Sporting Behaviour
In the third of our series of recollections, ‘The Berts’ take a fond look back at sport at the School in the 1950s.
In our days there was one main winter sport – Rugby football, although in the mid-fifties there was a breakaway group who tried (unsuccessfully) to play soccer, some boys also played hockey which was not encouraged by the then headmaster W T Marsh. Although not a recognised sport, there were some cold winters when the pitches were frozen and a few boys went skating on the lake which seems to have frozen more often in those days (global warming?).
There was one occasion when a group fell through the ice – it was reported in the school magazine as “the great immersion”. In the spring term we also took part in cross-country running. In the summer term there were four sports to choose from: cricket, swimming, tennis and athletics.
Basic training for all sports began in the gym, which was originally in the old school hall, supervised by Mr Bloxham. As stated in our article about masters, the new gymnasium was built in the mid-fifties and our new gym master Roy (‘Jock’) Falconer was a tough task master which benefited some, but not all.
Winter Sports
Rugby football
We were told that the reason why rugby was played rather than football, was because you could getmore players onto the pitches. 30 players in rugby and only 22 in football – 36% more. This also reduced the number of pitches required for the same number of players by 27%. When we started playing the game, the main pitches were in Belmont Hill off Holywell Hill. This was an obvious site for future development being close to the city centre (which has since happened). All internal sport was inter-house. There were six school houses in those days: Abbey, Breakspeare, Debenham, Pemberton, Shirley and School. School House was for boarders which we had then.
They stayed in the school and
also on the corner of Belmont Hill at Woollams, which the new sports complex is named after. There are now only four houses and one (Hampson) is named after a former master – Tommy Hampson, who won the Olympic 800 metres for Britain in 1932 setting a new world record. Apparently he used to train round the Belmont field. The ground was unstable being over artesian wells, which meant that the ground undulated throughout the year with rise and fall in the water table. The other three new houses are named after contemporaries of ours – Marsh, Hawking (Steven) and Renfrew (Colin). At about this time, the school negotiated the use of a significant area of land off King Harry Lane. This land belongs to the Earl of Verulam and a 50-year lease was taken for it. The land slopes towards King Harry Lane and had a lot of flinty gravel near the surface. This was potentially dangerous and I remember teams of boys with buckets removing sharp flints from the surface. A house was built at the entrance for the groundsman to live in and changing rooms built at the top of the hill. This point is quite high above sea level and could be very cold on windy, wintry days. Someone said there was no higher land east of there until the Urals!
Another area where a couple of rugby pitches were placed in the winter, was to the left of the Causeway as you walk over the bridge past the Fighting Cocks, with the lake on your right. This land was used to graze cattle in the summer, so the first few matches in the autumn had soft brown hazards on the ground! Not very pleasant. Also, being close to the River Ver we tried to make sure that touch kicks went into the water to be carried downstream, making retrieval difficult and giving us a breather!
Rugby was (and is) a potentially dangerous sport. Bert 3, who was captain of the First XV, suffered a serious neck injury and Bert 2, who played regularly in the Second XV, broke a leg and his nose more than once. Bert 5 was mainly an athlete and could run, but not catch, pass, kick or tackle, so had only one appearance in the Second XV. He broke a tooth. Our school rugby shirts (and blazers) were in bright coloured stripes – very easy to see and sometimes referred to as Jacob’s coat of many colours! We had many matches against local and nearby schools – St George’s, Haileybury, Watford, Queen Elizabeth Barnet and University College School (UCS) – we nicknamed this “United Cow Sheds”!
Cross-country
The races used to start from the school having changed in the old changing rooms behind the cloisters. We would then run down the hill past the Fighting Cocks which was nice, before climbing the hill on the causeway up to King Harry lane past the Roman wall. Having crossed the road, we ran over the muddy fields past the new playing field almost out to the Hollybush pub, before returning the same way. Quite a seesaw course and the climb back up the hill to school was hard, after running three miles or so. One or two (who shall be nameless) apparently tried to short-circuit the course, but to no avail.
Football
As said above, a breakaway group tried this without much success.
Hockey
This was a minority sport not encouraged and thought to be for wimps. In later years it has become recognised, especially when master Robin Scase arrived, who was county player.
Summer Sports
Cricket
Even though this was the main summer sport, none of the Berts really participated, so we have few recollections. Again, it was played at Belmont initially until the King Harry playing fields were brought into play in the early 50s. The Belmont location was much more attractive than King Harry, being flanked by a traditional sports pavilion in a bowl surrounded by houses and trees.
Swimming
We swam from the start of the summer term in an outdoor pool also in the Belmont playing fields mentioned above. If Easter was early, this could be early in April. It may be apocryphal, but it was said by some that they had to dive through the ice on occasions!! One thing that everyone had to do was pass a two lengths test before one was considered proficient. Until you had done this you had to wear a red swimming costume which you could change to blue on passing. Alternatively, to avoid costing parents even more money, you could have a red patch sewn onto your blue costume only to be removed when you had passed the dreaded test. Bert 5 remembers struggling the last few yards encouraged by ‘Bob’ Tanner, then ripping off the red patch with great gusto!
The one swimmer who comes to mind was Martin Simmons – he was probably the best during our time at school. Another was Mark Hewlett who was a good all rounder in sports. During his third year in the sixth form waiting to go to Cambridge, because he had some spare time, Bert 3 was given the job of looking after the pool. The summer of 1959 was a good one and he enjoyed the Caifornian-like weather, becoming very tanned. He actually got paid (not much) for doing this! He learnt about the purification plant and handling gas cylinders, without breathing apparatus which would no doubt infringe current Health and Safety regulations! He became good friends with the Belmont groundsman, who he saw daily for a cup of tea.
Tennis
This was also a bit of a minority sport, although the school had some good players – Mike Hodgkinson, Barry Williams and Mike Lamprell were all county players. Apparently Mike Hodgkinson retired from tennis aged 24 having lost in three sets to Roger Taylor who went on to become a Wimbledon semi-finalist. Mike sadly died a couple of years ago. Mark Hewlett (already mentioned) was another good player. The tennis courts were initially in the orchard, but later moved to King Harry Lane where they were on side-long ground, so all the balls gradually migrated to the lowest court!
Athletics
Although there was a grass track round the Belmont field, we do not remember using it. There were long and high jump pits there before everything went up to King Harry Lane with the other sports. The new grass track was right at the top where the ground flattens out, but there was still a slope at right angles, meaning that the 100yds was downhill producing some fast times. During our time there, all the school records were beaten.
Perhaps the best-known athlete was Mike Palmer, who held the mile record and was a good hurdler – an unusual combination, but he put it to good use when he competed for Britain in the 3,000m steeplechase at the Rome Olympics in 1960. Sadly, he died some five years ago about the age of 70. Another outstanding junior athlete was John Billington, who was British junior high jump champion clearing 6feet. His school record was 5feet 10inches. Malcolm Craddock was the first pupil to break two minutes for 880yds. Bert 5 held four school records (100yds, 220yds, 440yds and high jump). He shared the high jump with Billington and Barry Blott whose father was Mayor of St Albans in the fifties. His 220yds record (22.2secs) has not been beaten, although it does not seem to appear in the sports day programme now!?
Bert 5 was also British Universities 220yds champion and competed for them in the 1959 World Student Games in Turin. He also ran for Scotland on a number of occasions. In 1962 he won the Scottish 220yds championship beating the now Sir Menzies Campbell (ex Lib-Dem leader) who went on to hold the British 100m record and compete in the Olympics. Athletics was a strong sport in those days. The two prime movers were John Willé and Cambridge Blue Keith Finley, supported by the PE teacher ‘Jock’ Falconer. Mr Marsh was also keen, having obtained an Oxford cross-country Blue. I recall when an ex-pupil (John Knopf) was running in the Oxford v Cambridge match, that Mr Marsh had us all sitting in the hall listening to the 3- mile race on the radio which Knopf won.
Bert 2 competed for the school in the shot and discus. There was one nasty incident when a boy called Clive Woods walked across the path of a discus thrower and lost some teeth. Bert 2 can still see this incident in slow motion. Had the discus been marginally higher or lower he could have been killed! About the summer term of 1955 we were all asked to select one summer sport, whereas beforehand we tried them all. This obviously strengthened all the school summer sports teams.