Doddie'5 Tartan Ted - Ted made it to Cardiff!

Last week Ted travelled from Vale of Lune RFC in Lancaster to Lymm RFC in Cheshire. Ted was greeted by the Club President & Chairman on Saturday.

Lymm RFC is a community orientated club, whose members work and play for the love and enjoyment of the game. The club was formed in 1960 after four young men realised that by forming a rugby club as opposed to a drinking club, this would allow them to legally sell beer to their members with more lenient licensing laws allowing for longer opening hours. In order to set up their rugby club they would of course need a team so an advert was placed in a local newspaper inviting interested players to attend the inaugural meeting. Twenty one people attended the first meeting and the following week the team held their first training session. Rugby with a strong social ambience was the culture of the first decade of the club’s existence. The social calendar was amazing and within in a few years they had recorded the second highest annual bar turnover for an English rugby club.

A friend of Lymm RFC was travelling to Cardiff for the Cup match and we were able to get Ted to Cardiff Arms Park on Friday afternoon for the Doddie Cup Under 18's Invitational community 7s tournament which was played at Cardiff Arms Park.

We were delighted to see that the Borders Women & Girls' Rugby U18's made the trip to Cardiff to play in the 7's tournament. Ted acted as water boy for their first match and must have been a lucky charm as the team went on to win the match. Overall the girls won 3 out of 5 matches and just missed out on the final due to points difference.

On Friday, Jill Douglas hosted an evening with Doddie Weir, a dinner set up by Welsh rugby on the eve of the Doddie Weir Cup. Jill obviously needed a hot date for the evening and took Ted along with her to the dinner, where Ted managed to catch up with Doddie, Garry Armstrong and Carl Hogg.

Both Gregor Townsend & Shaun Edwards were in attendance so Ted was put in charge of guarding the cup to make sure neither coach tried to make off with the Cup before the match. Ted was successful in this mission as Doddie and his family presented the cup as planned, prior to kick off on Saturday.

The pressure of guarding the Cup did get a little too much for Ted and he did have to resort to a few glasses of red wine by the end of the evening.

A good nights sleep sorted Ted out though and he was raring to go for the Doddie Weir Cup! Ted went down to the Stadium early just to check out the conditions for the match and it was a big thumbs up with the playing surface looking perfect for the game ahead.

We are delighted that Ted managed to make it to Cardiff, but don't worry although the Doddie Weir Cup has passed for this year, Ted will still be out and about at lots of other events.