The past was honoured like royalty and the present saluted with pride on the 30th anniversary of the St. Albert Rugby Football Club. Saturday's grand re-opening of the pitches were celebrated to the month when SARFC established itself as a club and a half.
The past was honoured like royalty and the present saluted with pride on the 30th anniversary of the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.
Saturday's grand re-opening of the pitches were celebrated to the month when SARFC established itself as a club and a half.
“This is just marvelous seeing how far its come over the years. It's quite spectacular. It's really nice to see that it's done what we had hoped it would do,” said Dr. Jim Bell, SARFC's first vice-president and one of the heralded Nervous Nine that put up money to ensure the facility would grow and prosper. “It's not only brought rugby to the area but it's brought a really high level of rugby here as well.”
Reclamation work and facility enhancement projects that started in August of 2012 left SARFC teams without homefield advantage before work was completed last year and the return of rugby to Riel Recreation Park kicked off Aug. 5.
“It's a big honour for myself and the rest of our club to host you here today and to be back playing on these fields again” said SARFC president Sean LeLacheur while standing on the first pitch as an enthusiastic turnout of supporters roared in approval.
LeLacheur also expressed SARFC's gratitude to the City of St. Albert for its role in the fields of dream project.
“The last two years has been an interesting journey for us and I would like to thank them for assisting us navigate that journey and getting us to where we are today. Hopefully in the very, very near future we're going to have our fields back to the gold standard they once were and we're looking forward to hosting many years of very high class rugby,” said LeLacheur, who was born the same year the SARFC clubhouse officially opened its doors.
Mayor Nolan Crouse described the city's timeline of events in upgrading the fields.
“This area from here basically to the river had to be reclaimed. It was an area of solid waste dump and also lagoons. We were required to reclaim this entire area so it was one of the most difficult decisions that council had to make and it took us a long time to really decide how we were going to handle this. Basically we had to shut down the BMX and rebuild it, we had to shut down Kinsmen and rebuild it and we had to shut down the rugby fields and the soccer fields and rebuild, so it has been a long journey that took place over the last 10 years. It has not gone without its challenges and certainly a lot of political strife. Those of you who live in St. Albert know your utility bills are a little higher and its in part because we've just completed thirty million dollars of spending on everything from the clay capping to having to put down the new fields. It has been a challenge but it was the right decision,” Crouse said.
“To the players, coaches and officials all of this is done for you so you can still play rugby when you're 47 and really it's all done to make sure we have a diversity of sport in our community for all.”
SARFC's future was on display as males and females in the junior program marched onto the pitch side-by-side with the players from the men's and women's teams during the opening ceremonies
“Today is about showcasing rugby and it's about showcasing the variety of ages and the variety of abilities that St. Albert can show and host within the city. Earlier today we had children playing all the way down to the age of four (in the junior festival) and all the way up to age 47 (Eric Wynychuk of the third division men's team) so there is quite a wide variety of ages that we host here,” LeLacheur said. “The St. Albert rugby club is a lot of different things to a lot of different people and we take great pride in hosting each and every one of our members, each and every one of our players and each an every one of our guests every chance we have.”
Two of the four flag bearers in the ceremony were U13 juniors Kirra-Jean Howell and Reese Butlin and they were awestruck by the proceedings.
“It's a big honour for me to be part of this whole thing and to be marching with everyone,” said Howell, 12. “It was an amazing experience.”
“It feels pretty good. I've been with this club for pretty much my whole rugby career,” added Butlin, 11. “I'm proud to be a St. Albert rugby player.”
The Grade 6 Edmonton Christian School student was worried about committing a knock on during the ceremony.
“I didn't want to drop the flag because if it hit the ground it would've been bad,” said Butlin, a spunky fullback.
Howell has embraced the hooker position while falling in love with the sport.
“I'm just starting to getting into rugby and it's an amazing sport. It's fun and it's a good way to bond with your team. It's just amazing,” said the Grade 6 Robert Rundle School student.
SARFC history
Rugby was first introduced in St. Albert as an internal program at Sir Alexander Mackenzie School in 1961-62 by Myrddin Jones, but it failed to gain traction after he moved away.
The game was resurrected in St. Albert when Roger Scott, a physical education teacher, requested assistance to help start a rugby team at Paul Kane High School in 1980. Gareth Jones and Rod Adams volunteered their coaching expertise and the storied history of Paul Kane rugby was born.
The next year Paul Kane played exhibitions against Edmonton Rugby Union fourth division teams, which led to a groundswell movement by a group of individuals that had been involved in rugby at various levels to start a rugby club in St. Albert. The first slate of officers were elected on Sept. 23, 1981 and Jones was the president of the executive committee.
“We actually started advertising in the Gazette that we were going to have meetings to form a club. We would go down to the old Bruin Inn and call a meeting and there would be four or five of us that would show up and then we would call another meeting and then a little bigger group would show up. Eventually we got enough people that showed an interest that we decided that we would actually field a team in the Edmonton league. We built that largely on the basis of the kids coming out of the Paul Kane program but there was thought that we needed to throw some more experienced players in along with them so some of us were tapped on the shoulder and were asked to come out of retirement to play, which was often a mistake, but it worked out OK,” said Bell, a scrumhalf back in the day.
“We grew to a stage where we were really playing on a lot of the city fields at the high schools and those fields were not really, really suitable to rugby. The grass was always cut short and the ground was hard. It was really tough so we decided we would try and approach the city to get grounds of our own.”
A glossy brochure and a financial timeline plan, along with money from bingos in the coffers, helped convince city council to give SARFC 13 acres of land “on the old dump” for a clubhouse and playing fields. SARFC also obtained a 25-year lease from the city. The fields were leveled, top soiled and seeded in 1983 and were playable two years later.
Construction of the clubhouse started in 1983 after SARFC obtained a federal grant.
“The sad part was we overspent and that's where the Nervous Nine thing came in. We needed to take out a bank loan and the bank said of course we need some guarantees on this thing so there were nine of us that came forward and said OK we're willing to put some financial guarantees on the loan in order to get the funds to finally finish this thing off,” Bell said. “Once the clubhouse got built and we actually had fields that we could call our own it just raced ahead from there. And now here we are today.”
