By Glen Leat
August 18 2007

I had this weeks article done and dusted only to get a call from Chronicle rugby writer, Mike Tremlett. "Can you write us a piece for our pre-season supplement?" I could, but it was the ERE article so I've had to delve back in to the ERE history books. We're at Edition 6. In this edition we said goodbye to Jim Fallon as he headed north to play Rugby League for Leeds. This was a time when the professional clubs often came knocking on the door at Bath, mainly enquiring whether a certain Mr Guscott would like to take their shilling. Several times we thought we'd lost our star centre but, to be honest, we were so awash with great players in those days that he wouldn't have been such a loss as he would today. That's not to say I'm glad he stayed!

We surely didn't realise how lucky we were to be watching backs who will always be considered to be Bath Rugby greats. Of course there were average journeymen amongst the teams of 1984-1996 but we had a higher number of top class backs than we'll probably ever see again. Fallon on one wing and Swifty on the other (sigh) followed on from the likes of Trevaskis and Trick and they in turn were replaced with the likes of Geohagen (when fit) and Adebayo. We were spoiled with Palmer, Horton, Barnes, Hill, Halliday, de Glanville, Webb, Catt and Callard. My mouth is watering just remembering the play of these guys.

Looking through these names it strikes me that what they all had in common was natural ability. They weren't just fast of foot but were also quick of brain (possibly a bit generous to Jim there): in short they were footballers who could pull rabbits out of hats.

Barnesy would scuttle around, a bit of a comedy figure by today's standards of fitness, but he rarely failed to make something of the bullet-fast passes from Richard Hill. Having the likes of Palmer, Guscott, Halliday, Catt or de Glanville outside him obviously helped but for as long as I live I'll believe he was a better No 10 for England than Rob Andrew.

The centres used to ghost through games as though floating on air. Twisting and turning the opposition inside out and when the ball got to our wingers we knew something was always on the cards. It really isn't surprising that we dominated the domestic game for so long.

Whether I'm looking back with rose coloured specs I'm not sure. Well I am really it wasn't as easy for Bath as the above comments would have you believe. Many seasons we were on a knife edge, the Cup Finals are testimony to this. But perhaps this was because we had so many play-makers, we tried to make things happen instead of dogging it out when we would have been better off impersonating Stan Collymore.

Great days, can they return? Probably not, but you never know.