David Malcolm Rollitt

David played for Barnsley and Wakefield while a pupil at Barnsley Holgate Grammar School and Yorkshire School sides.

After gaining a BSc in Physics at Bristol University, he attended Loughborough College where he trained as a teacher. He played and captained the 1st XV and College 7 teams and won the UAU trophy and was an England reserve for Western Counties v New Zealand.

David Rollitt returned to Bristol to teach Physics and Mathematics at Colston’s School and made his Bristol RFC debut in 1964 playing 415 games in total over 13 years for the club and was Captain for the team for two seasons starting in 1969.

David captained Gloucestershire to three County Championship Finals and played for them 78 times, as well as having captained Western Counties and regularly played for the Barbarians.

Rollitt made his England debut against Ireland in 1967 having played throughout the whole Five Nations Championship and going on to join England’s tour of Canada. In total David won 11 caps for England between 1967 and 1975.

Following his teaching and rugby career at Bristol in 1977, Rollitt went on to teach a full timetable of Mathematics at St Paul’s School in London and also managed SPS school touring sides to South Africa, Australia Fiji Argentina Canada, Prague, Italy Holland and Ireland.

He played his final two seasons with Richmond and also Middlesex before retiring. After an intense Coaching course with the RFU, Rollit started coaching: Richmond, Harlequins, Surrey, and was a guest coach with Bristol. He then became South East England divisional coach.

During school summer holidays he coached a number of teams across the world. He spent two years with Eastern Rockies Rugby team in Aspen Colorado. He took London Lebanese on tour, spent three months on a teaching sabbatical with Randwick NSW, assisting the Australian national coach, and also worked with United London Hospitals and Imperial Medical's teams for seven years, completing a range of tours. Finally, he did work with Rosslyn Park RFC.

David was awarded a centenary honorary degree from Loughborough University in 2009.