This season was a clear turning point for the Club. After three successful years in Midlands 1, we were now struggling, with views expressed at the time suggesting that this was due to complacency, both on and off the field. But there was also a recognition that other clubs were catching up and both our team and coaching staff were in transition.

Stuart Mallinson maintained the club tradition of organising his wedding at the beginning of the season, although fortunately it was the date of the opening friendly against Banbury. They were managed for the first time by Leamington life-member Peter Payne, who had taken up a paid position with the Oxfordshire club. Leamington fielded a weakened side with only Simon David and John Swannell remaining from the same fixture the year before. Mark Phillips, Nick Ash, Andy Scurfield, Chris Holt and Nobby Styles all made their debuts in a narrow 11-10 win. In the second warm-up game, against Cheltenham, we fielded more or less thesame youthful side and were hammered 54-0 - our worst defeat for several years.

Retirements, Injuries, and non-availability continued to blight our efforts throughout the season and particularly prior to Christmas. In the forwards, the all-conquering pack of previous seasons more or less broke up as a regular unit. Carl Fripp transferred to Leicester, Peter Gray was injured and all sorts of combinations had to be tried. On top of all this, Chris Shoesmith the Rugby Chairman and captain Guy Stanton were unable to fulfil their commitments and had to stand down. Fortunately Roger Crockford (right) stepped up to take over the captaincy and new coach John Williamson, supported by Bob Hickman, Bill Dalton, Dave and Alan Reeve managed to create some stability as the season progressed.

The opening league game resulted in another tight finish against Bedworth and with our visitors leading 10-5 deep into injury time, history repeated itself and we snatched a draw with a try by scrum-half Kenny Johnson. The league games came thick and fast, with six matches in seven weeks up to the end of October, resulting in four defeats, against Syston, Worcester, Wolverhampton and Whitchurch, and another draw against fellow strugglers Camp Hill, in a game we should have won. So, at the half way stage we were in the relegation zone with only two draws from our six games and badly in need of reinforcement and stability. Fortunately there was a two-month gap in the league programme and a series of friendly games to sort things out. Our true form was hard to find as results were inconsistent and included a record 66-3 thrashingat Stourbridge. There was an eagerly awaited derby game at Kenilworth prior to Christmas, with our neighbours (still two leagues below us) unbeaten since the opening day of the season and on an 11 match winning run. We looked likely to win when leading by 20-13, but Kenilworth inched their way back into the game and nicked it by 24-20.

The next league game in January was a vital match against fellow strugglers Tamworth and proved to be one of our worst performances for several years, but fortunately finished 9-8 in our favour, thanks to three Mallinson penalties. We hit top form at last with a rare win at Derby and an outstanding triumph at second in the table Westleigh, with Tim Byford and Rob Rennel back in the side after long spells out through injury. The game was decided ten minutes from the end when ex-colts fly-half Adam Coleman, displayed a touch of genius on his debut to break out of our 22 and feed Dudley Turner to score the winning try.

First XV 1994-95 Gavin Wright, Dave Ward, Tim Byford, Dicky Davis, Roger Crockford, John Swannell, Danny Sparks, Attilio Talamini - Simon David, Stewart Mallinson, Kenny Johnson, Rob Rennel, Adam Coleman, Dudley Turner, Nobby Styles,

Our mini revival of three wins in a row was halted by Burton in mid-March when they sneaked an undeserved 10-8 victory at Moorefields, with a very late long range penalty, after Leamington had missed several kicks from similar positions. This fixture had been postponed from February in controversial circumstances when the game was called-off because the pitch was deemed too wet and dangerous to play on. Burton claimed that the decision was made by the referee and that they would have been happy to play if so directed. The referee stated that Burton had refused to play on safety grounds, and that he was powerless to insist on going ahead in the circumstances. Games took place on the other two pitches without any problems and we felt hard done by, as we were in good form and suspected that Burton were short of key players and found an excuse not to play. A comfortable victory over Towcestrians ensured our safety and a win at Mansfield would have taken us into fifth place, but as usual the Derbyshire side proved to be a handful and we went down 18-25 and had to be content with 9th place.

The Warwickshire Cup was again played after Christmas and we were drawn at home to Claverdon, who had lost to our third team the week before. Unsurprisingly we ran out easy 76-12 winners, scoring twelve tries. On the same day the Extras, Spartans and Stags all beat Old Leamingtonians opposition, scoring 70, 56 and 82 points respectively. The Tigers scored a modest 44 against Nuneaton Old Edwardians, contributing to a record Saturday aggregate of 328 points from the five games. Southam proved to be more difficult opposition on their own pitch and led 8-3 at half-time. It was only when we unleashed our backs in the final quarter that we clinched the tie, with two tries from Rob Rennel and one from Adam Coleman. This took us through to the quarter-finals at home against Broadstreet who had beaten us narrowly a few weeks before. In a lethargic display we went 13-3 behind in the first half before closing the gap with a Simon David try and a Coleman penalty but, with the tie in the balance, Broadstreet raised their game and ran out comfortable winners. They went on to win the Cup for the first time, beating Kenilworth in the final.

Transition is always difficult but it has its compensations, particularly with the emergence of relatively recent Colts to secure first team places. Kenny Johnson, Danny Sparks, Mark Phillips and, most improved player-of-the-year, Michael "Nobby" Styles, all played regularly. Adam Coleman came in for the later games and looked a great prospect at fly-half. Newcomers to the club included prop-forwards Attilio Talamini and Gavin Wright (who learned his rugby in South Africa) and centre Ian Kyffin from Hereford. Relative newcomer John Swannell was the player-of-the-year and filled in at both back-row and second-row, as did Roger Crockford who also had an outstanding season. Kenny Johnson was capped by Warwickshire.

Graham Howgate captained the Extras and they finished with an even record, the highlights including 70-7 and 79-5 wins, over Old Leamingtonians and Sutton Coldfield respectively. In the Warwickshire second XV Cup they defeated Trinity Guild 36-5, but were knocked out by Kenilworth in the next round by 3-12. The Spartans, skippered by Pat Callaghan were the most successful team winning 22 of their 31 games and the Stags led by Ian Kimberley did nearly as well. The Tigers also had a better than even record and had another enjoyable tour, this time to Wharfdale, where they lost against Bingley and beat Keighley.

There was sad news in the pre-season of the sudden death of the under-17s captain, Stuart Kearsey, who was tragically killed by lightening. A memorial match was played in his memory between a Leamington invitation XV and Warwickshire under- 21s. The Colts had a relatively good season with a very young side and after a shaky start they became very competitive and were able to reverse early season defeats against Broadstreet, Newbold and Lichfield. In the Warwickshire Cup they went out to eventual winners Coventry for the second year running in a hard fought battle of penalties. Guy Newton captained the side, assisted by James Pearl. Rob Shuttleworth was outstanding at scrum-half and played for Warwickshire Colts. Matt Dale was another up and coming player at fly-half. A successful under-19 tour to France resulted in a win against Saumur U-21s and a loss to Chinon, the national under-21 champions.

The under-16 side won the prestigious Colchester tournamentin October, beating the best in their age group from all over the south of England. In their seven games they didn't concede a point, beating Chelmsford, Burnham-on-Crouch, Westcliffe, Romford, Old Albanians, and St. Olave's School and in the final, Sevenoaks, who had ad not been defeated for two years. The successful squad was - Chris Wheildon, Alex Hodgetts, Steve McGuire, Chris Butler, Gareth Jones, Michael Clarke, Chris Massen, Nick Collett, Tom Chandler, Dalen Tsang, Phil Davenport, Mark Hislop, Tristan Woods-Scawen, Andy Dillow, Craig McConnachie, Gavin Back and Hedley Ayres

Financially, 1994/95 was another bad year with the club making a loss of over £14,000. The Royal Show was still an earner and using the field for car boot sales became more important. This was franchised out from 1995 onwards. One of the threats to our development was finally removed when the County Council announced that the proposal to widen the A452 into a dual carriageway was officially dropped due to lack of government funding and alternative traffic safety schemes were proposed. At the AGM, Lol Smith was elected as an Honorary Life member of the club and Dick Ashley stood down from organising the club dinner after many years, mainly due to the poor behaviour of members. John Richardson was elected Senior Vice President of the RFU in the summer of 1994 and he was made an Honorary Life member of the Club at the same time. This meant he would become RFU President in 1996/97 and events were suggesting it would be a difficult time to take the job on. The walls of amateurism had been cracking ever since the introduction of leagues and the fundamental question of whether players should be paid to play was causing a huge rift within the game. The RFU were fighting a rearguard action against professionalism and things came to a head in May when Will Carling famously spoke on the subject on TV and made what he thought were off-microphone comments about the "57 old farts"that ran the RFU and was sacked as England's skipper. This led to the rest of the team threatening not to play in the World Cup under anyone else. This is mentioned because the press had a field day and reported on a secret meeting of the old farts that was taking place in London on Friday 1st May, to try and resolve the impasse. They listed and profiled the farts who were supposed to be there, including our own John Richardson, who was in fact at our club dinner at the Lord Leycester hotel at the time, acquainting us with what was going on and how it might be resolved. Having subsequently been run over by Jonah Lomu in the World Cup, without financial recompense, the England players might have wished they had stayed at home but the commercialisation of the tournament blew away the last vestiges of amateurism and just before the start of the new season, the International Rugby Board declared rugby union an "open" game and removed all restrictions on payments or benefits to those connected with the game. This was not to be good news for Leamington RFC.