Drybrook Rugby Club will be heading en masse to Gloucester in August.

That’s because the South West One West club will be at Kingsholm, the home of Gloucester Rugby, on Friday 11th August to celebrate their 125th anniversary.

“It should be a great night,” said Paul Mason, who has just stood down as the club’s chairman. “There are about 150 people going on three buses so it’s a good turnout.”

Mason has just completed the final chapters of a book to commemorate the club’s special milestone – he also wrote a book to mark the 100th anniversary so he knew what he was letting himself in for this time around.

“Rugby in Drybrook can actually be traced as far back as 1881,” said Mason, who was born and bred in the village and now lives just an Owen Farrell conversion kick away in the next door village of Mitcheldean.

“There were two separate teams. They set up, then finished, set up again and finished again before finally 125 years ago a team in Drybrook joined together with a team from Plump Hill, which was then a small hamlet just outside Mitcheldean and Drybrook, and the current club was formed.”

The club, who will again be captained by Ben Large this season, has been a huge part of 58-year-old Mason’s life.

“I remember watching them as boy in the late 60s,” he said. “I’d be about nine and the first game I can really remember was the Combination cup final in 1968 against Cinderford at Berry Hill.

“In those days the whole village would turn out and support the club.”

Mason remembers that the game ended in a draw but added with a chuckle: “We won the replay at Lydney.”

The Swinging Sixties wasn’t all about the Beatles then. A rugby competition ends in a draw so the organisers play another match – Lions tour bosses please note!

Back in those days there were no mini and junior sections at clubs and Mason, who went on to play fly-half for Drybrook, learned his rugby at school like most other youngsters.

“It was the opposite of what it is today,” he said. “Clubs didn’t have youth set-ups but the schools were very strong on rugby.

“I remember we used to go down to Drybrook and watch them play on Saturday afternoons or throw the ball around on the sidelines until we were old enough to play ourselves.”

Strangely for such a passionate rugby man, Mason did not come from a big rugby family.

“My dad Alfie played football,” he chuckled. “He played for Brierley, Steam Mills and Cinderford Town and went on to become a football referee.

“I was always interested in football but when you’ve got a rugby club in the centre of a village like Drybrook, it was always going to be rugby for me.”