London Scottish Lions

On the banks of the River Thames, at a school ground fit for a king, two of rugby’s famous names take to the field in a top-of-the-table clash. London Scottish Lions and London Irish Wild Geese in Regional 2 Thames might not have the glamour of matches past, but both could well represent the future.

The last time London Scottish hosted London Irish in a league fixture, it didn’t go too well for the men in blue. It was 2018, and a London Irish side, intent on spending the briefest of spells in rugby’s second tier after the ignominy of relegation, put their Celtic brothers to the sword, a 17-54 pasting by a squad still clearly bursting with Premiership quality. The return fixture was almost identical, 52-21. Two games, 106 for the Irish, 38 for the Scots. Two years previous, following another relegation to the Scots’ level for the men in green, and the story had been similar: two games [12-62 in Richmond and 29-20 in Reading], 91 for, 32 against.

Things are a bit different for this clash of the exiles, in Regional 2 Thames (level six). The venue is King’s House School Sports Ground, a 35-acre slice of prime south-west London on the banks of the River Thames. It’s owned by an independent school and is the kind of place we all wish we had growing up: grass, clay and 3G, supporting everything from football, hockey and lacrosse to tennis, cricket and – pride of place in front of the clubhouse – rugby.

It’s a Saturday morning, the car park’s bursting with SUVs jostling for position, either finding spaces where there are none, or taking two just because. Those that can’t gain a hallowed space, raggedly line the driveway into the ground. 

While some of the ground is lightly branded in the navy blue of the school, the two-storeyed clubhouse keeps it neutral, with rooms named after sporting venues including ‘Twickenham’, although it’s actually in a bar called ‘The Wimbledon’ that we find a new rugby home. 

The bar stools alternate tartan patten, there’s a giant stag trophy in one corner, and, more significantly, a vast stash of Tunnock’s – all the classics [Snowballs, Tea Cakes et al], plus presumably some limited-editions because, well, even a brand can have favourites. This is the place this London Scottish club calls home.

The room perfectly overlooks the pitch, a view that grassroots clubs the nation over would be envious of. “We call it our hospitality suite,” laughs Doug Cowie, the president of London Scottish Lions, the club we’re here to see. They’re not exactly a phoenix club, as London Scottish still have a semi-professional side in the Championship, albeit one with – on occasion – an overly strong scent of Harlequins about them. But the Lions’ home at King’s House is fast becoming the beating heart of London Scottish rugby. Aberdeen-born Doug, similar to many of his now-arriving committee men, is wearing tartan trousers, and is unashamedly London Scottish through and through. “I’ve done every job in the [original] club apart from play,” he says. “I started in 1996, as a parent, helping the minis, then youth chair, then helping out the first team, running the line. I was actually employed by the professional side of the club as rugby operations manager for about five years.”

That role came to an end, like many, due to Covid, and Doug was tempted from Richmond to Chiswick to join the London Scottish Lions cause three years ago by Ben Edwards, a self-effacing club stalwart – who continually tells us to speak to others, yet was undoubtedly pivotal in the creation of the side in 2017. Doug, however, was a good choice, having been part of the actual London Scottish phoenix set-up which had to start at the bottom of the league pyramid when they went into administration at the end of their one and only Premiership season in 1998-99.

“I think it was really a cathartic process, in many respects,” says Doug, looking back a couple of decades at the first London Scottish’s return to club values and subsequent rise. “It forces you to look inwards, you know, in terms of what the club’s about, and get volunteers involved again, you know, rather than paid people. Just to come through the whole process was great.”

But growth nearly always comes with growing pains, and the pinch-point came when they arrived at level two. “As the club got back up to the Championship in 2011 season, it forced a lot of thought into ‘how do we go forward?’. And so, the [professional] board, which was kind of always separate from the rest anyway, just to safeguard all the financial side of things, decided they wanted to set up an academy to develop players.

“But it almost went too far that way,” continues Doug, “in the sense that the second fifteen, which had always fed players into the first fifteen, began to fragment, because the head of the academy was tasked with blooding youngsters in that squad.”

The need to use the second fifteen [the Highlanders] to develop players, as part of the Zoo Sports League – featuring the reserves of ambitious Championship and National 1 clubs – meant the pathway of London Scottish was broken. 

Even as recently as 2008, London Scottish had fielded five sides and, in theory, a player could go from five to one, but that came to an end, and what’s more, the Highlanders were struggling. “A whole slug of players came over here to the old civil service club [CS Stags, who also play at King’s House], and others went to other clubs in the Richmond area.”

London Scottish, one of the most famous rugby clubs in English and Scottish history, was left with just two senior sides. What’s more, they also had no real home. Despite Richmond Athletic Ground having been their joint home with Richmond FC since 1894, the fall-out from both sides going into administration led to London Scottish becoming tenants and their old rivals, the landlords. “Ever since both clubs got relegated at the end of 1999 season, our relationship with Richmond just started getting worse and worse,” admits Doug. “Despite the fact we were renting pitches over there for amateur sides and our minis and juniors were still there, we were being treated like second-class citizens, which is not a great feeling.”

Ben, who’s been on raffle duty, returns to join our conversation. “Fuck it was rough,” he says, of the last days at Richmond. “You know, when you turn up on a match day and you want your pitch looking like this,” he says, pointing to the pristine green surface in front of The Wimbledon. “Not like a mud bath or dust bowl depending on the time of the season.”

The circumstances weren’t helped by results on the pitch, when matches happened. Reserve leagues are notorious for call-offs or massive miss-matches, the worse combination. “The Highlanders were struggling like hell to keep going,” says Ben. “At times we had just 15/16 players… 

“We just didn’t have the right vehicle for rugby: we needed [a sense of] achievement, focus, purpose, and we needed a league for players to test themselves against good teams each week, knowing they aren’t going to cry off last minute.”

And so they set up London Scottish Lions and joined the bottom of the rugby pyramid, starting competitive rugby in the 2018/19 season in Herts Middlesex League 2. Remarkably, so quickly did news spread of the Lions’ emergence – a call to arms for Scottish players old and new – they were able to field a second team in the same campaign.  “We needed meaningful rugby,” says Ben. “It wasn’t so much for us old guys, but for younger guys, aspirational guys that wanted to play little bit higher – they needed to get more purpose to their rugby and in rugby, achievement is based on league success and getting promotion. Bringing that back is what drove people to come back into London Scottish [Lions].”

They were still however playing in Richmond. “We were playing out of the RAG [Richmond Athletic Ground],” says Ben, “and you’re playing clubs that turn up with supporters that expect to be fed, expect some camaraderie. And you know, fundamental principles of rugby – somewhere to sit afterwards, host people, etc…

“And I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was when we had one game, and the sky came over quite cloudy, and very, very dark. The referee asked us to turn the lights on, and the groundsman said, ‘Nah, I can’t afford the electricity’.”

Just east around the next river bend from where they are now, London Scottish Lions found a home at the Quintin Hogg Memorial Trust for their seniors, minis and juniors – a ground that had once been earmarked as a possible home for the entire Scottish family, pros and all – before one of the minis’ parents suggested King’s House. “Everybody’s here now, including the semi-pros,” says Doug. “They train here, but they can’t play the matches here, because we don’t have the required facilities.”

Is it the home of London Scottish? “You’d have to say so,” admits Doug. “A lot of people would still say it’s Richmond [where the Championship team still play], but I mean, to all intents and purposes, this is our home now. 

“The sad thing for me,” he continues, “is that both clubs have shared that ground since 1894, over a hundred years, so surely something was working.”

The administrator effectively giving it to the highest bidder has caused an end to a partnership that had stood the test of time. “That set both clubs against each,” says Doug, “and they wanted to try and outdo each other. You know, and hindsight is always a great skill, but if you look back, you kind of think, ‘Why the hell didn’t you just sit down and talk about it?’. They could’ve said, ‘right, we’ll put some money on the table, you put some money on the table’, and there you go’.”

While the two London Scottish are separate legal entities, they’re clearly bound by many things: ethos is one, according to Doug. The kit and name is another. A third is Mark Bright. In those games when London Scottish last faced London Irish, the Kiwi number eight was on the team sheet, even managing to score in the home fixture. 

Since then, he’s played for Richmond, only leaving the National 1 side at the end of last season when offered a player-coach role at the Lions, instantly dropping from level three to six. It’s Mark’s third spell with a London Scottish side, who he first joined in 2011 after spending his first five years in England at Redruth. “I had a five-year stint with the pros,” says Mark, talking to us as the physio carefully goes about taping up the assorted problem areas of his 46-year-old body. “Then I went to Ealing, then I came back for three or four more seasons, then went across to Richmond for a little blast there, then this player-coach opportunity came up.” If it hadn’t, would he have stayed at Richmond? “Yeah, I’d have probably looked at it,” he says.

Mark has long been one of the Championship’s most consistent performers: a regular scorer, he once notched up 21 tries in 28 games for Scottish, part of a tier-two try-haul in excess of a century. He’s also played almost four hundred games at either Championship or National 1 level, a record not to be sniffed at. “The goal was always to get to forty,” he says, “and then I thought I’d just crack on, playing season by season. I’ve got three sons, and my eldest is nineteen, so I got to play with him, and now my middle one is turning seventeen in December, so I’ll get to play with him too – hopefully all three of us at the same time.”

The support given to his family by Scottish over the years is one of the reasons he wanted to return. “I always feel like I should be trying to give something back to the club, so it was a pretty easy decision to have another go [at Scottish].”

How is he finding the transition to lower-level rugby? “It’s different,” he says. “One set of eyes, no AR [assistant referees], and just one guy from each team [running the line], so you can get away with a little bit more…”

Still leading from the front, although today, he’s moved into the second row, but everyone who’s watched him this campaign insists he’s still a force to be reckoned with. The key to his longevity? Less pre-season. “I missed a lot of pre-seasons when I first came to the UK,” he says. “I’d just be doing back-to-back seasons, going from the UK to New Zealand, which I think really helped me.”

Incredibly, Mark spent eight years playing solid rugby. “I’d fly over to England,” he explains, “do the season here, finish, have a couple of days off, fly back to New Zealand, straight into training, straight into a game.”

And he wasn’t messing around either: this was flitting between a strong fully-professional Championship and New Zealand’s NPC, regularly featuring All Blacks. “I was just loving rugby,” he says. “I wanted to play as much rugby as I could, and I think going back to Nelson, skipping as many preseasons as possible might have prolonged my career, and I mean, it has worked out for me and I’ve not had many major injuries either.”

Even so, with the bills now paid by his job as a sports teacher, being closer to fifty than forty would seem like a good time to hang up the boots. “I just love it,” he says. “Always have. I used to go and watch my old man play, and he played for same club as I went back for – Marist – and me and my brother would go down there with all our mates. My grandfather, uncles they were all that same club too, so it’s just part of us, it’s in my DNA, like most Kiwis, we’re just born to play rugby.”

While he made it to the Commonwealth Games with England in 2014, and, he says, there were a few rumblings almost two decades ago about a move to the Crusaders, Mark has no regrets. Even rarer these days, even for tier two players, he does it for the love of rugby. “My old man always said, ‘you’re gonna be a long time on the sidelines, so I’ve been eking it out,’ he admits.

“I was supposed to hang them up last year to be honest, but I missed the hook when I went to hang my boots up. The missus, she’s supportive, she’s the main reason why I can keep playing, because she looks after the kids. 

“I’ve got the easy job, mate,” he adds. “I just run around for eighty minutes, she’s got to look after three boys which is a hell of a lot tougher…”

The changing room which, it has to be said, is as palatial as they get at this level, is starting to fill up with Mark’s team-mates. “This brings you back to where you started off, this is what it’s all about,” he says. “These boys are a pretty tight-knit lot, they spend a lot of time together off the pitch, train hard, they hold each other accountable.”

Four promotions in five seasons have taken London Scottish Lions to the edge of tier four rugby, Regional 1 South Central – or old National 3, depending on your age – a division where the serious stuff, both on and off the pitch, truly begins. But the current division, Regional 2 Thames, is a level not to be sniffed at. London Scottish Lions go into the game top of the division, leading the visitors by a single point with HAC a further point back in third.

If Scottish win, it will send a message, but the plans being put in place go far beyond this season. “We’ve just re-formed the academy to provide a pathway through to the Lions and even the semi-pro team,” says Dean Hislop, an assistant coach at the club, now in charge of the academy. “London Scottish only have the Championship side, that’s it, with a squad made up of London Scottish boys and then Harlequins brought in to bolster certain positions. They train twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday, competing against full-time players.

“We want to get up to the old National 3, maybe then go into National 2, and that would then be a true second team to the Championship side.”

Like many sides, including London Welsh in the division above, Scottish are looking to find alternative ways to support young players. “We’re not only putting in a rugby pathway, we’re helping them vocationally as well,” he says. “We’re looking at what university they’re going to, helping them get work experience. 

“We’ve got a great sponsor that is putting in some vocational support for these boys, to help them find jobs,” he continues, quickly adding, “we’re not going to give them jobs, but we’re going to help them get interviews. For example, if somebody’s doing a finance-related degree and wants to move into finance, we can get them interviews in the city, with large banks, insurance companies, brokers, and then it’s up to them. 

“We want to see boys that we brought through the academy, that have probably gone from our minis on the way, then go off to university, but then play rugby for either the Lions in National 2 or in the Championship team. We want to provide a pipeline of true London Scottish players, that’s the dream.”

Kick-off nears, and both London Scottish and London Irish have fervent support among the 150 or so that have gathered for the match. It includes plenty that have also supported the professional arm of the sides. 

John Haygarth, wearing a London Scottish top with faded Tunnock’s branding – a memory of sweeter times for the pros, perhaps – was a regular at the Richmond Athletic Ground for thirty seasons. “I’m still a season ticket holder,” he says of the Championship side, “but go to most of the Lions games now because it’s back to the old-fashioned rugby values, it’s not too serious… although none of this should’ve happened, because while some want everything to be pro, you need an amateur arm.”

John laments the many stories that have swirled around the Scottish professional side, from partnerships with the SRU to rumoured daliances with the Celtic League. “But nothing ever happened,” he says.  

Instead, he says, with all the promotions the Lions are enjoying, it’s almost history repeating itself. “It’s a bit like when it all fell apart because of a lack of money after that Premiership season, and it took a while to find our feet. It feels it’s like that all over again, just twenty years later. 

“But this is more fun,” he says, comparing the two Scottish sides. “Better craic and, yeah it does feel like home.”

London Irish – or rather London Irish Wild Geese to give them their full moniker – also have their own stalwart fans. Rolling up to the hoardings on her mobility scooter, with a white goose soft toy poking out from the basket, and the badge of London Irish on everything from scarves and tops to hats and myriad pin badges, is Sandra. Just as she had been every week, Sandra was there when the London Irish professional side played their last game in May 2023, a 17-14 win over Exeter Chiefs to secure fifth place in the Premiership, their highest finish since 2009. Days later the club went into administration. “Sad it was, just sad,” says Sandra. “I’ve been following them for twenty years. 

“I cried for days because, you know, being disabled, it’s my outlet on the weekends. I’ve been following London Irish for twenty-odd years, and, all of a sudden, I didn’t know when I was going to see my friends again. 

“I just thought, ‘oh my god, what am I going to do now?’. Sometimes, the only time I get out of the house, is to go to rugby.”

Hope was also a killer. “It was awful, because, you know, there was speculation, speculation, and people putting things on Facebook, and you don’t know whether to believe it or not. We kept thinking, hoping, and then we heard we had somebody that’s interested in buying and, we thought, ‘if it can go through, we’ll all be all right’. But it didn’t…

“Fucking Americans, that’s all I can say!” she says, saying exactly what she thinks of the supposed American investment fund that had looked set to take over her beloved Irish. 

Even on the day we meet Sandra, there are more rumours, with German businessman Daniel Loitz thought to be on the brink of buying London Irish and making a bid for the Championship. “We have no idea what’s going on,” says Sandra. “We’ve been there before, when we had a buyout with a consortium last year, and that didn’t happen. I mean, Daniel Loitz is supposed to be interested in buying us out, he seems genuine, but I think he’s getting held up.”

While Sandra would love London Irish to make a triumphant return at the highest level, she’s been following London Irish Wild Geese since the pros’ demise. “Right from the start – and we all talk on Facebook – we said we’d go and watch the amateurs and actually, we’ve really got into the amateurs. And they all come over to us at the end of the game, and they thank us for coming, which is really nice…

“It’s rugby isn’t it,” says Sandra, “and it’s still London Irish… and we still say, ‘come on Irish’.” As if to prove it, she yells exactly that as her team emerges onto the King’s House field.

The game itself is fierce: while the Irish have a lightning quick backline that looks dangerous, the Scottish pack is ferocious, with some serious orc-like forwards and a defence that’s unrelenting. The first half score reflects the little there is between the two sides – 10-6 to the home side – but in the second period, a dash of rain seems to have made the ball impossible to catch. Amid the chaos though, Scottish come through, with their classy full-back Tye James proving the difference, breaking from his 22, kicking through, and outpacing three chasing Irish backs. They nudge further ahead, 23-6, and are never caught. Mark for his part, is rampaging, making hard yards with the rest of his pack following suit, and the defence is unbreakable. 

A yellow card for Irish, taking Tye in the air, doesn’t help things Irish. Shortly afterwards, Tye is in the thick of it again, with an assist for the final London Scottish try, 30-6. The whistle goes, and Scottish strengthen their grip on top spot. 

Club captain Angus Clogg gathers the team in the centre circle, although it’s not just the players, it’s a vast circle of forty or so London Scottish people – clearly they are about more than just a first fifteen. He talks of the future, and belief, something that has driven London Scottish Lions up through the perilous London rugby pyramid. He was once part of the original academy, before university took him, and then the Lions brought him back. 

Through the Lions, London Scottish are being reunited. “A few of the team have been invited down on Tuesdays to practise skills with the Championship side,” Angus says, adding that two of the Lions props have actually had game time for London Scottish in the Premiership Cup and pre-season. “And you know with the Harlequins boys coming into the semi-pro side and filtering in there, it’s been pretty amazing for us to watch those lads. 

“I mean, I’m 32, so seeing some of the lads run with me who are, like, twenty years old, but are professional rugby players, yeah, it’s pretty amazing.  And the speed they play, that’s definitely benefited us, and it’s really important we have that relationship as a whole entire club, because the Lions consider themselves part of one club with them.

“We hold ourselves as part of London Scottish,” he says. “Wearing the badge and everything that comes with that history, it really means something. 

“And playing London Irish today, that’s a historical game in itself. You know, my dad – who played for the club – always spoke about the rivalries with London Welsh and London Irish. And if we manage the promotion next year, we’ll be with London Welsh as well, so it’s pretty good times for us. It’s showing right across the club; we had 47 at training last week.”

With good times though, come challenges. Ben finds us again, to give his review, “That was fucking great,” he says. 

But, together with Doug and the rest of the committee, he knows that if they do manage promotion to the fourth tier, big decisions will need to be made. As amazing as it will be, it will also arrive ahead of schedule; a fledgling rugby club – not even a decade old – will go into a level known for clubs that pay players, that are fiercely competitive. 

What happens then, Ben? “We shit bricks mate,” he says succinctly.

Well, at least you’ll do that with Mark Bright on your side, which gives you at least half a chance. Because you can guarantee, if the Lions win the league, that hook will prove elusive once again when he goes to hang those boots up. 

Story by Alex Mead

Pictures by Matthew McQuillan

This extract was taken from issue 28 of Rugby.
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