PMs, chefs, and a whole lot of history in between
We kick off our new Club of the Week series with Streatham and Croydon who have been celebrating their 150th anniversary with a Surrey 4 title this season, a club that has not only seemingly been around forever but, like many, has had to reinvent itself and reboot constantly.
That journey has taken them from the early Victorian days when like many pop up clubs there were a series of amalgamations to the halcyon days when they boasted an enviable “first class” fixture list with the likes of London Irish, Saracens, Met Police, Richmond and many others.
At the height of these salad days they fielded 12 teams every weekend – nine seniors and three Colts – but that obviously with the arrival of the modern post professional times when they slipped down the Leagues. They continue however to enjoy their rugby bouncing between Surrey 3 and Surrey 4 while fulfilling their new mission as a superb community based club with three senior sides and strong mini, junior and women’s sections. ITV even filmed most of their opening Six Nations montage this season using the club’s junior teams.
Streatham and Croydon have been there, done it and got the T-shirt. And survived. They own their own splendid ground – grandstand and all – and in 159 Brigstock Road, which sounds like the title of a Meave Binchey novel, they boast one of the most distinctive and welcoming clubhouses on the land, a converted suburban house close to the ground. Decades of tired and emotional visiting players have staggered out of its front door late on Saturday night to wonder exactly where they were and how they got there.
The club enjoyed a golden period at the start of the 20th century with three players of particular note. Walter Butcher, a transplanted Cumbrian from Carlisle, won seven England caps while for a couple of seasons another star performer alongside him at half-back was Patrick Hancock who was selected for the 1903 Lions in South Africa playing in all three Tests.
Hancock is listed as having joined Richmond when he won his three England caps the following season although confusingly he is seen alongside Butcher in the Streatham team photograph
for the 1903-4 season. In fairness it wasn’t unknown for players to appear for more than one club during this era. Little else is known about Hancock other than his great niece was TV’s first celebrity chef Fanny Craddock!
At the start of the 20th century there was a third star man at Streatham, stalwart forward John Sharland who
although not earning England hours was picked for the 1904 Lions trip to Australia and New Zealand and played in seven of the 17 games on a notably successful tour which resulted in just two defeats.
Streatham and Croydon have always seemed to attract distinctive individuals. An unlikely but stalwart former club member was former labour Prime Minister James Callaghan who spent the 1939-40 season playing lock for the club before applying to join the Royal Navy reserve and seeing action overseas.
Callaghan at the time had no political aspirations and was serving as a Union official for the Inland Revenue Staff Federation and although not continuing his playing career after the War kept in touch with the club and attended both their 100th and 125th anniversary dinners, speaking at the former.
A picture and tribute to him hangs on the wall at Brigstock Road and to this day he remains the only politician to hold the four great offices of State – Home Secretary, Chancellor, Foreign Secretary and of course Prime Minister.
Streatham and
Croydon must have some strange magnetic pull to politicians climbing the greasy pole because the then Mayor Of London Boris Johnson spent a memorable day with the club in 2009 opening an extension to their stand and participating in some pre-season fitness training. No seriously, I am not telling porkies, there is documentary evidence aplenty.
Yet another notable with a strong association with the club is former RFU secretary Dudley Wood who after winning three Blues at Oxford proved a stalwart player when his business career permitted, captaining the side for two seasons.
Another one of the more exotic members
of the club was future Australia hooker Peter Horton, the Wallaby who featured most prominently at the the infamous Battle of Ballymore in 1975 when a pumped up Aussie pack piled into England directly from the kick off with flying fists and boots and Mike Burton got sent off for having the temerity to retaliate.
Horton was London born and bred – Brixton – and a promising player at Streatham and Croydon in the middle and late 1960s when he was completing his studies at St Luke’s University and playing county rugby for Surrey who often staged matches at Frant Road. He was being spoken of off as a future England player when he emigrated to Australia in 1969 at the age of 24 and eventually won the first of 19 Aussie caps in 1974 when he made his debut against New Zealand
After retiring he became a noted educator in both Singapore and Australia and was one of the main authors of the official IOC report on the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Other “names” who have played for club sides at various times include the former England lock Maurice Colclough – who played for an extraordinary number of clubs during his nomadic life – and TV Chef Anthony WorrallThompson who spent three years playing front row in the lower teams before chefing took over.