My first involvement with rugby league came when I contacted David Niu. He put me in touch with a fellow in Seattle, Washington, but nothing came of that. Later, after emailing Canada Rugby League I was put in contact with an Aussie who was moving to British Columbia and hoping to establish rugby league in this province. After a number of phone calls between Australia and Canada to introduce ourselves and get an idea about what we wanted to accomplish my contact came to Canada for a visit, at that time the first meeting of British Columbia Rugby League was held in Horseshoe Bay, BC. Not that it took any doing, but I made the arrangements as to where the meeting was held, etc. I'm not going to put any other names here. Myself, my Aussie contact, an Englishman with connections to Leeds Rhinos, a Kiwi, a Scot living in Whistler, BC and two other Canadians from White Rock, BC attended the meeting. The meeting was held on the Saturday of the May Long weekend in 2011. At that time my primary focus was to try and establish a team in my area, which is upper Vancouver Island. I was also, along with my Aussie partner (I'll call him Mr. Smith) charged with attempting to establish a program in the British Columbia Collegiate Conference. This was a very ambitious venture, but we felt college would be a good place to recruit players from. In the end it didn't pan out as union had already beaten us to the punch by about six months and were establishing programs. The conference athletic director, with whom I had a number of talks didn't feel there was room for the two programs. Back to me local area team. To get players I established relationships with the four union teams in the area and things looked to be going well after a number of meetings and emails and phone calls, but then silence. We have since learned that it was all very much a con job by the union teams. My biggest problem with it was that one of the team's has their clubhouse within three blocks of my home and I have known many on the executive for years. Apparently Vancouver Island is the stronghold of the BC rugby union. And I was up against that. It was around that time that I had to step back because of my business but still was in contact and offered advice to the BCRL. Although not directly involved I did have input into what became a very successful first season in 2012 as five teams participated in the competition, one of them being a new-formed stand alone league team and four other union clubs from the Mainland that fielded league teams.
Recently I have become involved again with establishing a club in my area. The biggest problem we had last year was my lack of union contacts, having never played. This year that problem has been solved as some players have come forward to recruit their teammates (we will be by-passing the union admins and speaking directly with the players) and I have found a rugby league coach from New Zealand who has just moved to the area after playing last season with one of the union clubs who competed in the league competition. My job now is more of a general manager, not concerned with the on-field stuff, just the off-field stuff. Securing fields, getting sponsors, arranging officials, scheduling the team's road trips and representing the team at the BCRL. Beyond this year my role will include establishing junior rugby league programs in 8-10 areas of our region. It is hoped that our team's players will help in coaching the young players. This was a little long-winded, probably because I don't really have a title as such, and I just wanted show you what we are up against in establishing the sport. Obviously I haven't been involved as long as you, but I have been involved since the beginning here in BC, in fact, since before the beginning.
