History
Club History
Few rugby teams have a history to compare with the unique origin of Old Colfeians’ RFC.
Place yourself back in time for a moment, back around 360 years. The English Civil War ended in 1646 and it was a time of major upheaval for the country. King Charles I was executed in 1649 and Britain was ruled by Parliament as a Commonwealth, though real power lay with Cromwell and The New Model Army. In 1652, one year before Cromwell seized total power from Parliament, the pioneering Reverend Abraham Colfe, Vicar of Lewisham, founded Colfe’s School. In this time of great change and Puritanism, when social conditions for the majority were abysmal, his aim was to provide a good quality education for local children whose parents could not afford to send them to a fee-paying school.
A few years later – nearly two and a half centuries to be more precise - the first meeting to form a club for former pupils was held on 28 March 1885 and, dating from 1901, there is a letter advocating the formation of a Rugby Club. It was the change from soccer to rugby football at the school in 1925 that finally gave the impetus to the birth of OCRFC. The Old Colfeians’ Rugby Football Club was officially formed at a meeting on 22 June 1928.
For the next sixty years Old Colfeians enjoyed “non-competitive” matches against local rivals, including all the major hospitals and old boys’ sides who were flourishing during that period. We enjoyed a local reputation for our flowing, open style of play, and particularly excelled in seven-a-side tournaments.
The late eighties became steadily more competitive, and, when a single league structure for all the clubs in England was introduced in 1987, we were initially placed in London 3 South East, still playing many of our long-standing local rivals. In 1989 we won promotion to London 2 South, and were promoted again as champions in 1991 to London Division One. In 1992 and 1994 we won the Kent Cup. In 1999/2000, still as an amateur and ‘closed’ old boys’ side, we dramatically won promotion to the National Leagues.
To remain in National League Three South for three seasons until 2003/4, particularly given the well-funded semi-professionalism among some of the opposition, was a fantastic achievement by all the players and support staff. Unfortunately, however, we were unable to remain competitive at that level, and two relegations then saw us back in London Two South. As a result, we have made some significant changes to the way the Club is run.
First, we have become an open club rather than restrict ourselves primarily to former students of Colfe’s School. This has given us the impetus to strengthen our ties with the local community and widen our playing membership. We have, however, maintained our close ties with the School, and still around half of our players are ex-pupils.
Second, we set up a Minis section, which has now been extended to encompass a full Junior and Colts section, and this season will be the first when we can provide rugby for youngsters of all ages, from 6 to 17 years old. We look forward to many of these youngsters coming through into the senior section in the coming years.
Third, with the lease on our ground ending in January 2010, we have been working with Colfe’s School to safeguard our future at Horn Park, and as we go to press we are hopeful that this can be achieved through the School purchasing the freehold from the Crown.
On the playing field, we are also looking forward. We already run four senior sides, including a very successful Vets team, and we aspire to increase this to five. And, with a new coaching and playing committee set-up introduced during the summer, we are looking to the 1st team competing at the top of the new London Division 1 South.
Away from the more serious league action, touring has for many years been an inherent part of the Club's activities. Beyond many short tours to various European destinations, the first long-haul tour was to California in 1980. It was then some years until a group of us went along with Cardiff High School Old Boys to Colorado in 1987, but after that we had truly got the bug. We toured eastern Canada and Vermont in the USA in 1989, and then swiftly followed this with trips to Zimbabwe in 1991 and then Argentina and Brazil in 1994. In 1997 we toured South Africa, playing four games and watching the British & Irish Lions win their series against the Springboks.
In July 2001 we followed The Lions again, and a squad of over 30 players went to Australia, where we won an international 10-a-side tournament in Melbourne and then four 15-a-side matches around the country, finishing in Darwin, to remain unbeaten.
Shorter end-of-season tours since then have seen us gracing the playing fields and bars of Padua in Italy, Edinburgh, Biarritz in France and, in 2009, Albufeira in Portugal’s Algarve. We are delighted that most of the Minis and Juniors sides have also taken up touring, in best Colfeian tradition. Plans are already afoot for further tours at the end of this season.
Wherever those tours take us, and wherever our sides play in their domestic fixtures, Old Colfeians can be counted upon to display the sportsmanship and good fellowship unique to those who play with funny shaped balls for enjoyment.
Author: Webmaster