Cross Green's home to generations of Melvilles

MY CLUB OTLEY WE SPEAK TO A NUMBER OF WELL-KNOWN RUGBY FIGURES ABOUT THE CLUB THEY CALL THEIR OWN, THIS WEEK NIGEL MELVILLE

- JON NEWCOMBE

WITH planning approved for a new ground and relegation from the National League structure for the first time in a generation, these are times of change for Otley RUFC.

However, for one of the club’s most famous sons, Nigel Melville, the former England scrum-half – and until recently the RFU’s Professional Rugby Director – no-one can take away the memories that come with a lifetime’s association.

“My dad Harry was the fixture secretary for 16 years, he played for the first team, and my mum was on the tea committee and then she got on the (main) committee. So we were really connected with the club; our life revolved around it,” he said.

“My brother Glyn played, he was top try scorer one year and a good player, and my nephew Sam played there too. He ended up at Leicester but got injured. So we’ve had three generations come through.”

For Melville, a scrum-half whose pass was as smooth as a pint of Tetley’s, when it was brewed in his birthplace of Leeds, Saturdays were religiously spent down at Cross Green.

“As a kid, I was around Otley all the time. Like everywhere else, all my extended family were involved in the rugby club,” he said. “We’d either be ball boys or operate the scoreboard, and would be down at the ground well before kick-off and well after the end.