Earl is latest in long line of Tonbridge Test stars
Brendan Gallagher continues his series looking at rugby’s great schools
TONBRIDGE are rightly hailed as one of English cricket’s great nurseries having produced countless England internationals and respected county players, ranging from the Cowdreys, to Zak Crawley and indeed the current head of English cricket Ed Smith, but their contribution to English rugby has been far from negligible.
It spans from the earliest times right through to modern days with their NatWest Champions trophy winning team of 2016 featuring none other than Ben Earl who has quickly made a name for himself at senior level. Other recent players who pursued professional careers include flanker Luke Wallace and speedsters Ben Ransom and James Short, who both enjoyed spells at Saracens before moving elsewhere.
Back in the dawn of rugby history, Old Tonbridgian Sir John Luscombe, later a chairman at Lloyds, represented England in the very first international rugby match, against Scotland at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh. Luscombe’s brother Francis, another old boy of the school, played in the second international – the return match between England and Scotland – and although they never played in tandem for England the brothers did join forces with another early England player and old Tonbrdigian James Brody to form the hugely influential Gipsies club, an early power in the land.
Five of the original club committee were Tonbridge players. In 1871 the club was one of the founding members who formed the RFU at the Pall Mall restaurant although the club was very much a boom and bust affair and had disbanded by 1880.
The rumbustious Johnny Hammond was another larger than life figure who learned his rugby at the school and Cambridge University but only really came to prominence late in his career when, at the age of 31 – when most players of the era were retired and earning a living – he toured South Africa with what we now call the Lions although they were termed Great Britain at the time.
Hammond’s strength and endurance up front was greatly appreciated and he played in all three Tests in the Lions’ 3-0 series win. Indeed, although surplus to requirements for England, he was then asked to tour again five years later when he played in two of the three Tests. The Lions lost that series 1-0 with two of the games being drawn.
South Africa and Hammond was clearly a match made in heaven and in 1903 he completed a hat-trick of tours down there, this time as the manager to Mark Morrison’s team. Joining him on tour that year was another Tonbridge forward moulded in his image, William Cave, who gave a good account of himself in the three Tests. Cave’s one England appearance didn’t go quite so well, being part of the team thrashed 25-0 by Wales – seven tries to nil – in 1905. This was England’s biggest losing margin in the first 100 years of their history!
Two high profile Tonbridge stars leading into World War 1 were Charles “Cherry” Pillman, a tearaway flanker whose film star good looks made him one of the most high profile players of his era, and his old Tonbridge scrum-half Anthony Henniker-Gotley. They played in six Tests together between 1910-11 before Henniker-Gotley lost his place.
Both toured with the Lions in 1910 but not together. Pillman went on the main tour to South Africa where he played in two of the three Tests, including a famous win at Port Elizabeth while HennikerGotley went on the “B” tour to Argentina.
Pillman’s career kicked on dramatically after he returned from South Africa, becoming a fixture in the England team and one of the key men in their 1913 and 1914 Grand Slams. Aged 24 when War broke out, he had three or four good seasons ahead of him and legendary status was probably around the corner – instead, he plunged into hostilities and was awarded the MC while serving with the Dragoon guards.
Soon after the Great War Tonbridge produced one of the most noted schoolboy half-back combinations in the game in T E S Francis and A T Young who went up to Cambridge together in 1922.
They were paired up as first year undergraduates immediately and starred in a 21-8 win over Oxford at Cambridge with Young scoring one of the tries but found the going a little tougher in the next two Varsity matches against probably the best ever Dark Blues team, losing 21-14 and 11-6. Francis though enjoyed a glorious swansong, staying on for an extra year and moving to centre where his creativity in midfield heralded a 33-3, eight tries to one, triumph over the old enemy.
The Tonbridge conveyor belt has struggled to reach the heights of those earlier years but there have been excellent players nonetheless. David Marques was an outstanding schoolboy lock and soon made his impact with England, contributing to their 1957 Grand Slam and touring New Zealand and Australia with the 1959 Lions. At the end of his playing career he was also recruited as a grinder for Great Britain’s America’s Cup challenger Sovereign.
Centre/wing Tom May was also a standout at Tonbridge and a regular in the exceptional England schools team of 1997 although he decided to put exams first that summer and opted out of their historic tour of Australia where the likes of Jonny Wilkinson and Mike Tindall made their names.
The mid-noughties were absolutely vintage years for Tonbridge, winning 42 games on the hoof between 2004 and 2007 on their demanding southern circuit. The great shame of that period was that the Daily Mail Merit Table wasn’t up and running as the school would surely have finished top of the pile on a number of occasions.
The great run began on
September 18, 2004 with an unspectacular 10-0 victory over RGS Guildford which offered no clues as to the glories ahead and finally came to an end, with something of a bump, on October 6, 2007 with a 39-12 defeat at Epsom.
Tonbridge, with thoughts often turning to cricket in the early spring, are not particularly noted Sevens specialists but that doesn’t mean they haven’t enjoyed the occasional spectacular success, not least when they walked off with the Festival tournament at Rosslyn Park in 2010. When you have a good group it can sometimes gel very quickly in the heat of battle.
That was a hard-earned but impressive Tonbridge win, emerging unbeaten from a pool that included Hurstpierpoint, St John’s College, Durham and Corfe’s Hill before really going to work on Day 2. Bedford were dealt with 28-17 before they scraped past favourites Oakham 14-12 in the quarterfinals. With that cliffhanger out of the way they stormed past Monmouth 33-14 in the semifinal and then beat the other highly fancied side, Wellington College, 24-10 in the final.
That triumph inspired an enjoyable purple patch at Rosslyn Park. The following season their U16 side won the Colts tournament – beating Dulwich 19-5 in the final – and predictably that year group challenged for honours over the next two years at U18 level. To their frustration they couldn’t quite pull off another title but they were heavily involved in the sharp end of the second day.
In 2012 they reached the semi-finals where they were bested by a talented Bryanston and the following year they went one better and reached the final where a super slick Wellington awaited, the perennial Sevens masters running out 33-7 winner.
All this built up a good momentum and camaraderie in the school’s rugby sides which found its full expression a couple of years later with their memorable victory in the Champions trophy at Allianz Park in 2016, the knockout fifteens tournament for which the top 32 single term schools in the country compete.
Tries by skipper George Head and Oliver Ward helped seal the 17-10 win over old rivals Bedford in the final with prop Blaze Mott striking a blow for the front row union by walking off with the MOM award. It was quality all the way that year, beating Hampton in the first round, Millfield in Round 2, Eton in the quarter-finals and Oakham in the semi-finals.