Havant R.F.C. at that time ran at least six sides, and that season we were struggling as usual trying to build a fixture list. We played Cowes Old Boys, Saunders Row Apprentices, at least three times, the Island thirds, and several of Havant’s lower teams several times etc. Often recruiting players, who foolishly found themselves around midday Saturday, getting off the ferry at Portsmouth Hard, intending to take the girl friend shopping in Pompey, only to be promptly dragged away to Gosport or Havant R.F.C for the afternoon, leaving the girlfriend fuming at the bus stop.

Hutch reminded me recently, of the day on the Gosport ferry travelling to a game a player short, he spotted this bloke with a pair of Cotton Oxfords hanging on his bag, deducing naturally that he must of course want to run out with us this afternoon. Hutch, with some assistance from the rest of us, badgered him aggressively, in a good natured way, failed to bully him into breaking his “important appointment”.
Running on the pitch to toss the coin at Gosport, who should be standing on the centre spot with his whistle in those Cotton Oxfords was our ref for the day, who smilingly said, “good afternoon gentlemen”. Hutch replied "it’s not looking that good for us is it sir?"

About this time, with our ferocious tackling we got to be quite good at not losing. A period followed when we seemed to be at Havant every weekend putting bigger and bigger scores on successive ascending sides, each time we returned they moved us up their team ladder this culminating in a match score one week of - us 86 … Havant, not a lot!

Due to the fact that a hurricane called Flora had that week created havoc on the Florida Coast. This match somehow attracted the attention of the press and our score was reported in the sports page of The Sunday Times (I believe) as . . . . “Hurricane Flora Strikes Again!!”

Our next meeting was at Clive Simpsons pub “Keats Inn”, we were so buoyed up with all this that we anointed ourselves “The Hurricanes” and waving our finger in the air like a whirly of a tornado, we designed the logo for the badge to go on the by now ‘existing stripe’, on our strip. Off-centre stripes were “in” at that time, the stripe was Bob’s suggestion, to this we agreed. He then got me to spray an off-set white stripe on his Austin Healey Sprite sports car.

The Hurricanes were in truth a ‘not long left,’ school team with some still at school players padded out with a few aged big blokes able to hold up the front, for our lightning little hooker Phillip Thomas to take every ball. Our principal tactic (in 1966!) was to power tackle the opposition into submission and then run a few tries in. This tactic today seems to be called ”A Blitz Defence”.

Not long after we hammered the team that The Island sent to put us in our place. We discovered that they had re-anointed us “THE HOOLIGANS” this nick-name stuck for many years. I recall at one early Hoolies v Island game, as the ball slowly emerged from their scrum our predators were moving swiftly up as usual, their Stand Off /Cpt. “whose name I do not remember” shouted to his half back, “don’t give it to me” as he let the ball drop to the ground as if it were red hot, to be gleefully swept up by a plundering little hooligan who promptly ran it in for a try.

Truth to say in those days Rugby did not have a National structure; we played ‘Friendlies’ “right!”. Well the Island generally beat us more often than we beat them, but there was never any doubt that we all knew that we had been to a game on that day. That is my recollection of how we became the hurricanes.

Did we only have the one team at this time?

Late sixties we had too many players not getting a Saturday game, and there was general discontent and mumbling in the ranks, this heralded the painful birth of the Hooligan Seconds, a very painful delivery, for me anyway. I was knocking hard on 30 years and being chaffed by my father, who had been a semi-pro footballer playing for Leyton Orient and in his time had a trial for Spurs, that at my age it was time I threw in the towel. However, at the next AGM I heard myself saying. . . . “I’ll Do It”.

For the next two seasons I made a hash of being skipper of the seconds. Demanding too much of them and myself. I was only ever able to go on the park to win, when by the very nature of a second team at our level, there were green schoolboys who often had played a schools game in the morning and “just left school” boys, mixed into our number.

Like all second teams without a third team, we were regularly robbed players. We routinely travelled away having been robbed by the firsts at about 10 O’clock that morning, and if both teams were away that day it was not unusual for the 2nds to be robbed on the ferry, and left desperately trying to recruit players on the way to the game, to take a hammering. After two seasons I had to call it a day.

To my great relief Malcolm Laurence picked up the baton, to make a magnificent job of bringing the Hooligans 2nds into life. They still lost lots of players every Saturday morning. Well the first’s only take your best men don’t they?

Malcolm’s ‘Saturday Social Rugby Circus’ needed to be seen to be believed. It seemed to me that some of those guys, just wanted to go out with their kit Saturday afternoon with Malcolm, and did not ever want to play firsts. Malcolm Laurence’s delivery here was unbelievably perfect.