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It is believed that the Club first played in 1888, one of the main fixtures being Downton, the journey undertaken by horses and traps. Due to various stops en route and the state of the winding roads, the away matches were inevitably started late. The difficulties of transport and the dearth of nearby fixtures were obstacles that even the most enthusiastic could not overcome and gradually the Club’s activities ceased.
About 1893 another Bournemouth club was started, the home matches being played at Dean Park and their colours being a blue jersey with a broad white hoop and dark (blue?) shorts. The main fixtures being against Trojans, Portsmouth and Sherborne School. Transport was usually by train. Once again the difficulty of arranging nearby fixtures caused a lapse of several years before the club was restarted by a Major Langley Taylor in 1906. It continued playing for some three seasons with fixtures against the Trojans, Castle Carey, Sherborne School and a Dorchester and District XV. The colours were then large red and white hoops. Once again transport difficulties and lack of support caused failure. However, during the 1914-1918 War a New Zealand Forces XV played rugby football in Meyrick Park.
In 1923 the Bournemouth Sports Club started a team, playing at Iford, the colours being green and white hoops but it was not a financial success and the majority of the players formed the Bournemouth RFC with Meyrick Park as their home ground. Starting in season 1928/9 something like half the games were played at Dean Park for reasons that are not explained. The colours were narrow black and white hoops. A very useful side was got together and there were fixtures against the London Banks, Barnstaple, Exeter, Sidmouth and Bath United. Unfortunately only scratch sides could be raised for these long-distance fixtures although, however, a good show was put up at home. The Club then cut the long-distance fixtures and played within a 50 mile radius of Bournemouth. On one occasion D A Kendrew (who won 10 caps for England between 1930 and 1936) played for the ‘A’ side! He also won four DSOs in the 1939–45 war.
In 1929, the Sports Club purchased the ground at Kinson Park Road, Northbourne and, as there was room, Bournemouth RFC were offered a pitch. However, the offer was declined owing to the distance from the town!
Dick Richards then undertook the job of raising the newly formed Rugby Section of the Sports Club and, within a month, two teams were being fielded, playing in black, yellow and blue striped shirts. The Poole RFC closed down about this time and, fortunately, the services of all their members were obtained. As the ground at Northbourne was not ready, a ground was hired at Muscliffe Farm, near the Horse and Jockey pub on the Wimborne Road. Changing and bathing were in a loft followed by tea in a cow shed. The farmer was paid 2⁄6d (12 1⁄2p)to clear the pitch of cow dung but his idea of clearance seemed to be spread it evenly over a larger area!
After going for three seasons, the Sports Club beat Bournemouth RFC by an unspecified narrow margin and a very keen and even contest developed between the two clubs. The Bournemouth RFC fixture card of 1930/1 (the second or third season of the new Rugby Section of the Sports Club?) shows two fixtures between the two ‘A’ teams and two fixtures between the Bournemouth RFC ‘B’ and the Sports Club ‘A’ team.
The Sports Club eventually obtained a stronger fixture list, including games against the ‘A’ XVs of some of the leading London clubs such as Blackheath, Harlequins, London Scottish and Richmond plus Woodford 1st XV, Bath United, Bristol United, Clifton, Old Redingensians, Taunton, Torquay, Sidmouth, Exmouth and Somerset Police and of course the local ‘blood battles’ such as Yeovil, Salisbury, US Portsmouth, Berkshire Wanderers, Portsmouth and the Trojans. Again the question of raising a representative side for the long-distance matches caused much trouble and in the 1938/9 season it was suggested that the two clubs should merge to ensure adequate reserves and to field six sides on Saturdays—the Sports Club’s colours of black shirts with narrow gold hoops to be worn. The war, however, interfered with this programme but in the full postwar season the idea was put into practise and to be called Bournemouth RFC—a Section of the Bournemouth Sports Club. Through the hard work of successive Fixture Secretaries, the Club’s fixtures started to improve but it was hard work.
However the question of expense and raising sides for the long-distance fixtures initially curtailed the programme somewhat—the nearest club of 1st XV standard being 30 miles away.
The Rugby Section (of the Sports Club) was the only rugby club in Hampshire and Dorset to keep going throughout the war and this was due to the hard work and enthusiasm of Ken Baily and Dicks Richards who was still the Hon Secretary until 1948—a fine record.
The Easter Festivals, first organized by the Sports Club in 1937, were always a tremendous success with many prominent London, Northern and Welsh clubs coming to play with great enthusiasm over the four days, Friday to Monday in a programme that consisted as many as eight games in a day. Although the festival continues to this day at the club only hockey is played. With the advent of league rugby there was less and less enthusiasm for touring and it became difficult to raise enough interest to make the venture worthwhile and the last Easter Festival rugby was played in 1995.
The 7-a-sides were revived after the war after a lapse of some years and were unofficially known as the Hampshire 7s. Bristol for many years sent a team as did Exeter University (St Lukes). However they also declined with ever decreasing interest and the competition stopped in the early 1990s.
It was felt in the immediate postwar period that the Club was well served by the local schools but Bournemouth School played rugby football from 1935 to 1955 under Percy Cushion (Bournemouth and Hampshire) and several of the members of these prewar sides played for the Club. Just before the war, the Old Boys became a section of the Sports Club and played under its auspices but nine of them lost their lives in the War. The annual match against a Club XV on Boxing Day became a postwar feature although this became The Chairman’s XV v The Vice-chairman’s XV certainly by the early 60s. However, as rugby football was not immediately restarted at the school after the war, the Club turned to and supported Portchester School and several useful players have helped the Club although National Service deprived the Club of their services for long periods.
In the 1970s, Bournemouth enjoyed unparalleled success winning many matches and scoring unprecedented numbers of points—certainly enough to attract the notice of the national press in the form of the Daily Telegraph. The half-back combination of scrum-half Andy Trevett and fly-half Clive Martinez seemed to be the catalyst for this purple patch. They won the Dorset & Wilts Cup four years in succession, from 1977/1978 to 1980/1981 and seven times all told.
Elsewhere rugby (and sport in general) suffered from a decline of support in the schools, at least in the maintained scctor and this obliged the clubs to take matters in to their own hands in producing the succeeding generations of rugby players and so Mini Rugby was started in 1976. Derek Ward, through dint of hard work, got the mini form of the game started at Bournemouth. A couple of years later he was succeeded by Graham White who also worked so hard to make sure the movement continued to flourish. Under the guidance of a number of successive chairmen over the ensuing years, we can boast one of the most successful Youth and Mini Sections of any club. This in turn has fed, what used to be known as, the Colts which in turn has fed a large number of players in to the Bournemouth 1st XV. One notable success of this programme is Andy Long who was first involved with the Club from the age of four when he came along with his older sibling James. He always had a desire to play for England and did so at the junior representative levels including captaining England Under 21s. As an adult he went to Bath for the season 1996/7. However he was not able to get regular rugby and we suggested to Bath that perhaps in the meanwhile he played for us to ensure that Andy was ‘getting games’. Under this arrangement he came back for a short while over the Christmas 1996 period and played his last game for us in January 1997 when he returned to resume his professional career with Bath. He played for England against Australia the following November—a meteoric rise from Level 7 to England in just eleven months! No less than four players from Bournemouth have represented England at one level or another in the past decade. Andy, as already mentioned, Jim ‘Bob’ Jenner and Ben Gollings who played 7s their country and laterly Ollie Morgan who plays for Gloucester at the time of writing 2008/2009. In addition Andy, ‘Bob’ and Ben plus Nick Makin, have all played for Newcastle!
There was an increasing desire to introduce more competitive rugby rather than simply playing ‘friendlies’ and the so called Merit Tables were introduced for the season 1982/3 and Bournemouth were placed in the Bisley Southern Merit Table which consisted of some eight clubs who all played each other once during their otherwise usual ‘friendlies’ format season. Bournemouth won the Merit Table in 1983/1984.
It was this success that placed Bournemouth in South-West 1 (Level 5) when full-blown league rugby—the RFU English Clubs Championship—was introduced in the 1987/1988 season.
1987/8 South-West 1 11th/11 – Relegated
1988/9 South-West 2 9th/11
1989/0 South-West 2 10th/11
1990/1 South-West 2 10th/11 – Relegated
1991/2 Southern Counties 6th/11
1992/3 Southern Counties 3rd/13
1993/4 Southern Counties 1st/13 – Promoted
1994/5 South-West 2 7th/13
1995/6 South-West 2 8th/13
1996/7 South-West 2 East 10th/12
1997/8 South-West 2 East 7th/12
1998/9 South-West 2 East 12th/12 – Relegated
1999/0 SC South 8th/10
2000/1 SC South 7th/9
2001/2 SC South 3rd/10
2002/3 SC South 5th/10
2003/4 SC South 4th/9
2004/5 SC South 1st/12 - Promoted
2005/6 South-West 2 East 3rd/12
2006/7 South-West 2 East 2nd/12 - Promoted
2007/8 South-West 1 5th/12
2008/9 South-West 1
In 1989 the ground at Northbourne was sold for redevelopment and the club moved to their present ground at Chapel Gate, a ground that had been partially developed by the then Barclays International who had head office departments in a major office block in Poole. The last game at Northbourne was a friendly against Brixham on Saturday 30 September and the first game at the new ground after the move was also a friendly against Dorchester. However we had played Brixham at the end of the 1987/1988 season at Chapel Gate as cricket had taken over at Northbourne and the opportunity was taken to play at the available alternative. The first game in the league was against Banbury in SW 2 on Saturday 11 November. These first games were played on the rugby pitch used by Barclays in the outfield of the present No 2 cricket pitch. The first game on the pitch developed by the club was against Swanage & Wareham in the quarter-final of the Dorset & Wilts KO Cup on Saturday 20 January 1990. The ground was officially opened by the Rt Hon Edward Heath MP, the former prime minister on Saturday 21 April when the four major sections of the Sports Club; rugby, hockey, cricket and squash all had matches to mark the opening. The rugby club entertained three sides from Salisbury, who are our oldest recorded rivals, with the 1st XV game ending in a 13-all draw.
We celebrated our Centenary in the season 1993/4 when we had two international games plus organised by the Wooden Spoon Society which included a number of internationals. We also had a huge dinner at the Bournemouth International Centre with Gareth Chilcock and the President of the RFU Ian Beer as principal guests. We also gained promotion to South-West 2.
For the 2006/2007 season Robert Todd formerly of Gloucester and latterly Sale joined us as a coach. That November a certain friend of his Junior Paramore came to stay for a couple of nights and Toddie brought him over for a Thursday night training session and lo and behold the following August there was coach Junior Paramore coach with us at a pre-season trial at Havant. Having gained promotion into South-West 1 this coaching team instilled a belief in the players that sustained them through a torrid start to the season, losing the first seven matches, but recovering to finish a creditable fifth.
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