Ninety years ago Marlborough Rugby Football Club – the club that plays there today – started playing rugby on The Common. In recognition of this anniversary the club has identified and set aside a space on the wall of the clubhouse which will become a wall of memorial bricks to commemorate these ninety years.
Marlborough Mayor, Kym-Marie Cleasby, Deputy Emily Trow, Councillor (and former Club President) Andy Ross and Wiltshire Councillor James Sheppard joined Club Chairman, Howard Wilkinson, Deputy Richard Purchase, Treasurer Ben Littlewood-Hillsdon and Treasurer Charlie Williams to formally recognise this landmark and also to mark where this area of memorial wall which will become populated with ninety commemorative and sponsored granite bricks, each engraved in gold (Marlborough Rugby club colours).
Proceeds from this memorial wall will be split between the lub and Wooden Spoon – the children’s charity of rugby. Bricks with be made carved and set by MJ Sly Memorials of Marlborough,
Whilst it is only ninety years of rugby on The Common for the present Club, the history of rugby in this area of Malborough goes back much further. Historian (and former Marlborough player) Brian Edwards traces ‘rugby’ as a game played in Marlborough back to 1852. Following Marlborough College’s adoption of Rugby School’s rules for football in the following year, 1853, The Common became the established home for the game in the town.
And, in 1871 the Marlborough Nomads – the forerunner club to Marlborough Rugby – was instrumental (along with twenty other clubs) in creating the body that now runs rugby in this country – the Rugby Football Union. So Rugby in Marlborough goes right back to the start of the accepted game, Marlborough played a major role in creating what is now one of the world’s great sports and The Common was at the heart of it all.
So on Saturday 21 December this anniversary was formally recognised, and soon the first bricks will be installed, not all together but a gradual progression that will create a space where Marlborough Rugby’s heritage can be seen and remembered.