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AFTER 60 YEARS IAN DESERVES A MEDAL!
IAN BEGGS
DO you ever wonder who those people are who give up their time so freely to work
through the intricacies of the wonder that is the Ulster club rugby fixture schedule?
Or what kind of person willingly deals with the minutiae
of administration and with the plethora of problems the
sport throws up on a daily basis?
Well, someone who’s given almost 60 years of his life to
doing just those things, and much more besides, for his
beloved Carrickfergus club and for the Ulster Branch, is
the indomitable Ian Beggs, so appropriately awarded
the MBE in the New Year’s Honours list.
At 81-years-young, it is a timely recognition of stalwart
service and commitment to the sport from someone
who, despite never having played the game, became its
willing servant and its spirit and soul at Woodburn and at
Ravenhill Park.
Among the first to send his congratulations on the award
was Shane Logan, Chief Executive of Ulster Rugby, and
someone who knows only too well the application and
enthusiasm Ian has applied in the administration of the
game, and in its growth through the amateur era to the
modern professional sport it has become at the top
level.
“Ian has devoted over half a century to the IRFU (Ulster
Branch) and his local rugby club, Carrickfergus RFC. He
has served with distinction in every role to which he has
been elected and has made an outstanding contribution
to rugby in Ulster over the last 60 years,” said Logan.
“I am delighted that his hard work and dedication has
been rewarded with an MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s
Honours List and, on behalf of everyone here at Ulster
Rugby, I would like to thank Ian for his long and valuable
voluntary services to rugby in the Province.”
And Ulster Branch President, Bobby Stewart, was eager
to share his delight at the honour bestowed on someone
who has done so much to build, strengthen and
develop the structures of rugby in the Province, and who
represents the importance of volunteers in the running
of the sport.
“Ian is the epitome of a volunteer, always willing to lend
a hand and never complaining. To give 60 years’ service
to any cause is commendable and Ian went above and
beyond to devote all those years to Carrickfergus RFC,
while living over 20 miles away, and always travelling by
train.
“His commitment has been exceptional,” said Stewart
who, over the years, witnessed that quality in his friend
and colleague.
It was a September evening in 1956 when Ian was
unwittingly recruited into the administrative fold. His
brother and a group of friends were, they told him, off
to the Annual General Meeting of Carrickfergus Rugby
Club.
“I didn’t want to be left out in the cold on my own, so in I
went, and to my great surprise I left that evening as the
club’s Secretary! And I haven’t looked back since!” he
recalls with a twinkle in his eyes.
“My father and his brother played rugby for Carrick, my
mother’s brother and my cousin all lined out in black and
red. I was the odd man out. I sustained a bad break to
my arm when I was nine, so I think that had something
to do with putting me off playing. So cricket was actually
my sport of choice.”
Until, that is, that autumn evening on the Woodburn
Road in Carrick!
Since then Ian has served as Carrickfergus RFC’s
Honorary Secretary, Club Trustee, he’s a Founding
Member of the Carrick 7s Tournament, and for several
decades the club’s representative on the Ulster Branch
Clubs Committee.
He has served on a myriad of Branch committees,
including the International Ticket Allocation Committee,
and he’s been chairman and a member of the
Competitions Management Committee, privy to the
many sacred secrets and protocols which, magically,
have kept rugby organised and alive for generations of
players.
Ian is the model of what we now call ‘the volunteer’, and
as if those long days and nights dealing with the detail
of what makes the sport ‘tick’ Ian Beggs somehow
found time, and the energy, to be a Voluntary Steward at
Ravenhill, supervising the crowds and the timetable on
match days.
For his selfless and tireless work the IRFU (Ulster
Branch) paid its tribute by making him Honorary Life
Vice-President, an accolade not lightly conferred, indeed
Ian is just one of three people to be so honoured.
A beacon of common-sense, the wisest of counsels,
and with an encyclopaedic knowledge of rugby’s
administrative crannies, Ian Beggs has been an
institution, admired and respected not just by the
Carrickfergus club he holds so dear, but by hundreds
of people and clubs in the Province, and across Ireland,
who have sought and got guidance, direction and that
most elusive of abstracts: a decisive opinion!
Though born in the city, and educated at Belfast ‘Inst’,
Ian grew up in Carrickfergus and was offered a job with
British Rail following the untimely death of his father, and
it was while working in that office that he met his wife
Jean, who was the telephonist. They married in 1963
and had one son, who now lives in France.
The couple now live in Belfast, but Ian’s fealty to
Carrickfergus Rugby Club is undimmed, and as often as
he can he takes the train to watch his club sides play.
Throughout the years, Ian has retained many fond
memories including receiving the 2007 Dorrington B
Faulkner Award – donated by the legendary Perennials
club - for his outstanding contribution to club rugby. And
a year later he picked up the IRFU’s Mr Boots Award – a