YOUR report on 25 years of junior rugby at Chipping Sodbury (Yate & Sodbury Gazette April 7) took my mind back more than sixty years.

I was approached by Reg Phillips and Arthur Willmott, stalwarts of Sodbury Rugby Club, and asked if I’d be prepared to form a junior team, the club would arrange the fixtures.

I cycled miles each week rounding up old grammar school colleagues and also from the secondary modern in town until I could field a team. Sometimes we could be a man or two short but the opposition were usually in the same boat.

Our changing rooms were behind The Grapes in Rounceval street and we would run from there to The Ridings clean but return muddy. Two tin baths of warm water were our washing facilities which was alright if you were first man in.

My brothers joined later, David became a regular for the club, Richard went on to play for Gloucester, Gloucestershire, and toured with England B and the British Police.

I wonder if any of my fellow players are still around and can recall those days back in the early fifties?

Don Jardine

Brockworth

Gloucester