By RugbyBird
June 3 2003

* Pride, Loyalty, Community The Players’ Awards Dinner is always an eagerly awaited event, and this year was no exception. There were dresses to choose, hair appointments to be made, heels to practise walking in and make-up colours to be chosen. The ladies had a fair bit of preparation to do too. Quinssa had arranged hotel accommodation for about 22 of us and we arrived at the hotel in a steady stream between midday and 6pm. Binky was the first to arrive as his shopping habit needed feeding and Oxford Street was too much of a temptation for him to resist.

Myself, my sister Nicky, and my parents (Diamond Lil and Lucky Shirt) arrived at 5.15pm and the hilarity started almost instantly. On walking to our room, Nicky and I had hysterics as I tripped up a step that wasn’t there - the resulting crash brought my dad out of his room to see where the earthquake had hit! I then impaled my thigh on the radiator in our room, sent some flowers back to Barbara that she had sent me (I’m sure the concierge said ‘for Mrs Rich’ and not ‘from’) and Nicky opened the bathroom door onto my head!

I was very impressed that we made it downstairs in one piece (minus part of my thigh) and just in time to meet the others coming out of the hotel bar – no surprise there then!

Blimey we all scrub up well!

We then took the short walk round the edge of Hyde Park to the Royal Lancaster Hotel, collecting some additional supporters from outside a bar on the way – are you starting to see a pattern here?!

Our arrival was perfectly timed – not party starters and not midway meanderers – and there were still plenty of complimentary glasses of champagne/bucks fizz to be enjoyed.

Amongst the sea of black & white DJs a couple of guys stood out – could it have been because they were our dashing youngsters Chris Bell and Scott Bemand? or could it have had something to do with the fact that they were wearing bright blue and orange suits respectively – complete with matching shoes?! This was apparently the result of a bet after watching Dumb & Dumber! And to think Chris Bell had the cheek to take the mickey out of the DG waistcoats!!

(These same two players caused further hilarity in the wee hours by having a ‘sword’ fight with their walking canes which, needless to say, were blue and orange too!)

After meeting up with all the other Quinssa members (there were 5 tables of us in total) we all studied the table plan to see where we had been put this year. Progress! Last year we were on the very edge of the room – this year we were 2 and 3 rows in. We must be becoming the more ‘acceptable face of Quins’!

After mingling and exchanging pleasantries with many of the other guests – and after yours truly was told by a member of the management that they were surprised to see me there as “didn’t you have a very important AGM to attend this evening?!!” – we made our way to our tables and awaited our hosts. The poor guys must have felt a certain amount of fear and trepidation as they approached our five tables. We had Ugo Monye, Rob Jewell, Simon Miall, John Kingston and Tani Fuga on our tables. A huge thank you must go to all of them as, by all accounts, each one of them was the perfect host all evening.

Simon Miall was on our table and Melvin, keen to make Simon feel at home, decided to play butler. Unfortunately he did not pass the grade as the tablecloth was served more than its fair share of red wine!

I’m afraid my memory of the order of events is slightly hazy – nothing to do, of course, with the _ bottle of champagne I drank in my room whilst getting ready. Aw, come on, I had to kill the pain of that nasty radiator incident some how . . .

Prior to dinner, we were welcomed by the Chairman of Quins and Tony Copsey also gave a short speech. His “It’s great to see so many fans here even though they are missing a very exciting event at the Stoop tonight” raised a large cheer from our part of the room!

I think the video came next (!) It was a real chest-swelling video that opened with footage of Woody leading the team out at the Stoop for the last time and some action shots of him with his voiceover: “3 words that will form the foundation of my memories of Harlequin Rugby Club, 3 words that capture the spirit of the club in every sense - Pride, Loyalty, Community” The video then went on to show some highlights of the season, including Sir Jase getting his 100th cap, cameos from Lex, Melissa, RobShew, DOK and Barbara and some great statistics:

• 2002/3 Average Gate – 7985, 11% increase on 2001/2
  
• 2002/3 Season Ticket Sales – 3773, 20% increase on 2001/2
  
• Merchandise Sales up 20%
  
• Community = 1,000+ ticket sales per home game

The last part of the video was an incredibly moving tribute to Nicky D – “Your memory and influence lives on, in us all” There were very few dry eyes in the house at the end of it. Mark then invited Nick’s parents - Steve & Helen - onto the stage to present them with a framed set of Nick’s Quins kit. There was an instant, and very moving, standing ovation for them as they walked up to the stage and Mark’s 6 simple words “You know how we all feel” were all that needed to be said.

It was then onto the food, which was superb – especially impressive as they were catering for such a large number of people.

There was a natural break prior to dessert and a lot of people took the chance to mingle some more. On returning to our table, I saw that I had an empty ramekin at my place with just 3 redcurrants (garnish for dessert) in the bottom of it. In an instant I said “I don’t think so . . . Binky” Simon Miall was really impressed that I guessed it was Binky so quickly! He’ll learn!

Then it was time for Ev’s speech. Melvin obliged with the obligatory “stand up” call when he got on stage – to which Mark replied “good to see the same joke still going after 3 years!” He then added to the joke inadvertently by saying “as I sat here last year” instead of stood – but we didn’t laugh, cheer and clap too loudly, honest!!

Mark’s speech was superb – I think he is a great speaker anyway, and this was no exception. He spoke of the roller coaster year the club had had (both on and off the field), he thanked the fans, he paid tribute to the youngsters coming up through the squads (and said that we would only look to sign youngsters – a great way to secure our future) and showed an excellent video entitled ‘Reserve…oir Dogs’ which had the youngsters, including Ugo, looking very formidable in it! He acknowledged that the Stoop needs redevelopment to provide better facilities for our growing support, and announced that both CSF and NEC have signed as sponsors for another 2 years. This means that the NEC/Harlequins relationship is the longest sponsorship association in professional rugby. This, predictably, brought several calls of “Can we have a new scoreboard, please?” !!

As well as talking about the future, it was also an evening to say goodbye to some players who will become the past. Thanks and best wishes were given to Dan Luger, Keith Wood, Alex Codling, Nathan Williams (who got a huge cheer), Bruce Star, Ben Gollings, Matty Powell and David Slemen.

Keith Wood was then asked up on stage and was presented with his framed playing kit to a standing ovation. He then made a very poignant, and humorous speech, which started along the lines of “I didn’t want to come to England, and when I got here I thought to myself what the **** am I doing here?! I decided I would make the best of it for the 2 years I had signed for . . . and that was 7 years ago!” He paid tribute to “absent friends” and finished with the moving words “I’ll never be far away” - he left the stage to tremendous applause befitting of a wonderful player and ambassador.

Then it was onto the Awards, the winners of which are as follows:

• Players’ Player Of The Year Winner: Tani Fuga
  
  
• Supporters’ Player Of The Year Winner: Tony Diprose
  
  
• NEC Player Of The Year Winner: Andre Vos
  
  
• The Nick Duncombe Young Player Of The Year Winner: Henry Barratt

After the applause for Captain Fantastic had died down, there were several calls of ‘speech’ and Andre duly obliged with one that came totally from the heart. He said how proud he was to be Captain of Harlequins, how everyone had made him feel so welcome and therefore how quickly he had felt at home, and he thanked the fans for their loyal support over what had been a season of peaks and troughs both on and off the field.

Prior to being a superb MC for the auction, Tony Copsey announced that TMJ had been replaced as Chairman of the HSC – and another huge cheer rang out! There were some very desirable items in the auction and by the sound of it a very desirable amount of money was raised too.

The final speaker for the evening was a cricket commentator whose name I forget (it was Dermot Reeve – Ed) and, I am sorry to say, whose act was equally forgettable in my opinion! I think there was one joke that I had not heard before – although to be fair a lot of people obviously hadn’t heard them before, or maybe they were just laughing politely?!

It had been Melvin’s (aka The Horned Helmet) Birthday 3 days earlier, and all the players were more than happy to sign his card. As I went to get Luges to sign it I finally got to persuade him to put on a pair of Quins bins – and gave them to him as a leaving present. Melvin was suitably chuffed when Ugo presented him with his card and presents.

After the relative ‘formalities’ were over, it was onto the music and dancing. The Melody Fakers were fantastic, as always. Mrs Copsey even joined them on stage to perform a song, as her husband looked on, eyes filled with pride.

There was much grooving and grinding on the dance floor for many an hour. Zorba the Greek (or was that Zorba the Russian?!) brought an interesting look to Lou’s face, and an interesting reaction from my dress, which decided to unzip itself mid jig – not fun when the zip was down the front and both your arms are around your friends either side of you!!

At one point during the evening a large gentleman (the same large gentleman who was stalking Pooky all night trying to get him to devise a fitness program for him) walked up to me and uttered the words “Come on jugs, we’re dancing” - I took great heart to hear that chivalry is obviously not dead!!

All too quickly it was 2am, the music was over, and the bar was closing. Most people left at this point – probably sensibly! However, sensible has never been the done thing in many of our lives and so we hung around the bar area for a while being very silly – pinching bottoms, taking funny pictures and generally being daft. I had a ‘sword’ fight with the Jeweller between Chris Bell’s cane which he had, and an inflatable champagne bottle that I had – I lost! Jeweller was intent on puncturing – and he succeeded!

Matty Powell, who had been standing with us, suddenly decided to go into stealth mode and ducked under one of the clothed drinks tables. Said table (with addition of human legs) then proceeded to move around the bar area, guided by the occasional shriek of ‘left’ or ‘right’ from concerned onlookers!

Once we had exhausted the fun to be had in the closed bar area – we moved upstairs to an open one! The barman remembered Prof from last year – D’oh! Barbara dropped an ice-cube down my cleavage and uttered the now famous words “How’s that for an escape from cold-tits?”!!

Myself, Nicky, Binky, Mrs B and Barbara left at 4.30am. Mrs B and I suffering from ‘new DGshoe-itis’ and me still clutching that inflatable!

To sum up, the evening was even better than last year’s, an evening where we all felt like one big family and a great end to a real emotional roller coaster of a season.

Congratulations and Thank You to all those concerned.

(No tales of what happened in the bar & park until 6:45am – I’m surprised at you RB! – Ed)