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Benjamin Scott, Headingley Rugby Voices: the 1995 Charity Shield experience

Dublin for the Charity Shield in ’95 was a great one-off.

The match wasn’t up to much, especially after Vass got sent off less than ten minutes, but Kempy got a try on his debut and we got the chance to see legend and former hero Hugh McGahan working at the club for the first time. I was devastated that we never did get to sign him as a player when, at his peak, he was one of the best in the world.

It was a really relaxed trip- more of an excuse for a holiday really- and we treated it as an opportunity for a good laugh. We got a flight from Manchester and were amazed that in the queue at the checkout in front of us were Maurice Lindsay, Stuart Cummings and other officials. When we arrived we got a taxi to our guest house only to find when we arrived that there was a notice on the door saying that it was shut because the owner had popped out to do some shopping, such was the pace of life over there. With no alternative we had to wait at the nearest pub and spent the afternoon extolling the virtues of rugby league to a vaguely interested public bar who were far more concerned with explaining to us the significance and excitement surrounding the impending Gaelic football final that weekend.

It was like a cultural exchange and every time we went to the bar to order one drink they poured us a round because there is no such thing as not keeping up in Dublin. When we had got back to the hotel I put the telly on and saw the end of the Irish Horse of the Year Show live from the picturesque Showgrounds that our boys were due to play on the next afternoon and I remember thinking that I hoped that the ground staff had loads of shovels. After the game on the Sunday we went for a drink out in the centre of Dublin and bumped into the Leeds team wandering through the pedestrian area, with pints in their hands, also taking in the local sights.

Benjamin Scott

Originally published in 'Headingley Rugby Voices' Recollections of supporters, compiled by Phil Caplan.

www.scratchingshedpublishing.com Twitter @scratchingshed2


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Memory added on November 26, 2012

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