RUBGY RIVALRY BY ALAN COLES


It was once said of Dartmouth that it was a town in which the spirit of discord seemed to rule. In a town torn by the Embankment controversy, charities chaos and feuding JP’s it was not surprising, therefore, in 1903 that even sporting clubs were fighting among themselves.


spirited rugby teams; in 1892 and 1899 they won the Devon Junior Cup and also went close to taking the senior trophy. However, at the start of the 20th Century the club was languishing. Finance was low; players went to neighbouring sides because they did not like the official set-up; the team lost more matches than they won. A successful club brought prestige to a town and a band of sportsmen was determined to make Dartmouth a name in the rugby hierarchy again. Most of them were annoyed that the club had fallen mainly into the hands of a ‘working class committee’ headed by Alf Palmer, landlord of the Victoria Hotel, who had transferred the headquarters from the Seale Arms opposite to his own pub. It was also discovered that members of the club who drank at the Victoria never paid subscriptions. The committee excused this by claiming that many of their players were unemployed and could not afford a fee of half-a- crown a year. A take-over group make plans to


D


strike at the annual meeting when nearly 200 people packed into a hall in an attempt to unseat the officers and committee. Nothing was said until Palmer was proposed as secretary once more, but no-one


artmouth also had a reputation for producing


seconded him. Instead the name of Rawlings Sanders was put forward; seconders were readily available but the nomination was ruled out of order by the president, Councilllor William Ditcham. Not only was Sanders ineligible because he did not belong to the club, but his proposer and seconder fell into a similar category. Then the arguments began. How could anyone claim to be a member,


the mayor and have another public get-together to try to make the peace. But the mayor happened to be John Medway, who had never favoured Ditcham, the president. Two hundred people again crammed into the meeting, which was full of minor bickering. One man who had a big say was Harry Jenks, who had promised to bring first-class fixtures back to Dartmouth and then had done little to help the club. Instead


‘It seems incredible that more than 500 supporters trudged to the ground at the top of the hill’


the take-over group protested, because no subscriptions had been received for the last year? They also pointed at Ditcham, who earlier had been elected president, although he, too, had been proposed by a non-member. The meeting broke up in uproar with no officers being elected and everyone in the dark when the electricity failed. There followed a series of strange assemblies. A few days later the take-over group held another public meeting. They drew up their list of prospective officials and sent it to the club to approve, but the committee met in secret, ignored the list and re-elected the former officers. The next move was to call in


he coached a Boys’ Brigade team; now it was Jenks who urged the meeting to form a breakaway club. When the voting was being counted Ditcham was enraged. Jenks had taken the trouble of bringing all his Boys Brigade lads along to vote. On Ditcham’s insistence another vote was taken, but this, too, was overwhelmingly in favour of establishing a second club. They called themselves Dartmouth Athletic; their ground was at the top of Jawbones. All the former rugby stars began to drift back. Bill Ellis and Langmead re-joined from Paignton; Pepperell and Carnochan left Brixham to return to the fold and the Seale Arms became their headquarters, while across the road


“The Roses Match” (1893) - William Barnes Wollen


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