I first meet Dave back in 1980 when he was on a recruitment drive for Ealing colts and thought the best way to do this as he was loitering around the schools gates at St Benedict’s and nab you as you walked out.
Dave obviously had a theory that if you took kids from established playing schools like Gunnersbury and St Bens, sprinkled in some muscle from Ealing Green, Northolt High and Cardinal Wiseman what came out the other end what be quite special which it was for many years. We had fantastic times, tours led by Dave were legendary and every game was an adventure as you never knew who you were playing until you turned up on a Sunday. Dave seem to operate on some twilight zone fixture exchange where one week you would be playing Staines, the next a Borstal or the Army down in Aldershot the next
What Dave did very well was breed loyalty into his charges both to each other and Ealing and large numbers of the Colts moved smoothly through to senior team rugby in the early 80’s bringing some really successful times to Ealing
I have an endearing memory of Dave in his big brown coat sucking on a large lardy dar savouring our win against the Met in the semis of the Middlesex Cup with the look of a man who knew his master plan was working
Vale Dave
Seamus Kerr
