The 1940’s: Although Bletchley Rugby Club was founded in 1947 its origins probably lie in an ambition held by the Town Surveyor, Mr. J Smithie, as early as 1946 to provide local sporting activities for the Town.

A keen local cricketer and footballer, it was his dream to build a sporting complex on what we now know as Manor Fields, but which at the time were simply fields forming part of Manor Farm opposite the Old King`s Head public house (now known as Pink Punters!) on Watling Street.

His idea was to build a sports pavilion capable of providing a base for outdoor sports such as football, hockey and cricket whilst at the same time being capable of hosting indoor activities such as darts, badminton and gymnastics.

Eventually by 1947 with the aid of various local and national grants, work commenced on the buildings which now form the homes of Bletchley Rugby Club and the Irish Club, although the complex would not be officially completed until October 1952 when it was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh.

As Smithie`s sporting dream was taking shape, in the summer of 1947 four pioneers who shared a love of rugby union football met at the meeting hall in George Street to discuss the possibility of forming a rugby club to become part of the proposed new Bletchley Sports Club.

These four were Jack Simmons (see notes), a local railway man, Bernard Blane (see notes), Eric Smith and a Brigadier Earle (see notes) who was to very briefly become the first Chairman of the Club and later a Sheriff of Buckinghamshire.

Following this meeting an advertisement appears in the 4th October 1947 issue of the Bletchley Gazette announcing …....‘a practice match at 2.15pm on the River Meadow opposite the King`s Head. All members or prospective members are invited. Beginners willingly taught’.

It is not clear how many turned up for this session but by the following January Bletchley Rugby Club is ready to take to the field for its first competitive match against local rivals Buckingham. A team photograph in the Gazette shows the intrepid heroes who pulled on the club shirt for the first time on the 10th January 1948. Buckingham won the fixture by 15 points to 3.

NOTES

Jack Simmons: Jack was born in Gloucester in 1918 and started playing rugby when he was 12 years old. He soon progressed to the County schoolboy team playing in the second row.
After leaving school he played for the Tredworth club and he never lost touch with his home club throughout his lifetime.
In 1939 Jack`s job on the railway took him to Bletchley but because of the outbreak of war and his reserved occupation of train driver/fireman he saw little of the game of rugby for the next seven and a half years.
He was one of the four founders of the club and was Captain for the first two seasons of its existence. After he retired from playing Jack was a lifelong supporter of the club and was made President in 1973, a position which he held until his death in 1987.
Jack was a much loved player, committee man, and member and his portrait hangs proudly in the clubhouse

Bernard Blane: Bernard was born in 1915 in Brooklands Road in Bletchley the son of an engine driver and one of eight children. He attended Cedars school in Leighton Buzzard where he must have had his first experience of rugby union.
He was a very keen cyclist and won many medals in competitions.
He fought with the 8th Army during the war and returned to Bletchley in 1946.
He was for many years secretary of the Coronation Hall in Water Eaton and he died in 1995.

Eric Smith: Eric was a versatile back row player who features prominently on early team sheets and later became Chairman but he seems to disappear after the 1949 season.

Brigadier Eric Greville Earle: Born in India in 1894 he attended Wellington College before joining the Royal Artillery to take part in World War One.
He was seriously wounded in action and was awarded the DSO.
Between the wars he was stationed at the War Office and lived at the White House at Winslow.
He married Diana Harley in the early 1930`s and her mother owned Walton Hall which was given as a present to the Earle`s on the occasion of their wedding.
Brigadier Earle and his wife both died in the 1980`s and the family home at Walton Hall was given to the Open University.

Recollections – The 1940’s by Bernard Bateman – who was in the first ever Bletchley Team in 1948.

When Bletchley Rugby Club was first proposed I was only 15 so you will understand that I did not take any serious part in the organization of the setting up of the club. A large part of this was done by the older fellows who appear in the photograph of the first ever team who include John Staniford, Eric ‘Baggy’ Smith and others.
‘Baggy’ Smith was a miller and immensely strong sine he was used to heaving two hundred weight (nearly 102 kilos) sacks of flour about! He was a natural tight head prop and just could not be moved.

I was the other prop and much more mobile than ‘Baggy’, so when we asked him how he managed to get to the next scrum in such good time his reply was “after the scrum breaks up you silly buggers run after the ball. I estimate where the next scrum will take place and make for that spot”.

I think this gives you a flavor of how the game was played in those days and the other thing I recall about those early years is the ‘joie de vive’. Many of the guys who joined the club in the early years counted themselves lucky to be alive, since they had been in the war. ‘Baggy’ himself had lost a brother flying.

There were not so many rugby clubs in the area as now in the 1947/48 season we played three games against Buckingham who had formed before the war. As a result of playing so often against each other little ‘vendettas’ had grown between the sides. I recall having to wait to get a scrum formed so that two groups of scuffling players could rejoin the game and we could get on!

No red cards in those days. The Buckingham hooker was H B Toft, who was the Headmaster of The Royal Latin School and had played for England pre-war, he was protesting “disgraceful, disgraceful!!” but the referee wasn’t too worried.

Of the fifteen players in the 1947/48 photograph eight were either former or current pupils of the Cedars School, Leighton Buzzard, which was the local grammar school that played rugby. I was on of that number.

In the very early years (1948-51) the Club gathered momentum very quickly and we acquired changing rooms in the loft of a building at the rear of The Swan (at the crossroads in Fenny Stratford). This accommodation was very cosy and, of course near the pub, but the Club decided to join the Bletchley Town Sports Club and moved to the pavilion which was not very cosy in those days. People joined the Club from various organisations that existed in the area then – The RAF, Diplomatic Wireless Service and in 1956 the Grammar School was founded in the town, but this was short lived.

The 1950's: The decade starts with the welcome news that the Club has been elected to the Rugby Football Union at Twickenham and also to the East Midlands Rugby Union.

In further developments in 1952 the Sports Club completes the construction of the Clubhouse at Manor Fields and the building is officially opened in October that year by the Duke of Edinburgh.

Also Bletchley put out a second XV on a regular basis in the 1953 season whilst in the 1954 season a local company Wipac joins the Sports Club set up and provides some much needed financial stability.

There is a significant development in 1956 with the opening of Bletchley Grammar School. Rugby Union becomes the school`s winter sport and through the efforts of the teaching staff a regular supply of young, fit players is provided to the Club.

Wipac end their association with the Club in 1957 but as the decade moves to a close the Club`s playing fortunes continue to improve.

Recollections – The 1950’s by the late John Sanderson, Bletchley Skipper 1958-60

I remember almost being lynched by the players for not insisting that the referee played 35 minutes each way when we played Northampton Crusaders at Franklin’s Gardens – we were condemned to 40 minutes each way on a pitch the size of which we had never seen before! The in-goal area alone seemed half the size of the Manor Fields pitch.

After an international at Twickenham part of the apres match entertainment was a visit to Collins Music Hall which we left before being forcibly ejected as some of the team had been making ungallant remarks about the "young lady dancers".

We then moved on, thanks to an intro by Stan Corby, to Pentonville Prison’s staff social club where some of our team professed to be somewhat startled at the coarse nature of the behavior of the warders (male and female). Before setting off home a milk churn was appropriated to obviate the need for what I now believe are called ‘comfort stops’.

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