Dallaglio's turned into Nostradamus

OF THE 12 clubs to have won European rugby’s supreme prize, only one dared to do so from an antiquated pavilion built by The Gas Light & Coke Company a century ago.

- PETER JACKSON

 

Whatever comes to pass in the next one, nobody will ever emulate Wasps, a club once as humble as its cramped training base in a tiny corner of west London just off the North Circular. Those mourning the burial of their beloved club will find solace in such implausible achievement mixed with anger that it should have come to this.

In amateur times, when they played for the hell of it and nothing more, Wasps could be found hidden in a residential part of Sudbury, north-west London. They were so far under the radar that not everyone in their immediate vicinity knew of their existence.

Lost en route to my first match at Repton Avenue and in danger of missing kick-off, I asked an elderly resident for directions to the Wasps ground. “Wasps?’’ he said shaking his head. “Never heard of them, not around here.’’

The ground was all of 400 metres away. On good days they’d somehow squeeze 3,000 in with a seated capacity for barely 200 in what passed for the grandstand. And yet a friendlier club was hard to find.