Penarth RFC chairman Mike Gooding has been honoured for rescuing the club from the threat of extinction.

In front of some of the top names in rugby at London's Caf Royal last week, he received a silver tankard in recognition of his services to the game.

The occasion was the prestigious Rugby Union Writers' Club (RUWC) Annual Dinner attended by 500 players, coaches, referees, officials, journalists and photographers. Among the others who stepped up to receive awards were Toulouse coach Guy Noves and Wales captain Gareth Thomas, who was named Player of the Year.

In his citation of Gooding's achievement at Penarth, RUWC chairman Mick Cleary told how Gooding had taken over as chairman of Penarth in 1999 when they were almost bankrupt, the players were leaving in droves and the Electricity Board had locked the dressing room doors because the bills hadn't been paid.

Today, the club are steadily repaying their debts, are top of their league and are thinking of launching a second team.

Gooding attended the dinner with his son Paul, who plays second-row for the team, and the Penarth captain Andy Edwards, as guests of Chris Thau whose rugby career included playing for his native Romania as well as London Saracens and La Rochelle in France.

Now living in Plymouth Road, Thau travels the world as an official of the International Rugby Board and takes a keen interest in Penarth RFC.

He said: "I've watched Penarth's transformation under Mike and he thoroughly deserves this recognition.

"I see a lot of rugby at many levels around the world - and rugby owes so much to people like him who work so hard to keep the game alive."

Gooding, oldest son of club stalwart Roy, has been associated with Penarth since he was a youngster and for three years was captain and hooker of Penarth Youth.

He made his debut for the senior team at scrum-half against Llandaff in 1976.

During the following eight years Gooding became a regular in the Penarth number nine jersey - though he also played over 40 games at hooker and had matches at centre, fly-half and flanker, earning a reputation as a hard, but fair competitor.

The onset of professionalism had a shattering impact on the club as Penarth tried to compete on the new'market place' with the likes of Cardiff, Llanelli, Newport and Pontypridd.

But, unable to find either a'benefactor' or a major local business prepared to underwrite its ambitions, the club was soon struggling - and less than four years after the IRB had declared the game'open', was heavily in debt and facing bankruptcy.

Mike, who had resigned from the committee three years earlier because he was unhappy with the way the club was run, decided to stand as chairman.

He was elected and with secretary David Hughes and treasurer Sue Seymour began the task of steering the club away from disaster.

The club owed the bank nearly 80,000 and had to negotiate a deal with the local Electricity Board to get access to their dressing room. The floodlights needed repairs and the bills for water were unpaid.

One of the first tough decisions Gooding made was to stop paying the players.

The debts were rescheduled, and will be paid off in a couple of years, and a major recruitment campaign started.

The club, which has been in free fall through the divisions, has stabilised in the Fourth Division and is now looking to start the upward climb.

Many of the club's players have progressed from the very productive Youth section which has gained a reputation in its own right. Two very good coaches, Don Llewellyn and Moro Smith, are guiding a side that very narrowly missed promotion last season but are hoping to clinch it this year.