Once upon a time the old game specialised in breeding the one-club player, thousands of them who thundered around England and Wales like a herd of buffalo on The Great Plains.

The one-club brigade used to be found anywhere and everywhere, men whose strict adherence to the laws of the jungle meant they never changed their spots or their stripes.
Instead they stayed at their local club through thick and thin, a custom that survived from the early post-war years to the end of amateurism half a century later.
Men who played for the hell of the game and a few free beers, whose loyalty to their clu...