Hartlepool YMCA Rugby team posing with a ball on which is written 1919-20 in their club colours of dark blue and light blue hoops. A Church Official with a clerical collar is seated in the photo. The same man along with the man standing behind him and J. Snowden (on the extreme right) are also in a photo in the same location with the YMCA Billiard Team. Another official mentioned in Press reports is G Cambridge.
A typical YMCA side from this season is R Watson; F S Perryman, R H Harrison, J M Easton, F G Broadbent; E Johnson, F T Hoy, O W Simmonds, G Moore, A B Hindmarch, G H Meynell, E Brownless, W D Marshall, H Jones, H J Proctor, many of them may be on this photograph.
The Rugby club part of the YMCA, eventually amalgamated with Seaman’s Institute but the new club folded in 1928.
Research shows that the Y.M.C.A. occupied premises at 64, High Street and that the Rev J.A.Bedworth, the vicar at St Marks United Methodist Chapel, later the Morison Hall, was chaplain to the YMCA. It is likely that he is the person who appears in the clerical collar both in this picture and others from the YMCA. The building in the background is currently not known, it may possibly be the YMCA in High Street which housed substantial recreatioal facilties
YMCA appear from time to time as fielding a Rugby side as far back as the 1880s.
(Collection id q02419).
Date (of image) : 1920
Donor : Hartlepool Museum Service
Location
The advent of the First World War saw the playing of Rugby Football officially suspended, but in the Hartlepool area, Rugby did carry on through the war on a casual basis.
Minor Club football firmly revived in 1920 with the formation of the Hartlepool & District Rugby Union under the Chairmanship of Magnus Irvin (1874-1952) and Robin Pyman supported by Dr W Scott-Gibb.
The years following this revival saw the zenith of the Pyman League and within a few years, 25 sides were competing in two Divisions, at one point the local Press speculated that the League should expand to include Middlesbrough and Redcar 2nd XVs to create a 3 Division structure.However, by 1926 only 3 clubs entered for Division 1, feeling that the Competition of the Leagues was “too hot” for them according to the “Mail” reports. In addition, breaches of the Rules regarding Players Transfers (a problem for Pre-War days also!), and a gift or honorarium to the Secretary saw the Competition Suspended by the County Union, and since 1928/29 season is has been a knockout Competition.
All of this competitive Rugby plus the Lormor Cup, Gibb Shield, and West Shield along with all of the County Cup Competitions and a chronic shortage of pitches. Though dominated by clubs based on the Heugh, the pitch situation was eased by players travelling all the way to West Hartlepool Rec at Rift House for many games!
A glance at the Clubs and their “H.Qs” between Throston Bridge and the Fish Quay Gates shows was a hive of Rugby the Heugh must have been in the “Roaring Twenties”. Red Rose operated from the Union in High Street and later the Lawrenson in Northgate. YMCA was in Southgate, Seaman’s Mission on Town Wall with United Services in Mary Street. Boys Brigade and Old Boys Institute were both housed in the Old Mill with Brotherhood in Northgate Methodists and St Mary’s in Darlington Street. The Brunswick was the home of Heortensians and of course Rovers teams operated out of their Memorial HQ in Moor Terrace
More detail »