur when we could win everything in our grasp)

What happens after a game?

We usually win! If we've played and won well everyone's ecstatic. If we've won but not played so well there's some quite open and friendly backstabbing about mistakes that were made.

Victor Ubogu - a legend always!

Shortly after this epic interview we have a cartoon showing a hare and tortoise with a strapline of, "Don't forget Orrell, it's not a sprint!" It's only when you look back like this that you realise the massive changes that have taken place in our game. A League game at Rugby, fighting it out against Orrell for the title: if you ever wondered whether Bath Rugby could disappear if we don't get the ground issue sorted just say those historic club names quietly to yourself.

This really was a bumper edition as there is so much more to look at I'll need to carry this over to another time.

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