19c_rugby_ball

The History of Dings Crusaders Rugby Football Club

Over 100 years old, Dings Crusaders has enjoyed an illustrious history.

The Start

An old scrum or a punch up? Hard to say.

The "Dings" was a notorious slum area in Bristol between Temple Meads and Barton Hill (it provided many of the most enthusiastic rioters in the Bristol riots of 1831). The Shaftesbury Crusade was a Christian Mission in the Dings, and encouraged sporting activities. In 1897 H W Rudge founded and established the Dings Crusaders as a part of the Dings Boys Club, one of the activities of the Shaftesbury Crusade, he was the original driving force behind the club and acted as secretary for about 30 years and then went on to be President.

As well as our own club Dings Crusaders RFC there was also another club called Dings RFC that was founded in 1895, and to confuse things further we both played in the same colours - blue and white.

Whilst Dings RFC played their games on the field at St Phillips Marsh called the Yearlings just across the Avon from Arnos Castle. Dings Crusaders played far away on the Downs. Ultimately Dings Crusaders survived and Dings did not. It is possible that the two clubs joined forces. Of the sixteen clubs that formed the original Combination in 1901. Dings Crusaders and Saracens are the only clubs to have run continually and are still playing today.

The first recorded club game was played on October 1st 1898 against Elton St Michael's which we lost 5-15; the next fixture with St Mary's against whom we have played every season since then, and who were the only team to draw with them when they were unbeaten during the season before the last war.

At Home on the Downs

For many years a home game for Dings Crusaders was on the Downs. On weekends, residents of the High Street in Clifton (a short narrow road leading up to the Downs only a stones throw from the top of Blackboy Hill) made a shilling or two by helping homeless rugby teams such as ourselves.

For years, Dings Crusaders (and, of course their opponents) changed at a Mrs Lowe's house. So did Dings Crusaders 2nd XV. So, later on, did Cotham Park, although they soon moved to a nearby pub, the Porters Stores (better known, perhaps, as the Port of Call and still today a popular oasis for rugby men). St Mary's at first had no dressing room and presumably changed in the open air before they made an arrangement with Mrs Kibby in the High Street. When Broad Plain began playing on The Downs they used Mrs Dando's house, at number twelve. "Before the game," says the club history, "the poles and flags had to be collected from Mr Lowe's yard in the High Street, carried on to the Downs and fixed up. After the game poles and flags were brought back to Mr Lowe's yard, then a bath in one galvanised bath. First there got a bath, but the remainder - not too good."

In the Combination's first season (1901-2) Dings won the Cup in Division I, with Dings Crusaders 1st and 2nd XVs winning Division II and III :

Division I Division II Division III
Dings Dings Crusaders Dings Crusaders II
Bristol North Dings II Fairfield OB
Knowle Horfield Brookland
Stapleton Road Elton St. Michael's Brigton House School
Saracens Eversley II St. Agnes III
Eversley Cotham Ashley Down OB
St. Agnes Saracens
St. Agnes II

Next year the line-up was Bristol North, Avonmouth and Dings Crusaders 2nds; the year after that, St Agnes, Horfield and Bristol South OB. Then it was Dings again, with Shaftesbury and Bishopston winning the lower divisions, and in the last year for which we have records (1905-6) Dings remained champions, while Bishopston came up to win Division II and Bishopston Wesleyan Division III.

It was at about this time that the club can lay claim to its first international. "Sunny Jim" or "Darkie" James Peters played for the Dings and Knowle before going on to play to Bristol and then England against Scotland in 1906. He also played in the following match against France, a game in which he scored a try. It was suggested that he was left out of England's next game against South Africa because of his colour. He regained his England place the following season, scoring a try against Scotland and gained five cups in all.

Early Statistics

At the top club level (say Blackheath or the Harlequins versus Newport or Cardiff) it was rare to see more than half a dozen points on the board, and there were plenty of nil-nil draws. The same held true for Combination clubs. I say this with some confidence because the points record of Dings Crusaders 1st XV has survived, covering almost every year from 1898-9 onwards. It makes sobering reading.

In six seasons between 1898-9 and 1903-4 (figures for 1902-3 are missing) Dings Crusaders 1st XV scored an average of slightly over six points per game and conceded an average of slightly under three. Thus a typical result was a 6-3 win.

There is another gap in the records until 1907-8. The figures for the seven season between 1907-8 and 1913-14 give an average per game of 4.5 pints for and 4.7 against, which means that a typical result was a 4-4 or 5-5 draw. (A drop goal was then worth 4 points and a try 3 points.) One especially barren season was 1908-9, when a total of only 101 points was scored by both sides in 25 games (Dings Crusaders won 10, lost 11, drew 4. Points for, 57; against, 44). Now, I know that a scoreless draw can still be thoroughly enjoyable; but an average grand total of four points per match all season does not suggest sparkling rugby. If you strike an average for the thirteen years where figures are available (1898 to 1904 and 1907 to 1914), what emerges typically is a victory for Dings Crusaders by about 6-4. And of course what goes for our club can fairly be said to apply to the rest, since Dings Crusaders' fixtures list included most the Combination clubs.

The Twenties

Dings Crusaders were now well established within the Bristol Combination and when the Combination played Jimmy Oates' XV at Radnor Road (the Bristol ground) on 17 April 1920 in aid of the Lord Major's Hospital Fund, the team had players from Saracens, St Mary's, Imperial, Bishopston, Dings Crusaders, Depot Gloucester Regiment, Knowle, Barton Hill and St Nicholas. The Combination led 8-3 at half-time but lost 8-20.) Old Redcliffians and Broad Plain had begun again, and the cup competition was revived - as a knock-out contest, not a system of leagues. In 1919-20 Saracens beat Bishopston in one semi-final, and Dings needed to replay to get past St Mary's in the other. In the final there was no score in normal time so they played extra time and Dings got the winning try. Cup rugby was very hard - too hard, many people thought, and soon the competition was scrapped.

However, despite success through the twenties the name of Dings Crusaders nearly got killed off in 1929. The record of the Combination meeting held on 25 September 1929 reads:

'Dings Crus.O.B.. This club was stated to be wishing to change its name to Avonside R.F.C., running under new management....'

Dings Crusaders did not, of course, change its name, so the whole incident remains a small mystery. In any case it was completely overshadowed by a much more cheerful affair. In 1929 Walter Pearce, President of the Combination and its inspiration for nearly thirty years, was elected President of the Rugby Football Union. The Combination joined the Bristol and Clifton clubs and gave an enormous dinner in his honour. Not a bad way to end the decade.

The Thirties

Some teams had little more than a paddock. A scout club, 55th Bristol Rovers RFC, listed their ground as 'above Cleve Mill Tea Gardens, Frenchay'. They had no changing facilities, and the field was grazed by cows during the week. The teams changed on the touchline and washed in a stream after the match. St Barnabas - who had, after all, being going since 1894 - were a bit more civilised. They played on a muddy stretch of Thingwall Park, Upper Eastville, where the dressing rooms were a disused pigsty with a very low roof and no water. At half-time a touchjudge always vanished, leaving the ref to manage that line. The touchjudge had gone to fetch two buckets of scalding hot water, one for each team to wash in; it was usually tepid by the time they got to it.

By contrast, Dings Crusaders and St Agnes had regular fixtures with Clifton College, sending two or even three teams. Nobody missed that match: the baths were luxurious and the tea was a slap-up affair - which is why it was always an away game.

Post War

The Combination couldn't wait for Germany to surrender. On 27 March 1945 - five weeks before VE day - the Emergency Committee met and applied its mind to the problems of restarting the game: which clubs would be ready, where would they play, how could kit be obtained? The upshot was an Extraordinary General Meeting on 21 June 1945. Twenty one clubs (including Bristol and Clifton) sent delegates and four more sent apologies for absence; in addition the Referees' Society was represented. Not a bad turn-out after five years of total war.

The twenty one clubs were Bishopston, Bristol, BAC, Bristol Gas Co., Bristol Saracens, Broad Plain, Clifton, Dings Crusaders, George's Brewery, Horfield Athletic, Imperial, National Fire Service, Old Cathedralians, Old Cothamians, Old Redcliffians, St Andrew's Church, St Brendan's, St Mary's OB, St Nicholas, Whitehall OB and Thrissell Engineering. During the first post-war season six more clubs were revived: Ashley Down OB, Avonmouth, Cleve, Cotham Park, Keynsham and Old Colstonians.

Between the end of the war and 1948 Dings played temporarily at the Thrissell Engineering sports ground at Downend.

The move to Lockleaze was brought about by Jack Steadman who bought the ground in order that the Shaftesbury Church could branch out and establish themselves in the area. The Church established a Sunday School and Boy's Brigade but the establishment of a Church never actually got off the ground - as a minister could not be found to run it. In the event the rugby club took on more and more responsibility and flourished to what we are today.

Club Honours 1970 - 2006

 

[ top of page ]