CLUB HISTORY INSPIRES
BOROUGHMUIR’S REBRAND
peaking to SCRUM to explain the
decision to rebrand the Super6
arm of the club to Boroughmuir
Bears, Boroughmuir President Stevie
Douglas said: “It’s about protecting the club
as a whole, and, so in some respects it helps
us manage the risk of a new competition.
“We don’t think there’s a big risk involved,
we’re really confident that it’ll really take off,
particularly with the recent announcement of
live coverage of some of the games, but, at
the same time, when you’re trying to make
the best decision for around 750 members,
some of whom have been here for 70-odd
years, you do have a responsibility to protect
the club.
“It’s not something you’d take on lightly and it
was a whole club decision.”
According to Douglas, when the choice
was put to them, around 95% of the club’s
members opted for the moniker Boroughmuir
Bears, and given the club’s long-standing
association with the name, it’s easy to see
why.
Douglas said: “We’ve had a connotation with
bears for quite a while, starting way back
in 1991 the year we won the First Division
Championship.
“Some smart lad printed before the game
that we had won the Championship which
was a bit of a gamble, but on the back of
it, he put a picture of Yogi bear, and the
caption was ‘Smarter than the average bear’.
Yogi was in a Boroughmuir strip, would you
believe, and that’s where it started.
“Then in the middle of the 2000s, our 3rd
XV were struggling for games so we set up
a more junior club called Meggetland and
put them at the very bottom of the Edinburgh
regional leagues.
“Arthur Ross’ wife suggested we take on the
name ‘Meggetland Bears’ so we did, and
from then on, our 3rd XV have been known
as the Bears so it’s been part of the club for
a while now.”
And according to the Club President,
continuity and maintaining the sense of a
club identity is crucial if the club is to keep
their younger players involved in a season
which is likely to be characterised by change
and flux.
“It’s really key that we keep the identity of
Boroughmuir right through the club,” said
Douglas.
“There needs to be a backbone running right
through the club, so, although they will have
a new badge on their chests, the Bears will
be playing in the same blue and green as
our Club XV as will all the rest of our teams.
“What we are trying to do is incentivise very
young players to aspire to play at the club
and go onto the highest level. Ideally that’s
Scotland, but if we can get them aspiring to
play for the Bears, that’s just fantastic.”
Creating this pathway for younger players
is something that the club are already hard
at work doing, said Douglas, with the club
opting to give some of their club players a
chance to “stick their hand up” for Super6
selection before finalising their squad for the
new competition.“We’re pretty confident we’ll have 30
contracted players, excluding the five players
that are allied to us through the Stage 3
of the Fosroc Academy, signed on by the
deadline,” Douglas explained.
“We have about 26 players under contract
just now, but we’re still deciding on the last
few spots.
“For example, we believe that we need three
good scrum-halves in the squad, and we’ve
got two we’re pretty sure on, but we’ve got
two or three very good scrum-halves in the
Club side.
“Because we don’t have to register Super6
players until the end of September, we’re
going to let them have a run in National 1 and
then we can see who sticks their hand up for
Super6.”
Douglas was adamant that Boruoughmuir
would not go against the spirit of the new
league structure by playing their Super6
players in the National 1 competition before
their season officially started.
“We could play our Super6 team in the first
four games of the National 1, but that just
wouldn’t be right,” he revealed.
“You could totally skew the competition and
that’s not a valid approach because this is all
about improving Scottish rugby, it isn’t just
about winning things.
“We therefore won’t be playing contracted
players in those leagues.S
SUPER6
ISSUE 116 2019 • WWW.SCRUMMAGAZINE.COM • 133