Richard Smith RIP - A Tribute
It is with the greatest sadness that we share the loss of Richard Smith who recently passed away peacefully at home.
Richard was a towering figure in the history of our club and his contribution to its development over a 30-year period is unlikely to be surpassed. The club he leaves behind is a huge success story with exceptional player and volunteer numbers, multiple successes on the pitch and with a great reputation and respect from competitor clubs, Surrey Rugby and the RFU. Richard’s immense positive impact on the lives of so many young people through the sport of rugby over so long a period is incalculable.
Richard was one of the founders of the Mini and Youth section in 1995 when he was its first Chairman and two years later its first President. The Junior section subsequently joined with the existing and separate Senior club to form the one club we know today.
Richard continued as President of the whole club for an incredible 23 years in total. Ironsides grew immensely over that period, much of it due to Richard’s skilful, intelligent, wise and inclusive leadership. He led a club where individual players were all valued and winning was secondary to ensuring all players had an equal chance to play and were equally valued. Parents liked the values of Ironsides greatly embodied in its President and brought their children to join in great numbers. The children enjoyed their experience here and the club continued to expand incredibly.
He proved an excellent President in sometimes challenging times building Ironside’s reputation and navigating through its rapid expansion ensuring the club always ran smoothly with excellent management and volunteers in place.
Ironside’s still proudly holds on to the core values instilled in those early days and remains an immensely welcoming friendly and inclusive community thanks to a very great extent to the values and commitment of Richard and those early founders.
In addition to his management and leadership roles, Richard coached for many years and was also part of the club’s coaches’ team for several years and on a few occasions played in the same team as his son James. Richard was also a very regular touch rugby player which took place weekly, at the club, on Wednesday nights for around 20 years.
Richard’s drive and ambition along with his daughter Katherine were a primary force behind the establishment of our Women’s section which thrives today with two regular squads, and our 1st XV playing at a very high level in the Championship South 1 league. Our Women players will confirm with great affection his immense support for them as well as his touch line laughter and banter. Just before Christmas, and sadly for the last time, Richard watched the Women play up at Henley - something he genuinely loved doing.
Richard took a very keen interest in all age groups and was very happy watching games on Saturday and Sunday mornings at different sites and was always keen to stop and chat. He loved watching the Senior men and keenly followed their league positions as well as the progress of former Youth players in the various Senior squads. He was also a great supporter of the Colts and recognised the importance of the link between the Youth and Seniors as well as the risk of losing contact with players as they left for university or elsewhere. He was instrumental in establishing the annual memorial game and the under 23 squad as ways of maintaining contact with ex Junior players.
His memory of course was legendary - he could so easily recall the names of players both recent and long past as well as current and former coaches and parents and details of other clubs and their key players. He was always up to date on league positions of all the teams and what they needed to do to advance up their leagues.
Outside of the club Richard was a great Bath RFC supporter as well as Southampton FC. Having an excellent memory meant he was impressive at quizzes and enjoyed the weekly quiz at his favourite pub, The Beehive, whenever he could.
But above all, he was a great family man, husband to Anne who also volunteered in the club in those early days. He was father to James and Katherine. James proved to be an excellent player for many years and is still part of the Vets squad. Katherine has been and continues to be an integral and incredibly inspirational part of the Women’s section. James has three children and Richard adored his grandchildren and spent as much time with them as he could.
As a friend, Richard was thoroughly decent, fair minded and seemingly forever cheerful, upbeat and positive. He was always good company and genuinely interested in other people. loving to chat to any and everybody. His enthusiasm always shone through for all things especially rugby related, and his intelligence and compassion were some of the characteristics that made him so popular and so respected by so many. He was an outstanding club man and long standing and exceptional President and leader of this club.
Many of us have known Richard for around 30 years and his absence from the clubhouse and playing fields and from our lives just seems inconceivable. He will be hugely missed by so many both young and old and especially all those young people over the past 30 years whose lives he has impacted in so many positive ways.
Our thoughts are now very much with Anne, Katherine and James and his young family at this incredibly sad time.
Rob Newman