Rugby Towns #5 Topsham RFC

When a fifty-year-old Topsham printer went to Exeter to try and get a game of rugby, he was told he was too old for them. Undeterred, he opted to set up his own club, in a town known for building warships, fishing, and having an awful lot of pubs.

Back in the early 1980s the town of Topsham, just four miles south of Exeter, was supposed to have more pubs per capita than anywhere in the UK. Walk its narrow streets and even now it still feels like that kind of town, as if around every meandering turn another haunt might reveal itself, each crammed with its loyal forever-parched punters. 

In the 17th century, Topsham was a thriving port, the nation’s hub for the prosperous cotton and serge trade. When it was the centre for shipbuilding over a hundred years later, as many as forty pubs served the Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish travellers and tradesmen that kept the town alive; rumour has it that for many years you could hear more Portuguese spoken here than English. 

As industry declined so did the free houses, although a renowned university students’ rite of passage, the Topsham Ten Crawl, proves that plenty of choice remained for the 8,000-strong population. 

And it was in one of the oldest of those remaining, a 16th-century coaching inn called the Globe Hotel, where printer Paul Pirongs, civil engineer Clive Pascoe, and farmer John Lodwick met for a drink in 1982.  “I think it was just a drunken night where they said, ‘let’s start a rugby club’. It was that simple,” chuckles Greg Pascoe, son of Clive and keen club archivist as we meet (where else?) at the Globe. Under his arm is a box with every piece of memorabilia you could wish for, all telling the story of how Topsham Rugby Club came to be. “At that stage,” continues Greg, “all you had was Exeter Rugby Club, who were based right in the centre of town, and Exeter Saracens. They were the only two clubs at that time in Exeter. So, Paul and Dad decided well, we ought to start something down in Topsham.”

Sifting through his collection Greg presents newspaper clippings, photos and even an original flyer calling those interested to the first meeting of the club held at the Globe. A memory bubbles to the surface with every item he picks up, such are the volume of memories they evoke. We pause over a particular clipping that reported the establishment of the club as being ‘reformed’. “There was actually history of a rugby club in Topsham going back to the early 1900s, but it had folded by 1902,” he says. “They didn’t know this at the time they started the club, but later Paul did some research into Topsham. Eighty years on, they resurrected it, I suppose.”

Paul, Clive and John have all since passed away, but there are many folk still in Topsham who’ve been involved from the very start. One of those, who played in their very first match, is Ron Murray. Now a trustee of the club but having held just about every committee position (apart from treasurer, he assures us), Ron has been involved since day dot and gives some extra insight into how the cogs of the club began to turn. “Paul used to play for Torquay,” says Ron, “but when he was fifty, he approached Exeter Rugby Club to see if he could play there. And they said to him, ‘actually, you’re a bit too old’. And so he said, ‘I’m going to start my own club then’.

“Paul bought a little book, and he started writing down names of people he thought would be suitable; anyone who walked in the Globe he’d say, ‘you look like a rugby player’, and he’d get their name down. My name was first in the book. There were two of us from Exeter, two of us from [Exeter] Saracens, a few others that we picked up along the way and then a few others that had never played rugby in their life before, we just twisted their arm.”

Starting completely from scratch, the first thing the club needed was somewhere to play but given the marshland that surrounds the town on either side, extending from the banks of the River Exe and the River Clyst, that was easier said than done. So, it was a council-owned pitch, King George V playing fields about a mile up the road in Countess Wear, that became the first place they called home. “We didn’t join the RFU for another year after we started,” continues Ron, “so that would have been 1983. We’d played games unofficially, just friendlies in some little places out in the sticks. You’d send fifteen players to play the game, five of them would get totally lost because they couldn’t find the ground and afterwards, you’d end up bathing in a trough. Everyone got in the same bath and the mud was just … it was very primitive.

“In that first year we had to borrow our shirts from another club, it was just a case of what we could get. I remember there was an incredible slope down the right-hand corner of the pitch that we used to our advantage, we’d just belt the ball down there and it fooled [our opposition] every time.

“There wasn’t as much violence in those days as you might think. I only once played in a game where both teams were sent off, mainly because their captain singled out one of our players and the referee had just had enough. Technically I was banned once, but only because the whole team was. It wasn’t that bad at all really, Brixham once got banned for a whole year.” 

With no ground of their own, the Globe remained central in the early days as the club headquarters. “It was very much a drinking culture, starting in a pub it’s not surprising I guess,” laughs Ron. “After a game the bar below the hotel was ours until eight o’clock, so there were lots of silly games and lots of singing.” 

For Greg, memories of that time were slightly different. “I was six years old, sat having my Coke and my Worcester sauce crisps.”

After that first year, the club began to get established. One team soon grew into three and an official club crest was drawn by Paul, incorporating all the elements of the history of the town and bringing it together with the rugby club. In the background is the sea, complete with the Devon galleon; to either side are houses with classic Dutch-style frontages, an icon of Topsham that came from the tiles and bricks used as ballast in ships exporting wool from Holland; and the front doors of both houses are open, a tradition you still see today that is supposed to represent Topsham’s hospitality. “It was for the smugglers,” reveals Ron. “If they were being chased, they could go in through the front door, out the back and over the fence and disappear.” Front and centre of the crest is a Globe resting on its axis, representing the pub of origin of course, but with a rugby ball in place of the Earth. Perhaps the only piece missing is a nod to the salmon fishers, a 2,000-year-old tradition on the Exe that was ultimately banned for a decade in 2018 to protect the few remaining fish. The infamous Dick Pym, known as the ‘Fisherman Footballer’, was one of them, commemorated at the old docks with a blue plaque. 

Topsham may have been technically amalgamated into the wider city of Exeter in the 1960s, but a distinct Topsham town identity endures. “Back in the eighties Topsham was just a community,” reflects Greg. “It wasn’t the affluent, million-pound mansion place it is now, that just wasn’t what Topsham was. It was a real community, everybody knew everybody. I remember when I went to university and my friends came and stayed with me, and I’d walk down the high street and literally I’d know everybody. They just said to me, ‘oh my word, do you know everyone in this town?’, and I said ‘yes’.

“There very much is still a Topsham identity in the roots of the people who’ve been here for generations. I grew up here but would never even consider myself a Topshamite; there are families that have lived in this town and never left.”

“It has got a bit gentrified,” adds Ron, who first moved here in 1978. “House prices have zoomed up, and a lot of locals can’t afford to live here anymore. There’s a gradual change but it’s not all bad because the newcomers bring a lot of incredible skills, there’s lots happening here that wouldn’t otherwise.”

But for the club to fully become part of the town, a permanent home was needed. There were just a few suitable sites in Topsham, the first of which the council denied them in 1987, but in 1990 they managed to secure their forever home at Bonfire Fields. “We had a loan, the council also gave us a loan, but the rest of it came from the community,” says Greg. “My dad had a map of Topsham and me and my brother went from door to door with begging letters, knocking on every door in Topsham asking for funding to buy the ground. Dad used to park his car at the end of the road and Sam and I went down a side each and that’s how we managed to cover all the costs. I think we bought it for £72,000, which is bonkers now when you think what it’s worth today.”

Boasting two fine pitches, it was perfect for a club still in its infancy, claiming one of the few remaining parts of the ‘green gap’ between themselves and Exeter. But more than that, the ground stands as a legacy to the monumental efforts of the individuals, bound together by a volunteer culture, that made it happen. “Take the first clubhouse,” remarks Greg, “that was bought for something like seventy quid from an MOD site in Honiton, and it was taken down piece by piece and put on the back of a flat loader, driven back to Topsham and put back together piece by piece, all by volunteers. To establish that club and to own that field, it’s phenomenal, and it all came from the commitment of a group of maybe twelve volunteers.” 

Ross Bovingdon, head coach for the last five years, is the man behind a rugby revolution at Topsham. Having spent the majority of their history battling it out in the lowly Devon leagues, ‘Bov’ has brought success thick and fast to the club with back-to-back promotions in the last two seasons, as well as a league and cup double last year. His arrival, along with the captaincy of Marcus Cottle, has instigated the most successful period in the club’s history; however, it’s been a gradual incline to this point. “When I joined, we were in what was called Devon 1,” recalls team manager Tim Taylor, who first joined the club as a player in 2007. “We were just stuck in that league not doing great for a number of years, and then unfortunately we ended up going down into Devon 2. That was a bit of a shock, where you’re going to play, some of the facilities … I remember Buckfastleigh Ramblers, around Christmas on top of the moors, just frozen, horrible. 

“We got out of there and had a captain called Jack Knowles, who was the first to really roll up his sleeves and say, ‘we’re going to do something here’. We didn’t manage to get promoted on his watch, but he laid the path for the way we wanted to play. “After a couple of years, we bounced up into Devon and Cornwall, coming straight back down again, but we realised then what you needed to do to go higher. Ever since then it’s almost been back-to-back promotions, and here we are now.”

Regional 2 Tribute South West is where Topsham have landed for the coming season. Iconic Devon clubs, the likes of Brixham, Ivybridge and Exmouth, are now withing touching distance in Regional 1 South West and, given Topsham’s record, perhaps that league is more tangible than for most. But for now, it will be Crediton, Truro and Teignmouth providing them with stiff competition. 

“Until Bov came along,” Tim continues, “I don’t think any of us learned anything new about rugby; we would just come from school and go through the motions. But now, every time you come, you’re learning new stuff, and I’m 40.”

“When I came in, they just needed a bit more organisation,” assesses Bov as we speak ahead of their Tuesday night pre-season session. Everyone we’ve spoken to at Topsham has been friendly, but none have quite as broad a smile as their head coach. “Now I think we are quite renowned for the brand of rugby we play, it’s very structured but really fast, we play from anywhere with high amounts of ball-in-play time. We just try and encourage the lads to play, and they’ve really bought into it.”

Bov pauses to have a joke with Marcus Cottle, first-team captain, about who lifted more at the gym the day before. Beyond his coaching skills, Bov’s buoyant personality clearly makes him a popular character in these parts, his optimism translating into his ‘joué joué joué, go go go’ playing philosophy. 

Captain Marcus, a club man for almost a decade who took on the role last year, effuses what difference Bov has made to Topsham. “Bov has brought more focus: a big bugbear of mine was lads pissing around when the coach is trying to talk, I hated that. So, in my time, to go from eight or nine lads at a training session, calling nights off in the winter, to 55-60 lads at training the other week is great, and a lot of that comes from the coaches. When I first joined, Bov was a coach here, then he left for a bit. It’s quite obvious the impact that had.”

“Last season was a fantastic year,” continues Bov. “We won the league with a brilliant finish, we were second up until January and then we just went into overdrive, taking 54 of a possible 55 points. We have quite a close rivalry with Cullompton, and we beat them up there with a last-minute penalty, it was absolutely great. Then we played the Devon Intermediate Cup final at Tiverton with a crowd of maybe 1,500 people and won that convincingly.”

Combining an enjoyable atmosphere with good on-pitch performance is a difficult balance to strike, and with the quality of opposition having risen so rapidly, the barometers for success have to be reassessed.  “I think it’s going to be a big step up. I have my ambitions, but we put that back on the players and I think they want to push as far as they can. But it’s all about how we are playing really, and the idea is we’re really going to attack the league. One of our buy-in words is revolution, we want to revolutionise the league by playing fast attractive rugby, get rid of the slow attritional stuff you see from England.”

A third promotion may be one step too far this year, but there’s no doubt the cumulative effects of success will continue to benefit them. The more success they’ve had, the more players they’ve been able to attract.

“We’ve only been going forty years but we’re in a league with some very established clubs,” continues Tim, picking up the story. “The membership used to be quite transient, we used to lose a lot of members to better sides because they wanted to play up the leagues, but that’s now stopped because of where we are now. Our twos are now playing against and beating teams that our first team played against sort of five, six years ago.

“The rugby is more serious now but it’s actually more enjoyable. We now have Ricky Pellow, skills coach at Exeter Chiefs who is down here at least once a week but often twice, and he loves it, the energy he brings is brilliant. Then we have Harvey Skinner, the Chiefs ten, who is our backs coach.” It’s a relationship with Chiefs that has been mutually beneficial too, the likes of Scotland international Sam Skinner and promising backrow Richard Capstick recently emerging from the club’s thriving youth section.

But next season will bring a fresh set of challenges for Topsham, not just on the rugby pitch but culturally too. The reality of level six rugby is that a number of clubs do pay their players, something that will never happen at Topsham. “I’d walk away from the club if we ever did,” assures Tim. “Everybody on the committee agrees, all of the senior players do, all the twos definitely do. Brixham, for example, have a sustainable model, because the fisherman support them, they have their bar which is the only bar in that part of town, which generates significant income. But you see so many clubs around the place when they start splashing the cash, they do it poorly, people get disgruntled, and players just leave to rejoin their old clubs. The clubs then drop all the way down the leagues and have to rebuild. I just want us to play at our level, enjoy what we do and do it for each other.”

Despite the successes of the last few seasons, there is still a sense that the culture of the club is more important than success at Topsham. Rising up the leagues has been an exciting journey, but the principles of enjoyment and community spirit remain a priority. These are the principles upon which the club was founded just over 40 years ago, tangible and comfortably within living memory for those who were there from the start. For the likes of Greg, for whom Topsham was virtually a family business, preserving those values is essential.  “The rugby is great, Topsham are finally doing very well, and dad would be so proud, but I am passionate that people remember how it was founded. Today our ground is probably worth eight to ten million to developers, but we’ve got to make sure it’s never sold because of the efforts and commitment of those early volunteers. That’s what Topsham is all about.” 

Story by James Price

Pictures by Matthew McQuillan

This Rugby Towns story was created in partnership with Canterbury.

This extract was taken from issue 23 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.