Exclusive by Steve Tervet
Maidstone Rugby Club has refused to deny claims that it has allowed the player accused of blinding an opponent in an eye-gouging incident to continue turning out for the club.
Clarence Harding has lost the sight in his right eye after he was allegedly the victim of a sickening eye-gouging incident while playing for Gravesend against Maidstone in a Kent Cup game on January 17.
Harding, 26, now faces the prospect of having his rugby career cut cruelly short while claiming his assailant has played in two games since the incident and has not been suspended by his club.
Kent on Sunday has tried to contact Maidstone RFC for clarification as to whether the player has been suspended by the club, but all five senior figures we spoke to refused to confirm or deny whether the player has been suspended.
Instead, all five pointed to a statement on the club website (see below) which acknowledged the serious nature of Harding’s injury but made no mention of a suspension for the player accused of gouging.
An RFU spokesman said: “No-one would have told them what to do. What they do is up to them. There is no common practice for this sort of situation – they are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Either the police will carry out their investigation first, or the RFU will, or the two will run concurrently.”
Kent Police continued conducting interviews when KoS went to press, but had made no arrests and they confirmed the decision to suspend the player lay entirely in Maidstone’s hands.
Both clubs play their rugby in London 1 South and the game was the second between the two this season. Gravesend, who won the cup-tie 41-5, had already recorded a 58-7 league victory and they sit top of the table while Maidstone are second-bottom.
Gravesend chairman, Graham Haggar, believes the incident should be dealt with and a ban imposed.
He said: “Clarence is convinced his eye was deliberately gouged by a particular Maidstone player. Without wanting to pre-judge the result of an investigation into the incident, we regard eye-gouging as sly, cowardly and vicious as does the rest of the rugby fraternity.
“Any player found to have committed such an act should be banned from rugby for life and should face the full weight of the criminal law.”
Harding, born in Cape Town and raised in Johannesburg, moved to the UK in October 2000 and played a handful of games for Gravesend’s 3rd XI before landing a job at T.G.I. Friday’s.
The demands of the job kept him away from the sport until he began working for the London-based corporate events committee responsible for building the X Factor set.
Now living in Gravesend, Harding returned to the club in November 2009 and made his 1st XV debut in a 15-3 win at home to Tunbridge Wells on December 12.
Just three games later, though, his season was cut shockingly short and doubts remain as to whether the number eight will ever return to the rugby field.
He said: “At the moment I don’t have a rugby career. This season has gone, there’s no way I will play competitive rugby again this year.
“I’ve always been under the impression as a rugby player that if you’re suspected of something like that on the field, you should be suspended indefinitely while the investigation takes place.
“He should be suspended for the time being but he’s been selected to play in the last two games for them. Obviously they can’t have taken it as seriously as we have.”
The incident happened just two days after Stade Francais prop David Attoub was handed a 70-week ban for gouging Ulster’s Stephen Ferris in a Heineken Cup game on December 12.
Maidstone RFC’s statement:
“A Gravesend player was seriously injured in the Kent Cup game with Maidstone on Sunday 17th January. As a result, he is likely to lose the sight in one eye.
Maidstone [Rugby] Football Club, in its entirety, is cognisant of the seriousness of this injury and wishes to express its sympathy to the player concerned.
The Kent Police have been asked to investigate the incident that led to this injury and Maidstone [Rugby] FC is complying fully with this process. Until such time as this investigation is completed, we have been advised to suspend our own internal investigation.
Maidstone has a good disciplinary record and fully supports the efforts of the RFU and Kent RFU to maintain rugby union as a clean and fair game.”
POSTED: 07/02/2010 10:00:00
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