Brendan Gallagher continues his series looking at rugby's great schools
ALTHOUGH Clifton will reluctantly concede that the annual game between Edinburgh academy and Merchiston Castle, dating back to 1858, is the oldest interschools fixture in Britain and probably the world, their annual clash with Marlborough College has a strong claim to being the oldest in England.
They first met the old enemy back in 1864 and although the match ended in a mass brawl and the cessation of fixtures for a generation, a mighty sporting rivalry was forged. Marlborough were second only to Rugby as early exponents of the sport and were a powerhouse school for much of the late 19th century.
With its devotion to cricket and rugby, Clifton has often been categorised as a school built around its main playing field and certainly when it opened in 1862 all the main sporting facilities were ready ahead of its splendid Chapel! Rugby was its adopted winter sport from the off and the match arranged away to Marlborough two years later.
It was a fraught affair. Clifton had their own rules book – which their captain carried in the pocket of his breeches – and were enthusiastic hackers while Marlborough, anticipating what the RFU were eventually to decide, had already outlawed the dangerous practice of hacking away at opponents' legs.
Clifton had agreed to play to Marlborough laws but late on during the 20-a-side game, with the score still 0-0 and the adrenaline pumping, the temptation got too much and Clifton resorted to their natural hacking game.
This infuriated the Marlborough team and large home crowd and it seemed the match would be abandoned, but peace was restored and Marlborough took the honours via a late dropped goal from their captain John Archibald Boyle.
The two sides shared a supper together, but it was a fairly tense affair. Certainly the two schools didn't meet again until 1891 when the game was drawn with one touch-down apiece. Thereafter they got into the rhythm of regular annual games.
From 1964 , the 100th anniversary of the first meeting, the two teams have competed for the Governor's Cup, a trophy originally commissioned by Sir Leslie Probyn, a former Governor of Jamaica, for horse racing purposes. Clifton are the current holders with their outstandingly strong side of 2019-20 beating the old enemy by a record 63-0.
If not quite a match for Marlborough and Rugby school in those early pioneer days, Clifton were a strong team and spawned no fewer than 17 internationals who won their first caps in the 19th century, 15 for England and EI Pocock and EM Bannerman for Scotland.
Among the more celebrated names was John Daniel who won seven caps as a hooker after going up from Clifton to Emmanuel College Oxford where he won rugby and cricket Blues.
He emigrated to India to work on family tea estates but returned home in 1908 supposedly to become the secretary of Somerset CCC. There he found them such a shambles that he came out of retirement and captained them for the next 15 seasons. He later served a double term as president of the RFU between 1945-47.
Another talented rugbyplaying cricketer was Edward Scott who was the England captain during Daniel's final presidential year. Scott, a leg spinner, remarkably played in the always-powerful Clifton XI for five straight years and took 244 wickets which to this day is a school record.
As a rugby player he was a fearless centre and a mainstay of the St Mary's Hospital side that flourished before, during and immediately after the War as the Empire's top medics were trained at record pace.
During Scott's appearance as captain of England in their first post-war Calcutta Cup game at Murrayfield in 1947, he suffered a mighty crack on his jaw in the first half but continued to play. At half-time, as England gathered in a circle on the pitch, he summoned the dressing room attendant and asked that a taxi be waiting outside the changing rooms straight after the match.
The late Mickey Steele- Bodger of Barbarians fame, used to take up the story: “I asked him why. He replied ‘I have a double fracture of the mandible and will need to go to hospital immediately after the game to have it wired'. I remember being rather impressed at his sangfroid.”
Another England captain – Clifton have produced four in total – was lock Peter Young who was at school throughout World War II and won a Blue at Cambridge in 1949 before emerging as a formidable player in the mid-50s while a student at Dublin University. Scott's big break came in the 1954 final England trial when he captained the Rest to an 8-6 win over England. He was the first choice England lock for the next two seasons, captaining the side in his final two Test matches, against France and Scotland in 1955.
Clifton have always had a Scottish connection from the days of Bannerman and Pocock and the best known of their Anglos was Kenneth MacEwen, a nuggety hooker who won 13 Scotland caps between 1954 and 1958. It should have been more, the Scottish selectors got a little sniffy in 1955 and refused to select those playing for English clubs.
The mid-fifties was a notable time of OCs with Nigel Gibbs winning two caps to complete a family double with his brother George Gibbs who also won two caps soon after the war.
Clifton's fourth England captain came in the 1960s when David Perry was a standout performer in the pack normally at lock but occasionally at No.8.
Perry found himself lining up alongside another OC on occasions with Stephen Richards, an athletic hooker who seemed to have peaked in winning an Oxford Blue in 1962 but then, three years later, made a meteoric rise from the Richmond Second XV to England starting duties in the space of a few months and went on to earn nine caps.
The unbeaten 1970 Clifton XV has always been considered one of the school's strongest and to celebrate that side's 50th anniversary they decided to bequeath a cup for the First XV to present to their choice as player of the season. Former Bristol skipper Matt Salter and assistant Danny Grewcock, the former England and Lions lock, know their stuff so that is an award that will be hard earned.
In modern days the focus has very much been on brilliant Welsh fly-half Ioan Lloyd who blazed a trail while at Clifton, making his full Bristol debut while still a 17-year-old pupil. Wales U18 and U20 honours came his way and then last November, still aged only 19, he won his first two caps, against Georgia and Italy.
Lloyd is a good example of the growing partnership with the Bristol Bears and the Bristol Academy with Pat Lam and his squad using the school's excellent facilities on occasion while Lam has been a big supporter of the popular one-day Prep School tournament Clifton host.
Clifton College Roll of honour. Capped former pupils and their ‘international years'
J.A. Bush England (5) 1872-6; Sir S. Finney England (2) 1872-3; E.M. Bannerman Scotland (2) 1872-3; C.W. Boyle England (1) 1873; A.H. Heath England (1) 1876; E.I. Pocock Scotland 1877; A. Budd England (6) 1878- 81; H. Fowler England 1878-81; N.F. McLeod England (2) 1879; R.S. Kindersley (3) 1882-5; Sir E. Bonham- Carter England (1) 1891; W.R.M. Leake England (3) 1891; Rev L.J. Percival KCVO England (3) 1891-3; E. Field England (2) 1893; C.A. Hooper England (3) 1894; W.N. Pilkington England (1) 1898; J. Daniell (England (7) 1899-1904 (Captain 1900-4); A.H. MacIlwaine England (5) 1912-20; A.R. Aslett England (6) 1928-9; G.A. Gibbs England (2) 1947-8; E.K. Scott England (5) 1947-8 (Captain 1948); N. Gibbs England (2) 1954; R.J.K. MacEwen Scotland (13) 1954-8; P.D. Young England (9) 1954-5 (Captain 1955); R.C.B. Michaelson Wales (1) 1963; D.G. Perry England (15) 1963-6 (Captain 1965); S.B. Richards England (9) 1965-7; Ioan LLoyd Wales, right, (2) 2020-.
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