Arthur Mellows (1892-1948) was the driving force behind Peterborough Rugby Club. He was also mayor of Peterborough, during which time he was responsible for the establishment of the Lido outdoor swimming pool and was heavily involved in the expansion of education, with the secondary school in Glinton named after him. His wife Margaret, who played at the Wimbledon tennis championships on several occasions, was awarded the MBE for her work with the Women’s Voluntary Services during the Second World War and became deputy mayor after the untimely death of her husband, in a motoring accident.
There had been rugby played in Peterborough during the mid 19th century, but that was long gone by the turn of the century. During 1922 and 1923, Mellows gathered together people he knew to form an invitation rugby side to play a series of matches – two against King’s School and two against Stamford – to raise money for charity. Many of them were fellow members of the legal profession, although they did also include Leo Price who played for Leicester and Harlequins and was capped four times by England. Another player involved was Graham Doggart, later to play soccer for England (once) and to become chairman of the Football Association..
Following the success of those matches, Peterborough Rugby Club was launched on 25 February 1924, when city councillor Archie Farrow hosted a meeting of like-minded individuals, in his home, which approved a set of rules for a new club and elected a committee. At the time Peterborough Rugby Club was founded, there was no NHS, no fridges, no television, let alone internet, and only one car between every 1,500 people. Peterborough was in Northamptonshire, the city's hospital was still in the building that is now the museum and weekly markets were held in what is now called Cathedral Square where the Guildhall housed the town council. The likes of Orton Longueville and Werrington were villages, well outside the city, whose population was around 35,500, just 16% of today’s figure..
The first match was played on 11 October 1924, with King’s School beaten 39-3. In the early years, there were separate Thursday and Saturday teams, with players only rarely turning out for both.
To start with, the club played on the Eastfield Road Showground, now the site of Peterborough Regional College, where there were no changing rooms and no bar. Players would have to come back to a hotel, just around the corner from where WH Smith now stands, to have a bath and meal after each game..
Club rugby’s popularity peaked in the 1970s when Peterborough Rugby Club fielded five, sometimes even six, senior teams every Saturday. In 1975, the club moved from the Eastfield Road Showground to a new home in Fengate, built on the site of the old municipal tip. Players were advised to have tetanus jabs before playing there, because of the risk of rusty old rubbish rising to the surface..
Children only started to play at the club after the move, when the Northborough Mini Rugby Group was brought under the umbrella of PRUFC. It took until 1995 for the club to have its first ladies’ team. Everything changed with the introduction of professionalism and league rugby in the 1990s. Some would say for the better of the sport, others to its detriment. Worcester Warriors were once in the same league as PRUFC, on their way up to the Premiership and ultimate collapse.
Peterborough Rugby Club have been East Midlands champions four times, firstly under the captaincy of Selwyn Goss in 1978 and then again in 1985, 1989 and 2010. Both the senior men’s and ladies teams have won league titles, with the men lifting the Hunts & Peterborough Cup on 21 occasions and the Peterborough Telegraph Cup three times.
The club has had its fair share of noteworthy players, none more so than Ron Jacobs, capped 29 times by England and later president of the RFU. Mike Berridge and Harry Wells also went on to play for England. Jon Phillips and Malcolm Foulkes-Arnold played hundreds of top-class matches, for Northampton Saints and Leicester Tigers respectively and Ray Williams went on to be Tournament Director of the Rugby World Cup in Wales in 1991.
In all, 24 people who played for Peterborough have been capped at senior level, either before their time with club, during or after. As well as England and Scotland, there have been international appearances for Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Malawi, the USA and Zimbabwe. Mickey Grant was capped four times by Scotland and played over 150 games for Harlequins’ first XV before work brought him to Peterborough and he joined the club. Tim Smith had beaten the mighty New Zealand All Blacks while playing for the Midlands Counties West side in the early 1970s before he moved to Peterborough. Maurice Colclough, capped 25 times by England, once made a guest appearance for the fourth team and Paul Simpson, with three England caps to his credit, scored a couple of tries for the club’s Extra Fourths in the early 1990s.
Members of PRUFC’s ‘band of brothers’ not only shed blood, sweat and tears for the club, but also for king and country. More than a dozen paid the ultimate sacrifice to allow us to enjoy the freedoms that we take for granted. William Victor Hart was a real hero, the sort who inspired many a tale of gallantry in Boy’s Own magazine. After being awarded the Military Cross for ‘conspicuous gallantry’ at Dunkirk in 1940, he found himself isolated behind enemy lines in Tunisia two years later. By now promoted to the rank of major, he decided that he and his 30 men would make themselves as big a nuisance to the Germans as possible. They attacked supply wagons, halted a military convoy by shooting at its tyres, sowed mines on the road in front of tanks and ambushed a lorry load of paratroopers, always disappearing before they could be captured. They lived on bread and eggs that they traded for their clothing with local Arabs, and then had to walk a hundred miles in searing heat to get back to safety.
Other former club players include a chief constable, an England hockey international, a ground-breaking scientist, the father-in-law of a soccer Premier League club's chairman, the sports editor of the local newspaper and a man who took over the running of author Rudyard Kipling's country estate. A judge, and a man who he sentenced, even played alongside each other in the same team.
Numerous internationals have played against the club, along with an Olympic gold sprint medallist, a British heavyweight boxing champion, several cricket internationals and even a Lord of the Realm.
Opposition teams have included Bedford, Coventry, Harlequins, Leicester Tigers, London Scottish, Northampton Saints, Saracens and Worcester, all of which have spent time in England’s Premiership.
World rugby legends such as Zinzan Brooke, David Campese, Dickie Jeeps and Nolli Waterman have all come to the club to coach. The Webb Ellis (World Cup) trophy has been in the clubhouse.
It has been a truly remarkable history.
