Boots?

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johnthegriff
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Re: Boots?

Post by johnthegriff »

Yes Wormus, I too started with leather studs secured by nails, the leather wore down quicker than the nails making the boots pretty dangerous in a ruck. The boots themselves had toe caps and high leather ankles requiring a lot of work with Dubbin to make them soft enough not to scratch your legs, by the time they were wearable you had grown out of them, lucky the guys who had a couple of older brothers and could wear hand me downs. Ah for the good old days!
TigerCam
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Re: Boots?

Post by TigerCam »

wormus wrote: Tue May 10, 2022 11:39 pm
Old Hob wrote: Mon May 09, 2022 4:52 pm
johnthegriff wrote: Mon May 09, 2022 12:16 pm I have a grand daughter playing soccer at a high level and her boots are so light it must be like playing in socks, my old aluminium studs alone weighed twice as much as her boots, in fact I think my socks were heavier even after the mud was removed.
Aluminium ones were very quickly made illegal, weren't they John? I seem to remember a few walks across concrete and they turned into razors. I'm also fairly sure that the horror gash down JPR's cheek was an aluminium stud.
I certainly played with long aluminium studs and some steel ones but my first recollection of boot studs were the 6 layers of half inch roundals of leather with 4 nails through and asking my father to hammer them into the soles. Playing with real leather Gilbert balls sewn by John Batchelor of Gilberts Rugby.
I recall the introduction of stud gauges by the Referees to eliminate sharp studs, and then you ran across the road to the pitches! Happy days, thanks John.
My first pair of boots were all brown leather with a hard round toe cap, six studs per boot made of circles of leather with 4 nails in each. You hammered the studs in, hammered in too far the nails dug into the soles of your feet. They had to be kept well "dubbined" otherwise they would crack and leak. In the winter you had to run cross-country in them too- Boarding school in the 60's - Oh Joy!!
Whoever said "one person cannot change the world' never ate undercooked bat
mightymouse
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Re: Boots?

Post by mightymouse »

I think the boots keep coming off these days which must be very inconvenient in a long passage of play
Nadola lost one of his pink slippers the other day.

Wouldn’t have happened to those brown leather dubbined fellas!

They were a little before my time but I wouldn’t have played in anything other than a high ankle boot. Two pairs of socks, shin guards and a lot of tape. I tried a lot of boots over thirty years playing in the front row but always came back to and in the end couldn’t play a match in anything other than a pair of Adidas Flankers ,,, brilliant boots .. comfortable and protective. Some decent aluminium studs and there wasn’t a lot of falling over unless tackled! My last pair are still hiding in the garage somewhere,along with my gum shield ... just in case !
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