Rectory Field, Blackheath RFC, 1883-2016
The tale of Blackheath FC is as almost as old as of the that of rugby itself. Of eleven teams that met in 1863 to codify the game of ‘football’, they are the only one still in existence - their tagline is ‘where club rugby started’. With that moniker comes a ground with as much history as Twickenham, Murrayfield, or any other international stadium. This is the story of Rectory Field.
Located to the east of Greenwich Park, the rugged fields were first used by Blackheath FC in 1871, who used a space opposite the Prince of Wales pub which was used as a changing facility and clubhouse for many years. The club had been formed of old boys from Blackheath Proprietary School, who had been playing football to the Rugby School rules since 1856. Initially, they played as the Old Blackheathens, but due to lack of numbers, they soon opened their membership to the public, an unprecedented move at the time. As they came up against various institutions with closed membership, they became known as ‘the Club’, which is still used by Blackheath’s supporters to this day.
Following the first meeting of the Rugby Football Union in 1871, the popularity of the sport began to grow, and matches would attract crowds in their hundreds and thousands. Blackheath were involved in organising the first ever international match, when the leading 20 Scottish clubs issued a challenge for a 20-a-side game versus England. It was the club who proudly accepted, and Frederick Stokes, a Blackheath club member, became the first official captain of the English national team.
The initial grounds used by Blackheath were vacated after a match with Richmond in 1877 was abandoned due to a pitch invasion. They moved from one part of the heath to another. A pitch that became known as Richardson’s Field was their temporary home and would also host the first match between England and Wales.
Blackheath only stayed at Richardson’s Field until 1882, at which point it was purchased for commercial use. East of the field was a five-acre plot that would eventually become Rectory Field. The club first played there in 1883, against Guy’s Hospital, another significant name in the formative years of the sport.
A year after their first match at the ground, they were joined by Mordern Cricket Club. In 1885, the Blackheath Cricket, Football and Lawn Tennis Company was inaugurated, and Rectory Field’s multipurpose existence was brought into life. The first premier cricket game at the ground was played between Kent and Surrey in 1887. Kent would become regulars there up until 1971.
The field hosted its first international match at the beginning of 1886, the same year the main pavilion was built, when England and Wales met there as part of the Home Nations Championship, a thrilling encounter no doubt which finished 1-1 with England scoring two tries - a try only granting the opportunity to score a single point by kicking the ball through the posts in those days. Between then and the eventual establishment of England’s national ground at Twickenham in 1910, all the home nations played there as well as Australia and the New Zealand Maoris, and a touring side from Frankfurt visited in 1894.
All sport was stopped for the First World War, and sadly fifty of Blackheath’s club members lost their lives. Rugby resumed in 1919, a year in which the Club won 23 out of 25 matches and had eight individuals playing for the various home nations.
In 1921, the company that had been founded by the various sporting bodies using Rectory Field were able to purchase the land and the acres adjacent to it. At this point, the stand which had suffered fire damage during the WW1 was rebuilt to accommodate up to 6,000 spectators. The decade was also graced with visits from touring international sides such as USA, who visited in 1924 as a warmup to the Olympic Games held in Paris that year, but that game was played at Old Merchant Taylor’s School rather than Rectory Field. Two years later, Blackheath came up against the formidable Maori All Blacks who won by a narrow margin, the final score being 9-5.
An unlikely merge with Richmond came after the Second World War, as Rectory Field had been left unavailable by the damage done during those years. The ground had been commandeered as an anti-aircraft site to defend the city. Doubts crept in as to whether the ground would ever be fit for use again, but with assistance from the RFU, the fields were returned to a respectable condition and the Club made their way back to Rectory Field in 1946, joined by London Irish who would also play there until 1958.
During the decades that preceded the move to professionalism, the Club were up there as one of the best. They had the highest number of internationally capped players in the amateur era. In the 1995/96 season, the game made its transition to a new era, of which John Gallagher, a man born to Irish parents who had moved to New Zealand and won the World Cup with the All Blacks in 1987, was the first club captain.
The next venture for Blackheath came in the spring of 1998, when they announced a joining of forces with the Auckland Blues to produce a club that would operate all months of the year. It was but a pipedream however, as other clubs in the English Premiership voiced their concerns about the move. The New Zealand business consortium supporting it backed out, leaving Blackheath in a precarious financial position. They failed to meet the minimum funding required to qualify for the Premiership in 1999, which put an end to any hopes held of competing in the premier division of the English game.
By this point, the Club had split into two branches: the professional setup of the 1st XV and Blackheath FC. The decision was made that they needed to reunite so they could continue playing at the highest level possible within their financial means. By 2007, more than 20 teams were represented by Blackheath FC and the Rectory Field grounds were not big enough for everyone. To accommodate, they acquired the ground at Well Hall, Eltham, on a 25-year lease, and by 2016 Blackheath had entirely moved out of their original ground.
Rectory Field is still a thriving hub for Blackheath Sports Club where rugby, cricket, tennis and squash are all played on a weekly basis, with Askean RFC, who play in the Kent 4 league, having called it home since 2021. As the sporting life of the ground lives on, so do the memories of it as one of the most important places in the development of rugby.
