THE YEAR 2005 is set to be a momentous one for Kendal Rugby Union Club which is preparing to celebrate its Centenary season starting next August.

For the Kendal club's historian Derek Kingwell and a team of volunteers it will mark the completion of a two-year project in writing and compiling a book to mark the 100 years, which will be entitled "A Northern Stronghold" - Kendal Rugby Union Club Centenary 1905-2005.

Derek said: "A special committee has been meeting for the past three months to arrange and organise special events throughout the Centenary season, which will start in August 2005.

"It will all culminate in a special black-tie gala dinner at the Castle Green Hotel in Kendal in October at which special guest speakers and the president of the RFU will be present.

"The Centenary book and a special malt whisky called 'The Fifteen Men of Kendal', which is intended to be a collector's item, will be launched at the event."

Commemorative matches and other events are also planned to involve everyone connected with the club from helpers, officials, players and supporters - giving it a community appeal.

Derek said the title of the Centenary book - "A Northern Stronghold" - was a phrase that the national newspapers picked up and repeatedly used about Kendal in its glory years in the 1930s when they were a match for virtually any opposition.

It had stuck and was as relevant today as far as the club's national standing was concerned, he explained.

And he paid tribute to the time and efforts of the volunteers who have done the research and contributed chapters from the modern era.

"I knew that local people who still remembered the decades from the fifties onwards must write about those years to get a proper picture of them."

The 'Centenary Seven' as he dubs them comprise Peter Davey and his wife Elizabeth, Derek Healey, Tony Hesmondhalgh, John Chew, Richard Knowles and John Kremer.

"For me it's been compelling and utterly fascinating, "said Derek, "and if history teaches us one thing it is that the fears and worries on and off the field that we have gone through in recent years have been lived through by earlier generations."

More than 500 superb photographs, many of them from the county archives, have been scanned to give him the difficult job in selecting the images to reflect the club's history in the 200-page plus book.

Help has come, via the archives, in the shape of a £200 grant from the Curwen Trust which will help towards the costs of printing by mtp media.

Details about the whisky - a 15-year-old limited-edition malt will be revealed in a feature article in the Gazette's Leisure Section later this month.