A Brief History of Rugby in Peterborough
This is a first draft and subject to updates and revisions.
The Peterborough archives show that rugby was played in town as early as the 1880's, playing in Nicholl's Oval, probably on the same field the club is using now.
In 1899 a visiting rugby team from Ireland on a 6 game tour of eastern Canada played a Peterborough team, beating the home side by a score of 14 to 3, this was the start of a tradition of hosting foreign teams that continues to this day.
Of course rugby as played then is not much different than rugby as played today, though rugby in North America evolved into what is now known as American or Canadian football. This is apparent if you watch the TV showing 100 year old clips of the Grey Cup, where they had scrums, and forward passes were forbidden among the 15 men on the field. A large mounted photograph in the museum archives shows a rugby team and is identified as "Peterborough Rugby Team, Intermediate Champions of Canada, 1899", other photographs are labelled as "Peterborough Rugby Team, Intermediate Champions of Canada, 1901" and "Ontario Rugby Football Union Champions, 1902". This is indicative of the high level of rugby played in Peterborough at the turn of the century.
The "Canadian Rugby Union Football" name was used until the early 50's, even though playing a game that was distinctly Canadian football, it was not until 1967 that the "Canadian Rugby Union" renamed itself "Canadian Amateur Football Association". It is thought that the " Orfuns" were the most recent Peterborough team to play Canadian football under the rugby union football banner, though rugby union, known as English rugby in Canada was played in Peterborough in the 40's, probably by vets who picked up the game in England. It's interesting to note that Peterborough Collegiate played almost continuously from the turn of the century 'til the present, as can be seen from the photographs in the Peterborough Museum Archives.
In 1956 a group of mostly British ex-pats and Canadians with an interest in the game got together to re- form the rugby club, creating all the club rules and regulations and rugby contacts necessary to form a club and field a competitive team.
1957 saw the club ready to start playing the game they loved, the photograph shows the team from that year, many who were involved in the club's creation and continuous growth.
Insert 1957 club photo here.
From 1957 until about 197? (correct date to be confirmed) the team played and practised (sporadically) on a rugby pitch in Morrow Park, with a shower and a dressing room under the stands, we even had the club crest painted on the door, the same crest used by the club today. The City then gave us space for a field in Beavermead Park, and a group of dedicated players uprooted the posts at Morrow Park, hauled them over to Beavermead and installed them. The team played at Beavermead until moving to Nicholls Oval in 201?, but that's a whole new chapter in our history we'll save 'till later.
The club went through some hard times in the sixties, being moved from one Union to another at the whim of the Toronto Union, for one year playing home and away with Kingston in the east, Sudbury in the north and Hamilton Hornets in the east. For a couple of years Peterborough played no games in the Toronto Rugby Union. This made it difficult to recruit and retain players, but a strong core of players went around our local high schools, teaching rugby basics, coaching the newly formed school teams, and most importantly giving high school students a strong reason to play for the club upon graduation. This occurred sooner than expected, when Peterborough won the tier Ontario championship in 1967 and moved up a division, requiring the club to field a second team. This was managed by putting older players with high school students, primarily P.C.V.S. students,( I remember Keith Hall, younger brother of Duanne) on the field to fulfill Toronto Rugby Union (TRU) requirements. Some of us remember packing 6 or 7 young men into our cars (large cars with bench seats and no seat belts in some) and driving down to Toronto on a Saturday afternoon, paying for all the kids to enter Fletchers Field, buying them all a hot dog and a Coke after scraping the mud of in a large communal concrete tub. Happy days!
In the late sixties at an executive meeting in Duanne Hall's basement, he thought that we needed a team name, and that he had an idea for one. His suggestion of "Peterborough Pagans" was adopted wholeheartedly. Not content with a name, Duanne even created a crest for the team jackets. This crest can be seen mounted on the wall of the clubhouse. (confirm)
From the beginning in 1957, the tradition after a home game was to go to someone's backyard, or basement if it rained, chug a couple of beers, listen to the captains waffle about the game and chow down on sandwiches, usually made by that weeks host and a couple of other volunteers. It's interesting to note that in those days almost all the wives, kids and girlfriends came to the game and to the beer-up afterwards, though 2 beers hardly made it a p***up. For a couple of years some Pagan players(names to be determined) rented an apartment over Peterborough Bearings, across from the Memorial Centre, which became the de-facto clubhouse and after game beer up hangout .It wasn't until the ??'s that the Pagans started going to bars after the games, among the then sponsoring bars were "The Office", " The Second Floor Lounge", "Zeke's" and "The Pig's Ear". The discussions to lease the lower level of the Lion's Centre began in March 2000, with Julian Holding and Erin Cull representing the club, and Joe DeBye with Graham Lewis representing the Lions Centre .A lease was eventually agreed to and signed and we took possession in late spring of 2000. This arrangement remained in place until our lease was not extended on its expiry on 30 October, 2005. At that time the club again went to bars for the after game pint and food.
On the field a huge step forward in the history of the PRUFC, a Pagan woman's team was formed thanks to the efforts of Karen Penkman, Nancy Marcotte, and Grace Godfrey among many others, playing their first season in 1995 and producing many women who excelled at the game, going on to play for Ontario and Canada and representing Canada at thw Rugby World Cup AND the Olympics.
A big thank-you to Julian Holding for creating this document! A s mentioned, it's a draft document subject to revisions and additions. Please send to nydam@nexicom.net.
