Ireland Avenue, Nottingham R.F.C, 1904-2004

Ireland Avenue was the home of Nottingham R.F.C. for more than a century. With some infamous fixtures throughout the decades, the ground was home to many elite level players, the likes of Brian Moore and Rob Andrew amongst their ranks.

 The tale of how Nottingham RFC came to call Beeston home begins with the Birkin family. Alexander, or Alick, Birkin, founded the club in 1877, when he returned from school in Rugby. He managed to cobble together a team of friends and the earliest match reports in local papers date back to 1885. At the time, the club played on a field behind the White Hart Inn, Lenton.

In 1904, the ground at Beeston was purchased by Alick’s brother, Leslie, for a fee of £25 a year plus £5 to the farmer who used the field to graze his sheep. Leslie then gifted the field to the rugby club to serve as a permanent home. It was then known as Rylands Road but became Ireland Avenue in 1947.

Situated to the south-west of Nottingham’s city centre, Beeston is a small village that has always had a high concentration of pubs, a perfect place for a local rugby team to lay its roots. One of those pubs is the Victoria Inn, only a few hundred metres from the ground. In the first four years spent at Ireland Avenue, Nottingham had the privilege of using the upper floor of the pub as changing facilities. This only lasted five years however, and in 1909 the club were banished to the stables for ‘misbehaviour’, where a single domestic bathtub had to serve both home and away teams.

Despite the lack of facilities at Ireland Avenue, it soon gained a reputation as a fearsome place for travelling sides to visit. The first match was played against an ‘Old Crocks’ XV and early clashes with the likes of Leicester, Old Edwardians and Moseley in the Midlands County Cup saw Nottingham finish as runners up in 1905 and winners the following year.

In 1909, the first stand was built, for the sum of £800, once again paid by Leslie Birkin, a wooden grandstand that provided shelter for a few hundred people. At some point though, most likely during the First World War, part of it was lost to a fire. The war was a major setback for all clubs in the country, and it was not until 1929 that further developments took place, and the first changing rooms were built.

During the 1920s, Nottingham began to find success on the pitch assisted by the try-scoring exploits of a player named Arthur Derry. Either side of the Second World War the club continued to show great promise.

The ground has seen several clubhouses built throughout the years, the earliest of which was ‘The Shack’, an old tennis pavilion, followed by ‘the Hut’, which was previously the groundsman’s shed. In 1955, the first original clubhouse was built, followed by the replacement of the old changing rooms in 1964.

Two years later, Nottingham became the first English club to officially appoint a head coach with David ‘Dai’ Youngs taking the reins. He developed a pack that was a force to be reckoned with, and the club began to compete with some of the country’s powerhouses.

Another clubhouse was added to the site in 1977 to commemorate the club’s centenary year. By this time, Nottingham had established themselves as one of the premier sides in the Midlands and were about to enter their golden era. In the 1980s and 90s, the likes of Brian Moore, Rob Andrew, Neil Back and Simon Hodgkinson added a star-factor to the team, and between 1984 and 1991, they reached two National Knockout Cup semi-finals, three quarter-finals, and finished second in the inaugural season of the National Merit Tabla A.

The ground at Ireland Avenue underwent one of its most significant developments in the 80s. Due to its proximity to the river Trent, making up part of the low-lying flood meadows, the pitch was known as somewhat of a mud heap for all of 75 years.  It was a great relief when the club committed £25000 to solving the issue of the ground’s drainage.

Despite their relative successes throughout the 80s and 90s, the dawn of professionalism presented fresh challenges. The new Courage League season did not go well for the club, who managed only two wins, both at Ireland Avenue, and were subsequently relegated into National Division Two. There was no immediate bounce back for the side, but they continued in their endeavours to keep up with the transition to a more professional game.

This move to full-time rugby meant a move away from their beloved Ireland Avenue. In 2004, after 104 years at that ground in Beeston, Nottingham sold the land to housing developers and made their move to Lady Bay in 2006.

While the club were forced to move on, Ireland Avenue will remain the first true home of rugby in Nottingham and fond memories will be held of the old guard that had the pleasure of playing on that veritable mud heap.