The Red and the Black: Glory and Uncertainty at Saracens plc

by Michael Aylwin (Author), Matt Singer (Author), Michael Aylwin (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1999

  $3.24

  In August 1995, the walls around amateur rugby union came tumbling down with the announcement that the game would turn professional after a year's moratorium. It was to prove the signal for frantic activity in England, as clubs throughout the land desperately tried to prepare themselves for the impending revolution. Amid the chaos, an unlikely force emerged as a front-runner in the new professional era. Traditionally, Saracens had been the Cinderellas of first-class rugby, surviving by hook or by crook in the higher reaches of the national leagues. They were a homely club based in a dilapidated pavilion on a patch of North London parkland. Shrewd wit had kept them hanging on in the old days and, with the financial support of local millionaire Nigel Wray, its continued application soon propelled them forward at dizzying speed into a blinding future. Lynagh, Sella, Bracken and Pienaar were among those enlisted to lend their support to the emerging talents of Diprose and Hill. The rapid upheaval continued as the first team moved from its humble parkland home, first to Enfield football stadium and then to the grand Vicarage Road stadium in Watford. In less than two years, Saracens were playing in front of a crowd of 20,000 for the league title. At the end of that second season of professional rugby, they won the Cup for the first time in their long but modest history. From those giddy heights, however, Saracens became embroiled in a desperate fight to remain at the top of the domestic game in the third season of professionalism as unrenewed contracts ticked down to their conclusion and the new-found pressures of the professional game began to tell. This is the behind-the-scenes tale of such glory and uncertainty in the world of Rugby Union today.