The Oracle reaches 90 Not Out

Our much-loved David Haigh has today reached the magnificent age of ninety.

Born in Liverpool in 1934, David’s love for sport started at Newton-Le-Willows Grammar School playing both 1st XV rugby and cricket and representing Liverpool public schools at rugby. Leaving school with ‘A’ levels in English & History he always wanted to be a journalist with his first experience gained at the Wigan Examiner, whilst playing rugby at Waterloo

With his career going from strength to strength as a journalist, it was whilst working for the Sunday Express in the North East that he met his long-suffering wife Wendy, a secretary for the editor of the Daily Express in Glasgow, at a inter-department cricket match. They went on to get married in July 1961 in Newton Willows.

At 32 David made the permanent move to Broadcasting with the BBC and set up Look North in Leeds, rugby had taken a back seat as working all hours freelancing with BBC Radio outside broadcasts including Test Cricket with Jorn Arlott, Brian Johnstone, and Trevor Bailey.

Work brought David south as a producer at Southern TV on day by day where his love for rugby and cricket was re-kindled at Trojans RFC before moving locally to become a reporter in the Dover area, which is when he joined Canterbury RFC in 1976. By this time David had hung up his playing boots and taken up ‘the whistle’ refereeing with Kent Society for ten years.

David soon became a committee man and after retiring from refereeing first team manager and subsequently was player registrar, always getting the job done, and is now Press Officer, match day reporter, and announcer. He got involved with Kent RFU in the early 1990s as a selector, pushing the case for the inclusion of talented East Kent players in the county teams, and became East Kent rep on the county committee. Until recently he was team secretary for the County Championship squad and is now a county vice-president. Speaking to David he says “One of my highlights of being involved at Canterbury was being given a national valued volunteer award by the RFU in 2017, but the real achievement and pleasure has been playing a small part, together with so many good people, in the club’s progress over the years. I have been in love with rugby ever since the ball was put in my hands as an eleven-year-old.”

Happy Birthday David x