1977 Tour, 31st Aug – 7th Sep
Following the successful 1973 tour we were invited back the following year.   It was felt this was too soon to allow the necessary finance to be raised, however, this invitation was extended to 1977 and this time the club gladly accepted!

The 1997 tournament was billed as being “international” with six teams taking part namely – Interforze (Italian Army), Nice (France), Bologne (Italy), Berwick (England), Pesaro (Italy) and ourselves. The format was two pools of three teams each with the pool winners contesting the final. As with the previous tour, numerous fund raising activities took place (thankfully none as bad the barn dance preparations) to finance the tour which initally was costing £118 each!

We managed to reduce this by over 50% so we finished up getting a weeks tour to an Italian holiday resort, self catering in a 2 star hotel adjacent to the beach (before being asked to leave) for the princely sum of £50. In all, 22 players and 6 officials went on tour but unfortunately owing to various reasons a number of our regular players could not go so it was necessary to augment our squad with a number of guest players! Among the new club players who did travel were Andrew Gibson, Donald Whillans, John Hogg (prior to playing for the Linden, Quins and YM) and Graham White, along with 1975 tour “veterans” Colin Gilchrist (who can now speak fluent Italian, but only when drunk), Harry Graham, Colin Easton and Oliver Douglas.

The guest players who accepted the invitations included YM players Billy McCracken and Terence Froud (who didn’t have to be asked twice) and three players from Selkirk – Paul Tomlinson, Alan Hogg and Alan Lawrie.  Colin Gass from Gala also made the trip and he was to eventually join the club prior to his conquests at Mansfield!

Our pool games were against the Italian Army side Interforze who were a good athletic side with a surprisingly good understanding of the game. Their backs let them down by trying to play as individuals but we managed to snuff them out and win fairly comfortably. Our second game against Bologna was much easier and although they were a big side who started well, we won the lion's share of the ball and ran out winners by 42 pts – nil.

The win set us up against Nice in the final who had looked really impressive in their “overzealous” tactics to say the least! The Nice side as typically French with tall muscular forwards (plus one or two garlic reeking props) and a back line that could score tries from anywhere. There was a two day break before the final and everyone relaxed after training by spending most of the time on the beach during the day and by frequenting the local bars in the evenings! The final was played under floodlights before a large partisan crowd who were thankfully supporting us – the French having not endeared themselves to the locals with their “particular style of play” during their qualifying games.

The game was also being televised live to local viewers and nationally the following evening and we had picked a side with the greatest amount of physical presence available to us as no-one was under any illusion about what to expect!

As it transpired, no-one anticipated exactly how this game was going to develop wth the French side acting as if they were fighting the Napoleonic wars!  The “filth” started as we were walking out the tunnel with Graham White being punched and spat on..…

During the first few minutes of the game Kenny Colville was badly concussed by another piece of “filth” causing him to spend the night in hospital.  Unfortunately for us, we went ahead with a penalty which triggered some of the most deliberate acts of thuggery any of us had ever witnessed on the rugby field.  It was quite apparent that someone was not only to be badly injured but actually “maimed” and following a brief stoppage to allow a number of injured players on both sides to be attended to and to allow discussions between the relevant officials to try and sort things out, which didn’t work, Colin Gilchrist (our captain) took the correct decision to remove our players from the pitch. The game had only been underway for about fifteen minutes and the decision to remove our players on the grounds of safety was condoned by everyone who was there, unless they were French!

The French side were declared the winners and awarded the trophy but in most people’s eyes we were the winners with the only loser being Rugby Football. There was one consolation, however, we were awarded the trophy for being the “best and most sporting side in the tournament!”. It was a disappointing finish to a good tournament but that aside the tour itself was a great success with all the players being much wiser for the experience.

The tour did have many lighter moments and one abiding memory I have is arriving back in Heathrow, somewhat under the weather with all the duty free drink, and bringing the arrivals hall to a stanstill by standing at the top of an escalator with Terence Froud giving a rendition of “ANGELO” (which must have “Top of the Pops” at that time!). Needless to say we were prime candidates to be stopped by the Customs and delayed our return coach trip to Hawick by an hour or so, as well as losing all our duty free – what was left of it!!