Gloucester All Blues chairman Gary Teague hopes that this year’s North Gloucestershire Combination cup competition will help his club to turn a big corner.

They have entered a side in the seven-team Glanville Cup – the third string competition – even though they have played only one game all season. 

They’ve been drawn away to Chosen Hill 3rds in the first round of this season’s competition and Teague, 65, insisted: “We’ll play that game 100 per cent, we’ll get a team out.

“If we’d got a bye we’d have been only one game from Kingsholm! The cup is a tradition, everyone wants to play in it, if necessary I’ll play myself!”

The All Blues won’t play a game before that tie on Thursday 7^th April but for Teague, who played his first game for the club close on 50 years ago, it is very important that they fulfil that fixture.

“We’ve never not entered a team in the competition,” said Teague. “It’s part of our tradition and we’ve been going since 1926.” 

That means it’s only four years until their centenary, of course, and Teague is determined that the club will be in a much healthier state than they are now for what is a momentous year for any club. 

The game at Chosen Hill at the start of April is a step along that journey, with Teague saying that the club will also be entering a team in next season’s Gloucester and District League.    

“We’ve got three people on our management board – Ashley Jones, Daniel Rea and Jimmy Preece – who are all actively trying to get new players,” said Teague. 

“They’re all young enough still to play. We’re looking for old and new players and we’re also looking for a coach.”

Gloucester All Blues clearly means a lot to Teague. His son Adam is the club’s treasurer and both he and another of his sons, James, may well be in the team that take on Chosen Hill.

Teague’s other son, Matt, is head coach at Gloucester Academy so rugby is a big part of Teague family life.

“I got to 53 before I stopped playing,” said Gary Teague, the older brother of Gloucester legend Mike Teague. “I was a flying winger when I was younger, then I put on a bit of weight and I moved to inside centre. I’m built more like a prop now! 

“I knew it was time to give up when I did my knee ligament in the shower after my last game, it was unbelievable. I’d had a rubbish game too!”

By then Teague had already been chairman of the club for some eight years and while the club are looking to rebuild on the pitch, they are also rebuilding off the pitch too.

There’s a football pitch, a rugby pitch, a rugby training pitch, a beer garden and a revamped bar at their home in Gloucester Meads Way. 

“AFC Renegades use our football pitch and King’s School use our facilities too,” continued Teague. “We have functions at the club, financially we’re doing really well; we just need a rugby side.” 

There are also plans to build segregated changing rooms, with Teague hoping that if the work goes ahead it will be completed by 2026.

He’d love Gloucester All Blues to be a thriving rugby club in time for their centenary, of course, and he’ll certainly work night and day to try to make that happen.

“Covid affected us,” he said, “although we were already struggling to get a team out. But rugby at Gloucester All Blues is a tradition and on my watch I don’t want it to disappear.

"I owe it to All Blues legends Eddie Cummings, Henry Hiam, Peter Arkell, George Lewis, Gordon Merchant and Dennis Taylor to keep this great club going.

“That’s why I’ve hung in there; we’ll be back, we will return.”