Ex-Navy chief aims broadside at 'one-way' RFU Roadshow

PADDY McAlpine, the chairman of Chichester RFC - a level six community club the RFU Roadshow for its attempts to portray the SGM called by signatories from 150 clubs, and backed by more than 250, has slammed as a personalised offensive aimed at chief executive Bill Sweeney.

- By NICK CAIN

In an exclusive interview with The Rugby Paper, McAlpine - who had a decorated 36-year career in the Royal Navy, becoming deputy commander of NATO's Striking and Support Forces - rejected Sweeney's claim at Doncaster this week that the RFU had been held back by "the inability to work with certain people in the Championship".

McAlpine said that the Whole Game Union, of which he is a co-chair, is representing community clubs, who are the majority of the SGM signatories, and share the concerns of those in the Championship. He said: "This has nothing to do with getting rid of one man, it's about the process of how you manage a large organisation, and listening to the volunteers and members - and this seems like a one-way Roadshow that is telling us that we're wrong."

Having been at the coalface of a community club facing RFU cuts to development officers, the almost total withdrawal of any funding support, and yet subjected to a mountain of bureaucratic red-tape from Twickenham, McAlpine is convinced change is needed.

"I'm not sure we get any benefit at all now from being involved in the RFU, in the way we used to. There's no rugby development officer for the area around Chichester, or Sussex. In fact, there aren't any in the whole of England.