Old and New – a look at the changing nature of rugby committees, by Keith Gregson

Posted on May 20, 2019 by

In recent correspondence Phil McGowan, Curator of the World Rugby Museum, pointed out that the founding members of the RFU were all very young (and also probably active players). I hope to look in detail at the formation of Sunderland Rugby Football Club in 1873 – the work of two teenagers boarding at a public school in the south of England. I am also in the fortunate position of having discovered a detailed list of club committee members for the 1901/2 season and, with the help of the 1901 census, have examined it in the light of the more recent articles and correspondence. Continue reading →

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Who is Eric Bole?

Posted on May 13, 2019 by

by J. R. Suber

The story as told to me goes like this: After a local rugby match in St. Louis, Missouri—perhaps around 1957—two of the players, both Irish, were having a disagreement in the locker room. They couldn’t agree about who exactly scored a game-winning try in a famous match back in the United Kingdom. The referee overheard them and decided to interject. “It was Eric Bole,” he assured them. They asked the referee how he knew. He replied, “I am Eric Bole.” The Irishmen were surely surprised by such a coincidence! They may have wondered how this former rugby star had ended up in St. Louis of all places refereeing their rugby game! To readers today, the better question is probably, wait, who is Eric Bole? Continue reading →

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Richmond FC at War

Posted on May 6, 2019 by

When we talk about our playing days we casually throw out words which suggest we were engaged in a sort of warfare. We talk about being down in the mud, the blood and the pain. We talk about digging in when the going gets tough. Such phraseology trips off the tongue easily when we’re back in the warm bar with our mates, but for an awful lot of our predecessors at Richmond Football Club the words had a harsh and vivid reality. They knew real mud, blood and pain. And they knew tragedy and death.

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Posted in Clubs, International Players, Lest We Forget | 2 Comments

Historic Rugby Internationals: South Africa v British Isles, 1974

Posted on April 29, 2019 by

Rugby history beckoned at Ellis Park, Johannesburg on Saturday July 27th 1974.  The British Lions were playing the 22nd and final match of their tour and they had won all their previous matches.  Only the 1891 British tourists had a superior record, having won all 19 matches on their tour including the first three tests played between these great adversaries.  The 1974 test series was already wrapped up 3-0 and the Lions had only to win this final test to set a record that would probably never be equalled and could never be surpassed.

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Looking back forty five years later, it can be seen that the 1974 Lions contained some of the greatest players in rugby history.  Led by the inspirational Irish second row forward, Willie John McBride, other luminaries of this remarkable side were full back JPR Williams, the sprint champion JJ Williams on the wing, the half-back pair Phil Bennett and Gareth Edwards and the No 8 Mervyn Davies from Wales; the centre Ian McGeechan, the prop Ian McLauchlan (‘Mighty Mouse’) and the converted full back Andy Irvine on the wing from Scotland; the marauding Irish flanker Fergus Slattery and the formidable English forwards Fran Cotton and Roger Uttley.  So strong was the touring party that players of the calibre of the Irishmen Mike Gibson and Tom Grace and the rangy English No 8 Andy Ripley were unable to gain selection for any of the tests.

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Thomas Cook’s Rugby Club

Posted on April 22, 2019 by

TCRFC Book Cover

The book, Thomas Cook’s Rugby Club 1910-1966, tells the story about the life and times of the illustrious travel firm and its rugger club.

The firm was described as a company with contacts everywhere, and by the time of Edwards VII’s coronation, it was reckoned to be among the “three most competent organisations in the world” – the other two being the Roman Catholic Church and the Prussian army.

It describes club activities from the Edwardian to the Elizabethan age. Set against a backdrop of music halls, jazz and cocktails, two world wars to the birth of rock and roll, and its demise in the swinging sixties. The period coincides with the so-called ‘golden age’ of rugby – loosely the amateur game played after the First World War – through the Second to the immediate post war years. Continue reading →

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The 1919 Rugby World Cup Final…

Posted on April 16, 2019 by

THE KING’S CUP PLAY-OFF MATCH: TWICKENHAM WEDNESDAY 16TH APRIL 1919. 

MOTHER COUNTRY 3 v NEW ZEALAND 9

A century ago, in this deciding clash for George V’s King’s Cup, the Inter-Services and Dominions Rugby Tournament post-World War One, could the Mother Country reverse their earlier defeat by New Zealand at Inverleith, or would the men from 12,000 miles away who had come to fight for that King and all ‘his’ countries maintain their edge and build on the winning reputation they and their countrymen had built over the previous fifteen years?

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Play-offs loom in the 1919 King’s Cup…

Posted on April 9, 2019 by

The Services teams from Down Under finally clashed at Bradford after a snow-postponement, and the against-the-odds Aussie win helped the Mother Country in their hopes of forcing a play-off for the 1919 Kings Cup…

This was the match postponed from March 22nd due to three inches of snow on the pitch, and tournament results during the delay meant a New Zealand win would give them the cup given by King George However, in the glorious way of sporting competition, it was to be a huge upset. New Zealand suffered a one-point defeat as Australia dug deep and handed the ‘All Blacks’ their first beating of the tournament.

1Both sides had been in action just four days earlier, but it was thought by some to be a formality for New Zealand that would give them the Cup. Others believed that the great effort by the Mother Country had tired New Zealand – their pack in particular – and that Australia had the forwards to fully stretch them on Bradford’s new Lidget Green pitch. Continue reading →

Posted in Services | 3 Comments