This time we hear from Graeme Whyte who played for the club through the Youth Section and into the Senior's, leaving the club in almost ten years ago.

What are your highlights and memories of Hamilton Rugby Club?
I started playing for the Bulls when I was 9 years old and was lucky enough to play through all age groups and finally into the seniors and was lucky enough to be involved with the senior team that got promoted 7 seasons in a row. An amazing achievement.

The team was going through a bit of a re-building phase when I moved from Under 18s up to the Seniors and was also the first season Mogsy was on board.

Along with him bringing in a few new faces like All Marshall, Stuart Eynon, Davey Douncan, the younger guys like Kid, Scotty Smith, Lofty and myself were also finally getting an opportunity to play for the 1st team. We were lucky with a few of those early promotions with re-structures of leagues but for the last couple of seasons we were totally dominant and were making a name for Hamilton Rugby Club. I think my favourite game during that time was a top of the table clash against West of Scotland over at Burnbrae.

They were coached by John Beattie at the time and gave us no respect what so ever. I remember Craig (Crowbar) Thomson going at it with John Shaw for the full 80 minutes and Ali Marshall stealing a lineout against the throw in the last minute. It was such a hard, physical game so the boys had to put in a massive shift but we got the victory that we fully deserved.

This may sound pretty soppy but Hamilton Rugby Club has shaped me into the person I am today. I’m very fortunate to have had the same close group of mates from my junior days until now. We’ve managed to do so much together and learned a lot over the years and the majority of it has been thanks to rugby and the club. It’s a credit to the club and the foundations that they laid all those years ago.

I remember my first coaches in Frank Bent and Tom Welsh who sacrificed their free time to help us grow as a team, right up to Mogsy giving me my opportunity in the first XV. The club as a whole is such a great club. I miss being involved with it but love following the scores and keeping up to date with what’s going on and always try to visit when back home to take in a game. I have so many memories of the club it hard to pick a few, but here’s my top 3 – Our tour to The Hague, our charity fancy dress day out to watch Dalziel and being one of the original founding members of the Cider Club.

What's going on at the moment on and off the field?

After moving over to The Netherlands I played two seasons for Rugby Club Hilversum before a back injury forced me to retire. Since then I have been coaching at the club and been part of the set-up which has reached the final for the last 9 seasons (winning 5 of them). This season we will be going for our 3rd in a row! The team has a lot of history in Holland being the most successful club in the country. The team has a good balance of the best of the Dutch players, young players breaking through and the token foreigner. At the moment I am looking after the forwards and I am also the Assistant Coach.

Away from rugby, I got married to my wife Julie 4 years ago and we now have a little boy called Cameron who’s nearly 3. I work at Nike which is an amazing company to work for. For something that was only meant to be a 6-month adventure has turned into nearly 10 years and I sometimes wonder where it’s gone but wouldn’t change any of it!

A Bull for Life!

Thanks for the update Graeme and remember that you always have a home at the Bulls.