The Club - Club History
| After the programme of Clubhouse improvements completed over the previous two summers, this last summer we have concentrated on general repair and maintenance work. The Youth section have looked after the Clubhouse surrounds and a small team of volunteers have generally cleaned the ground floor and re-painted the changing rooms and stairwells, de-scaled the shower walls and converted the old equipment room back to a changing room and general maintenance work has been carried out throughout the Clubhouse. We are now working to raise funds for a replacement for our flat roof, parts of which are 36 years old and small leaks are beginning to appear. On the ‘Mead’ we have four Senior pitches, five Junior pitches and four Mini grids. We currently run four Senior Saturday sides, and 300+ children are catered for on Sundays with thriving, well organised Mini and Junior sections and the return of a Colts XV last season after an absence of nine years and a semi regular Vets XV (The Bodgers) gives continuity of rugby from the Under sixes to the Over sixties and helps secure the playing future of the Club. Together with Wasps, Wycombe District Council and the local University, we continue to be involved in a Tag Rugby initiative into local non-rugby playing schools which has contributed to our ever expanding mini/Youth section. We are grateful for the support we receive from sponsors and advertisers, our members & not forgetting Wycombe District Council. At senior level, we maintained by the skin of our teeth our position in South West League Two East by winning the last game of the campaign away against Frome having enjoyed various fortunes against the other clubs played. This season, with a proactive rugby committee, a progressive coaching team and a great spirit of togetherness, both in the First XV squad and the Club generally, we look to hold and improve our position in the League and hopefully win the Bucks Cup at the end of this season. Over the years, we have enjoyed good runs in the former John Player Cup , going out in the third round to such clubs as Rosslyn Park, Leicester, Gloucester, Moseley and Wasps. We also enjoy touring having visited Italy last season hosted by Trento and also playing Valpollicella, the USA four times(once including the Bahamas), Spain, the Netherlands twenty one times (including playing Arnhem on each visit), the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, the Isle of Man twice, Guernsey twice, and also toured Wales, the West Country, and Scotland and Newcastle several times. We look to tour to Arnhem and Pickwick Players at the end of this season and plans are being put in motion for an extended tour to Chile at the end of the following season. The Minis regularly visit BSB Brussels and host them on return visits.. We are proud to record the following players who have passed through our ranks and on to gain International honours: J E Woodward - English International 1952/56 R E Syrett -English International 1957/60 R C Ashby - English International 1965/66 G J Keith - Scottish International 1967/68 N Beal - English International 1996/9 and also a British Lion 1997 Now registered both as an Industrial and Provident Society and a Community Amateur Sports Club and attaining Seal of Approval accreditation in September 2006, we face the future with great expectation and we look forward to meeting friends old and new both on and off the field of play, |
| Our local paper, The Bucks Free Press, records that although it was not until after the First World War that rugby football gained any degree of popularity in Buckinghamshire, several clubs were established in the area towards the end of the 19th. Century, often in the face of considerable local prejudice and official opposition. When an exploratory meeting was held in High Wycombe in 1891, the few zealots in attendance faced one major problem - where to play rugby. According to The Bucks Free Press, the nearest clubs in existence at that time were at Windsor, Taplow, Reading, Oxford and Thame. Bye-laws governing the use of the Rye Mead in High Wycombe prohibited the playing of rugby football. Despite this initial problem, a club was set up and eventually, permission was obtained from High Wycombe Cricket Club for the use of their ground during the winter months in exchange for half of the cash taken at matches. In November 1891, the local bye-laws were changed to allow rugby on Rye Mead and the following April, High Wycombe’s first rugby club reported a very satisfactory inaugural season.. Through the good auspices of former President, Jim Rivett, the Club acquired an octagonal Victorian table on which is a plaque that records that the table was presented by High Wycombe Rugby Club on the marriage of Mr. I.A.Howell, the Town Clerk, to Miss A.E.Priest on 18th.October 1893. We know rugby continued to be played in the town during the 1890’s, a fixture being recorded in our local paper between Wycombe Rugby Club and Oxford Military College ( later to become The Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham) on 18th.November 1893. Rugby continued in the town until the outbreak of the First World War. Rugby continued to be played by the local Royal Grammar School but town rugby did not formally resume until 12th. January 1929 when the present Club was founded as the Old Wycombiensians by a group of old boys from The Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe. Matches were played on a pitch loaned by the School and afterwards, we entertained at the Flint public house. With the outbreak of war again in 1939, the Club disbanded for the duration of hostilities and reformed again in May 1945 at the end of the war in Europe. We continued to use facilities at the School and, due to a shortage of both cars and petrol, all travel to away games was by public transport. By the end of 1947, with the School expanding, we were forced to look for facilities elsewhere which we eventually found at Redford’s Sports Ground, Totteridge. We had the use of two pitches and, still without a clubhouse, we entertained after matches at the nearby Black Boy public house, Terriers. Eventually, we made approaches to our Local Council and we were offered a plot of land adjacent to Kingsmead to build on and the use of land on the ‘Mead’ which provided us with two pitches. The first Clubhouse was built over a period of four months by Club members out of a dismantled, pre-fabricated ex National Fire Service building and was opened on 26th.November 1949. This building was extended in 1953 and again in 1960 to accommodate the expansion of the Cub to five regular Saturday sides. During this period, with increasing numbers of non RGS old boy members, including players from both the local (in those days) Bomber Command Headquarters and the American air base, we changed our name first to Wycombiensians and finally, in 1962, we became High Wycombe. With continued expansion, the present two storey Clubhouse was built in 1971 and, with two subsequent extensions in 1978 and 1982, has reached its present size. |