COLLEGIANS RUGBY FOOTBALL CLUB 1890— 1990 by PIERRE PAUL FRY Published by Collegians Rugby Football Club, Belfast, and printed by Nelson & Knox (N.I.) Ltd. BELFAST: 1989 it FOREWORD One does not proceed very far into the research on Collegians Rugby Football Club without realising the depth and the degree to which Collegians owes its survival and existence to the generosity and benevolence of Charles Seaver Neill. Collegians is synomonous with Charlie Neill. Appropriately, the present pavilion at Deramore Park is a tangible memorial to him. It was my privilege to have known him and to have played rugby at Collegians when he was very much the dominating personality. When you met him you saw either the obvious gentleman with old world charm and courtesy or a man with commanding presence, he was over six feet tall and straight in stature, forbidding, even autocratic, but whichever mood he was in you may be sure that underneath his exterior was a most sympathetic and understanding nature. In conversation when he was invariably extolling the virtues of Collegians, he spoke with a distinct, pulsating and passionate voice. Charlie Neill was the great Collegian. I wish to thank many people and sources from which I have had assistance in the compilation of this work. My first acknowledgement must be made to the Belfast Newsletter, the Belfast Telegraph, the Ireland's Saturday Night, the Northern Whig, the Linenhall Library and the Central Library for permission to use their files for reports and results of matches. My thanks are also due to the Methodist College, Belfast for access to its archives, mainly for the records of the early years. For comments on players, particularly in the eighteen years when I was abroad, my grateful thanks to Barry Bridges, Ewart Bell, Gordon Dudgeon, Ronnie Gilliland, Wes Kettyle, Billy Lavery, Victor McQuoid, David Pollock and Ken Reid for their enlightening remarks. My thanks also to George Ferrett, John Capper and Alan McMaster for their comments on some junior players, to Brian Brotherson for his list of referees and to Alec Gilmour for his information on William McFadzean, V.C. For the supply of photographs my gratitude to the Methodist College for the use of certain photographs which appeared in the "Book of M.C.B" (1939); to the Collegians RFC for more recent photographs and to photographs personally provided by Gordon Dudgeon, George Ferrett, Dawson McConkey, Michael McLean, Alan McMaster, Cyril Sinclair and Angus Sloan. Finally, my grateful and sincere thanks to Grahame Capper for his invaluable and willing assistance at all times, for his patience and perseverance, and for being the keystone between the Collegians Rugby Football Committee and myself. August 1989 PAUL FRY FESTIVAL OF SPORT W. S. H. Lavery (President, Collegians Club) declaring the extension of the Pavilion facilities open at the Festival of Sport to celebrate the extension, and the reopening of the Playing Fields at Deramore Park on 26th August, 1972. J. W. Walker, A. S. Worrall, F. C. Jones, H. G. Crawford, W. S. H. Lavery. COLLEGIANS RFC IN THE BEGINNING On the evening of Monday 6 October 1890, a few ex-pupils of the Methodist College, Belfast and several members of the College staff met in a classroom of the College. As a result of this meeting the Collegians Rugby Football Club was formed. The club was to be named ’’Methodist Collegians” and would be composed of present masters and former pupils. Its colour would be a blue jersey, blue knickers and blue stockings with a small red star on the jersey. Without a ground of their own, it was agreed that home matches should be played on the College ground, Eglantine, which was presumably, at the rear of the College and near where Eglantine Avenue is today. The officials elected that evening were Henry S McIntosh, headmaster of the College, as President; Charles K Pooler, classics master, captain; Samuel I Graham, another classics master, honorary secretary; and John B McCutcheon, an old boy of the College and brother of that legendary mathematics teacher, Jane McCutcheon, as honorary treasurer. Henry S McIntosh was no mere figurehead as President. He was a real live wire, one dedicated to the progress of the club, a fanatic, and if one could be, more entranced with the game of rugby football than even Davy Wells could be. Within a few weeks of this foundation meeting the first match was played against the North of Ireland at Ormeau. This match, which took place on 25 October, was a very tough assignment, a first match against the premier club in the province and already with twenty-one years experience behind it. At the end of quite a struggle in which much hacking, mauling and charging took place, the North of Ireland won by three tries to nothing. The Methodist Collegians were far from disgraced and quite surprised their more experienced opponents by holding them to a scoreless second half. The Methodist Collegian team on this memorable occasion was: Gibson (back), M Macdonald, R S Moffatt and G Wheeler (half-backs); J M Whitaker and Spiller (quarter-backs); C K Pooler (Captain), D P Mercier, L Mercier, J H Douglas, Stewart, J Workman, G F Graham, W Thompson and H Fisher (forwards). The change to eight forwards and seven backs did not take place until the 189^-95 season. Before this first season finished, matches had also been played against Albion, Queen's College, Armagh, Windsor 2nd, Lurgan, R.B.A. Institution, Queen’s College 2nd and Albion 2nd. The club's first victory was recorded on 6 December 1890 at Armagh when the home team was beaten by three tries to one, most of the second half being played in semi-darkness. Also, the team reached the final of the Junior Cup but lost to Albion 2nd by two tries to nothing. During this first season what was happening in the world outside? Queen Victoria was still on the throne with just over ten years still to reign; Lord Salisbury was Conservative prime minister; Charles Stewart Parnell because of his liaison with Kitty O'Shea was disgraced; the British founded Salisbury in Mashonaland (now Zimbabwe); the Forth Bridge was completed; Conan Doyle wrote his first Sherlock Holmes story for the "Strand Magazine"; Toulouse-Lautrec began painting Les Filles de Jolie in the Moulin Rouge, but Shaw and Wilde had still to write their first play. Also, apart from such far off things like the radio and television, there was no motor car, no cinema, no x-ray and no Labour party. The club progressed with remarkable consistency in the first fifteen years. The side reached the final of the Junior Cup in the next four years, winning in 1892 when Windsor F.C. was beaten by a goal to nil, and in 189*+ when Derry was beaten by thirteen points. These initial Junior Cup successes were followed by three successive victories in 1901, 1902, and 1903t apart from being beaten finalists in 1900 and 190*1. In the 1901 final, Collegians 2nd beat Fortwilliam 2nd rather easily by two goals and three tries to nil; North of Ireland 2nd were beaten by a try to nil in 1902, and Queen's College 2nd’s by a similar score in 1903* la the 1902 final when the game seemed to be heading for a draw, Brooke Purdon "picking up, fairly threaded his way through the North back division, and scored far out, a very nice piece of individual play". The 1903 final was somewhat uninteresting, with both sides keeping it tight, until the last twenty minutes when Collegians realised that something more daring must be done if victory was to be achieved. After a fairly sustained attack the only try of the match came when Pinion darted for the line, transferred quickly to McCann, who gave to Macaw who forced himself over the line. These junior sides contained future internationals in Brooke Purdon, Stanley Pinion and Charlie Thompson. After the 1903 success it was to be another fifty-eight years before Collegians won the Junior Cup again. Meanwhile, the 1st XV had also been playing with considerable credit. The final of the Senior Cup was reached in 189*1, 1895 and 1896 when the North of Ireland was successful on each occasion. The first Collegian success came with the winning of the Charity Cup in 1901 when Albion were beaten by 23 points to nil, followed by a second victory in the same competition in 1902 when Malone were beaten by six points to nil. The Senior League was won under the captaincy of the veteran Charlie Neill in 1903; and all this euphoria culminating when the Senior Cup was won for the first time in 1906. In their first Senior Cup final played against the North of Ireland at Ormeau in 189*1, the Methodist Collegians, after an exceptionally courageous and tenacious effort, only lost by a goal and two tries to a goal and a penalty goal. North scored their three tries in the first half when the Collegians reply was a penalty goal kicked by Frank Neill. The second half was all Collegians, and North were kept in their own half for most of the time. Collegians played with dash and spirit, but despite all their efforts gained only one score when Willie Clements burst over for a try which Frank Neill converted. In this match Charlie Neill played in the centre of three half-backs. In the 1895 Senior Cup final Collegians lost to the North of Ireland by a solitary try. The press reported on that match that "Collegians always play to a finish with such an amount of dash and go that it is never safe to look upon them as beaten until "no-side" has been called".