When Blackheath last played London Scottish at the Richmond Athletic Ground, the Club won 20-13 and someone called Harding scored a try. I think we’d take that on Saturday.
OK, so it was 16 years ago, the try was by Sam Harding, not Billy, a No 8 who had one international for the All Blacks in 2002, and he was playing for Scottish rather than against them, but even so. It has been a long wait to visit the boys in blue again. We are more familiar with Richmond, whose ground they share, like AC and Inter Milan. The San Siro of southwest London.
Like many good ideas, London Scottish began in a pub. The Queen’s Head in Blackfriars was demolished in 1999, the year that Scottish went into administration and were relegated nine divisions from the Premiership, but it was there in 1878 that alumni of St Andrews University formed a rugby club backed by the regiment that shares its name.
Their first season was actually played on Blackheath, with fixtures at different locations across the common. They then moved to Clapham, then Lee and up to Hampstead before settling at the RAG in 1894. Like Rectory Field, the ground hosted international matches before the construction of Twickenham. We will gloss over the fact that all five Calcutta Cup matches went the way of the Scots.
Although Blackheath didn’t play Scottish when they were on our doorstep, it soon became a big fixture. Ten thousand spectators (!) went to their game at Rectory Field in 1894, which the Club won by three tries to nil. Reports of the time said their encounters felt like proxy internationals, though The Times lamented in 1897 that it was much easier getting to Richmond than Blackheath by train.
Seventeen years later, there were bigger concerns than transport. Of the 87 international players killed in the First World War, 31 played for Blackheath or London Scottish, who lost 165 players between them. Ronald Simson, killed in September 1914, played for both. Of the 60 Scottish players who signed up at the start of the war, three quarters were killed; only one ever played rugby again.
A century later, Blackheath and London Scottish played a series of matches at the RAG to honour these fallen brothers. The Scottish under-20s won their game before Blackheath won a first XV match and then, appropriately, the veterans drew.
Scottish have turned out more than 220 internationals, including Lions captains in Bill MacLagan, David MacMyn, Gavin Hastings and Mike Campbell-Lamerton, who also played for Blackheath. History favours them overall but there have been some good tussles. In 1982-83, for instance, they drew a merit table clash 3-3 before Scottish won a fourth-round cup tie 10-9
Our three encounters in 2010 were similarly close. As well as the Club’s 20-13 away win that started the season in which Scottish eventually went up to the Championship, they shared a 24-24 draw five months earlier at the RAG, while Scottish edged the match in Blackheath by 31-30. That game was memorable for Ben Ransom, making his Club debut at the age of 17, collecting the ball deep in his own half and running through the Scottish defence to score. Saracens soon came calling but it was great to see Ben come back to watch the play-off win over Plymouth Albion.
Our most recent clash was at Rectory Field in April 2011, where a huge crowd of 2,372 saw Club put up a fight against the title-chasers, ultimately losing 29-17 to a team who were on a 24-match winning streak. They would extend it to 26 by season’s end. Now it is Blackheath who are on a run with 11 straight wins. One more would tie the Club record.
There is another connection between the sides. Having played his minis rugby at Blackheath, our captain moved across London and was a junior for Scottish. The follies of youth! He then returned to them in his mid-twenties for a couple of seasons. Let’s hope that Billy still remembers how to score tries at the RAG, only this time at the Scottish end.
* Patrick Kidd has been a journalist for 25 years with The Times, Telegraph, Observer and others. He also writes a regular column for the Club programme.
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