Episode 2 - The Mark Pollard Interview

Rugby Through the Leagues Podcast this week interviews Mark Pollard, who shares his rugby journey. Mark talks about his early days playing rugby, his experiences at different clubs, and the enjoyment he found at the highest level. He also discusses playing rugby while serving in the Navy and the opportunities it provided to play in different countries. The conversation touches on players who have made it professionally, the dedication required to succeed, and the importance of the social aspect of rugby. The conversation explores the challenges and sustainability of professional and amateur rugby. It discusses the financial viability of professional rugby and the limited opportunities for players outside the top 1%. The conversation also touches on the difficulties of developing professional rugby and the lack of a clear pathway. The impact of the pandemic on rugby clubs is highlighted, with many struggling to survive. The importance of community and family involvement in rugby clubs is emphasized, as well as the need to make the club attractive and inclusive for all members. The conversation explores the challenges of attracting crowds to rugby games and the lack of accessibility to top-level rugby clubs. The distance to travel and the cost of transportation are major barriers for fans. The conversation also touches on the importance of community rugby and the need for funding and support at the grassroots level. The hosts discuss the potential of adapting rugby at a community level, such as scheduling games on Saturday mornings to allow fans to attend matches in the afternoon. They also mention the importance of having a strong club structure and the financial implications associated with sustaining a higher level of rugby.

Transcript

Carl (00:12)
Hello and welcome to the Rugby Through the Leagues podcast. This podcast wants to shine a light on rugby that is not shown in the mainstream media. I'm Carl and an avid rugby fan and regularly injured player. Thanks for joining us on the next installment of Rugby Through the Leagues podcast. We want to say a massive thank you to everyone that has been following our socials and getting this journey underway. We have a great guest on today. It was a

key part in local rugby from where I began my

Carl (00:43)
we've now got the legend that is Mr. Mark Pollard. Thanks for jumping on, Polly. I couldn't think of a better guest to have on board to start the pod off because people are probably already bored of my chat pretty early on, and it's only the second episode in. So just thanks for coming on. I just want to run through.

bit of rugby history, what you've done, where you've been, what you're doing at the minute, what you plan on going. And then we've got the usual questions about the community and the transition back from rugby post pandemic. So just a little intro to everyone that doesn't know the legend that is.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (01:22)
Thanks, Carl. Thanks for the legend status. I think it's a little bit over warranted. Yeah. So Mark Polly Pollard, I have been playing rugby since I was about six years old. And that started at a club in Oxford called Oxford Old Boys where my mum used to drag me on a Sunday morning after church because that's what we used to do as kids, me and my older brother. And then we used to spend all day on a Sunday at the rugby club, you know, having...

trained for an hour or played for an hour and we just literally spent most Sundays in the rugby club, either playing with our mates after training or just hanging around the bar, just sort of just making nuisance of ourselves really, just sort of being having that relaxed atmosphere in the club, running around, yeah, just getting muddy and just enjoying Sundays and you know, not in the house, which was great. And then...

Carl (02:03)
Rugby family then.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (02:13)
I continued to play, I had a three year break unfortunately when I lived in the States but I didn't, obviously I couldn't play rugby in America because it's unheard of, especially back then. But then coming back to the UK I didn't play a lot of rugby because obviously I played football and I worked out I was absolutely rubbish at football. So I realised that I better go and start playing rugby again so I went back and rejoined the old club.

Carl (02:32)
And we all, that's why we ended up playing rugby.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (02:41)
And then from there, I kind of just sort of progressed through the age groups. Didn't have the greatest rugby team, I don't think, as kids growing up my age group. Probably lost every game every Sunday. Didn't win at all. I played every single position on the pitch. I played nine, I played 10. By the way, I'm six foot four, six foot three and weigh 21 stone, should we call it now. I was just this big cork.

Carl (03:03)
Well, even as a kid. Just 21.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (03:05)
Yeah, I was just big talk. I just woke up and I was 21 stone. That's just what happened. But yeah, no, just played every position and then sort of didn't realise, you know, that if we were any good or not, and then it was only when I turned sort of 17, 18, I got the opportunity to start playing men's rugby. So I took my first, I remember it. In fact, I played my first game of rugby for Oxford Harlequin Zen. So the club changed its name to...

Harlequins and with a merger between Oxford Marathons and Oxford Old Boys. And I played my first senior men's game away for Oxford Harlequins fourth against Reading Falls on a pitch. And I just remember, you know, being a sub and, you know, my coach at the time was a guy called Paul Timmins who I remember to this, you know, to my dying day. And he was really worried because he was friends with my mum and

Carl (03:33)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (04:01)
My mum was quite aggressive, shall we say. So he didn't want me to get hurt. And he put me on and I got taken out in the line out in the first sort of two minutes. And I stood up and I punched the guy in the face and pulled him and just went, he'll do for me. And that's kind of where it was. And then, and then I didn't really look back after playing sort of that men's rugby. I then following season, I was only 17 and a half and then transitioned into the first team Oxford Harlequins in sort of 98 playing first team rugby then and had a whole season.

Carl (04:13)
Perfect.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (04:30)
before I joined the Navy. And then things changed when you sort of transitioned. Couldn't travel back home to play weekend rugby. So I ended up joining United Services Portsmouth, living in Gosport and then played a season and a half there before I got asked to come and play for Gosport and Fareham So this is back in 2003.

that was a big transition in leagues as well. I went from sort of level eight rugby to level six rugby, I think, currently at the time and what it was. So, and now I've been at Gosport and Fareham as a player and now as the first team, as the senior head coach for the 20 through, I think we worked out the other day, 21 years, I think, so 2003 I joined. So 21 years I've been at the club now, played first team, second team.

Carl (05:14)
Great shift.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (05:19)
coached first team, second team, captain the first team as well, which is one of my highlights of my career as well. So I've been all the way up and down the leagues, played level five rugby, played level nine rugby, level 10 rugby at times as well. So it's been a great opportunity. And then in that time, I've also had the opportunity to represent some of the Navy sides as well. So not the Navy seniors, but...

the Navy veteran team, the fleet air arm team and some of the commands that I've played. I've had a great opportunity to play rugby, not just in here as well but across the world as well.

Carl (05:51)
So out of that, obviously you've gone up and down for the, you've gone up and down the leagues a little bit there. What was probably your most favorite? Where did you really enjoy? Because there's, the higher you go up, there's obviously a certain level that you've got to expect and you've got to do every week, et cetera. The lower you go down, normally you're having a pint while you're scrumaging sort of thing. So where was your most fun? What level?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (05:58)
Yeah.

I think it's a bit strange really, because I think for me the most fun I've had on the rugby pitch was probably at the highest level. So playing level five rugby with Gosport, we had a team that was fully amateur. We literally would come together on a Thursday night. We'd probably not have the greatest training session, but come Saturday morning, we'd get on the coach, we'd go wherever it was that we were going.

Carl (06:31)
Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (06:48)
travel all the way up to London, travel all the way to Dover. And actually, we just had a group of players that really just love playing rugby. And it wasn't necessarily, we were never really trying to be the best rugby players in the leagues that we were in. I think when we found that sort of level, that top level, what I was saying, level five, so that's London one just touching just off the national two leagues, standard -wise.

It was just good because we were playing rugby with my mates. it was always a hard shift, you know, and just enjoying the coach journey back. This might sound like ridiculous and stupid, but that's why I think it was the most fun at that point. I don't say it was the highlight of my rugby career, but that's probably playing rugby, you know, taking outside the service, ignore my service rugby, but that...

Carl (07:17)
Yeah.

the level.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (07:41)
Definitely with Gosport and Fareham that's strangely the best time I've had. Everyone kind of just knew what everyone would do and we would just go out and we'd just play. So that was really good.

Carl (07:46)
Yeah.

I think I have to agree, when I was sort of in the, in the, in Gosport, the first team as well, and when you're playing at that higher standard, even your oppos, they actually knew how to play the game. So you weren't getting innocuous tackles and got people trying to have a go at heroes. At least everyone knew how to play the game and it made it a lot more, you come away with a lot less injuries. You didn't have to second guess whether you're going to get crocked every -

week. You've done your shift, got your result and everyone went home to an extent and I do agree.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (08:25)
Yeah, you did. But not, yeah, you didn't have to think about anybody else on your team. You didn't have to think about the opposition. It was just a case of you knew that if you played what you did, what you were supposed to do, you would have a good game and you put it together. But you also knew that you were going to get beat by teams. You know, we were at that level where it was like, you know, we're playing against at the time we were playing against some, you know, pretty much semi -professional teams. They're like some of those guys that we're playing against, we're getting 250 quid a week. I think the rumors were about then.

Carl (08:30)
Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (08:54)
we got, we get free coach journey and maybe a couple of pints on the bus. So, and actually most of us chipped in for the beer anyway. So it's kind of, it was kind of irrelevant really.

Carl (09:02)
I was going to say Joe Cloke probably still had his seven bottles of wine.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (09:06)
Yeah, and that was the other thing and you laugh and joke and you laugh and joke about the like the like the Joe Clokes of the world and you know and I think if every single person you know and every single rugby club knows that guy and you know that's the guy who's been at the club since you know he was a second team player you know in the early days but he's just there but the guys and we could talk about the community game and we talk about the rugby club and the

Carl (09:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (09:36)
and the clubhouse itself, which is a whole different subject in grand schemes of rugby. But those are the guys that really love it. And actually, those are the guys that we really kind of remember. The people that are there every away game. It doesn't matter the fact that you've got a three hour coach journey to Dover. When you're getting on the coach at nine o 'clock in the morning, there's three old guys sat there with their port, their wine, their cheese, and they're like, we're coming. And it's like, yeah, that's cool. That's great. And then...

Carl (09:40)
Oh.

Yes.

Yeah.

Thanks for watching!

Yeah.

They're the ones you need.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (10:04)
You know, yeah, because they've put their hard shift in. I can just imagine you in 30 years time when you're sat at home and you're like, what am I doing today? Oh, it's Saturday. I'm going to go with the boys up to London to watch a game of rugby. But that's kind of what you want. You know, I think.

Carl (10:22)
I think the missus would be packing me bag and shoving me in the back of the coach straight away. Yeah, get him gone, that's it.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (10:28)
She's like, what? I don't have to put up with him today. Get him gone. Let him go. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's one of those things, but yeah, the rugby journey itself has just been brilliant.

The joys of playing different standards as well is absolutely brilliant as well. So, you know, putting your boots on for the second team and, you know, and the county's five or county's four, whatever it is. And, you know, just going to have a run around and have a laugh is also part of rugby in itself. So, but yeah.

Carl (10:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

So obviously with your service stuff, you must have had some run of shores in some places to play rugby. Did you get chance when you got off or was it more that you played rugby in the bar?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (11:06)
Yeah, definitely.

No, the thing is, I was fortunate enough to be on Invincible and Ark Royal twice. Whenever we went anywhere, we always went with a rugby team. And the rugby team was either, you know, it might be one morning that we'd pull alongside and you got to run around the ship just trying to find 15 people. And then other days you sat there with you got coach and you got 52 seat, you know, 52 seat coach and you got

Carl (11:20)
Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (11:34)
64 players, you know, hang on a minute, what's going on here? But yeah, no, I'm fortunate enough to have played across the West Coast of America and Canada as well. Halifax in Canada was one of my favorite places to play rugby. Played in Holland. So just outside Amsterdam, that was probably in terms of rugby touring events, that was probably one of the best days because yeah, it started with drinking before the game.

Carl (12:02)
Obviously, yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (12:03)
because we'd been in Amsterdam for three days already. You can imagine it was pretty rough. Then we woke up the next morning and it was like, let's all go and play some rugby. There was a team there and they were very good at hosting. I think the Dutch are some of the best hosts in the world. I think we had 25 players turn up, but there were 50 people on the coach.

and they had sort of 25 players. Yeah. 25 Joe Clokes No, but it wasn't there. And because the rugby club wasn't that far away, I think it was only four miles out of town, out of the town centre we were. They'd put a big bar. Yeah, so when we play...

Carl (12:30)
All Joe Clokes 25 Joe Clokes.

Was that

Did you play local teams over in America and Canada? Obviously, the whole point of the podcast is we're trying to shine that light on grassroots So to understand that there has been, so what sort of years, when was this done? What level do you think they were at?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (13:01)
Oh yeah, so played in Amsterdam in 2000, would have been what 2006 maybe two, two end of 2006. I think that was, and I think the standard rugby then was they treated this very much like a touring side. So they put, you know, very much a social side out for the, you know, for the game, which is part and parcel of what it was. And the same was in, in Canada. So Halifax in Canada is massively rugby mad. And, you know, I think, I think they're the women's team would have.

Carl (13:07)
Yeah. Okay.

Okay.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (13:30)
given us a hell of a game that day as well. I think there was like two Canadian internationals who played for Halifax at the time. And, you know, they were really, they were a good bunch of guys as well. And, you know, there was a massive amount of rugby there, but coming down the West coast, it was because we were on ships. We always got to play against the other British ships and more ships that we were with. It was really, this is so in 2010, it was really difficult to find a game of rugby. Speaking to mates now that have been out to the West coast of the States now.

Carl (13:32)
Yeah.

policy.

Mm -hmm. Okay.

Right.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (13:59)
It's really easy to get a game of rugby against colleges and universities and stuff. And I think it's definitely kicking off on that side. Moving down the Far East though. So I think playing in, I think I played in Muscat. That's the furthest west east I've played. And we played in Muscat on sand and that was horrible. But they were absolutely brilliant. They're all expats in Muscat.

Carl (13:59)
Easy.

Mm -hmm.

Okay.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (14:27)
They're really, really good rugby team and if you head out that sort of way, there's some really good standard rugby players and some really good rugby teams out that sort of way. And in the Middle East, there's a really good standard of players. So it's kind of strange because you're in a military battle. You're given the opportunity to play in these different places.

Carl (14:46)
Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (14:52)
and someone else was organising it then, I was just a player, I didn't have to organise anything really, so it was quite good, I'd just have to turn up and just throw the ball around, put my boots on and crack on.

the attachment of the

Carl (15:02)
Yeah. Yes.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (15:02)
social aspect of rugby, which as grown men, we always assume that that must be alcohol. And that's another thing that, you know, get onto is that, and then it just goes in hand in hand and just to have a laugh afterwards and, you know, let your inhibitions go and, you know, end up doing some stupid things in rugby clubs for no reason other than because it was a good idea, you know.

Carl (15:24)
Never done that, Polly. Never seen it.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (15:27)
And I think what goes on in rugby clubs now is far tamer than what used to go on in rugby clubs. I think the invention of the camera phone killed... I didn't think it killed the rugby club atmosphere, but it's definitely changed people's perception. Everyone's trying to be... Yes, it's definitely got people in more trouble, but it also just means that people, everything that's happened is... Everyone else has to see it. So...

Carl (15:36)
Ah, 100%.

It's got people in more trouble.

You

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (15:57)
I think it's one of those things you just have to take it with a pinch of salt. Yeah, I understand, but that's the way it is.

Carl (16:00)
Move with the times a bit.

Next one, we're gonna get into a little bit of the nitty gritty of who did you play with that went on to make it and was it obvious when you played with them?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (16:13)
this is probably the hardest question I've written down and I've put some question marks down is that growing up as a kid, I never played with anyone that I believe, you know, made it, but what does made it mean? You know, that, and that sounds really stupid in terms of rugby, but you know, if we're talking about a footballer, you know, what, what's made it, does that mean they get paid to play? Is that, uh, they're fully professional and they can

Carl (16:28)
Exactly. Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (16:38)
fully rely upon that to support their lives and stuff or did they make it? I made it. I got to play rugby every Saturday. But I kind of know what you meant. It's like who, in terms of did you know that they were going to be class when you played with them?

Carl (16:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (16:54)
I played with some really, really good players at Gosport years ago and some of them have now fortunately, you know, moved clubs and stuff and they're, you know, they're playing at Havant and they're, you know, just transitioned into national two, which is a really, really good standard. I played with a guy at Gosport, a guy called Ed Pascoe, he's now at Red Roof, but he was always, he's the...

Carl (17:08)
Yeah.

Okay.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (17:16)
in the Navy squad. He was all when he joined it was like how on earth have we managed to secure this guy. Go on and then the other guy from Goswalt that I played with that was just brilliant was a guy called Sammy Spate and he was a Fijian who was in the army and my coach who I'll Mark Wells who was one of our coaches at the time and is one of the nicest guys I've ever met but also horrible.

Carl (17:22)
Mm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (17:45)
For the right reasons I've still got so much time for him. He somehow managed to get Sammy Speck to come and play for us and I've never seen anything so ridiculous in pace in terms of power and he was just absolutely brilliant and he went on and played for Bristol in a championship and he's represented the army at Twickenham several times as well.

Carl (17:50)
Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (18:12)
then I was also fortunate in the end of my career in the Navy, I got to play with Sam Matavesi, who is now the Fijian international hooker and the Northampton Saints hooker. And when I started playing with him at the time, I think he was at Camborne.

Carl (18:13)
Yeah.

Bye.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (18:29)
So I think they were in a Nat1 or Nat2 club. I think it was a Nat1 club and he got picked up by Toulouse and then too long and then moved over there and then played a season out there and then that's it. Then he hit the big time and now is, you know, fully, you know, international World Cup, you know, World Cup rugby player in the Northampton Saints team

Carl (18:32)
Yeah.

Yep.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (18:54)
he's class. Just watch it. It was just and when you know then when someone's class I think when you just look at them they're just walking they're like floating and they pass the ball. Yeah.

Carl (18:55)
Yeah.

Find space in a phone box sort of thing. Just literally.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (19:08)
And when they pass the ball, there's somebody on the end of the pass. It's almost like they've read where you're going to be without you know you were supposed to be there. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. And it was a great opportunity to, you know, I think I only played with him twice, twice, but I've watched him loads of times now. So it's, it's kind of.

Carl (19:12)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Might have to tap him up, see if he wants popping on here.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (19:26)
Yeah, I'll send them a message and see what we can do You know, did I know I think it was really obvious, you know You know the one Gosport boy that's made it professionally is Joe Batley So Joe Batley is obviously at Bristol's

Carl (19:33)
Yeah.

Yeah, he tearing up, tearing up trees at Bristol. I mean, he cemented that spot after obviously had a couple of issues, didn't he? Health -wise, come back stronger. Then obviously Worcester fell apart and he found his own back at Bristol after he was there beforehand when he for a bit didn't really get much of a go before. And now properly cemented his spot in that.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (19:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Carl (20:06)
I know a few Bristol Bears fans and they say he's integral now, which speaks volumes for what Joe's done, where he went to. He must have gone to a really dark place with the health issues that he obviously made public as well. Shone a light on that for everyone and fair play to where he's got now and hopefully he can carry on pushing forward.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (20:26)
Yeah, and he he come down and watched the game a couple of weeks ago is his brother was playing for the twos away at Trojans two weeks ago, I think it was. So Joe came down and watched and ones and twos were playing on a pitch. And he's always been he's actually been really helpful. He comes down in the summer as a as a training session in the summer for us. And I know if I've got a question or a query or got something else, I can always message him. And it's been it to to

Carl (20:30)
Yeah.

Yeah. Nice.

Comes down to coaches and bits done here in the summer and stuff. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (20:56)
see the gap in that golf, which is just the competency I think it is. I think that's kind of the, I guess that's the right word to use is the competency level of these players is completely different.

Carl (20:58)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (21:10)
And it's the speed at which they see it happening is the key the key thing really so you know in terms of those who can make it You know, it's pretty obvious also for Joe It definitely helps that he was like six foot seven at 12 or wherever it was a big guy strong But you know what the other thing is? The dedication it takes for those players to make it so it's not just the natural ability. It's just like looking at in there, you know, I

Carl (21:27)
Big boy, aint he? Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (21:39)
Those who are going to make it wake up first. They're at the gym, they're at the club, they're passing the ball around, they're running. It's that level of commitment that is the key thing. I believe in especially rugby at the lowest standards, you have to be fully committed to be able to push on and progress.

Carl (21:43)
Yeah.

Yeah, completely agree. That leads us on to the next one then. Who did you play with and didn't make it and why, but should of?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (22:08)
Ah, but should have made it. Because I wrote this down, I actually wrote down and go, I don't think you ever don't make it. That's my personal opinion. I don't think you, nobody ever doesn't make it.

Carl (22:17)
Yeah. But like in football, there's always the ones that run around. The one guy that you always know somebody's had trials at West Ham, but you also know that one guy that turn up and literally was that good at football.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (22:22)
Oh, that one guy.

Yeah, I've got a story. It's not my story, it's a second hand story, but it's about a good mate of mine. I won't mention his name because I don't think that's fair. I don't think that's fair. At 16 years old, he had England trials. So he was playing at a private school, absolutely brilliant rugby player. But the England trials were on...

New Year's Day, As a coach now, I look back and go, well, yeah, those who want to be committed are going to turn up. And I think it's different then. So this is going back some years.

Carl (23:00)
Yeah, turn it up.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (23:05)
I think he was going to bed early and he was gonna have an early night to go to the England trials and then I think he turned up at house party at about ten o 'clock just went And then he missed out on it And I don't think he ever didn't not make it. I just don't think as a

Carl (23:13)
Okay.

never hit the heights of where he could or should have been.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (23:24)
Absolutely, but I think that's just one highlight. He's still one of the best rugby players I've ever played with.

Carl (23:30)
Mm.

I think rugby is that sort of, because there is the, you've literally got the prem and then you've got the championship and then kind of that's close to championship is still sort of half and half. So I think unless you're on that upper echelon and you're in that perfect fit and get into a prem team like Joe's managed to do.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (23:32)
You're talking about wasted talent.

Carl (23:59)
I think a lot of people have their own hoites have made it, as you say. I think if you're able to put in a shift for 20 odd years for the same team and getting picked and know you can still do it, that's made it at that level. And I think rugby has that stamp, whereas football, a lot of people class it as you made it if you're a pro or you make your living off that. Whereas rugby is so open and because there is no...

There is a path to professionalism, but was still effectively an amateur game. Is that fair?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (24:37)
I just don't think that there's enough out there in terms of being financially viable for it to be you turn around and make it because you're talking sort of top 1 % of players. In terms of football terms, that goes down a lot lower. You're talking about if you're...

Carl (24:50)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, you can't

Mark Knoll-Pollard (25:04)
playing for Eastleigh Town in, you know, what the Southern Premiership, Conference Premiership or whatever it is, or Conference North South, you know, that's equivalent to like level six, you know, level six football. You've made it. Some of those guys are earning enough money to pay, you know, where they're training five days a week playing on a Saturday, you know, they're earning enough money to pay a mortgage, have a house, you know, look after their wives, girlfriends, or whatever it is, have kids and whatever.

Carl (25:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (25:34)
and survive and in terms of that, that's making it. You know, if you can do, you know, it's that age old saying, if you can do, if you can find a job that you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Those guys have made it, but, you know, is it sustainable for, you know, 25 years? You know, some of them will go, no doubt go into having to find a job post football and post sport and what have you. And I think it's a lot harder.

to do but you know anybody who makes it as a professional sportsman I absolutely doff my cap out because they didn't wake up one day and become a professional sportsman is that they woke up every day and work their arses off to make sure that they were the first in the gym that they were the best at what they were doing and you know that when they looked around they went oh I need to be doing that I need to be doing that and they developed themselves and but

Carl (26:05)
Mm -hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (26:24)
you know, at what age does that start? I disagree with how or I don't agree with how rugby does it with the Premiership, the DPP, the, you know, development pathway players. I just sometimes I think we should just let kids play sports and.

you know, those who really want to work hard at it, work really hard at it. But I don't think we, I don't think as a country we've worked out how professional rugby works or how professional what it's supposed to look like or how we want it to look. I know Premiership Rugby are doing really hard and the RFU are working really hard and...

Carl (27:02)
Mm -hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (27:03)
You know, but you just look in the last, what, two years, you know, three clubs have gone into administration and, you know, those are three of the biggest clubs in the country. You know, WASP is one of the oldest clubs in the country. And then just sort of to sort of battle their way back in and turn around and go to me, it clearly shows it just throw money is not the answer. So therefore either something is fundamentally wrong or...

Carl (27:12)
Yeah.

Nah.

I agree. It's like they can't even bring up the likes of Ealing Trail Finders. They can't even get into the Prem because of the size of their ground. There's so many limitations of the championship or the non -elite level teams that the Premiership want to see. You look in the football, Luton.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (27:55)
Yeah.

Carl (27:58)
got promoted to the Premier League this season and you have to walk through somebody's back garden to get to the away end. Yes, okay, they had to move a couple of their games to start with to make it safe before they were able to do that. But we can't even let a club like Ealing Trailers Finders or Doncaster Knights, they've got a proper ground. There's teams out there, exactly, but apparently it's not good enough for the...

Mark Knoll-Pollard (28:19)
It's like a 20 ,000 seat stadium. It's, you know, it's ridiculous. It's...

Carl (28:26)
for the eyes of the premiership and it's either there's a lot more going on underneath, because it's a common issue now.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (28:34)
I think it's a really tough question and I think it's a question that people try and answer and work out every week in, week out and discuss it.

Carl (28:44)
you had that ref the other day that had the old body cam on, then he got wiped out on England rugby. That was, that was quality.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (28:48)
Haha! Oh yeah! Yeah, I think I got tagged in it about six or seven times. Well, I saw this video about a month and a half ago and I thought that was pretty good. And then I think it was a twos game. It was a twos game. Yeah. The guy who knocked the ref over is a guy called Connor Egan, who, you know, has just come back to playing rugby this year as well. So it's one of those things that you look at and just go.

Carl (28:58)
Right.

Was that a ones or a twos? Was it a ones or a twos? Twos game.

That was it.

He didn't know whether he was going to get sent off the way. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, Sir sorry.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (29:16)
No, I know, but... And I think, because he literally just come back to play rugby this year. Having played football... Yeah, having played football for five years. But then again, I think it's absolutely... Because it's made the RFU page this week, isn't it? And I've been reading some comments on there about, oh, you know, this page should be for England. And I'm like, there goes back to the issue between supporters and everything else, is that, you know...

Carl (29:24)
He goes and wipes a ref out with a ref cap on.

Yeah, yeah, come out on England Rugby, yeah.

Uhhh... Yeah...

Mark Knoll-Pollard (29:45)
England rugby is the best rugby. International rugby is the best rugby. If someone says to me, what rugby are you going to watch? I'll choose to watch international rugby over club rugby. Standfast watching, Gosport and Fareham. Because it's the right standard and unfortunately we can't replicate that standard.

Carl (29:50)
Yep.

Is that because it's easier to access though, if you add other games to view? We're all committed to England, I completely understand that. You're always gonna end up watching an England game. But if you had more availability to other stuff, would you dabble? If you were bored rather than putting on Coronation Street, would you chuck?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (30:30)
I genuinely believe I agree with you because I watched the Northampton Saints game the other week in the Champions Cup because it was on TV. It was on ITV I think it was. And I've watched three European games this season because it's been on terrestrial TV. But because rugby consumes...

Carl (30:41)
because it was on channel four. Yeah. Yeah, what, yeah.

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (30:56)
four days a week of my life. I'm out of the house on a Tuesday at six o 'clock, don't get in until sort of half nine, 10. Thursday's the same. Saturday, I'm out, you know, Saturday, you know, what, so if kickoff's at three, we're meeting at the club at half one, I'll like to be there at one. I'll go for a coffee beforehand, so I'll, you know, so I'm leaving the house at sort of 12 o 'clock, 11 o 'clock.

Carl (30:57)
and only get so much sign off.

Normally stop for a coffee on the way there. Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (31:22)
early kick -offs in the winter at two o 'clock in the afternoon, which I actually really like. By the way, I'd like to be kicking off at two o 'clock in the summer as well, because it just means I've got a lot more drinking time. No, sorry, I've got a lot more time that I can spend with my family because, you know, and I don't begrudge it. I'm not sitting here going, oh, well is me. But, you know, I take my daughter to rugby on a Sunday as well. So we're down a club at half nine on a Sunday morning and...

Carl (31:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Coming.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (31:51)
You know by the time I've left the club on a Sunday afternoon after watching a Colts game and by getting at three o 'clock in the afternoon my wife's looking at me going, you have got other people that you sort of, you know, she's got the age old, she's got the adage old saying if you're looking for your daddy's one of three places, at work, at the rugby club or sat on the toilet.

Carl (31:58)
See you in another one.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (32:12)
But I think that's part and parcel of it though. And that's part and parcel of rugby. Especially once you get into the management side and the coaching side and not only just the rugby side, because I think it comes hand in hand, we were talking about the community stuff earlier. It's not just about being a rugby coach, it's then about being...

Carl (32:13)
That'd be the worst version of Google Maps ever, wouldn't it?

Mm -hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (32:40)
You know, how do you get the people in the clubhouse, you know, because clubhouse has got to be paid for. How do you then get people go into the clubhouse when the rugby's not been played? How do you utilize all the assets that you've got as a rugby club? And I think that depends on you as a person. And for me, you know, if you cut me in half, I'd bleed blue and gold. And, you know, if there's some other reason, that's just how it is. And, you know, I'll always try and put the club.

Carl (32:42)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (33:08)
you know first in terms of rugby when it comes to it is that the club is more important than the rugby because the club is held you know the club holds the rugby up and it kind of what comes first you know if we were going to go for

Carl (33:21)
Leading back to that, the pandemic piece as well, that was obviously, the club, as we both know, barely got through the pandemic and a lot of clubs didn't. How did that...

Mark Knoll-Pollard (33:34)
Yeah.

Yeah, that scares though. That's scary though.

Carl (33:39)
Yeah, and how hard has that been for you? Because you pretty much inherited the club around that time, didn't you? Was it just before or because you were sort of two's coach roughly then

Mark Knoll-Pollard (33:52)
Yeah, so how it sort of happened and transpired is, you know, tough because I ended up taking as the lead for the ones just before Covid and we played our last game away. And I remember the day, it was the 29th of February. We played our last game away this season against Basingstoke and we got a win 1917, I think. it was a...

Carl (34:11)
Mm -hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (34:19)
horrible miserable day. I think yeah I think my Jimmy Wallace my hooker dislocated his kneecap so I didn't have anybody to throw into the line out we didn't win a line out all game and somehow we managed to win the game and it was that turned out to be our last game before the pandemic and then kind of everyone just assumed it was just going to disappear wasn't it I think everyone as a whole country just assumed that

Carl (34:21)
standard for Basingstoke

Mark Knoll-Pollard (34:43)
we'd be locked up for two weeks and then we'd be out and everything would be alright and I think it was one of those strange things that sort of come the end of... sort of end of March time, end of May time it was like... was it? No, end of May? I'm just trying to think. It was kind of like the middle of April, beginning of April, middle of April. It was like, right, okay, what we're going to do actually we can start planning on...

Carl (34:59)
lost track of how many lockdowns we had.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (35:11)
you know, they were talking about coming out of lockdown and returned to some rugby and stuff. And I'd taken over as the coach, the sort of the, lead coach I put myself then at the time and transitioned into the head coach, but the lead coach at the time. And that was tough though. But in terms of coming back out and because I think it's like, there's a whole year that was lost, the whole year of rugby, which was lost. And I think that's the confusing bit and everyone sort of.

Carl (35:12)
return to rugby and stuff. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (35:37)
He's like, oh, what do you mean we lost a year rugby? I said, yeah. I remember a planned coaching sessions in groups of six on, you know, you were allowed, you were allowed 24 players on a pitch. That's what it was. And they were in groups of six and the balls had to be washed between, you know, between stations and everyone had to, and it.

Carl (35:44)
Yeah. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember them, yeah.

That's it.

Yeah. Some players took that as some other balls being washed as well. There's some wrong ones down at the park.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (36:04)
And I think that, but that was the thing I think it was like, but as a brand new coach at that point, it was like, well, I had to really think about how we did things and like, it really stretched me and like my transition into coaching from player, you know, you just got to start to be a little bit creative as well because.

Carl (36:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (36:24)
some of the standard drills that you needed, you can't just run with six, so how do you do it? And it was more about just getting by lads out and about because you were allowed out of the house so everyone could go down the park. And that was good. But that first year was a struggle, to the point where we were playing touch rugby, which was great, no contact, weren't allowed to do contact. Yeah.

Carl (36:43)
Then we had another lockdown in between and then we had people have to be vaxxing when we tried to get back and then there was the no mauling, no rucking and no sort of contact to an extent and it was a really hard transition to put your stamp. It did, yeah. And it lost a lot of people. How many players did we probably never see come back?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (36:53)
Yeah, it kind of just turned into a shambles. It was that whole year of like...

Well, I think that's the tough one. I think if you go across the country and look at it, there were a load of people that had played rugby for years that then turned around and went, it's not really rugby. And I think that year was a bit tough.

Some people really loved it, some people, you know, but at the same time we also picked up some players. then coming back out of...

Carl (37:22)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (37:31)
locked out coming back out into the 21 -22 season turned up to that first pre -season training where we were just going to turn up and place and touch and I think I had 52 people turn up and I was just like oh shit I was only expecting like maybe 23 -24 people and I had 52 people turn up and I was like this is crazy.

Carl (37:44)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, we had a great turnout then.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (37:56)
And I was just like, this is brilliant. And I absolutely loved it. And there were some guys who had never played rugby before, guys transitioning from American football. And it was absolutely class. Genuinely, that first season come COVID was, you know, I think I was looking at my end of season dinner speech from that season the other day, I think.

Carl (38:04)
Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (38:22)
I think we ended up using in the first team, I think we ended up using like 40 players that season in the first team. We only lost three games that year and we got promoted. But the second team did really well and they had loads of people. So for me, that first year out of COVID, because that's what I'll talk about, not the year which was lost because we didn't really play rugby. We lost a load of people for that, but those were the people got used to having Saturdays. And I think that's a key thing.

Carl (38:27)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, we used to have a really strong threes team as well at Gosport, didn't we? And that was completely decimated.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (38:50)
That's a key thing for me.

Yeah.

Social rugby was decimated because you either did it properly or you didn't do it at all.

Carl (39:06)
I think a lot of clubs have also disappeared, like Farnborough. They sort of disappeared last, was it last season or the season before? And a lot of clubs have picked and then they were struggling to get 10 players out. And then the likes of Heathens used to have two decent teams. They're down to one team now, aren't they, pretty much? And...

Mark Knoll-Pollard (39:14)
Yeah, they just fell down the leagues, yeah.

Yeah, they've managed to pick up. Shout out to Fareham Heathens they're massive to shout out this year. They decided not to drop into a county's four league and they stayed in the London league. They've done really well this season, which is, I'll dock my cap to their first team. Their second team have tried to get out as many games as they possibly can, but it is tough.

Carl (39:33)
Oh, they managed to turn it round, have they? Hmm.

quality fair play to them yeah

Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (39:55)
work people's work commitments are a lot more. A lot of people are now self -employed and it's really hard if you get injured. Pick up an injury and you can't work for two weeks. And unfortunately sports insurance is really expensive.

Carl (39:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, and it doesn't cover everything that people actually need either. So it's kind of just a wasted tax on somebody trying to protect their livelihood. And I think that probably also is another thing that people make that decision not to play the game as well, because the NHS doesn't really exist either at the minute. It's in a dire straits. So you struggle to get anything done correctly. You can't get a doctor's appointment, et cetera.

So people probably make that decision, do I go and put myself at risk on a Saturday and then end up with four to six weeks off and not able to work properly or do I carry on with my normal life and don't have that level. And it's a hard place to be and a hard place to see, especially with like me and yourself, how much you love the game and how much Saturday's...

Mark Knoll-Pollard (40:55)
Yeah.

Carl (41:06)
other days during the week are built around it, it's hard to find that normality, but you can understand where people do fall back into that this is a luxury now for a lot of people rather than a necessity for getting out the house.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (41:21)
Yeah, I think, yeah, and it's really strange, because, you know, my wife is fully supportive, you know, you know, she's the first person to, you know, when I was playing, she never missed a home game. You know, every game I played, every game I played when I was at home, she was always there watching. She didn't necessarily enjoy it.

Carl (41:38)
Dab.

Yeah. Did I tell you that story about my missus? She turned up to watch me. She stood there watching the ones. I was playing in the twos on the other side of the Gosport Park. She goes, good fucking blind as a bat. She's like, I'm pretty sure he's definitely not there. And then somebody goes, oh, Carl's playing over there. She goes, oh, is he a wonder what I can see?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (41:48)
No.

She couldn't spot you on the pitch!

45 minutes watching some other bloke who looked like you. Was it Chunk? Was it? Oh, is that Carl? Oh, that must be Carl. Must look like nothing like him. Just think. No, but genuinely, and I just sit there and I just go and I understand that, you know, I'm lucky enough that my wife fully supports it and you know, that's the reason why I could still coach and still do all the stuff I get to do. But, you know.

Carl (42:08)
Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's... Yeah, he looks hairy like him.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (42:32)
people want to spend time together.

Carl (42:35)
Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (42:36)
You know, so the clubhouse is the key thing. And the players have to respect the clubhouse. And, you know, it's a privilege to play rugby on a Saturday, but it's more of a privilege to go up in the bar and drink with your mates. So you.

Carl (42:36)
Yep.

Mm -hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (42:51)
We've tried to make that an essential part of you play rugby, you go upstairs, you always have a drink after the game, stay as much as you can. It's not necessarily about joining in the drinking because I think that's I don't think that's the right attitude that we have to have. The rugby club won't survive if people don't drink in the bar. You know, it's the only way rugby clubs can afford to keep going, you know, because renting of... We've got council pitches, so...

The price to rent a rugby pitch has gone up by £20 a game this year. So I think it's up to sort of £75 quid to each pitch we play on to rent, you know, that's ridiculous. The cost of a football pitch is £50. I don't understand the difference. I don't get the... Yeah. It's, you know, and that...

Carl (43:26)
Yeah.

Mmm. Yeah.

Or we get extra dog shit, that's what I want.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (43:43)
Bugs me and goes back to the summer, we're not allowed to water our grass. But football pitches, they can water their goals and goal mouths and stuff. We're not allowed to water our pitches at all.

Carl (43:45)
Yeah. No.

They take away the post to be painted but they come back with less paint than they went away.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (43:57)
you have to make the club attractive and you have to make the club attractive for not just the players, but for partners, for wives, for girlfriends, for kids, you know, and this year we've massively done a big push on that and...

Carl (43:59)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (44:11)
I'm lucky because my daughter's in the club and she's my youngest is nine and she lives in the Rugby Club. She'd be in there more than she wants to be at home. My eldest works in the kitchen on a Sunday and she also helps out on a Saturday when the league lunches are on and she'll work in the kitchen on a Saturday for serving the meals and stuff for the players. So for me it's like a whole family affair.

Carl (44:22)
Yep.

spot on. Yeah, brilliant.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (44:37)
My wife is now going behind the bar and helping serve out as well. So when they're short of staff, she goes down there. So effectively we're in a club, we're in there. And that kind of family atmosphere is what we want, I think, for the England game. For the late England game against France in the Six Nations. Yeah, because it was an eight o 'clock kickoff, which is a bit of a killer. But there was what? Five kids running around. They were all playing pool. They were doing other bits.

Carl (44:41)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (45:03)
And it's kind of that's the sort of atmosphere you want and if you can get the if you can get the kids in there then you can get the other parents in there then you can get the whole atmosphere and then you can get the the community stuff that you need to do to be able to maintain the rugby for nine months of the year you know because it's three months where the clubhouse is not being funded on a Saturday so that's what we kind of need to get to but you know and I think I think every club does it their own way.

Carl (45:19)
Yeah.

No.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (45:34)
You know what Sundays are the busiest days at the club, you know, it's like

250 kids registered to play rugby every Sunday. But when they transition, I think the biggest wastage is colts under 18s to adult rugby. That's the big transition and how do we solve that problem? It's not just Gosport that have the issue, it's all across the country.

Carl (45:40)
Yeah, it's brilliant to see. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's a university thing as well because a lot of them, you're kind of stuck in the unknown of whether they're going and then if you develop a great player and they become integral to the ones but then they disappear off, it's a hard balance to fight, especially with Gosport, you've got University of Portsmouth, they're that close but they'll probably go and play University rugby across the road because it's easier, it's with their mates.

then they slowly come back, all obviously because Gosport's pretty much a naval base in that sense, or a lot of naval families. You'll have a really good player appear for six months and then they disappear. And it's hard to build a team around players that come and go and you've got the core group that are brilliant, that are there week in, week out. And then you've got exceptional talents that turn up for fleeting moments.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (46:37)
Yeah. Yeah.

Carl (46:52)
They're hard not to, you can't not pick them because of how good they are at times as well. It's a hard one to do.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (46:58)
Yeah, and I think every club will understand that. It's those cults that are coming up and it's that transition that's really difficult. Going to play in University Rugby. University Rugby, I don't know what it's like because I've never played in University Rugby. Listening to people, it's some of the best opportunities to play rugby. It's a great way to meet new people and I recommend people go off and just meet people because...

Carl (47:03)
Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (47:25)
people are amazing and people are fascinating. You don't know you don't like someone till you've had a conversation with them. So, and even then there's no reason to dislike somebody just because you don't agree on things doesn't mean that you have to dislike him. You just, that's all right, that's interesting. That's you, this is me, let's crack on. And I think rugby is a great way to do that.

And I think that, and I think part and parcel, by the way, that's part of the reason why.

Club rugby and the big gulf and the big gap is and the reason why we don't get big crowds at rugby games is Because most of the guys that want would go and watch it playing rugby on Saturday afternoons as well. So And it and it's really tough to try and you know, how do you? You know the only people who become rugby fans are rugby players And those rugby players are only playing rugby on Saturdays, you know, we don't have a

Carl (48:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (48:19)
We don't have the opportunity to travel up to watch at Gosport. Our closest premiership rugby team is Quins yeah. And that's what, an hour and a half? That's, it's traveling up to London.

Carl (48:33)
Yeah, do you think that would change? Do you think that would change if like on football, a lot on football, you've got Saturday morning games so that people can go to Fratton Park, etc. on a Saturday afternoon at three o 'clock? Do you think if rugby at a community level adapted to...

Mark Knoll-Pollard (48:48)
I think.

I think they're trying to change it though. I think we're given the option now is that if you can play your games whenever you want to play, you can play them whenever you want. You know, there are some clubs that are lucky enough to have floodlights and you know, play a game on a Friday night and it just means you've got Saturday and Sunday, which is great. And you know, I think some clubs are trying to do that. I just don't think for us in terms of that top level rugby is we don't have a premiership club close enough. It's no, you know, but I know full well that...

Carl (49:07)
Hmm.

It's not a six, no. You've got teams like Richmond, you've got Richmond at the road, you've got other teams you can...

Mark Knoll-Pollard (49:26)
But it's not up the road though, it's to get to Richmond in two hours on a train. To get to Harlequins is...

Carl (49:32)
It's what, 50 minutes on the car at the A3, but obviously you'd have to have a designated driver or whatever, but you ain't ever paying for parking in Richmond.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (49:40)
And so because instantly we start talking about drinking. Yeah. And not only that, we're now in, you're talking about the Ulez, you know, going to Richmond, it's another 1750, unless your car's new and, and up to date. So, you know, talking about getting to Richmond is like, okay, well, let's talk about, let's get the train. Well, the train is two hours up to, you know, two hours up the road and, you know, you're like, well, actually two hours at the road, maybe drive the Bristol or maybe drive the bath, which is baths two hours away as well. So it's kind of like,

Carl (49:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, bars closer, isn't it?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (50:08)
you know, it's kind of one of those things where if it's a standard rugby you want to watch, it's like, I'm doff my cap to Havant, let's get them up there, push them up the league, let's get them further up there. Yeah, they've just won regional one, South Central, yeah. So they've moved up to Nat2, which is absolutely fantastic. So that's great. And that's class. And some people are like, oh, do you not hate Havant? And I'm like, no, I don't hate them. On the pitch is different. I think there's that...

Carl (50:18)
Have they just won Region 1?

Yes, quality, that's exceptional.

And yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (50:37)
common rivalry and I think that's perfectly acceptable to have but you know what what the coach Will Knight's done up there is absolutely brilliant and you know he's been there for 11 years and they've got a goal they've got a plan you know my old club back in Oxford, Oxford Harlequins they've just been promoted by into Nat2 as well for the first time ever in their history so you know and I watch a lot of other that's the thing is I see a lot of rugby because I've got lots of rugby friends but...

Carl (50:41)
what they've done out there is top drawer Yeah.

Oh,

Mark Knoll-Pollard (51:03)
That's absolutely fantastic. It's about putting a plan in place. It's about where you want to go, how you want to get there. But now the hard work starts for planning for the next season. What does it take to sustain that level of rugby and the financial implications associated with it? Which are great and they're great headaches to have. As long as you've got some fundraising and you can get some sponsorship and you can support that level.

Carl (51:13)
Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (51:29)
It's the supporters that you've got in around your club that are holding your club up. You know, which is obviously part and parcel of the issue with the Premiership stuff as well, which is, you know, one person just walks away and all of a sudden there's no money left. It's like, oh, hang on a minute. This isn't great. You know, and we've seen it happen in the lower leagues as well for some different teams as well. You know, East Grinstead went through the same issue. They were flying up there. That's the team I used to play against. You know, 250 pound a week those guys were getting, you know.

Carl (51:33)
Hmm.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (51:57)
One guy walks away and goes, I'm not paying this. And then that's it, falling down the leagues.

Carl (52:02)
He went back in, he was taking the doors off the changing rooms and stuff, wouldn't he? He had a falling out of the commi... Yeah, everything.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (52:05)
Yeah, scoreboard down, everything, you know, the whole works and it's like, well, that's kind of where you sit with, with how you do.

So we we we had a bit of a bad run from Christmas and we just managed to turn it around now. So I think we're what? One, two, three, three wins on a bounce. I think we're at.

Carl (52:28)
Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (52:28)
Yeah, so and then go for second round of Papa John's Cup this weekend away at Portsmouth. So it's an opportunity to. Yeah, we're one each for the season. Yeah, they beat us at home.

Carl (52:34)
Yeah.

Nice local derby.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (52:44)
And then we beat him away, which was good. And then we got him again this weekend. So we shall see. I'm excited. I'm confident.

Carl (52:53)
Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (52:58)
This could be our last training session for this year because if we lose on Saturday and the 2s lose on Saturday, we're not training next week. That's it. Everyone can have a break out the cup. Go enjoy yourself. Get yourself to Army Navy. Have Saturdays off until September. But we'll see you at preseason whenever we decide to start preseason again. So it's one of those things.

Carl (53:01)
Out of the cup. That's it.

So what is the plan for next season? What league are you guys back in? Are you sort of going to try and grill them as best you can and get them?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (53:27)
So I think it's a really tough question because like.

The standard that we're at is the standard that, you know, we finished fourth this year in the league. I think we finished fifth last year after we tailed off at the end of the season again last year. And I think it's always, you know, my plan was that we had finished in the top four this year. I think if we can get enough, it's about, it's a...

Carl (53:35)
Okay.

Because Pete's field have inherited a lot of really good players as well again and they've sort of...

Mark Knoll-Pollard (53:54)
Yeah, Petersfield have pretty much taken four or five players from Worthing and you know that dropped down a couple of leagues. Well, I say it's a couple, it's like three leagues that they would have dropped down. So, but Liam Perkins who's there is doing a good job. Nice guy, he's an ex -Gosport guy. He's taken over as head coach. So he's doing good stuff up there. But every club has to find what their level is.

Carl (53:58)
Yeah, nice.

Yeah, I remember that. Oh, nice.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (54:19)
You're talking about the transition period or that from one league down to one league up is a big, big commitment level on a Saturday. So it's not just about winning next league. I could sit there and go, right, we're going to win the league next year. I want everyone at training Tuesdays, everyone at training Thursday. This is a standard of fitness I want you to be at. This is where I want you to be. This is what I want you to do. There's no, this is my way or the highway. And I'll probably lose some players.

So it's really tough to sort of ascertain what the guys want and I'm open with the players anyway and it's them, they make a collective decision.

Hopefully we've got some good teams and we've got some good away days next year. So I think we've got Sandown So I love going over to the Isle of Wight to play rugby. It's always a good day out because it's a good crack on the way back.

Carl (55:08)
Yeah, decent crack that is. Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (55:15)
You know, planes, trains and automobiles to get to Sandown. So, you know, I think it's what two ferries, and a train ride. That's how I look at it. No, it's a new train now. Yeah, yeah, the Isle of Wight has upgraded their train service. Yeah. Yeah, well, the bone Rattler. Yeah, just bought. Yeah, but I loved that train though. That was it was one of the one loved.

Carl (55:17)
That's it.

The train's not really a train, or it never used to be. No, they've upgraded it. They got rid of the ghost train. Yeah, we turn up for a game with your limbs in your fucking bag afterwards. Ah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (55:42)
traveling back from the island, you know, some of the worst places to go, like Ventnor it's a three hour travel journey to get to Ventnor. It's like...

Carl (55:43)
Yeah.

Oh, grim. It's horrendous. And then the last bus stops at like five o 'clock. We literally got stranded the other side of Ventnor after we'd beaten 40 -12. And then they said, oh no, we can't give you a lift back. And we had, oh, it was 15 of us. We turned up, not enough of us. And then we had to try and find a bus. We had to walk half hour to get a bus. It is, yeah. Oh, yeah, under a cent.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (56:11)
You are literally the other side of the island and everyone's like the island's not that big and I mean it's flipping massive But yeah, and then so from Ventnor you got to get a bus back to the sand down to get on the train to then get the train all the way back to to Ryde and then oh, yeah to It is ride, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah right here

Carl (56:21)
Yep. Yep.

Right, yeah, and then you usually stop in the King Ludd at the But

Mark Knoll-Pollard (56:32)
bottom of the hill,

And then you've got the fast cat to get over and then you're in Pompey and it's like well I may as well go for a point in Gunwharf or may go to the ship A and then I might come across and then by the time you get across to the you're like well we're in Gosport town centres now you may as well go to Emma so it's just like yeah um so I think it's one of those things you just but those are those are kind of the sort of things that make Rugby uh you know and away day is is some of the the the key aspects of it.

Carl (56:35)
Oh...

Obviously. Yeah.

And you're in Emmas That's it. That's it.

Yes.

what a chat, what a chat. And I think plenty to ponder through there as well. And a great insight to the lower tier of rugby and where it's gone and the core of the rugby family, as you say, is it's generated usually within a rugby clubhouse. They're the live and die of.

what we want the club to be and what this game can offer to everyone else. And I know we joke about the likes of Joe Cloke but they are the club through and through. They would do everything. They give as much time up as possible. And the same for yourself and other coaches and even the whole development for youth within the community as well is massive back in England. Over here, it's a big struggle.

at the minute because the councils don't look on it as a sport in a sense. It's all football or gymnastics. Over and Xabia at the minute, we can't even get a pitch because they tore up the rugby pitch to put a BMX track, but they're now building another BMX track and then keeping the other one as a spare and you can't even have the rugby pitch back. It's just...

miles apart in a minute.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (58:21)
It's the fight for funding, isn't it? And, you know, and unfortunately, I suppose in your position is that, you know, success breeds success. And in terms of when you talk about funding at the highest level, at the lowest level, when you talk about grassroots and, you know, where does the funding come from? You know, in Spain, it's...

Carl (58:30)
Mm -hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (58:44)
We are starting to see Spain as an international nation play some decent rugby. And they've really, really come on. So I guess that should hopefully kick into gear. And I definitely think the Sevens, the Spanish Sevens team are doing really well as well, I think. But I think that's kind of one of those things. But how do you change the culture of a football mad country? I have no idea.

Carl (58:48)
Yep.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's a hard transition as well because by the time that we get to the World Cup over here if that next World Cup comes around and Spain are in it and then they realise the funding's there to go, we've probably missed the button. It's the same with England.

The funding level is obviously there, but numbers have dropped off since the 2003 World Cup win.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (59:28)
Yeah, massively dropped off after COVID as well. I think if you look at the RFP.

Carl (59:30)
And I think that was a killer as well. I think if we'd won the World Cup in 2019, we'd probably be having a different conversation. Now there'd probably still been a wave of euphoria all over again. Everyone wants to be Johnny Wilkinson back in 2003.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (59:47)
Yeah, I think you could link it, but that goes back to success breeds success and I think you can go back to a home World Cup in 2015 and the England, they didn't even get out of the group and it's like when you look at that and you turn around and go, oh, yeah, it wasn't that bad. Yeah, it was pretty bad, especially when you're the richest rugby nation in the world in terms of player pool and player.

Carl (59:58)
We fudged it up. Yep.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:00:16)
player availability, So unfortunately, although I'm very committed to the England team, I'm also very committed to Gosport and Fareham and I have to be committed to the England team because the England team and the RFU are the one who provide funding and.

Carl (1:00:17)
Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:00:28)
provide grants for the clubs and that's where our funding comes from. So I think we've managed to unlock some money in a grant fund for clubhouse stuff and things like that. And I think the clubhouse has got to start looking in a different way. I think we're hopefully getting a new bar downstairs, which will allow us to have a coffee shop, which allows us to use the function room upstairs on a Saturday. And the players can go down to the bar on a Saturday. So we can sort of have a dual stream of revenue.

coming in, but you know.

Carl (1:00:57)
But was that funding easy to come by or have you had to lift many rocks? It's not as accessible as it should be. You've got to ask the right questions and have the right password to get through to the magic key or something.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:01:01)
I...

I think you have to see the right email at the right time and click the link at exactly the right time. I think my chairman, Ian White, who you know, is doing a wonderful job at trying to get as much stuff going in the right direction as possible. But also I think it's also very difficult because as a chairman,

Carl (1:01:22)
And what?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:01:36)
You know, you're talking about I sit there and go, I've only got to manage 50 players. So 50 players, that can also be tough. But Ian White's got to manage. What 15 age groups, so under six is to under 18. So he's got coaches and managers for all of those age groups. Then he's got parents, then he's got support staff, then he's got the exec, you know, and yes, he's got an exec committee that he helps and there's there to help. But there's always going to be some kind of.

I don't like this or I don't like that and unfortunately that's just that's life so we just kind of just got to move on and just got to get on with it but it's really difficult to be able to do that. I don't think the RFU intentionally hides stuff I don't think that's the right I don't think they do I just I think it's I think it's just

Carl (1:02:21)
No, I think sometimes it's not as easy as it should be. Like this is available, or even if they said at the start of each year, this is available, can you present a business case? Or this is available if you do this, this, and this. Sometimes it's not just the RFU, it's every council, it's everything that's available. This pot of money is possibly available, however you've got to be able to hop on one leg.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:02:26)
No.

Yeah.

Carl (1:02:48)
and balance an egg on your nose and then we might not be able to give you the money. It's not as forthcoming as it should be. It's either allocated or it's not. It can't be that difficult, surely.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:02:59)
Yeah, and all of the clubs in the country all need them. You know, we're not in a, I think rugby's in a completely different place than football.

Carl (1:03:10)
Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:03:12)
I saw some good news the other day. Locks Heath Pumas have finally got their own pitch. Yeah, so I saw that come up on my feed the other day, which is absolutely great. So, you know, we talk about community rugby and we talk about these little things. They've been trying to fight for their own place and their own clubhouse for years. Yeah.

Carl (1:03:15)
That's like... Oh, brilliant.

Yeah.

Yeah. Ah, it's never, they've had so many homes, but like rented for everywhere, haven't they? They've had, they were at Brookfield School, then they're out. They borrowed ours for a little bit as well. It's just, they've gone everywhere and that's brilliant news that they've finally got somewhere to sort of put their flag down. Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:03:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

train and yeah and I think and that's really good and I think sometimes when you when you're building something from scratch it's really easy to get behind it and keep it going but you know you know some other clubs around the county as well have done some really good work as well so you know a lot of Fawley have managed to come back with their new clubhouse and new pitch and stuff and you know there's some there's some great work going on and and I think it's just about sharing it so I think everyone needs to go onto their Facebook just

Carl (1:03:46)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:04:11)
type in rugby, their local rugby club on Google and find all of their local rugby clubs. Just look at all of their Facebook pages, look at all of their websites and then within a week all you'll see is rugby stuff, you know. And that's the easiest way to do it

Carl (1:04:17)
Yep.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:04:25)
that's where the funding's got to come from. It's got to come from somewhere, you know, so, and unfortunately I haven't won the lottery. So I...

Carl (1:04:26)
Yeah.

said in the last podcast, I think the rugby community thinks it's bigger than it actually is. I think we're a bit of a closed community. We're very big within ourselves, but to the rest of the outside world, I think we think we're bigger than what we are.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:04:51)
Yeah, I don't know if I'd agree with you that we think we're bigger than we are. We're definitely an insular community. People who weren't brought up playing rugby or weren't brought up watching rugby don't have a tendency to go to rugby. They might...

Carl (1:04:59)
Hmm.

No. But how do we break that barrier down? How do we form that transition?

And that's where I'm saying, I think we are a big community, but I think that if you actually look at the breakdown of sports within the UK, et cetera, you've got football's probably the top, you've got cricket's probably more popular, but they've found a way of transitioning by bringing in the likes of T20 and does another form of quick rugby or some, 10s. I know...

Rugby are now trying to push for the sevens a lot more and trying to potentially use that as the savior of Rugby. Is that the savior of the community Rugby in that sense? Is that that quick sevens Rugby? Is that the T20 of Rugby that's going to bring the outside world to come and see us?

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:05:58)
I can't answer the question because I'm in the hole. I'm fully in the circle. I don't need sevens. I don't need rugby X. We do a great stuff on Friday night. We do touch rugby all through the summer on a Friday night. Don't have to have played rugby. All you have to do is be able to run forward and pass backwards.

our Friday night rugby is 13 and up. So it doesn't matter what standard you are at. It's just come down, enjoy yourself, throw a ball around and sort of see what happens. And that has brought a lot of people into rugby. That's brought a lot of kids into rugby. Because it's an opportunity to try it. Because you're not going to get hurt.

Carl (1:06:22)
Yeah.

get involved. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:06:41)
you know, unless you slip and fall. But it's, there's no physical, you know, there's no tackling, there's no rucking there's no mauling. And it really is that simple. Run forwards, pass backwards, run around someone, you know, call for the ball, do all of the basic good stuff for rugby. And I think, I think that sort of stuff doesn't get advertised well enough. You know,

Carl (1:06:57)
Yeah.

But do you think people don't want to play that as a... What if that was more available? Would that be the feeder of bringing people in and while also not having the...

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:07:16)
I tried to use it last year as a way for people to come into rugby. We pushed it really hard and the guy who runs it is really good as well, Jez Usher runs that for us. Because I need it, like I said all through the winter and rugby season I'm already at the club four days a week and so it is nice to have a break but...

Carl (1:07:20)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:07:40)
I think this year it will be one of those opportunities I can sort of, you know, we're even discussing now is whether we do like an under nines to under 12s touch at the same time so that they, the kids can run around and play. So then we try and make it a family ordeal because like if your parents are there, you may as well bring your kids and if your kids are there, you may as well go up the bar and if you go up the bar, you may as well buy a Coke and a, you know, a pint and then go home.

Carl (1:07:49)
Okay. The families can come down and everything. Yeah.

It's like the Sevens tournaments do sort of appear obviously Worthing Sevens and stuff. They become quite apparent. Is Gosport or is that going to be left to the sort of purple cobras? Because I know...

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:08:17)
Yeah, so I'm a big fan of not doing anything in the summer in terms of sevens. It's another logistical nightmare that come and then it falls upon me and because I become a little bit stressed because not everyone's fully committed. So that's where the, you know, I like the opportunity for the Purple Cobras, which is a charity team run by a friend of mine, Si Pickett.

Carl (1:08:22)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:08:44)
They can go and play all those tournaments and stuff and utilise the players that we've got at Gosport and to go and play in those competitions. I think it's really good.

Yeah, and Bournemouth Sevens is a great opportunity to go and play and have a laugh. I think there's a time and a place. I think if someone said, oh, let's do my stag do, let's put a team in here, like a vets team.

Carl (1:09:07)
Yeah.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:09:08)
I personally don't know how we can break the barrier of how you get more people to play rugby. It's not...

Carl (1:09:16)
Well on that bomb shell I think we'll probably end it then Polly, if you don't know how to fix it, we've got no hope.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:09:20)
don't know how to fix it don't i can't i'd love to be able to give you a solution but you know and just write off to the rfu and go this is what you need to do but there's people who get paid a load more

Carl (1:09:26)
Yeah, well, I think I start hope... That's it.

Surely, hopefully by the end of all of these podcasts, we'll finally find somebody that's got, we could already mash them all together and just see how they end up.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:09:37)
Bye.

do it. I don't know what it is.

Carl (1:09:41)
Just keep turning up on a Saturday, keep the club running, mate, and the rest will come together quite easily, hopefully.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:09:49)
Thanks, Carl, anyway. It's great to chat here. All right.

Carl (1:09:51)
And you, mate. Yeah, brilliant. Well, thank you very much for dialing in, mate. It's really appreciated. And I hope a lot of people take away a lot of value from what you've added to the game and the time you spent with us today. So cheers for that, buddy. Cheers, mate.

Mark Knoll-Pollard (1:10:05)
No, thanks.

Carl (1:10:06)
If you made it this far, I just want to take a moment to thank you for listening right through and to express my gratitude for following yet another episode of Rugby Through the Leagues. So in today's episode, we discuss Polly's journey through rugby to now making a stamp as a coach after inheriting a club just before the pandemic. We also discussed the great success of other local clubs. In the next episode, we'll be looking further into the rugby Europe model, the current structure of rugby.

Club Rugby in England, and who knows a special guest to discuss these topics further with. And once more, a big thank you to our guest, Mark Pollard from Gosport Fareham RFC. Also a big shout out to the local teams name drop today. Haven, Fareham Heavans, Sandown Ventner, Foley, Basingstoke Richmond. And a thank you to all of you for tuning in. Thank you. Goodbye.