• St. John's Home
• Picture Pages Intro
• A poet visits
• St. John's Under Snow
• The Lord Mayor Visits
• Science Discovery Day
• Venice Art Trip
• Yr7 Normandy Trip
• Serre Chevalier Ski Trip
• Fireworks Evening
• Summer Term 1999
• Building Work II
• Pila Ski Trip
• Autumn Term Roundup
• Building Work I
• Night Under Canvas
• Summer Fun Day 1998
• Junior Sports Day
• 1998 U.S. Ski Trip
• Helicopter Visit
• A Cricket Match
• Easter Term Roundup
• First Match for the U8s
• Summer Concert
• Paris Art Trip
• Saracens Visit
• End of Year
• A hectic half a term
• 1997 U.S. Ski Trip

One games session before Autumn half term 1997 the first forms (Yr3) were lucky enough to get a visit from the Saracens' Community Schools Programme.

Tim Lawler, the Saracens' Community Development Officer, started off by taking the boys through some warm-up and basic skills exercises. Even an exercise as simple as the one above - all running around at random in a small area without bumping into each other - teaches young players to move easily off either foot.

As we all know from the old joke, rugby is played with an odd shaped ball. Simple ball handling exercises such as the one the boys are doing in the photo above are invaluable.

Here the boys are being introduced to two Saracen players. On the left is Brad Free from Queensland, Australia who plays scrum half, in the centre is Kevin Sorrell an ex-England Under 18 who plays centre threequarter and on the right, doing the introductions, is Tim Lawler.

Like any other training session this one ended off with a game of touch rugby in which, it seems, Brad and Kevin were lucky enough to be chosen for an Under Eight team each.

Even as a one-off, this visit would have been very valuable as well as a lot of fun for the boys. In fact Saracens, and Tim Lawler as their contact with local schools, want this to be just the start and not a one-off. The way they see it is that they are our local premiership professional rugby club; so if they take a bit of interest in our rugby - by sharing their skills and expertise with us - hopefully we'll take a bit of interest in their rugby.

To that end, Saracens have given us a hundred free children's tickets for the Bath (Sunday, 14th Dec 3.00 p.m.) and Leicester (Boxing Day 3.00 p.m.) home fixtures. Boys need to be accompanied by an adult who will need to pay full fare. Both sorts of tickets are available from Mr Bond.

This first visit got written up with photos of the boys in action in a double page spread in the programme for the Bristol game on Sunday 2nd November; and Tim plans to be back - this time to visit the second forms (Yr4) on one of their games sessions - before we break up for Christmas.

Thanks very much Brad, Kevin and Tim for coming and seeing us and we look forward to seeing more of Saracens in the future.

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