Poly Captains
A family member suggested that the history should include a list of Poly Captains. What a minefield! In drawing up the list below, someone is sure to be offended by the absence of their name, or the dates being incorrect. But it will have to do for now, even if it has caused a certain amount of argument, even within the family.
The records for the early days of the club are a bit sparse and, when we had a large membership, there was sometimes the luxury of a club captain as well as a first team captain. So there are some overlaps as well as gaps in the list. And between 1985 and 2005 the list relies on the memories of key individuals, and these memories are occasionally unreliable or conflicting. What went on between 1998 and 2004/05 remains a mystery. At some point the club switched from calendar year captaincy to winter season captaincy, in line with the BWPL seasons, and from 2004/05 onwards the club minutes were accessible to get a more accurate picture of events.
Strangely there are some people not on the list that you might expect. A number of sources have said that Jerry Birmingham was never captain, but more odd than that is that several others said that Gary Simons was captain for years - yet he himself denied it. That is disappointing, because Gary deserves a huge amount of credit for coaching the club and helping to keep it alive during several lean years.
There are others who had significant leadership roles or briefly captained the club but, unless it was for at least six months, they have not been included. That is not to diminish their contribution, and they can take comfort from what Rob Eastman told me:
“Obviously the most memorable captain was Stephen Robinson, captain for our trip to Rambo’s tournament which we won, probably with a bare 7. He was only captain for the weekend (and possibly only for the presentation itself as the rest of us couldn’t be bothered to leave the bar to collect the trophy), but made a speech collecting the trophy:
‘A team without a captain is like a foot without a big toe … and I aim to be that big toe.’
The crowd loved it (much better than Cantona’s seagulls and mackerel nonsense) and subsequently most captains seem to be referred to as ‘big toe’.”
This is as close it comes to a complete list of Poly big toes: