Good afternoon everybody and welcome to Sandhill Lane for the opening fixture of the 2018-19 season, a season which I am certain will bring all the fun and excitement that we have come to expect from Yorkshire 1 Rugby.

Our guests today are from East Yorkshire and it is my pleasure to offer a warm welcome to all players, supporters and committee members of the Hullensians Club, even though I won’t be attending the game myself due to my end of season Cricketing commitments. I am sure that all Selby members will do their utmost to make the afternoon a pleasant one, even though our First XV will be looking to spoil the most important part of it.

Anybody who made the trip over to Hull towards the back end of last season, and I know that Selby had a really strong following that day, will recall a beautiful, warm afternoon and a game that will live long in the memory. It is fair to say that we were “put through the wringer” as emotions ebbed and flowed throughout a pulsating fixture: the despair as Hullensians dominated early on and seemed destined to run up a cricket score, the elation as Selby mounted a tremendous fightback and managed to take the lead, the nervous tension as they battled to stay in front and the final blows as Hullensians scored a late try to regain the lead and the chance with their final conversion of snatching everything away from us! If today’s game comes up anywhere near to that, then we are in for a real treat.

The Summer has been a very busy one at Sandhill Lane and I would like to offer a personal Thank You to Richard Nicholson for his tremendous work on the ground which has again produced a pitch in magnificent condition which will be the envy of every Club who visits us over the season. At our AGM we elected a completely new Executive Board, save for our stalwart Secretary Chris Guthrie and I would like to publicly recognise the fantastic work done over the lat 5 years or so by our outgoing Board members and would like also to offer my best wishes to the new Board members who have stepped up to the plate and taken on their mantle. We also have a new Leadership Team on the pitch this season and having thanked Bren Lanaghan for everything that he did when First Team Captain, I would hope that our new Skipper Charlie Cicero is given the support and encouragement that he deserves for agreeing to take on the role, assisted by our pocket dynamo Danny Wilkinson.

Some things have remained the same and I am delighted that the coaching team that did so much to turn around our fortunes in the second half of last season are largely on board again for this season with plenty of skills and ideas to pass on to our youngsters, who have responded tremendously to pre season training and should really hit the ground running!

I was also delighted to be re-elected as President, having completed my 3 year apprenticeship and would like to thank the members who were brave enough to support my nomination. I hope to be able to re-pay their faith by fulfilling this privileged role as they would see fit.

On a final note I would make a plea to all players and spectators to ensure that their behviour in the ground and around the pitch this afternoon is in keeping with the best traditions of Rugby Union. We read and hear too often of inappropriate behaviour at sporting and other events and the new Board are absolutely unanimous in their intention to ensure that all games at Sandhill Lane can be enjoyed by everybody and ask members and visitors to not only be extremely careful about their own conduct, but to remind others if they see or hear things which have no place in our great game.