With the Rugby World Cup in this country starting in September, the 1969-71 1st team captain recently asked me to remind the club that one of England's stars played for Barnes just a few years ago.

In 2009 our then coach Carson Russell arranged that some players in the Academy of the London Irish RFC professional team who were not getting enough game time would playsome games for Barnes.

One of these was centre Jonathan Joseph, who had played for England youth teams and later went on to play for the London Irish 1st team in the 2010-1 season, then the England team in 2012 before moving to Bath RFC in 2013

While we were in NAT2S for the first time JJ played for us in November and December 2009 and January 2010, most notably helping us to beat Richmond.

Current 1st team players, Gibbo, David Butler and Gareth Williams-Davies, James Hersey and Pat Crossley played in some or all of those games.