Angus Adamson, a proud Scot, learned his rugby in the Winchester Rugby Club Minis and Juniors, rising through the Colts to become a regular player in the back row of the first team alongside his brother Rhodri at scrum-half, who went on to become a professional player.

Work took Gus, as he is known to his team-mates, to London for several years, where he joined and played for London Scottish, whose professional first team plays in the Championship.

This summer Gus returned to Winchester, and quickly re-established himself in his childhood club’s first team. Last Saturday at North Walls Park, with no league fixtures scheduled for any of Winchester’s three teams, a good-sized crowd of supporters from both clubs watched an entertaining match between a scratch Winchester team and a London Scottish amateurs team invited by Adamson to Winchester to play a friendly.

There was also a lunch provided by Winchester’s clubhouse manager and chef Jim Yeoman dedicated to the memory of Sue Challis, the wife of former president Brian Challis and a long-time supporter of the club herself, who died of cancer during the summer.

Entertaining it may have been, but the match was something of a walkover for the visitors, caused by the fact that most of Winchester’s regular first-team players were spending a stag weekend in Bristol for their popular hooker Chris Searle.

In the hope of avoiding injuries so early in the league season, the coaches had agreed that the match would be played with uncontested scrums and rolling substitutes, but by the time that Winchester’s centre pairing of Harry Arthur and Nick Hepworth had both succumbed to injury they had used up their whole bench, had a front-row forward, Max Burns, on the wing, coach Gaz Martin at fly-half and full-back Tom Palmer struggling on in pain from a turned ankle.

Scottish were running in tries at will, two of their players scoring hat-tricks, and the excellent Hampshire referee Jack Tompkins wisely drew the match to an end 25 minutes early.

Winchester had scored first, with a good multi-phase attack leading to a break up the left by Palmer and a scoring pass to outside centre Hepworth who touched down wide out. Fly-half Ben Sauve’s conversion made it 7-0.

But that was to be their last score, and it increasingly became one-way traffic to Scottish. When Mr Tompkins drew it to an end, Winchester had lost 7-52.

After the match, Gus Adamson said: “The reorganisation following the loss of our centres, with Max Burns on the wing and Gaz at 10 certainly didn’t help. But it was great to see youngsters not much more than half my age scoring our only try and making some great tackles, like winger Sam Hickley getting the Scottish 8 round the ankles.”

Winchester coach Gaz Martin added: “It was wonderful to have a match on an otherwise fixtureless Saturday. It was a game played in the best spirit of rugby, the players on both sides enjoyed it and the excellent ref enjoyed it too.”

Asked if after a lifetime of playing in the back row he had enjoyed playing at fly-half, Martin put his tongue firmly in his cheek and replied: “I loved it. I just hope I caught the eye of the coach and might be considered for starting there next week.”

Committee members of both clubs are actively pursuing a return fixture at the London Scottish home ground in Richmond – hopefully with something more like the regular Winchester first team – perhaps during the Christmas/New Year league off-season.

This coming Saturday, Winchester resume their league season with Twickenham at home, kicking off at 3pm.