'The Boulevardiers'
By Daniel Roche (93)
The Legend
On a dark and stormy Friday night in February 2001, three Old Georgians were sitting in a bar. They were reflecting on the fact that they possessed such a fantastically close group of mutual friends from school, but no way of cementing this unique bond.
It was a conversation about memorable holidays, unforgettable stories and most importantly, about a loosely organised annual football match amongst the year group that had taken place every summer since leaving in 1995 that put the wheels in motion.
It was pointed out how we all value this yearly event so highly but had nothing to celebrate its status. All that existed was a loose contract requiring players to be available every August Bank holiday.
But with everyone moving to different locations to live and work, the long term future of this event was in doubt. The three old boys then came up with the idea of starting a club, or society, to try and formalize the commitment that our year group had to each other.
Having established the vision, the three got down to the strategy – how the club would be structured, who would be in charge, and then onto the fun stuff such as where the exotic match locations would be and what colour kits would we have! Then having listed out potential members and the selection criteria, the idea truly began to take shape and was so exciting that it required immediate action.
Thus the three slightly over-excited friends left the bar believing that they could make this concept a reality.
Walking the Talk
Something tangible needed to emerge however and great credit should go to Rupert Madath, who took the initiative to pull together a constitution. The key point of the constitution was that all members would participate in a yearly football tour taking place over the August Bank holiday. If they were unable to participate for two years in a row, their continued membership would be debated by the club and possibly offered to a new member. This was deemed onerous yet flexible enough to ensure continued commitment.
Next a club name. Each member was given the opportunity to submit three suggestions. To find a fitting name was no easy task, especially as we had grand plans for the club to eventually transcend generations, so we didn’t want to be stuck with something that may have dated badly. But after a relatively straightforward elimination process, a clear winner emerged and was revealed to each Club Member in an official welcome letter. We decided to call ourselves ‘The Boulevardiers’ – the collective term of an archaic French term for a ‘man about town’, which seemed to strike just the right balance between sounding slightly grand and slightly raffish!
“In with the Old!” (Boys)
Since founding, the club has indeed stayed true to its vision and has visited and played a football match of varying quality in a number of exotic locations on the yearly tour, including Copenhagen, Berlin, Palma, Lisbon, Tallinn, and more prosaically, Newcastle, although this trip did allow us to catch up with Andrew Robson (73?), who kindly refereed our match, and then attended our AGM (always held on the final Sunday of the tour) where he was awarded Honorary Boulevardier status.
This year, 2009, 20 Boulevardiers visited Stockholm where we were greeted by our man ‘on the ground’, one of our members, Peder Brun, who lives and works there! And while most members still reside in the UK we also have members located in Singapore, Australia and in Zambia, all of whom make the effort to come on tour at least every other year.
The committee changes every two years so responsibility gets shared around the members, and ensures a regular supply of enthusiasm. At the AGM, the outgoing committee is traditionally serenaded with chants of “Out of with the Old!” and the new committee greeted with more generous chants of “In with the New!”
This barracking, while jovial in spirit, also sets a high level of expectation for the new committee to bring in fresh ideas to keep the club alive. And in addition to the list below, there are a handful of non-OG members of the society who provide a very valuable non-Georgian perspective; we can’t be right about everything, much though we often think we are!
Future Generations
It is possible that as the ‘boys’ of the Club begin to get on a bit and football becomes too strenuous for some, that the format of the tour may morph into something more leisurely, but there is a clearly a desire amongst its members to maintain the yearly trip to ensure we stay together as a group of friends, the ultimate aim of the society.
A number of the club are now also entering the stage of fatherhood, and their sons are immediately welcomed as honorary members, meaning the club has begun to transcend generations already!
I would very much encourage recent leavers of SGC to consider setting up a similar society for their year. It’s easy to feel that you will stay in touch with everyone you’d like to from school, especially now that Facebook provides the glue to keep track of an extended social network.
But it is not the same as having a reason to meet up in person at least once a year, have a drink or two, reminisce about old school days and most importantly, continue to have adventures with the people that you know best, and that know you best.
Full list of OG members:
Alexander Beales, Ian Winton, Stephen Saunders, Rupert Madath, David Mepham, Giles Farmer, Simon Couch; Guy Freeman; Jeremy Wills; Daniel Roche; Alexander Watts, Julian Parmiter; Gavin Buxton; Karl Reynolds, Thomas Wynn-Jones; Christian Holland; Dafydd Upsdell; Grant Rawson; Bradley Rawson; Peder Brun; Michael Davenport, Jonathan Gelardi.
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