Peter Jackson: Thanks so much Roy, whoever you are!

Roy Giddings had been on the WRU Board for so long that when he started Margaret Thatcher had just become the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century. In the same year, 1988, Graeme Hick made 405 not out for Worcestershire against Somerset at Taunton and Wimbledon’s ‘Crazy Gang’ delivered one of the mightiest upsets in the FA Cup, beating Liverpool in the final.
For more than a quarter of a century, Giddings held onto his seat as an elected member, until earlier this month when the tri-ennial elections among the Union’s nine Districts left him short of votes. His exit, after 26 years, brought a response from the WRU so stark that perfunctory was hardly the word for it.
“In District B, the incumbent Board member, Roy Giddings, and Gwyn Bowden (Taffs Well) lost out to David Young (Llandaff North).”
And that was that. For all his long-service, poor old Roy found himself dismissed in not much more than one line on the WRU website in the midst of a lengthy tribute to the biggest election casualty of all, David Pickering.
At 78, Giddings could be safely said to have had a good innings but he will probably still be kicking himself this morning. It can be revealed that before the election, the WRU board took a decision which effectively cleared the way for Giddings and another 78-year-old, vice-chairman Ken Hewitt, to keep offering themselves for re-election until they were 90.
Three weeks ago this column highlighted the painstaking amount of time the WRU had taken to reveal the findings of the governance review the Union had taken on their constitutional structure under the direction of a High Court judge, Sir Robert Owen.
Former chief executive David Moffett had accused the WRU board of failing to comply with the UK’s Government-approved Code of Good Governance which called for, among other things, terms of office to be limited to ensure a fresh flow of thinking. In pointing out that more than half the current Board had been in place when the WRU became technically insolvent in 2002, Moffett unwittingly aged one of their number prematurely, referring to Giddings as an octogenarian. Giddings, a retired steelworks cashier, is 78, not 80 but you get Moffett’s drift.
A letter sent by Pickering to member clubs reveals that, far from rejuvenating the Board and sweeping clear the old boys, the WRU Board had decided instead to give them a new lease of life and a lengthy one at that.
Yes, the Governance Steering Group recommended that non-executive directors’ terms of office should be limited to 12 years for appointments after August 1, 2014. But no, they would not be applied retrospectively.
Why, you may well ask, ever not? What, you may also ask, was the point of setting up the Governance Steering Group way back in August 2012?
Apart from Sir Robert as chairman, the five other members of the Group consisted entirely of WRU Board members (Pickering, Gerald Davies) or employees (chief executive Roger Lewis, company secretary Gareth Williams and Rhodri Lewis, head of legal affairs).
When the RFU undertook a similar review, they put the matter in the hands of a London-based international law firm, Slaughter & May. They presented their findings within three months of beginning the review.
They recommended that no non-executive director serve more than three successive, three-year terms but that ‘exceptional individuals’ be permitted to remain for up to 12 years.’
Term limits, they reported, should be implemented immediately and with retrospective effect so that prior service is taken into account. Wales, in their wisdom, have decided that their time-limits would not be applied retrospectively.
The Union says: “It would be helpful to receive clubs’ views’ when the matter arises during the AGM on October 19.”
The clubs should give it to them all right – right between the eyes.
*This article was first published in The Rugby Paper on September 28.