Graham Garvie heads up the Borders Rugby Rescue plan

7.24.43am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 2nd Apr 2007

Border Reivers score

On March 28th the Scottish Rugby Union announced that it was to scrap The Border Reivers. The announcement proved to be one the most misguided and unpopular decisions in the history of the game .

Although the SRU had described the review which led up to the decision to close the Borders as "wide ranging" review. In practice no views were actually canvassed and not a single soul outside the SRU board room appears to have been consulted before the decision to axe the Borders was announced

The handling of the announcement by the SRU was even worse. SRU Chief Executive Gordon Mckie described the closure with its attendant redundancies as "positive ". Understandably this provoked expressions of surprise and anger from public and private bodies throughout Scotland. The 34 Member Scottish Borders Council was incensed and were moved to take the unusual step of unanimously passing an emergency motion which criticised the SRU Executive and amounted to a vote of no confidence in the executive of the SRU .

Worse was to follow

Following Gordon Mckie's insistence that no financial backers had been willing to come forward , Murrayfield Sports And Leisure Ltd , the new private owners of Edinburgh Rugby, issued confirmation that they in fact had indeed presented the SRU a sound financial proposal capable of saving the Border Reivers .

Proceedings descended into farce as the full time SRU spin doctor Dee Mcintosh stepped in to pour fuel on the fire by denying the existence of the proposal stating on behalf of the SRU "we know nothing about this" .

Not surprisingly the reaction to the news was immediate and damming and widespread . Feelings of betrayal and anger grew to new levels and Allan Massie writing in the Scotsman newspaper accused the SRU Chief Executive of " mendacity" and called for the whole executive board to resign.

The situation developed into a deeper farce when the SRU were forced to admit there had in fact been a genuine bid . With now typical ineptness the SRU issued a further press release stating that a detailed response to the proposal had been provided. This too proved to be untrue. The "detailed response" was discovered to consist of a one line e-mail from the Chief Executive summarily dismissing the proposal on the pretext that IRB rules precluded the ownership of more than one team .

It was clear that the Border Reivers had been stabbed in the back and shut down for no good reason. The job losses were unnecessary and anger throughout the Borders and Scotland as a whole was genuine and understandable .

Faced with a wave of genuine outrage, SRU President, Andy Irvine held out one last olive branch to the rugby community in the Borders. In his statements to the press Mr Irvine confirmed publicly that the Reivers can still be saved but a backer had to come forward soon.

This glimmer of hope prompted Edinburgh Director and Borders Councillor Graham Garvie to resign from the Edinburgh Rugby board in order to put together a rescue plan with other Borderers. The plan is backed by The Scottish Borders Council and requires no direct funding from the SRU.

That plan will be presented to the SRU on Thursday and simultaneously published on the internet. The content of the proposal will also be debated at a meeting of Scottish Rugby clubs in the Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh's west end.

Andy Irvine , Allan Munro and Gordon Mckie have all been invited and are expected to attend .

To ensure that your rugby club is represented please contact Brian Emmerson, Chief Executive`s Department, Scottish Borders Council (Tel 01835 824000 or e-mail bemmerson@scotborders.gov.uk)

The SRU board has refused all requests to attend a public meeting in the Borders and have even gone so far as to refuse to meet the players. The only alternative is for the Scottish public to make a show of the widespread feeling of anger by descending in numbers on Murrayfield and demonstrate their strength of feeling to the SRU in person .

On Friday 6th April at 7.30pm Edinburgh rugby are playing Newport Gwent Dragons. Rugby supporters from all over Scotland are being urged to come to the match and make their presence and voices heard in support of the Border Reivers. Transport to Edinburgh is being laid on by the Scottish Borders Council.

If your club is willing to attend en-masse call SBC for help with transport .