Coventry were just half an hour from closure

MY CLUB COVENTRY WE SPEAK TO A NUMBER OF WELL-KNOWN RUGBY FIGURES ABOUT THE CLUB THEY CALL THEIR OWN, THIS WEEK PETER ROSSBOROUGH

- JON NEWCOMBE

AS a supporter, player, captain, coach and leading club official, Peter Rossborough has been through the good times and bad with Coventry RFC over six decades.

A first-team player in his late teens and now club president for the last dozen years, the former England full-back has pretty much seen it all, from the glory years of the 60s and 70s, when Coventry ruled the roost in English rugby, to the time when the club almost shut up shop.

Like many of his generation, his love affair with rugby, and subsequently his hometown club, only began when the round-ball had been kicked into touch.

“When I was a young lad at junior school I was madly into soccer, but then I took the 11plus and, against all expectations, I passed and went to King Henry VIII Grammar School, a rugby-playing school,” he explained.

“Resisting at first, I got stuck into it and I made my first appearance at Coundon Road as a 12-year-old at a schools’ tournament.”

Rossborough went on to grace Coventry’s famous old pitch just shy of 400 times in the blue and white hoops, having made his club debut in the 1967/68 season while still at Durham University.

“Coventry were a different team then, they were one of the best club teams in Great Britain and Europe, and I suspect the world.

“We were up there with the best New Zealand and Australian teams and certainly the best French teams. We were one of the few English teams to play in France, as well as Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

“It was an easy journey on a Wednesday evening or a Saturday to go down to the valleys and then have a quick punch-up against Maesteg or Pontypool and then drown your sorrows, in the most part, after the game as you didn’t get much change out of Welsh referees.”