Rugger Club Makes New Headway
There has been no close season for Rushden and Higham Ferrers Rugby Football Club. All through the hot summer its members have been hard at work building their own dressing-room accommodation near the pitches on which the club will be playing during the next seven years.

Today the wooden sectional building is almost complete and soon, for the first time in its history, the club will have its whole establishment on one site.

In the course of nine seasons the club has built up a membership of more than sixty and made impressive headway in playing status.

With three fifteens more or less regularly in the field, it has required two pitches for home games. The original pitch was in the station field at Higham Ferrers, the next was in Saffron field, also in the old borough, and last season the club made occasional use of the Impregnable Sports ground on Bedford Road, Rushden.

Adequate Building
A seven-year lease of the Impregnable ground has now been secured. There is plenty of space for two pitches, and the club has quickly availed itself of permission to crown the venture by providing an adequate building for changing and baths.

The financial problem was soon eased when members enthusiastically promised to make this a do-it-yourself job. They were as good as their word and voluntary labour has never been in short supply.

Better still, it was found that several members were expert in building, carpentry and other tasks. Meeting in the evenings and at weekends, they have put up a 48x18 foot building, divided into three changing rooms and a bathroom equipped with a large plunge bath.

The ‘Foreman’
“Foreman” on the job was George Fairbrass, an expert on sectional huts. His main “hands” were Alan Draper, John Richardson, Michael Walker and Bob Reynolds. Three practical builders, Haydn Lewis, Barry Hales and Dick Shortland, put in the concrete foundation and brickwork.

Bob Reynolds handled the water supply as a specialist, and electrician Bryan Cave is about to start on the electrical installation.

The grounds-man is Mr. Blackwell, a pensioner, and he is busy with paint brushes.

Last Sunday thirty members turned up for the heaviest task of all; they dug a 46 yard trench in connection with the water supply.

The club’s first chairman, Mr. L. J. Wilce, is still in office. He told us of the club’s gratitude to Mr. John White and the Impregnable Sports Club for their interest and ready co-operation. Under the lease the rugger club will use the ground from September to April. Each summer John White employees will continue to use it for bowls and lawn tennis.

A new playing venture this winter will be the occasional fielding of an under-18 side in the scheme which is fostered by the East Midland Rugby Union. There will be full programmes for the first, “A” and “B” fifteens.

The cost of the new building will be about £350, but the club has no worries about this and looks forward with great keenness to Tuesday, September 8, when a team drawn from Northampton Saints will visit the ground for a grand opening match.

This game is in some degree a “thank-you”from the Saints for Bob Wilkins, the tough young giant from Higham Ferrers who they picked up from Rushden and Higham last season. It is confidently expected that Bob will have an England trial this season.

It is not often I repeat an overheard conversation, but something I heard over the weekend amused me so much I cannot resist the temptation to pass it on. I hope the two gentlemen concerned will not take offence.

The two men are well-known in the town. Mr. Bert Catlin, headmaster of Rushden Secondary School for Boys, and Mr. Jack Wilce, headmaster of the John Lee School, Wellingborough.

Both are members of Rushden and Higham Ferrers Rugby Club. Mr. Wilce is president and Mr. Catlin treasurer. They were talking about the club’s plans for new pitches and clubhouse on the former Rushden Urban Council rubbish dump off the Bedford Road.

From the future the conversation switched to the present and the state of the current pitches in use of the John White sports ground. And from there it seemed only natural that they should start talking about the past.

“Do you remember the time we helped to mark out the original pitches in Higham Ferrers?” Mr. Wilce laughed.

“Not half”, chuckled Mr. Catlin.

Being teachers, they applied a mathematical formula for marking the correct angle – the square of the hypotenuse being equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

All very technical. But then trouble started. No, they did not disagree about theit geometry. It was the tape measure they were using.

“Stop pulling on the tape Bert”.

“I’m not pulling, it’s you”.

“No it isn’t, it’s you”.

“I tell you I’m not pulling”.

Apparently at that stage they both slowly turned their heads and looked behind them. A cow was chewing the tape.

“We both started pulling and I think something like four feet of tape measure came from that cow”, said Mr. Wilce.