The ‘after the lord Mayors show’ season began badly!!! A new pitch was ready for use, but with the previous area so narrow, the groundsman did the club no favours by marking the widest space possible – to utilise you need pace!!!

Despite the continued leadership of Paul ‘Compo’ Harding, the club were in something of a transition with five of the ‘Twickenham side’ stepping down from first team duties. An aging team were looking for retirement, while several of the younger players felt that they could not achieve the heady heights of last season again and so went off to do other things!!! Main ball carrier and No 8 Paul Hulland moved to Luctonian RFC, Colin Smith went to skipper the 2nd XV, Full Back Julian Harding retired, most disappointingly Second Row Jamie Taylor retired to have a family at the grand old age of 21!!! In addition, John Hulland went travelling, Steve ‘Chico’ Phillips and Jon Banford were subject to injuries that have restricted their participation ever since.

To open the new pitch local rivals and friends Clee Hill were invited to the inaugural match. Ever keen to poke their neighbours in the eye the new season got off to a poor start when winger George Evans went over in the corner for the first try and the Titterstone rivals emerged victorious by 21-3, though the 2nd XV did manage a hard-fought narrow victory by 12-7 at the same time. During this ‘transition period’ the league campaign was made even more difficult, because on the pitch every team wanted to claim the scalp of the ‘Twickenham’ team. In reality the club had been set up to play a certain way with a restricted size of pitch and would have to learn a new game plan to effectively use the wide-open spaces of the new pitch. The success in the national cup competition last year had brought even more recognition the following season as the Club learned that despite a bye in the first round, it was promotion to the EDF Senior Vase. The first action was not until early in October and as the Shropshire Star reported at the time with their article ‘Cleobury in Vase hat – just’:

http://www.shropshirestar.com/?s=Cleobury+Twickenham+run&searchsubmit=Search

http://www.shropshirestar.com/2006/10/10/cleobury-in-vase-hat-just/

Cleobury Mortimer are back on the road to Twickenham after keeping their EDF Senior Vase hopes alive in the most dramatic fashion possible. Last year’s finalists – who made a habit of snatching late victories on that memorable run to rugby headquarters – defeated rivals Telford 11-10 in the first round on Saturday. And it all came down to the last incident of the game with stand-in kicker Steve Morris slotting over a penalty to hand his side a nail-biting first success of the season after an opening month of struggle in Midlands Four. “We scored a try just before the end of the game and the conversion would have brought us level and taken us into extra-time,” said skipper Paul Harding. “When Steve missed that I thought we had gone but we had time to force one more line-out and they infringed as we got into centre field. We are delighted to go through and I thought we deserved it because we were by far the better side in the second half.”

“You could sense before the game it meant a lot to the lads and we had a good team-talk before the start about last season.” Telford dominated the early stages but only had a 10-0 advantage to show for their efforts, two tries from Tony Price helping the home side put their noses in front. A penalty from Morris reduced the arrears just before half-time but Cleobury struggled to make further in-roads, despite the visitors enjoying plenty of pressure. But a Pete Howman try three minutes from time sparked the late drama which kept the Cleobury dream alive

In the League only four victories all season, made it a difficult and demanding time, as relegation was only just staved off by point’s difference because the defeats were by narrow scores, but the wins were by a much larger margin. At the end of a difficult campaign the kicking was shared between Allan Shields (73-points with 5-tries, 12-conversions & 8-penalties), Steve ‘Sway’ Morris (64-points) and James Manley (48-points), while tries were more difficult to find, Andy Freeman (7) and Colin Todd (6). The 2nd XV had a better time of it and managed 10-games, winning three and a draw as the scoring was retained in the family Reuben and Zack Weavers scoring the tries and stepdad Colin Smith slotting the kicks.

Amongst this gloom and depression after the successes of last year, the club had a much brighter note to celebrate. The club had managed to obtain an RFU grant to re-grade the old school pitch, for future 2nd XV use, but a condition was that the club started the development of ladies’ section. Hilton Smith agreed to coach the group of raw but talented young ladies eager to ‘put their bodies on the line’ for the club and as a joint venture with Clee Hill RFC. Assisting him with this coaching was Gary Harding, Dan Romeo and Allan Shields, but a considerable amount of work was carried out during the summer months to prepare a side ready for their first fixture on Sunday 3rd September 2007. Despite a narrow 15-5 defeat to Bridgnorth al had enjoyed the contest and so an initial season of friendlies had brought 3-wins and a draw from 6-matches and thoughts turned to entry into the league next year. Top scorer that year was Cassie Romeo with 40 points (6-tries & 5-conversions)