A party of eighteen players and twelve officials / supporters travelled to Pesaro on the northern Adriatic coast of Italy to take part in a four team, fifteen-a-side tournament which included three Italian sides – Pesaro, Benvento and Rovigo who were the Italian junior champions and were latterly coached by the late Carwyn James.

The invitation to compete in the tournament was the result of a chance meeting between Tam Reid and an infamous character called Toti Patrignani who was the presidente of Pesaro, at the Ne’er Day match between Hawick and Heriot’s.

After many fund-raising events which included shovelling out twelve inches of “cow dung” from a shed at Branxholme Braes for a barn dance, we set off on what turned out to be a twenty hour coach, plane and train journey travelling via Heathrow and Milan finishing with a five-hour train journey to Pesaro. The trip would normally only have taken eighteen hours had Billy Trimby not delayed the flight to Milan by two hours, having forgotten his passport!

The playing squad consisted mostly of established club players including Ronnie White, Harry Graham, Addie Hogg and Alistair Taylor, plus two young eighteen year olds who had just moved up from the PSA – our fiftieth year coach and president – Colin Easton and Rob Bell who was, incidentally, listed as a No 8 weighing 12st 10lb, my, how things have changed!!

Our first game was on the Thursday, kicking off in the evening with the games being only thirty minutes each way because of the intense heat, and was against probably the weakest side in the tournament, Pesaro. We won by 28 pts – 4 pts, and as Tam Reid said in his official report to the SRU “we played some grand rugby scoring some grand handling tries”. The try scorers in this game being Ross Oliver (2), Colin Gilchrist, Ronnie White and Alastair Taylor.

Our second game was on the Saturday night against Benevento. This proved to be a much harder game as they were a better coached side and had a big mobile pack. Play was confined to the forwards for most of the match but when we had the opportunity, we spun the ball wide and eventually ran out winners by 16pts – 7 pts with Ross Oliver and Bruce Elliot getting tries.

Our final game was against Rovigo and we all knew that this was going to be our hardest game. They had just missed out on being promoted to the Italian Senior League and they had a big, mobile pack and a very slick, enterprising back line. We were really up against it right from the start and had they not lost their big powerful centre who split his forehead wide open on a concrete fence post (which was obviously too near the touch-line!) we would have struggled to win. That was undoubtedly the turning point and we held on to win by 15 pts – 9 pts with Ronnie White, Raymond Corbett and Oliver Douglas getting our tries.

At the presentation ceremony the Pesaro “presidente” paid tribute to out performances and stated that “the Hawick Trades had probably doen more to promote the game in the area in three days than the Pesaro club had done in its seven year existence!”.   He then went on to present our captain Alistair Taylos with the winning trophy and also a bronze statuette, donated by a National Italian newspaper for the “team that played the most attractive rugby”.

As with any tour there are many incidents and events that add to the overall enjoyment and team spirit. One such incident in particular sticks in my mind: it involved young “Bamp” Millar who had spent about three days on the toilet suffering from “Italian tummy".    He eventually recovered and one day ventured into the Adriatic for a swim. There wasn’t many of us on the beach this particular day when suddenly we heard someone crying for help.  It was “Bamp” who had taken cramp and was bobbling up and down in the water coughing and spluttering – but no-one believed him! Now I was lying reading Peter Benchley’s latest novel “Jaws” so the last place I was wanting to go was in the sea but it quickly became apparent that this was no joke!  I dived into the water and swam to where “Bamp” was but was beaten there by the “Baywatch” team who had also seen his predicament and had arrived in a lifeboat which was in a worse state than the rowing boat up at Alemoor! The ironical thing was that when I stood up wher “Bamp” was, about a hundred yards from the shore, the water didn’t even reach my backside! However, a lighthearted moment which could have had a more serious outcome, N.B. “Bamp” made a full recovery after chain smoking about twenty cigarettes!

The tour was undoubtedly a brilliant success for everyone involved. The rugby, as the scores suggest was not particularly easy, but the warm climate and hard grounds suited our style of play and had the Rovigo side not lost a man (there was no subs allowed then) the outcome may have been different. All good things must come to an end though, but prior to leaving, every player was presented with a gift. The most bizarre gift was presented to our captain Alistair Taylor who received a kitten which, for obvious reasons could not be brought home. The kitten’s name was “Tito” – hence the nickname!