Saturday 12 October 2024
Kick off 3pm
Referee Jon Amor (Manchester Society)
Address: 60A Broad Walk, Kidbrooke, London SE3 8NB
Free Admission
Bar and Refreshments
Pie and Mash lunch from 2pm

Today’s sees us take on Cranbrook Rugby Club in round 5 of the 2024-25 season. And, as usual, we will give a warm Charlton Park welcome to its players, officials and supporters. We hope you enjoy our hospitality and the beer.

Cranbrook come into this game off the back of a 20-15 victory over Ashford and have a playing record of 2 wins, 2 defeats so we’re in for a tough game today.

We have yet to win a game this season. Perhaps in hindsight, we should’ve beaten Deal and Betteshanger but we didn’t. And the results against Bromley and Beccehamians went to prove that you cannot switch off at key moments in the game otherwise the top sides in this league will punish you. The weekend before last, we had to concede our game against Canterbury Pilgrims as we had an extraordinary number of players unavailable for selection due to a wedding, congratulations to Luke Boyns, injuries, and the conflict in the Middle East.

This week the focus of the Kent RFU newsletter has been poor behaviour. Under the heading of ‘Enough is ‘Enough’ the KCRFU Committee have sent out the following message to all clubs

‘With the 2024-25 season barely a few weeks old, the KCRFU’s Adult Discipline Panel has already received two allegations of physical abuse of a referee (one being pushed, the other being spat at). Furthermore, the Panel has received two allegations of club officials trying to persuade a referee not to report a red card. This is completely unacceptable and our patience with such poor behaviour is exhausted.

Last season, the KCRFU and KSRFUR jointly and for the second season in succession, warned that anybody associated with a club (be they a player, coach, parent / guardian, or spectator) proven to be in breach of RFU Laws and Regulations relating to poor behaviour and especially, Match Official Abuse (MOA) would receive the severest sanctions possible.

Very disappointingly, our call has gone unheeded. During 2023-24, the Adult Panel dealt with 157 cases, representing a 67 per cent increase on 2022-23. Of these, almost half related either to MOA or conduct prejudicial to
the interests of the game, including those MOA cases that were passed from the Age Grade to the Adult Panel for consideration. The nature of those cases that have already come before the Adult Panel does not augur well for the rest of 2024-25.

This simply cannot continue. If it does, we will lose referees - and who can blame them for leaving the game? The result of this will be that clubs which already are struggling to raise teams to fulfil fixtures and increase playing membership will find themselves in even greater difficulty if, having got together a team, finding that there is nobody available to referee the match, causing it to be cancelled. Moreover, the sheer number of cases places a huge administrative (and intellectual) burden on our volunteers who sit on the Panels, placing them under severe time pressures, balancing their other work and family commitments, while ensuring that those accused of offences are subject to due process and have a fair hearing.

It is therefore in clubs’ own interests to stamp out this poor behaviour.We remind clubs that any such sanctions that may be imposed for proven breaches may not be restricted to a particular section or age group. Discipline is regarded
as a ‘whole club’ issue.

Therefore, sanctions may include financial penalties, docking of 1st XV points, suspension
of coaches and expulsion from competitions, even if the proven offence(s) was perpetrated by a club’s youth/minis section.

So, for the third and hopefully final time, we instruct clubs immediately and without fail to bring this matter to the attention of all officials, coaches, players, volunteers and spectators (be they parents / guardians or others) and to warn them as to the good behaviour and respect for match officials – and each other – that is expected and which is the very essence of the game we love.’

So, there you have it. We don’t necessarily see this as a problem at Charlton Park but we can’t afford to be complacent. This is a game that we all enjoy and many give up their valuable time to ensure that we have rugby each Saturday for our seniors and Sunday for our minis and juniors. Our message is simple. Enjoy the rugby, enjoy the beer, be hospitable to our visitors and above all respect the values of the game and respect the referee, come what may.

With the referee in mind, we give a warm Charlton Park welcome to Jon Amor who is on an exchange appointment from the Manchester Society. Enjoy your day.

We have a watered down VP lunch today - No, it’s not soup- due to several table hosts being away on their holidays. I suppose we can blame global warming as more and more people are choosing to go on holiday later in the year rather than the traditional summer months.

This is your Charlton Park team to take on Cranbrook this afternoon. We welcome back Ben and Josh McMullan. Everyone is looking forward to seeing you put the red shirt on once again.

1 J Everett
2 W Sandison
3 T Read
4 T Allen
5 B Clarke
6 R Saunderson
7 B Monsey
8 L Boyns
9 M Jones
10 R Sidebottom
11 D Jones
12 D Conway
13 J Ettridge
14 B McMullan
15 J McMullan

16 R McSweeney
17 D Coginashvilli
18 B O’Keefe