Bristol Times takes a nostagic look back at the history of Clifton Rugby Football Club

Clifton Rugby Club play at Twickenham for the first time ever on Saturday – and as their history stretches back to 1872, you can imagine the buzz there is around the Cribbs Causeway ground.

Their big day is the final of the EDF Energy Intermediate Cup against Hartpury College, from just up the M5 near Gloucester.

It’s rugby played at a decent level – but way back, Clifton had the highest ambitions.

They were widely seen as the best team outside London, and aimed to be even better than that.

They started in 1872 at the King’s Arms on Blackboy Hill – and their credentials were impressive.

Most of the founders were masters or ex-pupils of Clifton College, whose first headmaster, John Percival, was from Rugby School and had brought several of his old colleagues with him.

It had been only a dozen or so years earlier, in 1859, that William Webb Ellis had caused a sensation by breaking the school’s rules and running with the ball in his hands.

A good number of the Clifton founders would have known Webb, and would have been aware that two years earlier, in 1870, the boys of Rugby School produced the first written rules for the sport.

They would also have had a tale or two to tell about their old headmaster, Dr Thomas Arnold, whose zest for his school’s version of football, as part of a balanced education, was being felt at public schools across the country.

The Clifton club’s early side, playing at Coldharbour Lane (now Coldharbour Road), regularly defeated the likes of Bath, Cardiff, Gloucester and Newport, and among its several internationals and Oxbridge blues was James Alfred Bevan, the first captain of Wales.

Bristol Rugby Club’s launch in 1888 led some players and supporters to jump ship, and when the first game between the clubs was played in the following year, the local press built it up as a great grudge match.

Clifton had the far more experienced team, led by England international Hiatt Cowles Baker, but Bristol ran out the winners and soon established themselves as the city’s top club; that said, a friendly bond now exists between the former foes.

In 1893 Clifton moved to Buffalo Bill’s Field, part of the Horfield Court Farm estate.

The Wild West hero had brought his circus there only a couple of years earlier, and a similar jamboree was expected when the rivals clashed there for the first time in the September of that year.

Clifton hired five policemen and four stewards to control the crowd, which turned out to be a rather manageable 4,000.

They also took the precaution of bolstering their side with various Cambridge blues and England internationals, but Bristol again triumphed.

Horfield was one of eleven grounds the club has called home over the years, and in 1896, it was on the move again, to Westbury.

Buffalo Bill’s Field became allotments – but its exciting name lived on, and rugby returned there in 1921, when a well-wisher gave it to Bristol Rugby Club for the Memorial Ground (now Stadium).

Clifton moved to Cribbs Causeway in 1976, after 50 years at Eastfield Road, and a massive step forward since then has been the establishment of a junior section in 1977.

Four club members got together for the first session, in the long grass of the 1st XV goal area on a wet Sunday morning.

Six boys turned up that first week, sixteen the next – and today it is one

of the largest junior sections in the West, with nearly 300 players over 12 age groups.

Boys who have passed through the junior ranks at Clifton and gone on to represent their country are Alex Brown (England), Joe Ewens, Duncan Hayward and Sean Marsden (all England u21), Ross Blake (Scotland u21), Rhys Oakley (Wales) and Jonathan Pritchard (Wales A).

Many more have played, or are playing, at the highest club level.

And coming right up to date, as well as the 1st XV topping the South West 1 League and being in two cup finals this season, the under-15s and under- 16s won the Combination Cup and the under-11s were runners-up in the Land Rover Premiership Cup.

Whatever happens on Saturday, there are still exciting times ahead for Clifton Rugby Club.

If you’d like to know more,the history of Clifton Rugby Club website can be found at: www.cliftonrfchistory.co.uk