Blackheath FC

Amid tales of being among the founding fathers of football, rugby, the Barbarians, the Lions, of having Jack the Ripper as a member, and Dr Watson in the pack, to find out about the modern-day Blackheath, we go in search of a crook-catching Scottish wrestler. 

We need to speak to Albert Patrick. When it comes to finding out about Blackheath Rugby or Blackheath FC, the name that frequents so many of sport’s history books, we need to find Albert. We’re told his name by anyone that knows anyone at Blackheath and, today, as they face fellow London rugby stalwarts Rosslyn Park, he’s our first port of call. 

As we pull into the misshapen car park of Well Hall – the club’s home since 2016, in Eltham, south east London – before we get a chance to ask about Albert’s whereabouts, a Scottish man brandishing traffic cones brusquely points us to our allotted space. No time to waste, when directing matchday traffic.

Brian, the steward, is in a far more relaxed place to chat. “A Lamborghini scraped a spoiler when coming into the car park earlier,” he says. “That’s going to cost him a couple of thousand to get fixed. It got stuck too, they had to get help to get the car jump-started again.”

A Blackheath fan/player? “Nah, Millwall Academy, think it was one of their coaches,” he responds, pointing to the 3G next to the main rugby pitch – the football club rent space on the 17-acre site to use during the week. “I’ve personally got about 270 cars into that car park before,” continues Brian. “We’ve wasted a lot of space today I think.”

As the players begin their warm-up, Brian offers more insight, this time on the playing surface. “Every referee comments on what a marvellous pitch it is,” says Brian, who’s also told us he missed the last two seasons with a heart operation. “And that’s down to Frank the gardener and Albert.” The marvellous pitch that is, not the heart op.

Albert, which one is he? “Well, he was in the car park.” Scottish? “Yes.”

Now though, Albert is in the changing rooms, sweeping. Still too busy, he instead sends us upstairs to the clubhouse to meet the managing director, Russ Ticehurst. 

Well Hall has only been home for a few years, but it still has plenty of reminders of the past, with the number ‘1858’ writ in big letters on most surfaces, from the side of the club house to post protectors to every piece of merchandise crammed into the container-turned-clubshop. The oldest ‘open’ rugby club in the world, their nickname ‘The Club’ or ‘Club’ is also seen on many of those surfaces or heard in the cheers of the home support. It was how the supporters used to differentiate their team in matches against Blackheath Proprietary School – the school from which the old boys formed the FC more than 160 years ago. 

Blackheath FC were not only founder members of the Football Association in 1863, but having expressed outrage at the banning of the rules that allowed hacking – kicking of shins – and carrying the ball, they decided the way of the Rugbeians was better suited to them. And so they, together with best buddies Richmond, got 21 sides together to form the RFU eight years later. 

Still not quite sure their place in history was assured, their captain ended up leading the first-ever British Isles rugby tour in 1888 after the original skipper drowned in a boating accident. And, as mere footnotes in their roll of honours they also: hosted the first-ever England international; helped inspire the original All Blacks; had a Jack the Ripper suspect as a secretary – Montague Druitt, the son of a doctor who was pulled dead from the Thames, around the time the murders stopped; had a member start the Barbarians; played a role in the formation of the Army Rugby Union; and, for those still paying attention, also had Dr Watson play a game or two, at least in the fictional world of Sherlock Holmes. 

Today’s opponents are the comparative whippersnappers from Rosslyn Park, established in 1879, who occupy second place in National One, while Blackheath lie sixth. But ‘Club’ are the only side that have beaten Park at home this season when they met in September, beating their hosts 29-14. “I’m hoping for another Coventry performance today,” says Russ, as we sit overlooking the pitch. He’s talking about the club’s form-shattering 61-29 win over Coventry two season ago. The well-financed Midlands side had arrived at Well Hall with a virtually insurmountable lead at the top of National One, and no doubt expected to come away with a straight-forward win. Instead they got shellacked with ten tries as Blackheath scored 39 points in 35 first-half minutes. “It was the best game of rugby I’ve ever seen Blackheath play,” says Russ. “It started from minute one, a pushover try, then we scored again, and again, and again, just an incredible week, a phenomenal day.

“Those games are the ones you never, ever forget, and that’s why I want one of those today for the players. Although, that said, I think they’ve just scored.”

On an Arctic-cold day that has seen a fair few punters opt for the shelter of the bar, Blackheath had taken an early lead, and, as we talk, Rosslyn Park had indeed pulled a try back.

“James Shanahan is full-time,” says Russ, of his highly-rated first team coach. “He also coaches Cambridge University, and he brings loads of experience, but he’s also got no direct association with the club, which is good for us. We needed to get away from having part-time coaches or old player-coaches, old friends coaching – it was probably the first step we made three years ago, when we appointed him, to say, this is us.” 

Stability is key to the club, they’ve now been in National One for sixteen years, more than any other club and, having most recently arrived from the division below rather than the one above, they’re in no rush to get promoted, even if it is on the long-term agenda. 

Not that they’re afraid to make big moves, such as the one that took them from the Rectory Field, their home since 1883. Sharing the ground ownership with the Blackheath cricket, squash and tennis clubs, all the clubs made a contribution but couldn’t take a share of the bar takings and, when you’re a rugby club getting in four-figure  attendances of thirsty rugby folk, that can be a lot of lost revenue. Unable to come to agreement with the committee, they were forced to find a new ground. “It broke my heart,” says Russ, who was chairman at the time. “A lot of people were mortified to come here just to play semi-pro rugby, it was terrible, but, had we been able to stay there and realise the income, we would have stayed. It wasn’t an option though, and we couldn’t carry on watching that revenue go out the door, ” he says. 

“We’ve not seen any drop-off in terms of spectators, because it’s just a quarter of a mile up the road, but it’s not our ancestral home,” he admits. “When you go through the gates, walk up the drive, you see Rectory Fields, it’s a special place. 

“You come here, and it’s a facility: it’s a great pitch, we’ve got modern floodlights, great changing rooms, everything we don’t have at Rectory Field. If we could put the two together, it would be amazing. But we weren’t able to do that.”

The club still play junior games there. “But anything that generates revenue comes to Well Hall because we get to keep it,” says Russ. “Tomorrow there’s four games of junior rugby, and we have all sorts of things going on, Tampa Bay Buccaneers came here in the summer before their games at Tottenham [Hotspur].

“The club is in a good place,” he continues. “I think the average attendance is under 800, and we’re halfway through the season, and 800 people at fifteen home games is nowhere near enough to run a club like this, so we have to do all sorts of things outside of that. 

“That’s why we’ve got Millwall academy training here five or six days a week.”

The bolstering of Kent rugby in recent years has also helped, as National One last season included three sides from the county: Old Elthamians, Canterbury and Blackheath. “The derbies are brilliant for revenue,” says Russ. “When Old Elthamians came for the first home game we  had 1,800 people – fantastic, we haven’t had that amount for twenty years, brilliant. It’s diluted the player market a bit, but two local derbies is brilliant.”

Even next season, with Canterbury going down, there’s still three Kent sides, as they’ve been replaced by Tonbridge Juddians.  “We make a small loss each year, but what sports club doesn’t?” says Russ. “But if somebody came in and said ‘we’ll put a cherry on top of what you do’, that would make a massive difference here to where we go and how we perform.”

Performance is in the Blackheath genes. The club has provided more internationals than most clubs, albeit mostly in the pre-war era. After the war, they famously joined forces with Richmond for the first post-war season, and sustained their name within the game when returning to separate entities. But by the time the league system rolled out in the 1980s, they were in the second tier, the same level at which they remained for the dawn of professionalism.  

Professionalism had brought lots of big ideas. There was the link-up with Auckland Blues, initiated by former All Black hooker Hika Reid, who was then director of rugby. There was another All Black as captain too, albeit an English-born one, John Gallagher. It was to be a joint venture akin to that of Harlequins and New Zealand Rugby two years ago, which would see the Blues use the club to help develop coaches. Details remain fuzzy years later, but while talks continued to the point where even Graham Henry turned up at training sessions – which hadn’t been the purpose of his visit, he decided to give his input – the plan came to nothing, as the promised funding for the project never emerged. 

But, Blackheath did have a sugar daddy who was willing to fund the club in the early days of professionalism, allowing them to have an academy, and professional players. “Frank McCarthy was a massive character, cigar-smoking, wine-drinking, and he funded us, but when he passed away in 1999, the money just went, it got locked away,” explains Albert who we finally catch up with. When he’s not sorting cars or sweeping dressing rooms, Albert is the club’s general manager. “And when the money falls out, you tumble down the leagues.”

Blackheath went from tier two to three in 1998/99, then straight to four as they won just two games from 26 with a points difference of -721. They’d stay there for three seasons, before finding their way to their current home of National One. 

That everyone has pointed us in the direction of Albert is of little surprise.  “I joined Blackheath in 1981, and we had a damn-sight more players then,” he says. “We had five male teams, the first team were doing well, and that all went when professional money came in.

“It split the club, the guys running it with the money,” continues Albert, “not drastically, but it still split, we had the Corinthians, our second side, and then you had the first team getting paid.”

Today, they have a first team, a social side and a vets’ side, with the women’s sides playing out of Charlton Park.

When Albert joined, he’d played most of his rugby with the Met Police, and had turned out alongside many of his team-mates for Kent. “I retired in 1999, as a detective chief superintendent,” he says, moving on to his professional career. “I’d also done uniform in Wapping, flying squad, Bethnal Green, and then I came back to spend another fifteen years in the review office, going over murders. 

“I used to have to get up at 4am or 5am to start work because that was the time the villains got up to rob banks, and I’ve seen some things with the different murder enquiries.”

Before we get back to the rugby, we’d also been told of his other sporting career. “I went to three Commonwealth Games for wrestling,” says Albert, who represented Scotland, the country he left for London in 1966. “I got two silvers and a bronze in three games: Edmonton (silver), Brisbane (bronze) and the third one, when I was 40, in Edinburgh (silver). 

His playing days began with him on the wing, but as he put on muscles – through hitting the gym as a young PC – he moved his way up the field to find himself eventually promoted to the front row, where he played for county and even got to captain the club. “In my day, county games were often midweek, and when the players were off playing county I got to captain Blackheath at Birmingham and we were refereed by Roger Quittenton [who had refereed at the 1987 Rugby World Cup],” he says. “Anyway, I scored three tries, we won 84-0 and then I was dropped for the next game when the county players got back!”

There’s plenty more stories with Albert, but we return to the present day. While he admits his grandchildren see more of him now than his two daughters did in his Met Police days, his wife might not. Albert became first team manager two decades ago and with it came a thousand assorted unofficial ‘job titles’. 

Back then, he lived down the road, today he lives in Minster-on-Sea, on the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent. “If I look out my window, I’ve got Southend to the left, and Holland to the right,” he says. His wife, who also helps out at the club, questions his eyesight. “Well, you’d need a strong pair of binoculars,” he concedes. 

“Mondays I’m at home, being nagged by my missus,” he says, taking us through his typical week. “Then Tuesday I drive up to London and stay with one daughter, and do jobs around the club, paint the changing rooms, help the groundsman, get the kit down, tidy up after the weekend, grab a bite  to eat, then get ready for the training session.

“Next day, I stay with my other daughter (one lives in Dartford, the other in Bexley), and it’s a volunteers’ day at the club where this group of members come and cut hedges, mark pitches and do bits around the ground. Thursday it’s usually more work with the groundsman, training again, then drive home after that to finish paperwork and emails ahead of the weekend. 

“Friday, nagged by the missus again, then Saturday up at 5am if it’s away, and get back to the club, make sure the kits out, help the team – my wife does the raffle – then it’s all the match day manager stuff: checking the referee is okay, sorting the floodlights, rugby balls and then make sure the changing rooms are washed and tidy for the footballers – you’d be amazed at the condition rugby players leave them in.” 

Today, the home dressing rooms will probably be messier than usual. After the lead in the game switched hands three times in the second-half, with ten minutes to go, Blackheath pull ahead again, to lead 24-22. They win 27-22.  

The season never finishes on the pitch, with Blackheath taking a solid fifth place – Rosslyn Park stay second – when the final table is drawn up months early due to lockdown. 

Even on that match day in January, two months before COVID-19 shut Britain down, Russ had talked about the uncertainty in national  league rugby: where does grassroots start? Where should professional rugby be played? What does semi-pro mean? What’s the future of the Championship? And today there’s even more uncertainty than ever. From the top of the game with World Rugby through to Premiership Rugby, the Championship, and the national leagues, nobody knows where they stand, although all say they are reflecting on what’s been.  “Our aim is to get to the Championship and stay there, and to do that we need certain things to go our way,” explains Albert from his home just to the left of Holland. “We’ve been close, but injuries hurt us, because we’ve only got a small squad, and if a key player is out – say, our best back – you miss him. 

“This year we knew it would be hard with Richmond, but we beat Rams and Rosslyn Park, home and away, and we were within a few points of Richmond and Chinnor, but it doesn’t matter if you’re second, fifth or tenth, you still don’t go up if you’re not first.”

Lockdown has seen the club already cut their budgets for the season ahead. “We’ve got one position to fill, then we’re ready to go, but I don’t think what Boris says [we talk as the PM is set to loosen lockdown rules] will make a lot of difference, and you can forget the crap about behind closed doors games, I think we’ll play when there’s a vaccine. Maybe we can get started in January and get half a season done, we can all play each other once.”

Bigger worries are with sponsors. “Give me 50 sponsors with a grand each, rather than  one guy with 50 grand,” he says. “If one pulls out you’ve got 49 left, but if it’s the other way around… I’ve been saying that for twenty years, but who knows how many sponsors will be around after this? And even if they’re around, can they commit as much as before? Our crowds, at worst, are 250, at best 1,000, but how many will we get through the gates after this? You can ask these questions until the cows come home.”

We talk about ringfencing and relegation, something that’s one and the same when the financial considerations are taken in, although Albert does think Saracens are in for a shock. “Tell you what, put a bet on Ealing beating Saracens next season,” he reckons. “They’re not necessarily going straight back up again, so, if you’ve got any money to spare, I’d have a bet on Ealing beating them.”

While he’s confident his club can handle the strain of level two, he ultimately is the same as any fan, when it comes to his rugby. “What do you want as a club?” he asks. “To be quite honest, I want to wake up on a Saturday, enjoy the game, have a few beers, then come home.” 

Although speaking in the days when corona was just a beer, Russ’s final words to the Rugby Journal still ring true. “The aim at the moment, is to just carry on doing what we’re doing,” he said. “We need security of tenure at Well Hall – we’ve got a 25-year lease but we need more, everything hinges on that. Is the club ambitious? You could say, but with a small ‘a’, we’ve got to be realistic.

“This club, more than any other, has dealt with what’s been going on with the RFU  more sensibly than most others, we’ve kept it tight, and just looked after and managed what we’ve been doing.

“We’re very boring at Blackheath,” he continued. “But that’s why we’ve been around for a long time. 

“At the end of the day, it’s rugby, and we’ve got a minis and juniors section that’s flourishing and they all look up to the first team players, and they don’t know who those players are or where they’ve been, they’re just the first team.  

“But they all understand and respect that if you’re part of Blackheath, then you’re safe and, in the current climate, being safe is more important than anything.” 

Story by Alex Mead

Pictures by Philip Haynes

This extract was taken from issue 10 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.