Canterbury RFC
Prague suffered more than most during the Second World War. Invaded and occupied by the Nazis, it was bombed by Allied forces in an attempt to release Hitler’s stranglehold. But, as the war drew to a close, the RAF began to drop Red Cross supplies. Amid the medical and food parcels was one unique package of a rugby ball and four distinct black and amber jerseys. In less than a year, the finders had formed a rugby club and, 70 or so years later, the club made a pilgrimage to the original owners of those jerseys: Canterbury RFC.
If Chaucer thought he was putting Canterbury on the map when he filled his parchment with the tales of 24 eclectic pilgrims travelling to the east Kent city, he needn’t have bothered. Because Canterbury is home to the richest vein of storytelling you’ll find anywhere. Perhaps Chaucer was even namechecking it just to get in on the action. Although, if you’re going to write something that actually shapes a whole language, then The Canterbury Tales does have a ring to it that would be missing had he chose, say, Croydon for his muse.
Even before Chaucer’s work had been published – in 1476 for those not paying attention at school – Canterbury had already filled several chapters of English history.
Augustine had rocked up from Rome in the late 500s, built a cathedral, become the first Archbishop of Canterbury and effectively founded the English church. Danish Vikings had successfully laid siege to it, murdering the archbishop and burning the cathedral. Then, with varying periods of time in between, came William the Conqueror (no battle, just submission and a nice new motte-and-bailey castle); the murder of Thomas Becket; the capture of Canterbury Castle by the French Prince Louis; Black Death (which wiped out 70 per cent of its population); the Reformation; and, admittedly, skipping a good few hundred years, 10,000 or so bombs being dropped from the skies by the Nazis.
So when you hear about how the city’s rugby club unwittingly inspired the birth of Praga Praha rugby club during the Second World War (something it only discovered by chance when the side visited earlier this year and there was a shirt clash), you shouldn’t really be surprised.
With Howe Barracks – home to both the Queen’s Regiment and the Royal Regiment of Scotland – on its doorstep, not to mention a geographical position directly facing most of England’s historical enemies, the army has always played a role in the life of Canterbury RFC. “Lots of our boys came from the army,” explains David Haigh, our guide when we visit for the National One clash against Kent rivals Blackheath. “Our first-ever international was Mattie Stewart [the Scotland and Northampton Saints prop] and he was here because his dad was posted here, so there’s always been a strong military connection.”
David takes us to the hospitality tent where 200 or so sponsors are having their traditional pre-match meal, the blazers of Blackheath are in full flow, addressing their hosts. Our guide disappears into the chaos of the tent and emerges with Steve Uglow, the club’s historian and former president, who picks up the military theme. “During the war, we kept going, and we’re very proud of that, because this was very much frontline [of the war],” he says. “We still got together once a week, and played against army sides. Back then we also had Thursday afternoon games because of early closing and one of our captains, Nathan Cohen, had got his rowing boat towed over to Dunkirk, filled it up with soldiers, and brought them back – a real hero. Sadly he then became a pilot, and was killed on his first bombing mission. We lost people at Monte Cassino, El Alamein and other places too.
“Canterbury was always a military town until the last ten years [when Howe was closed down],” continues Steve. “We can point to quite a lot of Fijians that have come down to play here over the years – always enjoyable to watch.”
The club, Steve tells us, was formed in 1929. “There was a group of young men from the old tannery, and, sat round in a bar, they thought there should be a rugby club. There was one in Folkestone, one in Thanet, one in Herne Bay, one in Dover. Canterbury had got to have one.
“In October that year we played our first game at Thanet and got thumped. We then got thumped for the next 80 years by them but we got our own back recently.”
This is where the narrative begins to change. Canterbury weren’t traditionally one of the big Kent clubs. The county’s union is split into Metropolitan [34 clubs near London] and Rural [35 everywhere else], and while historically Blackheath and Westcombe Park have been the Kent big guns, even in the greener parts of the county, Canterbury have never ruled the roost. “We won the Kent Cup in 1975 [for the first time] and perhaps that gave us delusions of grandeur,” says Steve. “We then had a fixture list that we didn’t have the playing strength for and we struggled.
“I think the worse period was the 1980s and 1990s when we were the worst club in east Kent, everyone beat us and, just after the Leagues started, we were one point away from going to Kent Three, the lowest of the low. But since then we’ve been going slowly upwards.
“In the noughties we won the Kent Cup four times in a row [starting in 2005 – 30 years after their first] and we have slowly progressed with seven or eight promotions to the current position we’re in.”
That position is in the third tier of English rugby, as one of three Kent clubs and the only one from the rural division. “I’ve always thought that kind of South East London area is London,” says Steve, alluding to the location of the other two National One clubs, Blackheath and Old Elthamians. “I kowtow to Blackheath in many ways, they’ve been very good in Kent terms, they’ve represented the county and kept it going, but for me Kent starts this side of the Medway.”
The club is run by volunteers, two part-time administrators, and has a semi-professional squad paid on a ‘match-fee structure’ as well as offers of help to find employment or places of study if needed.
Andy Pratt, who played for the club from minis through to the first team, is director of rugby and oversaw the promotion from National Two last year, a division in which they’d become pretty much part of the furniture. “Back in the late 1980s we were in Kent Two, quite a few levels down from where we are now,” he says. “It’s not been a meteoric rise like some with cash suddenly pumped in, this was built on layer upon layer.
“We had one relegation over a 20-year period, and that was in 2012 [to National Three South],” continues Andy. “But apart from that one year, we’ve been in National Two since 2006, so that’s 12-13 years.”
They may have become accustomed to National Two life, but that wasn’t the case when they first arrived. “I was part of the team that first got up and even getting to that level, it was like ‘oh, my God, what have we done? National League rugby!’.”
Their eventual exit from the division and into the top 40 clubs of English rugby, came via the play-offs, having beaten another ambitious Kent side, Tonbridge Juddians, to second spot. That earned them a one-off play-off at home, and they duly beat Chester from National Two North, 19-10.
“Just to get into the play-offs, and have a big day out for the club either here or up north would’ve been brilliant for the club,” says Andy. “We’ve got such a big league, we’ve got no time for cup competitions or anything like that, so to have that big day out was brilliant. But to get the result too... It was a special thing for me and everyone came to watch.”
“There were 2,000 people here,” cuts in David.
“We had 500 last week [against Old Elthamians] and that was pretty good for a league game,” adds Andy, to give perspective.
The task ahead is even bigger than the one they’ve just faced. “National One and Two [both have sixteen teams] are the biggest divisions in the whole pyramid,” explains Andy. “Even compared to the Premiership and Championship, and all those below us are smaller, so it’s fifteen fixtures, home and away. These guys are semi-professional so they still have jobs and you’ve got all the other pressures of travel, training and looking after themselves, so it’s tough.
“You just have to get very good at looking out for guys who are on the verge of injury, or not having a great time at home or at work. You have to talk about it, to manage them, and bear all of these things in mind.”
Although the players get some renumeration, there’s no more training time. “We get the same amount of time as a club four or five divisions lower, so we have to make it really efficient,” says Andy. “It’s just Tuesday and Thursday nights here, although some of the students on scholarships at Christchurch [university], do extra work there. Some of the boys do gym sessions together as well, but it’s basically just two nights.”
Kent has the sixth biggest population of any of the English counties (1.8m) and yet on the rugby front, it’s always relied heavily on Blackheath for glory. The last County Championship final it contested was a 1986 defeat to Warwickshire, and its three wins came in 1897, 1904 and 1927, the latter taking place two years before Canterbury were even formed.
This year though, Kent, who now play in the top division of the County Championship, finished third, taking two victories on the road, and losing narrowly at home to eventual champions Cornwall. Representation in the England Counties squad is growing too (the union reported seven players were invited to tour Georgia) and, in addition to the existing National One trio, Tonbridge Juddians are hot favourites to join them next term, providing that is nobody goes down. “It’s going to be hard,” admits Andy. “The main thing we need is a bit of luck with injuries. If we get that we’ve got a good chance of staying up.”
The squad he’s going to do it with, unlike some of their rivals, is largely homegrown. “The majority of our lads, the core of our side, are east Kent boys, we wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t,” says Andy. “This is National One rugby though and I don’t think east Kent can fully support a side entirely on its own, so we have to bring in a few others from outside but a lot of those are now settled. Take Dan Smart for example, he’s a New Zealand lad, he signed for us in 2014 and been here ever since. He’s also got a degree to show for his time here, and maybe some memories too.”
To highlight the point, David takes us through today’s match day squad, ticking all the Kent boys. There are ticks next to two or three starting backs, almost the entire pack and half of the bench. “We want to know they [the non-Kent players] bring something extra,” says Andy. “There’s no point bringing in a centre when there’s somebody down the road who can do the same job.
“A lot of clubs [in this division] that are close to Championship/Premiership teams geographically, will get players that are farmed out from the professional sides to develop or those that are returning from injury but we don’t really get that because we’re just so far removed from everyone else.
“I wouldn’t really like to parachute a guy in for two or three weeks anyway,” admits Andy. “We try and create our own environment and I think that would be detrimental to it. I understand why other clubs do it, but it’s not for us.”
David also puts an ‘I’ next to three names on the team sheet, highlighting the Irish influence in the club. There’s a fourth too, Sean Stapleton, the captain from the promotion campaign but out injured today, so also hauled from hospitality to talk to us. “I lived in Australia for five or six years, Perth, working and stuff, and then moved back to Bury St Edmunds,” says Sean, giving his back story. “I actually thought it was Bury in Manchester, where I had a few mates, but it turned out it was in Suffolk, so that was a shock to the system, but it was a good club.
“I had a couple of mates who were here and had moved down last year, and they said I’d love it here, so I moved down last year, and it was really good season.
“National Two is so attritional,” continues Sean, “you have a lot of old heads who are coming to the end of their careers but really know what they’re about, they box clever, and then you have young guys in the [Premiership] academies so it’s a weird dynamic. It’s a good league and deserves more credit, especially teams like Rams [who won the division], Henley and Tonbridge too. National One for me is a bit unknown, but I’m sure they don’t know what to expect of us either.
“There are so many good rugby players here and at other clubs too. The promotion was good for Canterbury – I really think the club is a bit of a sleeping giant.”
The first English hop garden is said to have been grown in Canterbury roughly 500 years ago, giving it a solid historical claim to being the original home of beer (from an ingredients-based perspective that is). At its peak, Kent would supply more than a third of English hops with more than 46,000 acres of hops spread across its green and pleasant land, requiring a force of 80,000 people at harvest time. And today, with the Kentish sun shining, the all-Kent crowd are doing their best to respect their county’s heritage.
Beer, population, wealth and plenty of green spaces, it’s still a conundrum that Kent doesn’t have a big player in the world of sport. Well, aside from one. “The only sport that Kent cares about is one-day cricket,” says Steve, who has left the tent to enjoy the game. “They’ll pull them in from everywhere.”
Gillingham are the only football club in the national leagues, and, at their peak when they reached the Championship, rumours were abound that the owner might make a move into rugby. “It was said that Paul Scally [the Gillingham owner], at one point, was vaguely interested in creating a professional Medway-based rugby club,” recalls Steve. “We do have Canterbury hockey club in the premier league though, and they’re doing pretty well but, I won’t say one man and his dog, but let’s say there’s always room at the bar.”
Rugby seems to be the best hope for professional spectator sport in rural Kent. “If we can consolidate here for a couple of seasons, we can then learn to grow and make plans for the future,” says Steve. “Kent is a rich area and it deserves a proper Championship rugby club and that is not beyond the boundaries. People say, ‘oh we don’t want to go up’, but you always want to go up, what’s the point otherwise? What’s the worst thing that can happen? You go down. And you’ll have learnt.
“I would love to see a big Championship side here. If clubs like Jersey can do it, we certainly can.”
The club is on the city outskirts, but it provides a perfect snapshot of Kent. Bordered by just-harvested wheat fields, that were once no doubt full of hops, it has the cathedral within eyeshot, peaking up in the near distance from the valley of the town, and you even have to pass Chaucer Hospital to get to it.
As the game kicks off, there’s aircraft overhead, but fortunately it’s just a microlight, with the only military aircraft consigned to the billboards of a club sponsor.
Blackheath look a cut above from the beginning, and, although getting an early try, the home side struggle to settle, and go in at the break trailing 5-22.
One of the most passionate on the sidelines is club chairman Giles Hilton.
Canterbury born and bred, Giles played for the club at youth level, before becoming a sponsor, and then taking the chair in 2003. “That was my first stint,” he says, “and now I’m into my third season of my third stint. We’ve had a lot to achieve on and off the park, and we’ve slowly but surely done that over the last ten to fifteen years.
“We’ve continued to run five mens’ sides every Saturday which is huge,” he says, “and nationally we’re unique because we run the men’s, women’s, minis and youth, touch and also have a wheelchair section. One of the previous chairmen took that on and set that up, and the side is doing incredibly well with promotions back-to-back for three years on the trot and now play in division one. They’re coached by Steve Brown, the Great Britain Paralympic wheelchair captain – it’s a great set-up.”
Like many, he believes Kent deserves a big sporting side. “There were rumours a few years ago of Wasps looking at a site near Dartford,” he muses. “But it needs a very wealthy person to start it, because money talks.”
While Canterbury’s ground is modest, with a stand holding perhaps a hundred people next to the clubhouse, one thing that is noticeable are the sponsor boards – there are so many of them, they’ve had to get a second tier in. And the programme carries so many ads, it could be saving the local print industry single-handedly.
Getting an awful lot of small, local businesses to buy a small slice of Canterbury RFC action has been how Giles has helped ensure the club aren’t reliant on one wallet. Although, they have benefited from their title sponsor showing more faith than most. “I think we’re fairly unique in that our main sponsor, Marine Travel, signed a ten-year contract with us,” says Giles, “but they’re local and they just want to be involved.”
A former player, Frank Davis, joins Giles in their regular spot on the corner of the field. He’s played for both clubs on the pitch and knows that Canterbury are making a difference to Kent rugby. “Blackheath with the history it’s got, you can’t buy that, they’ve been a massive part of Kent rugby for many years,” he says. “In Kent, the pinnacle in your rugby club career was always to play for Blackheath so it’s going take a bit longer for that to change, but they’ve got more Londoners than Kent boys now.
“Andy Pratt is going to make sure we can become a brand in Kent, that people want to come and play for us rather than make the journey to Blackheath.”
As Frank continues to tell us about the ups and downs of Kent rugby, an elderly fan cuts in. “Good comment last week, I thought it was fair,” he says to Frank, presumably referring to a post-match review of the previous week’s fixture, “and against a side run by a cheque book too,” continues the fan, referring to the third of the National One Kent sides.
Bill has been coming to Canterbury for 63 years. “Dicky Ovenden introduced me to rugby in October 1956, on this pitch, but it wasn’t like this,” says Bill, now talking to Rugby. “We used to meet at the Saracens Head which doesn’t exist anymore. You’d get cards through the post if you were selected, and if you got a phone call you knew there was a problem.
“We are now in a different league though and we haven’t got greedy by relying on one sponsor for lots of money, we’ve got lots of little sponsors and that’s what you need. Frank will tell you that…”
Frank doesn’t say anything, but Giles looks over. “I’m doing a bit of press for you Giles,” says Bill. “Giles is great, the organisation is better and this pitch is better too, when Frank played on it, it was awful, it flooded in the corner.
“It would be nice to think we could get one more level, but this might be our optimum. You know when you’re playing Blackheath you’ve got to a good level.
“That play-off last year was something, we had about 2,500 here and about 440 at the lunch before. Tom Shanklin and David Flatman were there, but Steve Brown gave a very good speech and had them eating out of the palm of his hand – he may be Countryfile [Steve also presents the show] but he’s Canterbury.”
“Jack Green is here today,” chips in Giles, referring to the Great Britain Olympic hurdler, “he watches all the time and trains them too.
“Greeny!” yells Giles to the row of fans 50 yards away.
On the pitch, Canterbury mount a fightback, scoring and converting a brace of tries within eight minutes of the restart to narrow the deficit to just three points.
The Olympic sprinter arrives at our increasingly popular corner of the pitch. Despite Jack training himself six times a week, and coaching other athletes every day, he also fits in sessions with the Canterbury team. “I played rugby as a kid before athletics took over,” he says. “I trained and lived in Canterbury so I gravitated towards them about six years ago, they’ve got a very good team now.
“How much I do with the side varies. I work with some individuals regularly on speed, and sometimes I help on game day too with performance warm-ups – I just try and bring a bit of the Olympics side of things to rugby.
“There’s a lot of talent down here,” continues Jack, switching theme. “And there’s a lot more than is being seen right now, and that’s started to get identified through this club doing well. Canterbury is doing its best to make east Kent the sporting hub rather than London boroughs.”
The more London-like Blackheath are now back in front, they’ve taken their try tally to six and have eased into a 34-17 lead.
Whatever the score today, the potential in Canterbury is huge. With their current ground only on lease, Giles has already been having talks with local developers looking at the concept of a sporting hub – to also include football and cricket – just south of Canterbury.
As we finish talking, Canterbury give the crowd a decent finale, scoring two tries to take them within a point of their county rivals. It’s too late though, and the game finishes 33-34. It may be a defeat, but it’s a narrow one against a far more experienced side. Giles insists this season is just about survival. Whether they achieve that, or not, he knows the club and county has huge potential. “Kent is going to develop,” he says, “if you look at what’s proposed in housing, the development and the rise of the population, I see no reason why we shouldn’t be suggesting, if we can get through the next couple of years, we can push on to the Championship.
“We made National One when I turned 60 in our 90th year as a club, if we can get to the Championship by the time I’m 70, then we’ll be doing pretty well.”
Story by Alex Mead
Pictures by Ben McDade
This extract was taken from issue 8 of Rugby Journal
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