VALE of Lune RUFC returned this week from a successful three match tour or Catalonia Province in Spain.

The Vale's squad can now take a well earned rest after their most successful season in many years.

Vale won all three of their tour matches, the first, against the local university, by a massive 70 points to 5 margin. The next two matches, against the local First Division side and against a well drilled team called 'the Engineers' which contained some top class players of Argentinian origin, were closer but never the less ended in clear victories for the Vale.

In a hastily arranged cricket challenge match with some local Catalonian lads the Vale boys did not do quite so well and were on their way to a humiliating defeat when, according to one player with a sense of humour, "God proved that he was an Englishman and sent a good, old fashioned English downpour." The result was a draw due to "rain stopped play."

Now the Vale must wait for the authorities to get their act together and tell them which league they will be playing in the next season. With the present chaos at the RFU, though, no-one at the Vale is holding their breath. There have been resignations from the management committee, England have sent a team to tour the Southern hemisphere which has nearly half of its squad consisting of previously uncapped players and a massive power struggle is taking place at English Rugby's HQ.

The problems of the Vale of Lune are probably well down the list of urgent matters to be attended to. Many small English rugby clubs, the Vale among them, are well and truly fed up with this situation and something has to break before long. Watch this space!

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.