The Trusty Servant May 2018 No. 125 | Page 12

No . 125
The Trusty Servant

150 years of XVs

To Celebrate , a few notes on Win Co Fo

There are references from the 16 th and 17 th centuries to playing football on Hills , where it appears to have continued until as late as 1860 , although from 1800 onwards , to an ever increasing degree , Meads was used by College , and Commoner Field by the rest of the school : the latter was on the site of what became the GWR Bar End Goods Yard , but was superseded in 1870 when Dr Ridding purchased Lavender Meads ; Dogger ’ s Close was subsequently acquired and then Palmer Field in the 1920s .
By 1820 , a 22-a-side game was the norm , with rules substantially the same as the present code , as well as a six-a-side game , which was generally deemed to be inferior . As Commoner numbers dwindled during the early-tomid 19 th century , so College victories became more frequent , partly helped by their absolute right to practise on Meads rather than on a field half a mile distant .
Play took place between two lines of juniors who were prevented from surging onto the ground by a rope threaded through posts : even so , this human barrier could play a vital part in the match by steering a vital flyer towards a friend or diverting it from a foe ! Juniors were then for a while substituted by canvas hung on an iron framework which tended to be uprooted by the wind , an arrangement which was anyway unpopular as the spectators ’ view was now severely restricted . In 1866 , netting was used for the first time and the rope and posts placed on the inside of the canvas to protect players from the framework . A slack rope and a four-foot gap between the rope and canvas led to interminable collapsing hots down ropes with very low scores resulting and it was some years before a combination of mechanical tightening and a reduction to a three-foot gap produced the arrangement we would recognise today .
By 1866 , three Old Tutors ’ Houses had been founded ; in 1867 , the formal separation of Commoners and OTH teams was made ; and from 1868 XVs and VIs have been played between the two in an unbroken series . VIs has retained the same formation , while some changes were made in the 1920s to XVs when it was discovered that the Rugby Union scrum could be adapted to our game .
With regard to colours and kit , College and Commoners have never really deviated from blue and red , while , in the early years , OTH wore green and white ; red and blue from 1870-74 ; and , finally , brown and white in 1875 . White serge trousers or a knickerbocker hanging well below the knee were replaced by white shorts in the 1890s . For reasons of economy , they gave way to blue shorts in the 1930s – maybe these didn ’ t need to be washed so often !
Extracted from a 1946 article in The Wykehamist by ‘ The Jacker ’, HA Jackson ( Co Ro , 21-45 ).
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