The Belleville Bulldogs will celebrate 50 years as a rugby club this weekend with a slate of anniversary activities spread over three days.
Although there had been a smattering of rugby played in Belleville prior to 1976, that was the year officially recognized as the formation of a proper club. I joined the Bulldogs two years later, with absolutely zero knowledge of rugby other than what we had played in physical education class at Centennial Secondary School. Which, basically, was try to kill the guy with the ball and not much else.
Thrown directly into the fire in my first Bulldogs game, I had no idea what was going on. But thanks to our eclectic group of veteran players — including doctors (Liam Hayes, Kenny Eccles), lawyers (Wolf Tausendfreund, Bobby Graydon) and teachers (Mike Dollack, Harvey Gottfried) among them — those of us new to the game received excellent tutoring at Tuesday and Thursday training sessions, mostly held in those days at CSS.
Among the group of founder members that some of us now affectionately refer to as ‘The Originals’ was England transplant Lewis Frape. The Squire, as he was nicknamed by the young crowd of fledgling Bulldogs, had played rugby growing up in Leicester and introduced we greenhorns to the rudiments of the game.
“There are five tenets of the game of rugby football,” preached The Squire. “Go forward, pressure, support, continuity and tackle.” Or, as he would sometimes say: “Tackle, tackle and bloody well tackle.”
We were most fortunate to have had Lewis as our coach and mentor in the formative years of the club. He was a big believer in “all skills for all players” and that players of “all shapes and sizes” could find equal amounts of enjoyment in the game.
In that regard, The Squire was ahead of his time, as ‘inclusivity’ was not yet the commonly-used word that it is today in the broader sporting lexicon. If you showed up for training and worked hard, you were a Bulldog. For life.
For me, rugby was an absolute revelation. I remember in those first developmental stages as a Bulldog, banging heads in the front row of the scrum against a guy from Brock RFC for 80 minutes on a hot summer Saturday in Cannington and after the game he handed me a cold beer the moment I arrived at the post-match reception.
“Good battle, buddy,” he said.
That’s rugby. Or, as Lewis used to say: “You always play to win the game, but when it’s over, the score is forgotten.”
Amen.
These days, I never cease to be amazed when I show up to support our club members — junior girls and boys, senior men and women, and Masters — during matches at M.A. Sills Park. Fifty years ago, the Bulldogs started with one men’s side. And a field complex the likes of MAS Park was just a dream.
So, go forward, Bulldogs. Into the next 50 years. I know they’ll be as exciting and rewarding as the first 50.
Happy birthday.
