You are invited to come to the Club on Saturday 19th September to celebrate Gilly's life.
The club will be open from 11.30am for family, friends, colleagues and members of the club to come and raise a glass or two to Allan 'Gilly' Gillard.

Allan David John Gillard …. AKA… Gilly.

Here is the tribute by two of his former teammates, friends and colleague.

Bob Bland remembers -
Gilly was born 16th August 1948, the youngest of three brothers. His parents ran The Archers Pub on the Delves Estate and following that a grocery shop after his father’s death.
He attended Delves Junior School and then went on to Churchfields School at the top of the Newton Road. Gilly described his time there, that was when he attended, as “difficult”, until he was introduced to Rugby by one of the teachers. He liked it!

He and a couple of other lads decided to come to Walsall RFC to join the Colts, which at that time was in its infancy and under the stewardship of Fred Rowley. That was around 1965-66 when the Colts scene was just beginning. That was it for Gilly, he had found what he really enjoyed and he was good at it!

He went on to play Colts Rugby for Staffordshire and in 1967 was chosen to represent Midlands Counties Colts Vs Welsh Youth. We're looking forward to seeing a Team photograph displayed on the 19th September for Gilly’s Wake at the Club …. have a scan of his teammates!

By 1968-69 Gilly had established himself as a ‘must have’ in the Walsall 1st XV under the captaincy of ‘Ginger’ Grice. Gilly played a substantial role in the Walsall 1st XV into the early 80’s as a Loosehead Prop or Blindside Wing Forward.

His versatility made him an ideal and successful member of the Walsall 7-a-side Team who were Winners of the Staffordshire 7-a-side Competition in 1971 and the Amsterdam International Sevens in 1973.

Gilly was an invaluable member of the squad whether it was 7 or 15- a -side Rugby. He was a ‘ball winner’, and as we all know, you need control of the ball to win games. Once his ‘mitts’ got hold of the opponent’s ball … IT WAS HIS! I asked Gilly how he could remove the ball from players with such apparent ease … “Get the ball moving and keep it moving until it’s in your hands” …. another lesson learned!

It was one of those occasions when Gilly had ‘taken’ the ball with such ease from Stoke prop Dave Bullock that Bullock responded by smashing Gilly’s nose (again). I saw ‘red’ and trampled through the ruck, in pursuit of Bullock, over the top of poor Micky Dawson, the Stoke Scrum-half. The referee sent me off. Gilly was all riled up’ ready himself to seek revenge on Bullock, fortunately Mick Baker, our esteemed Hooker lay on top of Gilly telling him to stay down saying “the Ref’s sent Bob off”, then saying to the referee “Look Ref. we’ve got one prop with a broken nose and you’ve sent the other one off, we’ve got no Front Row”. The Ref. came to me on the touchline and asked me if I had calmed down? “Yes Sir!”, I replied, to which he said, “Well you can come back on”. Mick Baker, smiling, then let, an also smiling Gilly, get up … wily old fox that Mick Baker!

When Gilly eventually gave up playing, he would throw himself into many and varied ‘jobs’ around the Club…the more physical the better as far as Gilly was concerned, mowing, line marking, laying out the 1st team shirts and taking them to be laundered, looking after the balls…always pumped to precision, spotlessly clean and never lost, he counted them out and counted them back in and woe-betide the team that lost one!!

Gilly was one of those people that many clubs have, who go on do the unglamorous work in the background once he’d had his ‘Glory Days’.
Any job Gilly undertook he would do it to the best of his ability … nothing less would do!
He became absorbed by physical fitness once he had stopped playing, keeping extremely fit and strong by lots of running and weight training at the Hatherton Gym.

He was obsessive by nature and driven by routine and in the latter days he became so utterly frustrated by the fact that his diagnosed bowel cancer would not allow him to continue to be the strong, active person that he had been throughout his life … that was a difficult phase to witness.

When we often sat and chatted, inevitably, Rugby, the Club, past teammates, players we admired from other clubs, the idiotic antics, the glorious victories (funny, we never talked about the losses) and our life of belonging to a brotherhood of people who play Rugby, his spirit would lift, laughter would echo through his house …. he became Gilly once again.
Bob Bland.

Ken Lewis remembers -

Allan and I had been playing Rugby together for Walsall since 1976/77.
I took up my post as deputy head of Hunters Hill School in January 1988 and in September 1989 became the Headteacher.
This school was a Birmingham Residential Special School situated just outside Bromsgrove for young people aged 11-16yrs, with emotional, behavioural and social difficulties. Children resided in the school for five days per week.
The authority was putting a lot of pressure on me to increase the numbers, but in order to do that, I needed to recruit more staff, especially for the residential care side of things. Recruitment can be a long, drawn-out process and time was short, the demand was upon me.
My very good friend, Geoff Tinker (Walsall RFC player), was deputy head at Frank F. Harrison school in Walsall and within his role he was responsible for the leisure and sporting facilities.
During the summer he organized a camp on the Gower Peninsula for the families of children at his school. It involved putting up all the tents etc. at the start and running it with children and families changing over in order to accommodate as many as possible in the time available.
Geoff told me he had Gilly to run this for him and he was most impressed with his attitude and responsible approach to the work.
So, I approached Gilly and asked him if he would consider giving being a member of my Care Team a go? I have always liked Gilly and I truly believed this work, though incredibly demanding, could well suite him.
He agreed and the huge learning curve began.
The then, Deputy Head of Care was very impressed with his first week, though Allan himself, had doubts. He was working with the most challenging young people in the, then, biggest urban authority in Europe, and he told me he was finding it “hard”. But he stuck at it! He ran at the challenge with a smile and the energy that only those who have played our game alongside him will understand.
At the end of the first week, having played at home on the Saturday afternoon, I, along with my teammates, was having a beer in the bar. I was called over to ‘Alickadoo Corner’ (the place where all the wealth of the Club gathered for the swilling of pints and essential discussions of the game they had just witnessed).
I had known them all for years and they were keen to share with me the fact that with them all being Gilly fans in terms of his playing ability, they had, in their turn, tried their best to offer him employment in various work locations. Gilly had been most happy in jobs that relied upon his labour and work rate. None of these placements worked out and when they heard that he was now with me, they offered the results of their sweepstake, wherein the best I was given was two weeks before he upset someone or walked out!
Well, I retired in 2014 after 25 years and Gilly was with me throughout. He was superb in the role of residential care worker. He led camps and trips throughout the UK and abroad. Everyone wanted him in their team on a trip.
He trained hard, improved his communication skills and became a team leader in his own right. Other staff loved working with him and the young people responded extremely well to him. He provided structure, integrity and solid predictability. They trusted him. He was known by the children as Mr. Gillard. He was a rock. I used him to train other staff.
When Steve Lea, another stalwart of Walsall RFC, successfully applied to work at the school, began, I put him with Gilly and said, “watch and learn, you can’t do better”!
I could write, all day, stories about Gilly as a great player and team mate. Great performances, high jinks and laughter.
I could, also, write all day about him as a member of this other team, consistent, reliable and professional.
Outstanding!
Ken Lewis.