Old Streetonians
In the Bricklayers Arms they flicked a coin to see which way they would go, to a man committed to the result. Heads, amateur dramatics. Tails, rugby. The Queen landed face down and the Shoreditch creatives headed for Hackney Marshes.
Mention Hackney Marshes to anyone and it’ll conjure up the ultimate vision of London grassroots football, a seemingly endless field of muddy pitches, only the whites of goalposts rising from the green landscape and footballers of every shape and size going about their Saturday or Sunday league business. In truth, it spans more than 300 acres, making it one of London’s largest common areas and its role as a hub for Londoners’ recreation goes back much further than when the first goal posts arrived. Bull-baiting, for instance, brought in crowds of 3,000 in the 1700s.
In the 19th century, much of the land was privately owned and used for the grazing of livestock, but the footballers began to gather. And to such an extent that in 1893 the landowners tried to forcefully remove the goalposts and oust the footballers who amassed there. They failed and London County Council spent £75,000 to buy the land back from the lords and declare it an open space for the people of the city. Grassroots sport for all had a new home and it has survived ever since.
In the late 1940s, the level of the marshes was raised using the rubble left behind by the war. This helped to prevent the land from flooding, and soon the fields were developed into a dedicated complex of 120 full-sized football pitches. Today, more than 2,500 players gather every week, and such is its reputation, it’s been used regularly by big brands wanting to connect with the ground-level of football’s hierarchy – as a result the likes of Lionel Messi and Eric Cantona have joined the masses in strutting the East London turf.
And so, naturally, for such a football mecca, Rugby Journal finds itself here, on a frost-bitten winter afternoon. Countless teams of ballers young and old are in action, but they don’t have exclusive use, for beyond the netted goalposts, on the northern fringe, a pair of rugby ‘H’s stand proud – the home of Old Streetonians RFC.
They’re not a typical club: there’s no clubhouse; they don’t own much beyond their match tops and a few balls and pads; they’re named after a street and any presumed status that comes from having ‘Old’ as a prefix, is false, as there’s no Street school to speak of, at least not in this part of London. “We’re not a traditional rugby club,” admits Dick Stringer or Dickie, one of the original members and current president whose playing years included two seasons at Leicester Tigers, and spells at Blackheath and Richmond while doing his postgraduate degree at the Royal College of Art. “We don’t own anything; we don’t have a clubhouse. I think it makes it easier to run a central London rugby club.”
The ‘Onians’ are playing Datchworth, a side that lie tenth in the Hertfordshire & Middlesex league, but still worthy opponents on the day. The home side, who among their coaching staff include former Red Roses star, Kat Merchant, are fourth in England’s seventh tier, which may not be the most dizzying of heights, but the fact they have an active second and third team is more of a testament to their success than any league position in this day and age of grassroots rugby.
The game gets off to a frenetic start, as the Onians put two tries on the travelling side in quick succession. Datchworth fire back before long, and the two teams break for half-time with little separating them. The home side come out in the second half with a point to prove, and by the final whistle have built a comfortable lead. The match finishes 31-13.
The Onians’ current position of fourth in the seventh tier is the highest they have reached in the league structure. They joined the pyramid in 1996, earning their first promotion in 2002 and a further three in four seasons between 2008 and 2010, launching themselves into London 2 North East. In the last twelve years, there have been two relegations and two promotions, but they have found themselves in the Counties 2 Herts/Middlesex this season after a restructuring of the leagues.
In 1989, an influx of students, artists and other creatives was drawn to Shoreditch by a burgeoning scene of fashion and culture, as well as cheap rents and derelict warehouses. At the time, the Bricklayers Arms was the only place you wanted to be drinking in Shoreditch, and a group of friends had formed at the popular watering hole. Among the ragtag bunch were Dickie and his good friend Richard ‘Rick’ Hay, both of whom have been synonymous with the club from the get-go, ever-present on the touchline and today is no exception.
Dickie is a larger-than-life character, wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the club’s logo; a galloping pig with a bag of money on his back, supposedly indicative of the wealth that flooded Shoreditch in the 90s. Rick is a slightly more reserved gentleman, but with a single feather protruding from his porkpie hat, neither of them strike you as your usual blazer-wearing committee member.
“The Bricklayers was where all the young British artists ended up,” says Dickie. “It was an unbelievable place, anything seemed possible in Shoreditch at the time. All the people like Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin and Rachel Whiteread, they were all around.”
At the time, the area was on the rise but still relatively rough around the edges. The East-End’s most notorious gangsters, Reggie and Ronald Kray, hung their hats there during the 1960s, running illegal rounds of cards from the toilets of the town hall as part of a racketeering operation.
The Kray twins were not the only ones to see potential in Shoreditch. During the next two decades, it began to transform into a centre for fashion and culture; as boutique shops and otherwise unheard-of curry houses popped up, it became a cheaper alternative to places like Soho and the West End.
As the creative revolution of East London rolled on into the 1980s, Shoreditch earned a reputation as a great space for trying to make it, having some fun, and apparently to a select few, starting your own rugby club. “I was the only one that knew how to play,” chuckles Dickie, who contributed the majority of rugby IQ to the group.
“Someone else said ‘how about amateur dramatics?’” adds Rick. “So, we decided to flip a coin.”
Heads for Am Dram, tails for rugby. While the eclectic bunch may well have been better suited to the safety of centre stage, the coin decided that was not their fate. And so, it began. For the first game, they found themselves a derelict rugby pitch on the marshes and divided themselves into two teams. With no kit, or boots – some still in their Doc Martens and old army shorts purchased from the surplus store at the top of Brick Lane, the first unofficial Old Streetonians fixture took place, albeit against themselves. “No one would play us to begin with,” admits Dickie, who was in charge of organising the fixtures at the time. The struggle to organise legitimate fixtures made the beginnings difficult for the club. However, the Bricklayers, as they were first known, were not to be discouraged. “A lot of us were badly affected by the recession in the early 90s,” says Rick. “We were suffering financially but getting together on a Sunday morning was a free activity.”
In 1991, spurred on by a World Cup hosted on home soil, the group of drinking-buddies-turned-rugby-players began to take the prospect of being a fully-fledged team a bit more seriously. “That kind of launched us into our first competitive fixture against UCS Old Boys in 1992,” he adds. “We led the game 3-0 for a bit, but those were all the points we scored. I think we managed to keep the score line in double figures.”
Despite the result, the team were elated to have played against opposition that were not formed of their own members. But the struggle to find fixtures continued and it was decided something needed to change. “Dickie’s memory on this is much better than mine,” adds Rick. “But we found it difficult because established teams didn’t want to play a pub side. We were just called the Bricklayers at that point.
“There used to be a thing called the London Fixture Exchange,” Dickie explains. “Before the days of the internet. I used to apply for fixtures, but no one wanted to play us as the Bricklayers.
“So, we decided we needed a new name. Old Street tube station was just round the corner from the pub, so we added Onians to that and we started having some luck.
“People thought we were some sort of ex-public schoolboys’ team.”
They began to build a proper run of matches, saying yes to anyone that fancied it. The Onians played on every point of the compass across the city in their first season. Old Grammarians in the north, Sutton and Epsom in the west, as well as a number of matches against various banking teams such as NatWest and HSBC.
The fixtures were now coming in, but six months had passed before the club had scored their first try and it took them more than a year from their first competitive fixture to get a win. It came against Guys Hospital’s fourths “We went mental after that,” recalls Rick. “I remember some of them saying ‘calm down, it’s not the World Cup’, to which we replied, ‘we’ve never won before!’.”
Old Streetonians’ reputation continued to grow throughout the 90s. Their squad was bolstered by several young New Zealanders looking to grow their rugby roots in the city. Off the pitch, some sensational headlines about the club were published. “I started sending match reports out,” Dickie explains. “And I noticed that they didn’t even edit them – they just stuck them in, word for word.
“So eventually, we started making stories up. The one that really broke it and made it into the national papers was that we had appointed a feng shui expert because we were getting beaten so badly.
“We wrote to Hackney council asking if we could rotate the pitch ninety degrees, and it got picked up from there and went absolutely bonkers. Not something you would get away with today.”
While fabricated stories earned them a somewhat whacky reputation in the local area, the club continued to develop in other ways. As the membership grew, it became more apparent that there wasn’t anyone amongst them who was that interested in organising the club. They decided that they would need to appoint someone to take care of their admin. “I became involved in the club by a process of osmosis, I guess,” says Lynn Hay, wife of Rick Hay who has been the club secretary for more than twenty years. In that time, she has filled almost every conceivable role in the running of a rugby club. “It would literally be me, one man and a dog on the touchline,” she says. “The lads might come and play but the girlfriends would go to Westfield shopping on a Saturday.
“I do all the club admin. I do the memberships, the registration of players, putting out the team sheet before the weekend.
“I organise the physios and cover when they’re unavailable. I do all the club photos – I’ve even been known to run the touchline on occasions.”
Fulfilling every role from photographer to touch judge, Lyn, alongside her husband, has been instrumental in the development and continuation of the club. Over the years she has witnessed some, if not all of the Onians’ most memorable matches.
“We once drew 0-0 with London Welsh,” she recalls. “I remember it mostly because of the weather – it was shocking. The rain was going horizontally across the pitch.
“It got to the point where London Welsh had a penalty in front of the posts, very hard to miss. But he did. And that was last play of the game.”
A scoreless draw is a rarity in rugby, and not often something you would generallly hear mentioned as one of the more memorable occasions in any club’s history. But for the Onians, playing against such world-famous opposition as London Welsh was testament to how far they had come.
“It was an extraordinary moment,” admits Dickie. “When I was playing 30 years ago, London Welsh were the team, they had British Lions and everything.
“There I was thinking ‘we’re playing London Welsh; we’re going to get smashed’. But we held our own. The fact is we’re taken seriously by other clubs, we’re no push over.”
For Harry Marson, who has been at the club for twelve seasons and captain for eight of them, it was one of the most dogged games of rugby he had ever played in.
“They had some big names in their team like England’s Tom May,” he tells us. “For us to compete with this historic, famous rugby club and come out neutral felt like a huge achievement.”
The buzz of the return fixture is also something that stands out for Harry in his time at the club. “We played on their first team pitch in front of a crowd of more than 1,000; I think it was the most people they had down to a game that season.”
High player turnover is commonplace for clubs based in city centres, but for the Onians, having a long-standing captain in Harry suggests they are getting something right. The flexible nature of life there might have something to do with it. They train on a 4G pitch at Haggerston Park which they rent, with matchdays at the communal space of the marshes. Everything is easy to access, and anyone is welcome.
“No one grew up being a part of the club,” he tells us. “People join in their twenties because they’ve come to London, they’re looking for mates and looking to play a bit of rugby.”
“We cater for everyone, from the people just starting out, to those who have played a decent standard and want to continue that with a little less commitment.”
On the topic of whether Old Streetonians’ lack of a ‘home’ hinders them, Harry sees no issue. “You see that other clubs love what they have, that history and tradition of a clubhouse,” he admits. “But for us, it’s different. We love having a vibrant pub where we’re welcomed and accepted as a rugby team.”
The club have a good relationship with the Howl at the Moon pub in Hoxton which has been their post-match destination for nearly fifteen years. While the social side of many clubs takes place within walls decorated with evidence of past glory and pictures of legendary teams, the Onians are more than happy with what they have.
“The Howl has its own culture and its own things going on that we can tap into – it’s really enjoyable.”
It may well be the less rigid approach to life as a rugby club that has helped the Onians recruit enough players to field regular 1st, 2nd and 3rd teams and build a large community of players in a very short space of time, but for Harry, there is still a lot to be done to get the club to where they want to be.
“The thing that needs more intentional work is that nestling into the community,” he admits. “The ongoing discussion amongst the people leading the club is around improving inclusion and having a positive impact on the surrounding area.
“We don’t necessarily match the demographic of Hackney. We’ve set up a fund for sports equipment for young people that want to get into the game who are a bit disadvantaged and don’t have the access.”
Spearheading the charge on that front is Will Gilgrass, the club’s press officer who recently won the Honda Volunteer of the Year award. “We don’t really want money to be a barrier to entry,” he tells us. “We’ve always been a club where if you can’t afford your subs, you don’t need to pay them.”
To ensure that the door is open for anyone who wants to play rugby at the Onians, the club has a bursary scheme that provides the necessary tools to do so; boots, gum shield, shorts and socks are all made available to people joining that may have financial limitations. “Hopefully we can encourage more people from the local area to get involved,” Will continues. “Hackney is one of the most diverse boroughs in the country, and we want to reflect that.
“The England team has become increasingly more diverse,” he adds. “But I think that’s less represented at the community level across the board.
“We would love to tap into a broader strategy, either for Middlesex or England, to try and make the sport more inclusive.”
With all eyes on the future for the likes of Will and Harry, there is still a huge amount of respect for the work that has been done by the likes of Rick, Lyn and Dickie to build a rugby club that centres around community and inclusivity.
“Rick and Lynn are incredible,” he tells us. “We’d be like Peter Pan’s Lost Boys if we didn’t have them to guide us.”
While Old Streetonians might have started as a pub team, they have developed into something much more than that. However, part of that alternative ethos has lived on. “At its core, our club is quite frankly a bit bonkers,” Dickie tells us as the last of the players clear out from the changing rooms at Hackney Marsh Centre.
“There’s a slight sort of weirdness about us which I love, I think it’s great.”
Story by Tyrone Bulger
Pictures by Ben McDade
This extract was taken from issue 21 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.
