1970s Overview

Extract from Club History Article

It was in January 1974 that Richard Lewis our past President, blessed with two strapping sons started the Mini Rugby Section and the rest of course is history. Our most famous product of the ‘Minis’ is Alex ‘Beetle’ King now of England, and Wasps, not to mention Adam Bidwell, Cambridge Blue, Saracens and London Welsh, Altan Osdamir, England Under 21, Harlequins and Bristol, Ben Hampson , England under 21, Saracens and London Irish, and most recently Jordan Turner-Hall and Noah Cato – England U20’s. The casualty of this new Sunday morning activity was the selection Committee; seven and eight year olds noisily charging around the clubhouse, was viewed with distaste by CP, but he would have been proud of achievements that the Mini and Youth Sections have chalked up over the subsequent years.

One other notable achievement of the 1970s occurred in 1976 when the Club moved from the old Scout Hut to what was grandly termed the “New Pavilion” and is now (2018) referred to as the Old Clubhouse. Sadly, after the move to the recreation ground the Council took their eye off the ball and the old clubhouse was vandalised and eventually demolished.

My spy from those days tells me that this was the catalyst for many of the new sub-committees wih some eager members wanting to serve “beyond the call”…

Acknowledgement

Once again, my thanks to the estate of Graham Gordon for the handbooks and ephemera. Others have also kindly provided items for this decade.

Teams

The table below shows the teams that competed on behalf of the Club during the 70s. The Colts that started off in 1965-1966 (but only lasted until 1966-1967) reappeared in 1977-1978.

1972-1973 saw the start of a team called the Cadets that lasted until 1975-1976 and there was a one year special called the Pioneers that exitesd solely in 1977-1978

Team Name	Gender	Founded	Club Level	Last Seen
1st XV	Men	1952-1953	1
A XV	Men	1952-1953	2
Yeomen XV	Men	1963-1964	3
Beefeaters XV	Men	1967-1968	4
B XV	Men	1968-1969	5
Cadets	Men	1972-1973	?	1975-1976
Colts	Men	1977-1978	?
Pioneers	Men	1977-1978	?	1977-1978

1970’s Alumni

Player	Hove Dates	County Honours	Divisional Honours	Professional Honours	National Honours	Where Now
Eric Bignell	1979-1982	Unknown	Unknown	Old Brockleians Rosslyn Park Mid 197s Blackheath 1977-1979 Sutton and Epsom 1983-º984	England Trials 1978-1979	Died 2007 aged 54

Governance

The table below shows the Committees and Sub-committees that formed the Club Governance during the 1970s. This seemed to be a bit of an experimental decade. Firstly, the House and Wine split into three and we had the Bar Committee, the House Committee and the Catering Committee. This experiment continued for a couple of years but then all those three merged and became known as the Clubhouse Administration Committee.

The Schools Committee was reformed in 1971-1972 and that lasted until 1978-1979 when it ceased to operate. As we know now – this was the start of Junior Rugby with the inception of Mini rugby at Hove Rugby Club and so this whole area was about to get remodelled.

Two other committees breathed their first and last breaths during the decade – the Development Committee and the Coaching Committee

Committee	Date Founded	Didn't Sit	Last Operated	Became	Comments / Role
General	Original				Main Committee
Finance & General Purpose	Original
House & Wine	Original		1974-1975	Bar House Catering
Club House Administration	1976-1977
Bar	1974-1975		1975-1976	Club House Administration
House	1975-1976		1975-1976	Club House Administration
Catering	1975-1976		1977-1978	Club House Administration
Social	Original
Selection	Original				All Senior Teams
Fixtures	Original		1962-1963
Schools	1956-1957	1967-1968 to 1970-1971	1978-1979
Development	1972-1973		1975-1976
Coaching	1972-1973		1978-1979

Points

Please note that in 1972 the points awarded for a try increased by 1 point from 3 points to 4 points. The points awarded for a conversion remained at 2 points and the points awarded for both a penalty goal and a drop goal remained at 3 points.

Jimmy Gould Poems

I’m really not sure what to write here. Perhaps just best to say the booklet below was provided by Mark Harrison and was written by Jimmy Gould.

Allegations that he was under the influence of mind bending substances will need to be discussed with our legal representatives…

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