Having had a good season followed by a bad one, the omens for the 2004/05 season were looking good as Matthew Barnsley having taken a sabbatical for a couple of years, returned as skipper. The fixture computer threw up journeys’ back to the Birmingham area as the first four games went with the home team for a ‘win, lose, win lose, win’ record and then Cleobury found their form. Only 2-defeats in the remainder of the league season gave a sniff of a first Championship winning season. In the end an excellent second place finish in the League meant a Play-Off match away to Coventry Welsh RFC at the end of the season. The club travelled to Coventry with trepidation for this ‘one-off’ match rather than a home/away aggregate game, but the team coped excellently with the game and won convincingly 23-10 and promotion was assured.

In a prolific season, an injury hit season for Colin Smith meant that the kick duties were taken over by Julian Harding with 135-points, (2-tries, 34-conversions & 19-penalties). However, he was not the ‘top scorer’ because that honour went to Paul Hulland with an incredible 150-points from 30-tries in the No 8 position as the front five dominated at the set piece and the back row terrorised the opposition as Colin Todd managed also 11-tries.

Andrew ‘Daisy’ Davies continued his role of leading the 2nd XV by encouraging more players to participate and there were rumours that males of a ‘playing age’ would only get served in the Old Lion Inn if they agreed to play for the club!!! In 11-games there were 4-wins but the development of new talent such as Nick Griffiths (3) and Reuben Weavers (2) as well as experienced players looking for a few friendly games such as Ian (Ento) Dayus, Shaun Riley and Nigel Williams.

During the year tremendous news was announced about the start dates for the ‘Sport 2000’ project. The whole scheme would take about 18-months to complete and though work would commence on the new field, this would be the very season the current pitch. It was exciting news, tempered by the fact that the club would have to vacate their regular pitch for a hastily arranged, much smaller version. Plans were announced about the creation of a ‘temporary’ pitch using the bottom half of the 1st XV pitch and across the very boggy and poorly drained middle portion of the 2nd XV pitch for a season to allow the new pitch to grow properly. The 2-acres of school field that had been sold to the developer, amounting to the top half of the original pitch, would be boarded up and very rapidly become a building site. The new pitch would not be available until the start of the 2006/07 season.

At the end of the season, having led the side for five seasons spanning 10-years, Matthew Barnsley announced that he would be standing down and playing the remainder of his career as a player in the ranks. Fearing that the club would be losing an irreplaceable leader and in trying to compliment him at the Annual Dinner Dance, Chair Roy Powell coined the phrase ‘Captain Fantastic’. He wondered whoever could the club get to replace ‘Barney’? How could the club ever surpass that season’s performance, and could anyone improve on that record as skipper??????????