"What surprised me about the place is that it's a little hotbed of rugby It's a nice club and the people are extremely friendly. They're doing things right here," Orwin said.When Orwin was a 19-year-old aircraft mechanic in the RAF he asked to be stationed at Brize Norton so he could play for Gloucester After leaving the West Country he compiled a useful CV. He captained Bedford for three years, during which time they gained promotion, and then moved back to his home county of Yorkshire. He took Morley to the second division before joining Wibsey, near Bradford He was born 50 yards from the ground.
Under Orwin, Wibsey, promoted three years on the trot, went up to Yorkshire Division One and won the Yorkshire Trophy. In 1996 he was appointed player- coach of Altrincham and they won successive promotions.He also ran a garage, with considerably less success. A petrol price war forced him out of business, which is a touch ironic considering that when he was one of the country's top second rows the only remuneration he got out of the game was petrol money. When he asked Altrincham for a rise they looked at him as if he was descended from Oliver Twist.Orwin's wife Diane, who comes from Bedford wanted a move back south. "The biggest problem is that the money that would buy you a house in Bradford wouldn't buy you a garage in Hertfordshire," Orwin said. "I wasn't sure what to expect, but once I came down I was quite impressed.
Without being big-headed about it they seemed fairly keen to get me."For a modest weekly outlay, Datchworth in Herts-Middlesex Two - several thousand leagues below national level - have a man who played 300 games for Gloucester, won 14 caps between 1985 and 1988 and led England on a tour to Australia. In a first-class career spanning 15 seasons he captained the RAF, Combined Services, Gloucester, Bedford, the Barbarians and England. However, even he and his enlightened committee were taken aback when they placed an ad in Rugby World last month for a part-time player-coach. They did not expect a response from a former England captain.When John Orwin applied for the job he had no idea where Datchworth was, let alone what league they were in. "I was a bit apprehensive when I looked at the map and found a tiny dot in the middle of the countryside," Orwin said.
No longer can the likes of London French, the Bank of England and Old Verulamians deride Datchworth as "country bumpkins"."Our ambition," declared their chairman, Jeremy Gillham, "is promotion." Gillham, a middle-aged solicitor with a waistline commensurate with his age and station, would once have been at the heart of the coarse movement. Once prime coarse rugby territory, they now boast five senior XVs, a youth section, six mini-squads, four pitches and a promotional poster featuring the great Irish centre Mike Gibson as the standard-bearer.They even train twice a week - under floodlights. Even the Extra Bs, the beer guts at the fag end, decided that ambition rather than oblivion would have to be the watchword No more Mr Useless Guy. Committees up and down the land told suitable cases for liver transplants that their lost weekends against Old Rottinghamians were numbered. Datchworth, affectionately known as The Greens and buried in the heart of Hertfordshire with a village population of 1,500, are a case in point.
If he is selected for Wales, Howarth knows he is diving in at the deep end - and he is a more than able swimmer.. WHEN THE game went open three years ago, coarse rugby suffered a blow to the solar plexus. At the top end of the market, the clubs with clout embraced professionalism with a headlong enthusiasm matched only by a lemming approaching the White Cliffs of Dover. I haven't dived since."Now the Howarth neck is on the block again But at least he knows what he is doing this time.