Blundell’s have flown flag for Devon for 150 years
Brendan Gallagher continues his series looking at rugby’s great schools
DEVON has a long and proud rugby tradition from their County Championship winning sides before World War 1 to Exeter Chiefs in modern times, but no rugby institution has flown the flag more vigorously over the centuries than Blundell’s School.
A rural rugby hotspot, Blundell’s have consistently punched well above their weight for a small one-term side and have a tradition of producing very distinctive players with larger than life personalities and lashings of panache and style.
The force of nature that was Clem Thomas would represent the former and the golden boy of English rugby, Richard Sharp, would epitomise the latter – but this is also the school that produced swashbuckling England centre Charlie Kent and hard-asnails Australia flanker David Shepherd. Even their most distinguished cricketers like Vic Marks and Hugh Morris were schoolboy rugby players of some repute.
More recently the Maunder brothers Jack and Sam – both scrum-halves like their dad Andy and both now making their way with Exeter – have spearheaded strong school XVs. Jack made his England debut in Argentina off the bench in 2017 while Sam has already captained England U20.
Powerful centre Barrie Karea is another who has attracted the attention of Rob Baxter who prides himself in keeping tabs on any outstanding schoolboy players in the region.
Karea is a particularly interesting player with that discernible Blundell’s feel of being a little different. He hails from Kiribati, the Pacific Island nation which straddles both the equator and the international date line, and lived there until age nine when his family moved to Devon. He started playing at QES Crediton and was soon honing his skills at Blundell’s in the same side as Jack Maunder.
That team from the 2017-18 season was distinctly useful. They won the Vase trophy at Rosslyn Park with two tries from Troy Sixton helping them to a 24-20 win over St Peter’s York in the final after impressive wins over Cheltenham College in the quarter-final and Stowe in the semi-final pool.
Meanwhile, with Karea outstanding, Blundell’s pushed Dulwich all the way in a memorable Champions Trophy final at Allianz Park before losing 34-29 in one of the best quality school games in recent years with both sides relishing the perfect playing surface. In the regular season there were particularly notable wins over Millfield (4515), Clifton College (47-0) and a strong Epsom College side (31-7).
All of which was highly appropriate in a season in which the school celebrated 150 years of continuous rugby, an occasion which merited a celebratory dinner attended by many prominent old boys from Sharp downwards while RFU president Chris Kelly was the guest of honour and Eddie Butler was the main guest speaker. There was plenty to talk about.
Richard Kindersley, a solid west country forward, became the first of 14 Old Blundellians to play international rugby when he won the first of his three England caps against Wales in 1883. He only played three Tests but was victorious every time, including two wins over Wales in Swansea which is never to be sniffed at.
Those who followed have been a mixed bunch. Tom Kelly and Sharp captained England, Paul Baker-Jones was capped by Wales and Clem Thomas led Wales. Charles Harper, Herbert Archer, Stanley Considine, Charles Kent and Matt Kvesic joined Kindersley and Maunder among the England caps, while Ron Rogers (1904), Archer (1908), Thomas (1955) and Sharp (1962) all toured with the Lions. In addition, Percy Holman became president of the RFU in 1952. Shepherd played for Australia and Sean McDermott for Ireland.
The two names that probably jump off the page are Thomas and Sharp and although there was a decade between their time at the school the common link was an outstanding master in charge of rugby, the lst XV coach Graham Parker who often worked in conjunction with another master, Ted Crowe.
Parker was a sporting all rounder – a rugby and cricket Blue at Cambridge where he also captained the Xl – who lost his best years to World War 2 where he saw service as a major in the Royal Army Service Corp. After returning to Britain he took up a post as geography teacher at
Blundell’s where he proved to be a notable teacher and coach, not to mention house master and in charge of the cadet corp.
The rumbustious Thomas, who admitted himself he could be a handful, worshipped at the feet of Parker and credited the tough no-nonsense Englishman as the major influence in his rugby career. He also used his Cambridge contacts to get Thomas into St John’s College when the time came.
Thomas was already playing senior rugby for Swansea in his last year at Blundell’s and under his captaincy the school enjoyed a notable unbeaten season and he went on to captain Wales Schools against France. The next time Blundell’s achieved an unbeaten season was 30 years later when one of Clem’s son, Chris, was the captain.
Parker, who starred in arguably the best Cambridge back division ever in the mid-30s, was also a huge influence with the dazzling Sharp who curiously captained the School XI and Fives side but never the rugby team. Sharp was a one off and was given free reign even if Parker, in one end of term report, did observe that Sharpe simply dismissed opponents but couldn’t expect to beat players with such ease when he graduated to senior rugby. Oh yes he could, witness arguably the finest ever individual try by an England player, against Scotland in 1963.
Somebody who did captain the School XV and a third major figure to learn at the feet of Parker was Shepherd who subsequently became one of the few Englishmen to emigrate to Australia and play for the Wallabies, making his debut against New Zealand in 1964 having toured South Africa with the Aussies the previous year. Shepherd boarded at Blundell’s and was an exceptional captain and aggressive flanker but at the age of 17 his family moved to Australia where his father became head of Unilever. Shepherd played his early senior rugby with the Harlequins club in Melbourne where he had the added distinction of being that rare creature, a Victoria State player who became a Wallaby. His love for hard rucking, physicality and confrontation perplexed many journos Down Under until it was explained he learnt his rugby at the same school at Clem Thomas. Alas, a knee injury ended his Test career prematurely.
Charlie Kent was another Blundell’s player who preferred the direct approach and made a big impact at centre. He won four Blues at Oxford, including one season as captain, before making his England debut in 1977, the same year that his scrum-half at Blundell’s Vic Marks made his England cricket debut.
In more recent years Blundell’s has spawned Worcester flanker Matt Kvesic, left. He played for England U16 and U18 while at Blundell’s and graduated to England U20. Senior caps have been hard to win but he did well enough in his four matches to date – two wins over the Pumas in Argentina and victories over Wales and Italy. He was also MOM when England beat the Crusaders in Christchurch in 2014.