As we approach our tenth anniversary year we will be interviewing some of the key people who helped launch and grow Hong Kong Scottish. We will be hearing about how the Club first started up and has evolved over the past 10 years – with some interesting stories along the way! This week we are chatting to our club’s first General Manager, Dave Whiteford.
1. Tell us a bit about your current role at Scottish Rugby…
I’ve been back in Scotland for 2 years now working with Scottish Rugby where I look after New Commercial Partnerships. With rugby’s popularity both at home and overseas, it’s an interesting role looking to find ways we can work with international brands to bring their story to life through rugby.
2. How did you get involved in the founding of the club and land the position as first General Manager?
I had finished my first year in HK where I’d played for Valley and worked for Pippa Laxton. It was mentioned to me by Roy Kinnear, Stewart Saunders and John Bruce that they were setting up Hong Kong Scottish with the Nomads club and whether I was interested to speak to them about the GM role.
I met Jason Collelo (original Chairman) and Craig Wilson (original Head Coach) in Delaneys in Wanchai and it was pitched as a 3 day a week role. I was interested but thought there was massive potential in the club so it soon became a bigger role and I started in July 2011 – 11 weeks before the start of the season!
3. As a player for the first ever HKS first XV team, what elements of the team are still present today?
We won our first ever game against Kowloon, who would go on to win the league that year. We couldn’t play some of our imports including our captain Niall Shannon so we were down to the bare bones but still won. We then beat every other team other than Football Club in that first season despite having a tiny budget compared to others.
We realised early that if we established the club culture and everything round about it without focusing only on the playing side then that would be our USP. We never paid the most or had fancy facilities but people wanted to be a part of the club.
We wanted to be the club that everyone else spoke about as their ‘other’ team in the beginning. So many of our Life Members were previously members of other clubs but were drawn in to what we were doing.
We established The Rock as a place that other teams dreaded coming to as they didn’t know where it was – we really put Shek Kip Mei on the map! But they loved post-game as we made so much effort to keep people there from all the teams. That tradition still exists today.
4. What challenges did you face as a new team entering the premiership in Hong Kong?
Players – we didn’t have any! James Murray was the first overseas signing and then a number of fellow ex Scotland age grade internationals followed to make up the core of the team. Then we needed to get them all jobs before they could play as none of the other teams were willing to relax the rules in our first year. I hated it at the time but it made us work incredibly hard and set the club up in the long run that we were never going to be able to cut any corners to be successful. Experience was also a challenge. I was a 25 year old GM and Craig Wilson was a first time Head Coach at 24. Thankfully youthful exuberance helped us avoid second guessing ourselves and we just backed each other. I’m sure Craig thought I was a nightmare in that first year at times though!
5. Which team did you most enjoy coming head-to-head with in matches and why?
Kowloon. That first game where we won set a rivalry between the teams and then there was always a bit of ‘spice’ in later fixtures between the teams. We are both clubs who don’t have fancy facilities to attract players so there was a similar mindset amongst the players.
6. Do you still tune in and watch any Hong Kong Scottish matches from over in Scotland?
Absolutely! The Grand Final game against Sandy Bay in 2019 was the same day as Scotland vs Wales in the Six Nations where I was working. I had the whole office round my laptop watching! I was devastated they got edged out at the end!
7. What attributes does HKS possess that make us unique as a club?
Direction – from an early stage everyone was pulling in the direction and there have been seamless transitions through GMs from myself, to Bry and now Sarah. The same can be said with Chairman as we went from Jason, to Stewart, then Dave and now Roy. Everyone has the club at their heart and want to leave it in a better place than it was when they started.
Throughout, Hamo has been the constant as coach and helps to engrain the culture into everyone as they arrive. The hard work he puts in across all the teams and his presence is something you never want to lose.
The Club song written by Will Tuffley who had only been at the clubs week was also something that set us apart. Hearing that sung at The Rock in front of the supporters is the best feeling!
I often tell people that the best decision I made as GM in my opinion (apart from hiring Hamo) was to add the Netball section in 2012. They broadened the club from just rugby and then wanted to make it better and better. We had 5 teams by the start of their 2nd season because the culture that had been set through rugby was embraced by the netball teams and people really wanted to play for us. The challenge became finding Scottish related team names!
8. What is your most memorable/proud HKS moment to date and why?
It’s really difficult to narrow down to one so forgive me for picking a few. Getting through the 1st season would have to be up there. In future years there was planning/budgeting that went into the season, along with a view on how we would grow the club but that initial season was about dealing with what we had and getting on with things. People played with injuries and dragged themselves through games. People like Steve Jones would crawl off the pitch having never stopped and that helped set what the club was going to be all about – ignoring the resources and punching above our weight. We won a lot of games through sheer will and passion which you can’t coach. People wanted to win as a group. Another thing I’m incredibly proud of was our dominance of the Broony Quaich – the holders defend it at their home games – after it came into play. Over the first 2 seasons we held the Quaich more than anyone else and helped build the mystique of The Rock. We were never going to win leagues or Grand Finals at that stage so everyone wanted to make sure we achieved success by defending it on our home turf. A Grand Final we did win though was with the Bravehearts in Year 2. Mark Jones and Jacky Hui pulled together a group of players who were predominantly new to rugby and achieved the first success for the club. Everyone from across the teams turned up with their club gear and kilts on to cheer them on, as Alan Wong kicked the points from 2nd row to win it! Very proud day which everyone celebrated long into the night! Finally, an area of the club that we focused on back in 2012 that we should be immensely proud of was the community section with the support of Edinburgh Napier University and then KPMG. We often thought In the beginning that being based at Shek Kip Mei would stunt our development but it actually ended up being our biggest opportunity. As a Premiership club we had the chance to help communities that weren’t being exposed to rugby and gain players along the way whilst working with large corporates to deliver meaningful projects that still exist today.
9. What is the most legendary HKS event you have attended over the years and why?
The end of season dinner every year! It never fails to deliver and is the one event that no one wants to miss as it has all the teams from each sport in the club. My commemorative Tankard I was given when I stepped down as GM at the dinner in 2015 never made it past Joe Bananas that night unfortunately! The 2013 Hong Kong 7s where everyone dressed as Team Sky in full Lycra was a day that will never be forgotten (or remembered depending on how you look at it!). Rockstar night was also incredible each year as all the guys would put so much effort into their costumes and then buy into the ‘team building’ that ensued into the small hours of the night!
10. You famously came up with the nickname ‘The Rock” for our Shek Kip Mei home ground – how did this come about?
I used to get asked for quotes from Alvin Salley for the SCMP each week before all the games. As I was the only full time off field employee at any of the clubs, I put a bit more time into these and sent through a full article! I was trying to create an identity for the Club and thought it would be funny to refer to our ground as The Rock given the large rock face behind the posts. It was printed in the SCMP that weekend and I then put it in all the match reports on the website going forward. The next thing the HKRU were hosting a Women’s international 7s tournament being marketed as Picnic at The Rock! It’s been The Rock ever since.
