Hellfire Awaits -150 Years of Redruth RFC by Nick Serpell

Rugby Union, and Cornish wrestling are the two sports most closely associated with Cornwall but it is the former that has woven itself into the social fabric of communities from Launceston to St Just. The roots of rugby in Cornwall can be traced back to medieval ‘mob football’ which itself gave birth to Cornish hurling, a sport that had many similarities to modern-day rugby union.

The book traces the history and development of Redruth RFC, the club with the longest, continuous documented history of any Cornish club. In those early days, rugby quickly became the vehicle by which  the long-standing feuds that have existed between Cornish communities since time immemorial could be hammered out.

‘Hammered out’ is an apt description of those early 20 a side matches, when miners and labourers played in their iron-shod working boots and violence regularly broke out both on and off the field. Cornish rugby was far removed from the style of game seen on the playing fields of public schools and universities. It was, and has always been, partisan and confrontational.

Redruth RFC was born in a tough mining town in 1875. Like many Cornish clubs it was founded by local men who had come into contact with the game at public school and wanted to continue playing on their return home. They recruited local tradesmen, miners and factory workers turning what had been created as a game for and by members of the middle and upper classes, into one for the working man.

By 1900 Redruth had established itself as the most successful club in Cornwall. It provided the first Cornish-born England International in 1905, one of a number of the club’s players, from Bert Solomon to Jack Nowell, who would fly the Cornish flag on the national stage.The role of the club in the social history of the time is not neglected, as the area came to terms with the collapse of the mining industry, the depression and the resulting emigration of thousands of young men in search of work.

The club’s history is told against the background of Cornish rugby as a whole, from the formation of the Cornwall Rugby Football Union in 1884, whose meetings were often as confrontational as the games on the pitch, to the present day. It follows the club from those early days, through to the post-war period when rugby was seized on as part of a growing interest and expression of Cornish identity.

The book brings the club into the modern era with the challenges of long away trips in the newly formed league system of the mid-1980s to the challenges faced by the coming of the professional game a decade later. It culminates in the club’s celebration of its 150th anniversary.

Redruth is a club sunk deep in its community in a town which has not seen the best of times since the end of mining. Despite its geographical location and the economic situation in the area, it punches well above its weight in the rugby hierarchy.

This book is not just for Redruth supporters. It is for anyone interested in the part sport plays in the social history of Cornwall.

“If you want to understand the rivalries, the passion and the history of rugby union in Cornwall, this book is the place to start.” Tony Collins. Emeritus Professor of History, De Montfort University.