Steve started to become involved in Rugby at the age of 18 and quickly fell in love with not only the game, but also the positive impact it had on people's lives. He moved down to the south coast from Hertfordshire in the late 70s and became a member of Ellingham and Ringwood rugby club in Hampshire. He played for the club for many years, but decided that he wanted to give something back to the game and became a referee for several years reaching the national panel and refereeing all over the country at various levels. His highlights were refereeing a very young Jonny Wilkinson and refereeing some Premiership A fixtures in his prime.

During his absence as a player at Ellingham and Ringwood, the club had started to fall apart and only ran one senior men's team who were struggling to get a team together most weekends. It had become so bad, that the club were voted as the worst in the country in a national paper without any way of attracting new players, the club really had hit rock bottom.

With two young children growing up in Ringwood, Steve was very keen for the club to develop again and provide competitive teams for the youth of the town to represent with pride. It was also important for him to provide facilities for the people of the town to use to ensure that they were able to have the best provision possible to flourish.

The first job was to establish a youth section at the club which would eventually feed the senior teams in part of a wider development strategy. With no infrastructure at all in place, the only way to facilitate this was to start at the bottom and build up from Under 7s. Steve took time off work to run rugby roadshows at the local primary schools to encourage young players to join and quickly the club had more than they bargained for and had acquired an Under 8s team as well as an Under 7s team. This process continued for several years and Steve was the main driver through these tough years of recruitment. With some of the youth players, came the unexpected arrival of parents who wanted to get back into rugby or try the game for the first time. This bolstered the men’s team at a very difficult time, and it wasn’t long before they had enough players to put out two teams at the club.

With the men’s team playing rugby at a small New Forest pavilion which was shared with Ellingham Cricket Club outside of town, and it was clear that this facility wouldn’t be suitable for the youth teams to use. The youth teams were training at Poulner Junior School for the time being, but this was at the time a school field with no rugby facilities at all. Steve helped to organise a set of rugby posts to be fitted at the school. Up until recently, Steve could be seen each summer taking the posts down, sanding them down and then repainting them to keep them in good order.

In those early days of mini rugby, it was a cup of soup after games for players as their match food with no facilities available to provide anything more. Steve worked with the school to obtain funding from several sources to build a ‘Community Building’ which would house the mini rugby for years to come and provide a much more substantial offer after games in relation to food and refreshments. This building along with the addition of an artificial cricket wicket was also used for after school clubs, cricket fixtures and Ellingham were able to host their first county game during this period which was a first for the club.

Although the Community Building served a purpose, this would not meet the needs of the growing club moving forwards and there was no real bar or function room for after matches. The men’s team would stay at their forest home and the minis would stay at the junior school until something more permanent could be provided. The club needed a facility in town which was walking distance for young players to get to, so Steve began plans to raise enough funds to build a clubhouse for the club with facilities in the town. Between the forming of the mini section in 1996 to the opening of the new club in 2008, it took 12 long years for the club to acquire their current facility. Steve would work late into the early hours of the morning each week ensuring that bids for funding met the right requirements and worked tirelessly over this time to ensure that the club would get the facility it deserved. Without him, it is safe to say the club would not have the facility it has today.

During this transitional period for the club, Steve was the club Chairman for 8 years ensuring that he was able to drive his vision for the town’s rugby team. With a younger daughter, Charlotte, playing rugby as well as his son Henry, Steve realised that Charlotte would not have the ability to continue playing rugby after the age of 12, as at the time, boys and girls couldn’t play together after this point.

By this time, there was already a senior ladies team made up mainly of parents from the mini and junior sides, so it was imperative that a youth section fed this team. To ensure he was ahead of the game, Steve started up an under 15 girls side to ensure that girls would be able to continue playing. Once again Steve went into the local secondary schools and encouraged students to come to play for the club. The formation of the girls youth section started with around 8 girls in 2005 and is now flourishing with hundreds of girls playing in teams from the following age groups; under 12’s, 14’s, 16’s, 18’s and Ladies. Many of the current ladies team played under Steve in these early years. There are also four current international players who played under Steve at this time who now ply their trade in the women’s Premiership and for England, Wales and Scotland respectively (Poppy Cleall, Bryony Cleall, Donna Rose and Lisa Cockburn.

Steve’s love of the development of girls rugby led him to coach the county and regional sides for the girls age groups. Here he coached successful Hampshire County Squads and London and South East regional Squads. Further internationals such as world cup winner Kay Wilson and current international Alex Matthews were coached by Steve and he threw everything into developing rugby for girls throughout the region despite the great deal of travel that was involved with a more fragile women’s game at the time.

As a club, Ellingham achieved success at senior level in the form of promotions and in 2008 were champions of Hampshire 1 and the winners of the Hampshire Bowl competition which took them into regional leagues for the first time. The women’s team have also had success climbing the leagues and reaching their peak of Championship 2 South West before dropping back down to their current position of National Challenge 1. Just last season, both the men’s 1st and 2nd teams won their respective leagues gaining two promotions. Steve is immensely proud of where the club is now and is thankful for all of the help he has had from various people over the years.

Unfortunately last year, Steve became unwell and was later diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer, despite never being a smoker and always keeping himself fit and active. He became very unwell, and despite now being retired, he would not stop his work surrounding rugby. At one point Steve was given only two months to live as the cancer had taken such a bad control, but fortunately Steve was able to receive medication which will kept the illness at bay, but didn't cure it. Steve reluctantly stopped playing rugby at the age of 66 after his diagnosis, but his commitment to the sport had never been stronger.

Shortly before Steve became unwell, he was appointed as Hampshire Club Development Chair in Hampshire and he hoped to improve club’s all over the county, especially in regard to his experience with improving facilities. Despite all of the side effects and implications Steve experienced, his commitment to rugby never faded. He still worked tirelessly to make a difference to all who can benefit from the game, not only in his hometown, but everywhere in the county. In his 48 year association with rugby, Steve never had a paid role and worked selflessly to develop all and ensure they receive the benefits the game can bring.

The sport and all who knew Steve will miss him greatly.