Reading time: five minutes

Congratulations to Camborne RFC’s hooker Ben Priddey! The two tries he scored at Macclesfield brought his haul for the 2024-25 campaign to 45, thus setting a new club record. Alex Ducker was the previous champion, with a mammoth 44 tries racked up in the 2018-19 season.

But who, I hear you cry, were Town’s previous top try scorers?

Though Camborne RFC played its first game in November 1877, it wasn’t until January 4, 1879 that a player actually crossed the line. Only a handful of fixtures had actually been played during this time, but the first try was scored, fittingly, against Redruth. Frustratingly, the report doesn’t tell us who the scorer was, and worse still, Camborne lost¹.

More pleasingly, less than a month later, the two sides met again, and this time Camborne won, by five tries to two. First in the list of scorers for Town was Charles Vivian Thomas².

The son of Josiah Thomas, a staunch Methodist and manager of Dolcoath Mine, Charles was educated at Taunton Wesleyan College and Cambridge. In Camborne he set up practice as a lawyer, gaining a reputation as a firebreathing Wesleyan preacher along the way.

Thomas had a sharp mind, a sharper tongue and a strong body. He also enjoyed rugby football, which he played while at College. There it was noted of him that he was

…a quick runner, a good scrag, and backs up well.

Wesleyan College Quarterly Magazine, 1877, p114. With thanks to Geoffrey Bisson, Queen’s College, Taunton

He was also a founder-member of Camborne RFC, and its first captain. It’s therefore rather apt that he is Town’s first (named) try scorer³.

The first player of note as a touchdown specialist is Sam Carter (1888-1967). Carter was a miner who had worked in the USA and British Columbia. Though starting his rugby career as a three-quarter, he became a back-row forward of some note, being capped for Cornwall in this position. In the 1911-12 season, he was reported to have scored 16 tries.

Facing a three month ban at the end of that season for spectacularly knocking a Redruth player cold on the pitch, Carter left Cornwall behind him, signing a professional contract for Northern Union side Rochdale Hornets. He was a member of their victorious 1922 Challenge Cup squad, yet lived the last years of his life on Treswithian Road, Camborne. His house, ‘Buersil’, was named after a district of Rochdale⁴.

The first player to have his try scoring exploits defined as a record was Leonard Hammer (1895-1979). A veteran of the Western Front, Hammer was a centre who won 13 caps for Cornwall, was given an England trial and attracted the interest of Northern Union outfit Halifax. In fact, Halifax were so impressed they asked him to state his own terms. The terms Hammer gave them was presumably ‘no thanks.’

In the 1922-23 season, Hammer touched down 24 times, and formed a deadly partnership in the centre with Phil Collins. Yet later that year, the Holmans employee was offered a clerical job in Birmingham, and took the opportunity. He also joined the city’s rugby club.

But he never forgot his roots. On a visit to Camborne in 1949, he was invited to kick off the Feast Monday match against Redruth, being described as a ‘star’ of yesteryear⁵.

Wing Reg Parnell (1899-1970) is the try scorer every Camborne fan remembers – and with good reason. The record he set, that of 36 tries in the 1926-27 season, stood for the best part of 60 years.

With players like him, Hammer, Collins, Bill Biddick, Rafie Hamblin, George Thomas and Herbert Wakeham, it’s small wonder Town’s exploits of the 1920s are legendary. Parnell, a Climax rock-drill engineer from Carn Brea, was an integral part of the team’s success and must have been a lethal finisher.

Parnell might have set the record with 36 tries, but it was in the 1924-25 season that he actually topped Hammer’s tally, with 29. For all that, he only played five times for Cornwall.

Less well-known is Parnell’s charity work during World War Two. Though all official play had been suspended, Parnell organised morale-boosting invitation matches, and the local communities, starved of entertainment, could watch their heroes of days gone by once more⁶.

Nobody could hold a candle to Parnell’s tally for decades. The best efforts came from Ivor Moyle, a back-row forward who won two caps for Cornwall and was a champion javelin thrower. He scored 25 tries in 1961-62⁷. Wing Mike ‘Jed’ Eddy, a Royal Navy man, went two better in 1975-76.

Honourable mentions must be made for Forrester Matthews, who chalked up 18 in 1945-46. John Rockett, Camborne’s ‘most dangerous attacking player’⁸ of the 1960s, managed 15 in 1962-63. Dave Edwards crossed the line 17 times in the 1977-78 Centenary Season – a strike rate, legend has it, of two tries for every three passes. Nigel Pellowe, who needs no introduction, scored 14 the year after⁹. (Apologies for any omissions.)

It wasn’t until 1985-86 that Parnell’s pre-war feat was surpassed. David Weeks, another wing, raised the bar to 39. It was believed he’d beaten Parnell with 30 in 1984-85, but fortunately for Weeks Camborne’s 1980s successes rivalled those of the 1920s, and he was given ample opportunity to definitively claim the mantle the following season. His fellow wing, Jon Bowden, was nearly as prolific.

Like Parnell before him, Weeks was a try machine, scoring over 250 for Camborne in 500 games. He also won 69 caps for Cornwall, including two County Championship Final appearances at Twickenham (but not, sadly, in 1991), and is a true club legend¹¹. David’s club record stood for over 20 years, until Alex Ducker bested it in 2018-19¹².

So now you know…

Many thanks for reading; follow this link for more top blogs on all things Cornwall: https://blog.feedspot.com/cornwall_blogs/

References

1. West Briton, January 9 1879, p5.
2. Cornishman, February 6 1879, p5. Actually, the report just records his surname, but as he was such an influential figure in the club’s early history, it’s fitting that Thomas was first.
3. For more on Thomas, see: https://the-cornish-historian.com/2023/08/26/cambornes-feast-day-rugby/
4. Carter’s story is recounted in more detail here: https://the-cornish-historian.com/2024/02/03/the-great-cornish-rugby-split/. Individual appearances for Cornwall are taken from: The First Hundred Years: The Story of Rugby Football in Cornwall, by Tom Salmon, CRFU, 1983.
5. Cornishman, April 23 1919, p7; Cornubian and Redruth Times, July 26 1923, p5; Western Morning News, November 30 1923, p2; December 1 1923, p2; November 15 1949, p8.
6. Cornubian and Redruth Times, May 7 1925, p5; Cornish Post and Mining News, April 30 1927, p8.
7. From: Camborne RFC Centenary Programme 1878-1978, by Philip Rule and Alan Thomas. Moyle was Cornwall’s champion javelin thrower for several years. In 1958 he threw 169ft, or 51m in a meet at Par. From: Cornish Guardian, July 10 1958, p12.
8. West Briton, October 22 1964, p2.
9. Rockett’s tally is noted in the Camborne RFC Centenary Programme 1878-1978, by Philip Rule and Alan Thomas. Matthews’, Edwards’ and Pellowe’s totals are mentioned in Tom Salmon’s The First Hundred Years: The Story of Rugby Football in Cornwall, by Tom Salmon, CRFU, 1983, p44.
10. Forrester’s afternoon in the sun is reported in the Cornishman, February 7 1946, p7. A Troon boy, Matthews had served in the DCLI.
11. West Briton, September 5 1985, p5; September 8 1986, p5. County appearances are listed on the Cornwall RFU website. The relevant County Championship Final entries are here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991%E2%80%9392_Rugby_Union_County_Championship, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990%E2%80%9391_Rugby_Union_County_Championship, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988%E2%80%9389_Rugby_Union_County_Championship#
12. Curiously, Ducker’s Wikipedia entry lists only 39 tries scored for that season, yet elsewhere the total is 44.

Reading time: 30 minutes

We built something up that was world class. From Cornwall. ~ Richard Pascoe

Alright, rosbif? ~ Bernard Hinault

I meet Richard, or Ricci as he’s known in the cycling world, at the Saint Piran Café and Bike Hire, Bissoe¹. Driving from the west, you go through Scorrier, Crofthandy, Wheal Maiden, United Downs and the Bissoe Valley. You’re certainly off the beaten track, and when arriving I was put in mind of the remote cycling hubs you’d normally expect to run across in the Forest of Dean. Though it’s an early morning in March, the place is bustling with dog-walkers, joggers and hardy cyclists. It’s easy to imagine biking one of the numerous trails hereabouts on a hot summer’s day, returning in the early evening when the sun is hitting the numerous picnic tables, and enjoying some well-earned refreshment. (They’re licensed, before you ask.)

I’ve time to reflect on this because I’m slightly early, and Richard is slightly late. If I’m being honest, I count myself lucky to have secured this interview, because Richard Pascoe is a significant figure in not just Cornish, but British cycling too. He’s a successful businessman; besides the Bissoe venture he’s meeting me at, he’s owned the Bike Chain at Mount Ambrose for 40 years. Soon he’ll also be opening a Saint Piran Service Course store at the old Mining Exchange in Redruth, as part of the Buttermarket redevelopment².

Think about it: Saint Piran at a mining exchange. You couldn’t be more Cornish if you tried. And Richard Pascoe is all about Cornwall.

But remember I said British cycling. In the early 2020s, Richard’s Saint Piran Pro Cycling outfit was one of only two teams in Britain operating on the UCI Continental Tour (Ineos Grenadiers are two steps above this, at World Tour level). They raced in around 30 events annually and placed 6^th on General Classification in the 2023 Tour of Britain. One rider in Richard’s stable, Charlie Tanfield, won the Team Pursuit Silver Medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Another, Jack Rootkin-Grey, is now a World Tour rider with EF Education. Richard counts Mark Cavendish and Sir Bradley Wiggins as friends. He’s done charity rides with Stephen Roche. He’s ridden mountains with double Tour de France winner Alberto ‘The Kid’ Contador, whom he later describes as being able to climb ‘like an angel’³.

Now, he’s about to meet me. I’m hardly William Fotheringham or Daniel Friebe, but I am Cornish, and Richard likes my work. Plus, I suspect that, for one reason and another, he isn’t overly keen on being interviewed by Cycling Weekly nowadays. Call it intuition.

In he comes, bringing more hustle and bustle with him, greeting his team, greeting everyone. The man exudes garrulous energy. He sees me, cracks a joke, orders coffee and porridge, and we’re off. But he takes a while to settle. He fidgets. He checks his phone. You get the impression of a man spinning several plates at once, which is understandable because that, metaphorically speaking, is exactly what he’s doing. Gradually, the concerns of the morning shift to the background…

A Redruth boy, Richard showed early promise at chess, and as a scrum-half played rugby to a high standard, being coached by Redruth and Cornwall greats Harold Stevens and Terry Pryor. Richard graduated from Lancaster University in the early 1980s with a degree in Management Sciences, but at this stage running a business was far from his mind:

It was to cycle and train harder for another three years…when you’ve got an ambition, follow it. Was it [the degree] a fall-back? Yeah, course it was!

While in Lancashire, Richard joined CC Bowland, and within a year had achieved elite-level racing status. For all his self-deprecation, he clearly had guts and talent. In 1986 he finished 9^th in the 94-mile Battle of Sedgemoor, in Somerset. Conditions were so bad only 23 of the 44-strong field finished⁵:

I wasn’t particularly talented at one thing, but pretty good in most…I could repeat a lot of things. I could continually close a gap, or do a sprint, repeatability was probably one of the good things that I could do. But to be honest, on the big mountain stages, and the climbers were top ten over the mountains, I’d be 12^th, or of it was a sprint, the top five sprinters would be first, and I’d be sixth…so always on the edge of things. I had a very talented brain, I could read a race, feel a race, but you’ve got to have the minerals to do it as well.

I did go from third to first category in a year, there were 50 of us in the country at the time out of 10,000 cyclists. But I probably tried stepping up too soon, going abroad…I probably should’ve taken more care and built up more of an endurance base…but you follow your dream, don’t you? You’ve got to live in France and go and race!

The 1980s saw professional cycling, and the Tour de France in particular, become more cosmopolitan. In Britain, Channel 4 began broadcasting the race, a move which coincided with the emergence of several non-continental cycling stars: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche, Robert Millar, Sean Yates and of course Greg Lemond⁶:

There were some pretty iconic figures then…but there are some very good characters around now, every year there are exceptional people, world-class people…look at Cavendish, he was media gold, he would say it as it was, and Bradley Wiggins? I’d say we’ve become quite good friends, we’ve had some ups and downs, last year’s Tour of Britain, we probably spent four or five hours together, sitting drinking coffee, talking about life…what a character!

But Lemond…he went to France and spoke English, there was Kelly, there was Roche, I’ve been fortunate enough in my lifetime to become acquainted with some of them, it’s quite nice to share your stories.

Like Lemond, Richard went to France, more precisely Brittany, but came equipped with more than a smattering of the native tongue:

When you’re on a team of young lads, you don’t want to be just saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ at breakfast…I speak French like a Spanish cow now! I lived with a family, which was great, they were really good to me. I called them my French family, they were well immersed in Brittany, in cycling…eventually I lived in the Palais Saint-Georges [in Rennes], which was effectively the fire station, and literally it looked like Buckingham Palace. I had my own room in the rafters, I think the ceiling height was something like 40 feet, what an impressive room!

Below is an image of Richard’s digs when in Rennes. Small wonder he looks back on that time with fondness:

He had a career to pursue as well, signing up for CC Rennes, a feeder club for a more prestigious outfit:

They linked straight into La Redoute-Motobécane⁸…the French system was very interesting, little bit like rugby to a certain extent in Cornwall and the South West, you would have a team attached to a pro team, say five feeder teams, feeding that pro team, and those setups still exist today.

I think we can learn a lot from France, and Belgium. We should be incorporating some of their structure into the UK…on the World stage we’re doing fantastic, domestically I think the scene has got some way to go.

It’s apparent that, no matter where you’re from, one thing counts in professional cycling. How you race:

I was never at the front of the race, when the good guys were riding, I never saw them! But when you’ve grovelled in the gutter, we used to call it riding on the rivets, (‘cos years ago they used to have rivets on the end of saddles), then that makes you one of the brethren. I found, that if you made the effort with the French, they would treat you as family…but they always loved a winner, if you were winning they loved you, and if you weren’t winning…but if you made the effort, and you spoke to people, it’s just human dignity and manners.

Though trying to immerse himself in French culture and the local racing scene, Richard could always count on a familiar face if things got tough:

At the time, we were classed as sort of semi-pros, at one stage we had eight first category cyclists in Cornwall, with a little bit of Devon, out of the 50 in the UK, so that was huge. Danny Deakin was on an elite licence, Gary Bryant from St Austell…Nick Giles lived in Newquay. There was five or six that came through, which was exceptional for a county of this size, but I think that gravitated around what my father [Len Pascoe] did. Then there were pockets of really good people, at Redruth School you had Chris Raine, that set up Redruth Cycling Club, there was 30-40 of us there.

Once you got the schools primed, people take to it. It’s a very individualistic sport, you show a little bit of talent, you then go where the races are, ride better races, then you get selected…so that regional basis was probably as strong as what I’ve known in my lifetime.

So Danny and I were very good friends, we would meet up at a race, and it was amazing. You’d try and skulk at the back and chat, which you couldn’t do, because you had to speak French all the time!

Or maybe have a breather. It’s stating the obvious, but professional cycling is one of the most extreme sports on the planet. As Robert Millar said,

Most bike riders at that level aren’t normal human beings. What they are thinking and how they go about what they want to do are not what a normal person would call nice or sane.

William Fotheringham, Bernard Hinault and the Fall and Rise of French Cycling, Yellow Jersey Press, 2015, p161

This was the milieu in which Richard found himself:

You were either full-time, in which case you were in one of the five or six essentially French pro teams, and then if not you were then sitting in one of the feeder structures. So it was almost like a downgrade, you’d be called an elite rider in the UK, it was almost like they’d kick you down [in France] to make you prove yourself. So you’d ride all the place-to-place races, they’re called sort of semi-classics, they’re two steps away from the big stuff, which is your dream.

My first year, I look back, and I think I raced 72 times. So if you think each race was over 100 miles, for four hours, and you were doing three races a week, probably too many! Your races were always 400 miles a week, so 20,000 miles a year, which was your base.

As we’ve learnt, certainly in recent years, it’s about looking at performance, and looking after the individual, it’s not all about the miles.

Richard rode before the use of banned blood-booster EPO became rife in the pro peloton during the 1990s. I fell out of love with the Tour de France in those years because it seemed to me that what I was watching onscreen wasn’t real, it was in some way enhanced, or false. Lance Armstrong, Bjarne Riis, Floyd Landis, Marco Pantani, the Festina scandal…It was only later that, instead of shunning the sport, I tried to understand just why these men took the steps they did, to cheat en masse. The answer lies within the nature of the sport itself, the driven, single-minded nature of the men at cycling’s peak, and the massive financial incentives dangled in front of them. What I found, sadly, is that no generation is entirely clean¹⁰.

Considering this, Richard is really choosing his words:

It’s really difficult…You’ve got to be good to race at the top level anyway, so whatever you’re doing isn’t going to dramatically change your performance, you still have to have the gene-pool and you have to have the minerals.

It was a time that was…look, it’s a brutal sport, and I’ve seen it as a mentor of world-class cyclists, if you don’t perform, there’s no bread on the table, I’ve seen it as a team owner, if you don’t go to these races, if you don’t get invited to these races, then you’re not going again, then you don’t get the start money, then the team ceases to exist…

I mean, I understand the pressures, I really do, but [the 1990s] were an era where you could see that there were classy people that were, y’know, their performances were starting to become remarkable…it was the appearance of a manufactured state…

But you look at racing now, riders are having two or three good days, and then occasionally a bad day, which is indicative of a more level playing field. [A cyclist’s form] is finite now. Once you’re at that level, it’s how you’re looked after. And the care these days, and the science, it’s absolutely awe-inspiring.

Look, [taking performance-enhancing drugs] is not something I condone obviously, but when I rode…yeah, it happened.

Richard wasn’t in France very long. I was curious to know when he had the moment that every young professional sportsperson dreads: the realisation that I ain’t gonna make it…

The first pedal stroke! With every rider that passes through your hands now, you can more or less see where they are instantly. It’s very hard, because you’ve got somebody that’s worked for years…

You try and train harder, you try and race smarter…but I had a particularly good race, there was six of us in a break, and we had something like a [lead of] a minute and a half, ten miles to go. I’m thinking, Yeah, I’m gonna get top six in a really big race, this is unbelievable. And we were doing 30mph. With the gears that we had, we couldn’t do any more revs, literally maxed out.

And then, we did a mile, and the chalkboard [a motorcyclist displaying a hand-written time gap] came up, it had gone from one minute 30 to 45 seconds! We did another mile, and it was 20 seconds…

We looked behind, and one rider was coming across [from the peloton]. Suddenly I felt a little tap on the shoulder, and I turned around. And it was [Bernard] Hinault, and he said to me something like

‘Alright, rosbif?’

Tap on the shoulder, world-class cyclist, can’t remember where we were riding or what the race was…and…he just rode away from us…

You get the sense Richard still can’t quite believe what he saw. Okay, Hinault won the Tour five times and at his peak dominated the peloton like nobody else has managed to do since. But the race where he skinned Richard wasn’t the Tour or, for him, even a major race. No, while Richard and his cohorts had their balls to the wall, Hinault was training.

You just know there’s class, and you can tell classy riders…But the bottom line is, I wasn’t good enough as a cyclist, so I always felt my life was characterised by failure.

To be, in his own words, riding on the rivets, and having the next level laid bare in such a fashion, perhaps told Richard all he needed to know. But he (quite literally) isn’t a man to sit still for long. What he perceived as failure was rapidly turned into an opportunity.

I came up with the business to try and fund my racing, and I was coming up with some innovative stuff at the time. We were making locally, clothing, padded shorts, sales were amazing, we were exporting, doing mail order, funnily enough in Cycling Weekly! We did very well with the mail order, that was growing and growing, exponentially…Lamorna Leisurewear¹³ used to make the clothing.

Every business needs seed money though:

The Enterprise Allowance Scheme¹⁴ made a hell of a bleddy difference at the start. I thought I could race in this country, and run a business – you can’t. You can’t suddenly travel from Cornwall to Newcastle, come back home…Y’know, France, Belgium, that’s where the structure was. You just couldn’t do it [here]. And I suppose my head fell off, in real terms!

We just threw all that ambition into the business, Ricci…And that grew to be quite an animal, quite a size.

Richard was 23 when he opened the Bike Chain. At a time when every other bike shop still seemed to be selling Raleighs or was jumping on the mountain bike bandwagon, Bike Chain was different. European. Continental. Serious. Young and upwardly mobile, Richard was not without his detractors¹⁵:

One man said at the time, ‘There’s no money in bikes, you won’t make a success of it,’ which hurt really…It was hard, I was ambitious, I was brash, but if you’re going to stand up and do something, you’ve got to put yourself above the parapet…

People in the Establishment as well, I’ve seen distributors come and go, that wouldn’t supply us, all come and gone. Customers would drive down from Scotland to have a handmade bike, and they still do! We go full circle, we’re building bikes again, we’ve got our own relationship going with some bicycle manufacturers now. Funnily enough, out of all the kerfuffle we had with the team, it taught us who to deal with…

And we’re going to expand, at a time where everywhere else is closing. 

Witness Aldridge’s bike shop in Camborne, which finally closed for business last year. But a shop wasn’t enough for Richard. During the May Bank Holiday of 1988, Redruth closed its streets for a crowd of 4,000 to watch 40 high standard cyclists race pell-mell through the town¹⁶. Richard had been the principal organiser:

They told me it couldn’t be done…you only get 10,000 people in Redruth for two reasons. One is a fire, the other is a bike race! It was Redruth Town Council, and I had a conversation with them, and said ‘I want to put a cycle race on in the town centre’, and they said ‘What do you know about cycling?’ So I went along to a Council meeting, they asked me ‘How do you know it’s going to be a success?’ I said, ‘Well, because we’ll run it, there’s no guarantee, but that’s life!’

To their credit, they agreed to underwrite the cost, then we could make it a success. They underwrote £7,500 that first year, which was a lot of money then.  And I think we went into profit in year one. So we got that money back, we closed the streets, two days racing, there was also a road race at Leedstown, then it grew to a time trial on the bypass, and we ran it for seven, eight, nine years…

Malcolm Elliott rode, Dave Rayner rode, some real big hitters…¹⁷

In the early 1990s, the series of races came to be known as The Celtic Challenge, with Cornish, Irish, Scots, Welsh and Breton riders regularly taking part. Redruth was the only town in the South West to close its streets for bike racing¹⁸.

In 1988 a 65-mile sponsored ride from the Bike Chain to Lands End and back raised £600 (£1,640 today) for the British Heart Foundation. In 1990 The Celtic Challenge road race was 85 miles and coincided with the start of the Tour of Britain’s progenitor, the Milk Race, which that year rolled out of Penzance¹⁹.

I had imagined Bissoe’s Saint Piran Café, which opened over 25 years ago, to be another step in Richard’s masterplan. A gap in the market, an opportunity…

I bought it with my heart, didn’t I? I paid a lot of money for it, but it was part of The Mineral Tramways²⁰, visitor numbers were really low, it was kind of just a stopping place. So I thought we could do a lot with it.

It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve really focused on it. Suddenly we’ve got commercial kitchens, new chefs, breakfast menu, lunch menu, quality produce…We’ve tried to make it a beacon of excellence, but we’re not shouting about it, we’re growing the business organically…

I bought it with real ambition…about 18-20 years ago I took a project to the RDA (Regional Development Agency). The plan was to have five of these in Cornwall: one here, one at the Eden Project, one at Goonhilly, one at Mounts Bay, one at Heartlands. If you’ve got five centres, you start getting people round, you’ve got activity, you’ve got transport, you’ve got health…

I took it to the head of the RDA, who said We’re not giving you the money because you’re in the private sector…that conversation didn’t last long! Typical me!

But The Mineral Tramways are so unrepresented, and yet with a bit of sideways thought, clever investment, you wouldn’t need to spend thousands, they’re old railway lines, mountain bikes’ll roll over them easy, bit of bleddy weeding and you’re done!

So Bissoe was a dream to connect Cornwall, but let’s just develop the facility here and let people come and enjoy it, and get out on their bikes…

Look, we want to keep employment here, we’ve got The Buttermarket, we’ve got The Mining Exchange in two months, and we want to make that a flagship store. We’ll make it work! It’s a high-end concept, but we want to be all things to all people, I want people to be able to buy a mountain bike at a cheap rate and go out cycling. I want both.

We’ve got our online presence, which we’re growing. It’s a commercial look this year. We also want to build up the Saint Piran Café as well, and make sure more people come through and enjoy…

And we’ve got one or two really good business projects, we’re developing prototype wheels and a frameset, but all these things take time.

Speaking of bikes, how did the idea to run a professional team germinate?

It was always out of failure…I’d helped to set up clubs, and it all goes through the same pattern, you want people that get involved, they’ve got passion, yet it’s all on a voluntary basis. And that’s like a lot of sport in this country; problem is those people get burnt out in three years, five years, they come and they go…

Big headline: I don’t think there’s any space, at the moment, for volunteers in sport…we should be rewarding our volunteers. We cannot keep relying on them for nothing. Because they fall over, and it’s that falling over that stops the progression of the club. But it happens in every club, no matter what, the direction, the drive, and it can stall because the resources aren’t there.

You set clubs up, and all of a sudden you’re on a committee, and the drive goes…but it should be about the young people, about the progression of talent out of Cornwall, it’s what I’ve always said…

I set up One and All Cycling²¹, and that was huge. Became one of the biggest clubs in the country, had 400 members, national academies…and then committees get involved, and sadly my DNA doesn’t mix very well…

So I set up the ‘Bike Chain Ricci’ team, obviously based around the business, we had success at the Olympics, great racers, national champions. It [the knowledge] was always there, when I’d raced in this country for CC Bowland, and eight of us in that team were in the top 50 in the country, you learnt what excellence in a team looked like…

Why ‘Saint Piran’?

I wanted something that was clearly connected with the region. I was really lucky, the typeface, the brand, is owned by myself. One and All had come and gone, and I thought, ‘Right, what does something need to look like, if you could start something that was pure at the beginning, with no interference?’

I reached out to [former Team Sky racer] Jon Tiernan-Locke, who’d had a bit of bad press²², talented boy from Devon, and I was driving back from his place in North Cornwall, trying to think of some names, and I saw this sign, think it was for St Tudy…

What about the Cornish tartan?

Don’t ask how much it cost! But now we own it, there’s no issues with copyright or what have you. We got things right with a lot of stuff, and that Cornish tartan looks great. But we were a club team, we were literally a club team, but you’ve got to start somewhere. Build your brand, build your subscription, build the community…

Look, you set up sponsorship on your jersey, and let’s just say you’ve got your accountants, and they help you for two to three years…but after twenty years, you’ve exhausted all your avenues in Cornwall.

So I learnt from the other sports, I thought, plain, classic, everybody wants one, build it into a brand…

I now say that the Saint Piran team was used to build the brand, so we can do lots of things with it, and at the end of the day we’re a local company supporting local people: staff, jobs, employment. We should look at that, focus on that, and make sure that those people are being built up…

Of course, cyclists of all ages and abilities can ride under the Saint Piran banner, and this is what Richard is keen to stress:

What we’re trying to do now is open up, from the bottom. So we’ve got Saint Piran Delivra, which is Cornish for ‘free’. So you can join our cycling club for free. It doesn’t cost you anything to join. No money, no cost, with a host of benefits. You wear the blue jersey, you’re in the organisation, you support the values.

I thought, if you had a UCI team, then a UK elite team and so on, get it all under one umbrella, in-house, that would be a more meaningful structure, with a broad base. Essentially that’s what they do in Belgium and France. It’s what I admire about their system: if you’re in a French feeder team, 1,000 members, 700 of those will be leisure cyclists, 200 fourth category, 80 third, 60 second, 15-20 elite and then maybe one or two pros. But what they do, they all wear the same helmet! So those at the bottom would buy and the top would get for free.

Whereas with our club system in our country, it’s Oh, we don’t do that. We don’t buy into the reward schemes, we don’t buy into it collectively, but I think it’s a great model. So why don’t we incorporate that into our structure? Which is what I did…

So if you’ve got everything under the one structure, it is about the ones that are making it through to the top…Oh, but that’s not fair, what about inclusion?…But there’s no cost to join us, so it is all-inclusive, there’s no barrier.

The scale of the operation, and the challenges faced by Richard and his team to get the project off the ground, and achieve what they did with the resources they had, are staggering:

We were innovative, we would try and do things, on a budget that was incomparable. When you’re spending your own money, you think smart!

Budget: all in, for everything, a million pounds. For everything. Vehicles, hotels, race entries, riders, it’s just…and you think, if you look at UAE, or Ineos, or anybody, they’re probably operating on £50-100 million disposable, because they’ve already got the vehicles etc…

We built something up that was world class. From Cornwall. You’re saddened that it’s not there at the moment…the infrastructure’s there, the knowledge…it’s all there…

We would race in Belgium on a Sunday. You can’t really train properly again until Wednesday morning, time you travelled overnight Monday, you’re absolutely mullered on Tuesday, can’t do nothing till Wednesday! Whereas the World Tour teams, straight in the hotel, sleep there, ride the next day…it’s rest, rest is the problem.

To give more perspective, in the early 2020s Saint Piran was one of only two UCI continental teams operating in the UK. The other was Trinity Racing, run by Andrew McQuaid²⁴.

I love him – he’s a team owner! Of course there was healthy rivalry, any domestic race in the UK, we smashed his riders, which was great! But he had a better programme, they rode the Baby Giro [the U23 Giro d’Italia] for Christ’s sake! He knew what he was doing, he was an agent too, so if his riders made it, he was getting paid, so it was self-fulfilling. He gave me one piece of advice:

Never trust anybody in cycling..!

Rivalry’s good. You need rivalry, but once you’re on the continent, you work together. If one of their riders needs a bottle, or food, you just do it.

But he’s had to stop this year because you can’t fund it in the UK. His way was by selling advertising, ours was more inclusive, we needed everybody, the media, the magazines, and sadly we didn’t get everybody.

Formed in 2018 as an Elite National team, by 2021 Saint Piran had progressed to the UCI Continental level. Next steps were UCI Pro, then UCI World, and UCI World means the Tour de France. In his mind’s eye, Richard was catching up with Bernard Hinault. In 2021 Tom Mazzone won the Grand Prix de la Somme. In 2022 Alexander Richardson won the Grand Prix de la ville de Nogent-sur-Oise. Saint Piran held all three podium places of the prestigious Lincoln Grand Prix in 2023. In 2024 they took a stage of the Tour of Japan²⁵.

In the 2023 Tour of Britain, Zeb Kyffin finished sixth on General Classification. He was 23 seconds behind overall winner Wout van Aert which, if you know your cycling, gives you some idea of the standards Saint Piran had reached²⁶. I followed the 2024 Tour of Britain religiously, and was bellowing at my screen right along with a certain Team Principal:

Yet by November 2024, it was all over. The Pro and Women’s Elite teams would not be lining up in 2025.

In June 2022, bikes totalling £30K were stolen from a Saint Piran team vehicle in the Netherlands. As Richard said at the time,

Teams such as ours, particularly at a continental level, cannot afford to sustain these losses.

Cycling Weekly, June 21 2022²⁷

Later that year, it was reported that Saint Piran had engaged lawyers to recover £100K in costs from bike manufacturer Lapierre. The firm had issued 60 machines to Saint Piran, but the team stated that these bikes were ‘potentially susceptible to failure’, and therefore declined to use them²⁸.

Forced to look elsewhere for bikes, Saint Piran sourced machines from China. In October 2024, an article in Cycling Weekly, which was subsequently picked up by Cycling News claimed Saint Piran were using frames that were not UCI-approved – the Chinese frames. More damningly, it claimed the Team had tried to disguise this by fixing UCI stickers to the bikes themselves²⁹.

Richard was quoted in the Cycling Weekly article:

Saint Piran acted on the advice of the manufacturer and an external expert and understood they were in line with UCI regulations at all times. It appears that advice was incorrect. We have now reported this to the UCI and will abide by their ruling.

Cycling Weekly, October 17 2024

The UCI made the following statement:

The UCI can confirm that an investigation is currently underway regarding the potential use of a non-homologated frameset by UCI Continental team Saint Piran in past events on the UCI International Calendar.

Cycling News, October 17 2024³⁰

Due to these reports, and the ensuing investigation, Saint Piran rapidly lost £500K in sponsorship. Chickenfeed to a team like Lotto-Soudal, but when your budget is only £1M, it effectively broke Saint Piran. Where does Richard sit with all this?

Because you’re under investigation, it’s hard to go for a licence. We’re in disciplinary now. We didn’t register some black frames. Was it our responsibility to? Yes. Our team representative that we had at the time hadn’t registered them. We bought them off a wholesaler who bought them off a manufacturer. The manufacturer per se should have had the dialogue with [the UCI], but it was post-Covid and we were on those bikes because the Lapierre machines failed.

They’ll probably say, Look, this wasn’t great, and there’ll have to be ratification, but we all make mistakes in whatever process you’re doing, and we wouldn’t have made that mistake if the [Lapierre] machines hadn’t failed on us. We were trying to race UCI races, and if you don’t meet those obligations, you get fined! I reckon it’ll take the length of this year, then we can have a fresh optic for 2026.

We had a great sponsorship arrangement with Lapierre [in 2022], and the bikes failed. And bizarrely enough, five weeks ago, they’ve done a worldwide recall on the bikes.

In January of this year, Lapierre recalled the very models Saint Piran had claimed were faulty back in 2022³¹.

Richard is taking all this on the chin – he readily admits an error was made. What rankles is the presentation of him and Saint Piran in the media:

To lose that momentum because of an article, it shows the power of the media. But bizarrely that very same magazine is supposed to be promoting cycling within the UK. Taking away 20 riders, six staff, £500K in sponsors, overnight…

I used to spend £100K a year with Cycling Weekly, and later on they write some very dubious reports. How can you be in the cycling industry, that’s supposed to be about the benefit of sport, and write an article that helps destroy a team?

Indeed, he claims the closure of Saint Piran was

Pump-primed by the media. It’s tinged with quite a bit of sadness really. We were looking at a bigger budget, getting more sponsors in, you’re trying to set something up, you’re trying to pass it on to the next generation. That was our next step, this year, we had riders under contract that were absolutely phenomenal. We would have gone up, and we were sustainable.

What’s done is done. Is there a way back for Saint Piran Pro Cycling?

Not running a professional cycling team, I’ve suddenly got 70 hours a week back! We’ve got some very healthy conversations going on currently, and I need to decide whether I return to the sport, and in what format. But there has to be a change in the way certain things are done.

There would have to be conditions, to protect myself and my family. I had a car accident last year, my father was dying, we were moving house, and the business pressures…it’s been a year! I think you need your media partners onside…it’s there, and the knowledge is there, but it has to be done with certain conditions, because otherwise you’re sacrificing your own personal health.

Saint Piran were ranked among the top 50 cycling teams in the world. When you see that, you think, wow, all that happened from little old Cornwall…

Let’s all hope it happens again soon.

(If you missed my previous Cornish Sporting Hero, Rugby League star Graham Paul, click here.)

Many thanks for reading; follow this link for more top blogs on all things Cornwall: https://blog.feedspot.com/cornwall_blogs/

References

1. I highly recommend: https://saintpirancafe.com/
2. For more on The Buttermarket, see: https://www.buttermarket.org/. See the Saint Piran press release here: https://saintpiranprocycling.com/news-stories/2025/2/26/saint-piran-service-course-to-open-new-cycling-hub-in-redruths-historic-mining-exchange
3. For more on Charlie Tanfield, see: https://saintpiranprocycling.com/news-stories/2024/1/20/define-redemption-lets-talk-about-charlie-tanfield-. For more on Jack Rootkin-Gray, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Rootkin-Gray. Stephen Roche is one of only three riders (the other two being Eddie Merckx and Tadej Pogacar) to win the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and the World Championship Road Race in the same year (1987): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Roche. For more on Contador, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Contador
4. In fact, it’s the title of Fignon’s fascinating autobiography: We Were Young and Carefree, Yellow Jersey Press, 2010.
5. Bristol Evening Post, August 5 1986, p31.
6. For more on the rise of British involvement in the Tour de France, see William Fotheringham’s Roule Britannia: A History of Britons in the Tour de France, Yellow Jersey Press, 2005.
7. Image from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_Palace
8. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Redoute_(cycling_team)
9. Len Pascoe passed away earlier this year: https://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/educationservices/fpeducationschools/24998255.funeral-cornish-cycling-legend-len-pascoe-redruth/
10. There’s a whole sub-genre of cycling literature that examines the use of drugs in the sport. I recommend: Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson, by William Fotheringham; The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France, by Tyler Hamilton; Racing Through the Dark, by David Millar; The Death of Marco Pantani, by Matt Rendell; and Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, by David Walsh.
11. David Walsh, Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, Simon & Schuster, 2012, p65. Image from: https://pezcyclingnews.com/features/armstrong-contador-what-really-happened/
12. Quote from: William Fotheringham, Bernard Hinault and the Fall and Rise of French Cycling, Yellow Jersey Press, 2015, p91. Image from: https://bikeretrogrouch.blogspot.com/2015/07/badger-badass-bernard-hinault.html
13. This company sadly went bust in 2013: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/L-56622-242
14. For more on the Scheme, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Allowance_Scheme
15. Even the Cornish Press flagged up Richard’s youth: West Briton, December 3 1987, p8.
16. West Briton, June 2 1988, p29.
17. For more on Malcolm Elliott and Dave Rayner, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Elliott, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Rayner_(cyclist)
18. West Briton, March 29 1990, p4; May 23 1991, p7.
19. West Briton, March 17 1988, p12; February 8 1990, p19.
20. Fore more information on The Mineral Tramways, see: https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/environment/countryside/cycle-routes-and-trails/the-mineral-tramways/
21. See: https://www.oneandallcycling.com/
22. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Tiernan-Locke
23. Image from: Image from: https://saintpiranprocycling.com/news-stories/2020/3/9/saint-piran-2020-team-launch
24. See: https://trinityracing.co.uk/
25. Information from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Piran_(cycling_team)
26. For the 2023 Tour of Britain, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Piran_(cycling_team). Wout van Aert rides for Team Jumbo-Visma and has won stages of the Tour de France: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wout_van_Aert
27. Article here: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/racing/british-racing/tens-of-thousands-of-pounds-of-bikes-stolen-from-saint-piran-team
28. Article here: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/british-team-saint-piran-and-lapierre-uk-distributor-call-in-lawyers-over-pound100000-dispute
29. See the articles at: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/racing/exclusive-british-professional-team-glued-fake-uci-compliance-stickers-to-bikes-purchased-from-china; https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/british-continental-team-saint-piran-admit-to-faking-uci-approval-for-unmarked-chinese-frames/
30. From: https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/british-continental-team-saint-piran-admit-to-faking-uci-approval-for-unmarked-chinese-frames/
31. See: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/lapierre-issues-stop-ride-notice-and-recalls-aircode-drs-and-xelius-sl3-over-safety-issue-with-fork

Reading time: 30 minutes

A working-class hero is something to be ~ John Lennon

You done okay, but you’ve come out of Daniel Place, and they’re never going to let you forget it. ~ Graham Paul

Graham was born on June 6, 1934 and brought up at Daniel Place, just off Morrab Road in Penzance. His earliest rugby memory is the amalgamation of deadly rivals Penzance RFC and Newlyn RFC in 1945:

Was there any friction? There wasn’t. My explanation for it is, it was 1945, all these guys had been away in the services, and that brought them together…also, fortunately the Mennaye Field was available, and it’s mostly in Penzance but some of it’s on the Newlyn side, so that was ideal…

His father, Arnold, worked for the local laundry. Apart from a spell in the Army, this was a job he held his entire life. His mother, May, ran the household, raising Graham and his two siblings:

It was a whole row of terraced houses, little houses. Each house had a kitchen, a middle room, and a front room. Upstairs there were three bedrooms. No bathroom, there was no water of any description in there, the water was a tap in the back yard, also the toilet was in the back yard outside…there was mother, father, me, my sister, my brother Trevor, and my granny, all living there. It was chaos! I look back on it and I just can’t believe it.

The outcome, really, was that I left home at 17. I’d had enough! I was in the grammar school, got to 17 and father said to me, you’ve gotta get out and work. All my friends were going off to college, but father wouldn’t entertain that. So what I did was, I went to Redruth, I went into the RAF recruitment centre, and I joined the RAF…this was in October, November time [1951], they said we can’t take you until you’re 17 and a half! So I left home on the 25^th of January [1952], went into the RAF, never lived at home again. Never!

By now, Helena and I were courting, she was still at school, and the way we met was, I had to do this period from September through to January, and father said you can go back to school. So I went in, went to see the headmaster, explained the situation, so he said what’re you going to be the in the RAF?, so I said a PTI [Physical Training Instructor], so he said how about you go and work in the gym?, so I said, great! The Boys’ School and the Girls’ School decided for the first time ever to get together and produce a show, it was by Benjamin Britten, and the gymnasium was to be the theatre, so I was down there painting scenery for the opera, Helena came down, she was domestic science, she was helping make the costumes, and that’s how we met, pure fluke!

By now, there was no room for Graham at Daniel Place. On leave or at weekends he would stay at Helena’s parents’ spacious B&B in St Ives.

When I left home, my father gave me two and ten, that’s what I left home with, that was the only money I ever got! Alright, it doesn’t sound very much now, but two pounds and ten shillings then was probably half of his week’s wages!

Still in his teens, Graham had to adjust to life away from home. His sporting ability helped him settle:

I went to the RAF School, PT School, which was just outside of Wolverhampton, and one of the sergeants there played scrum-half for Wolverhampton, and he said d’you want a game of rugby, so I played three games, and that was my first introduction to senior rugby. Up to that stage I’d only played in the U16s at Penzance, and then for a bit in the U18s.

I played three games at fly-half and I thought, I like it out here, and that’s really what changed the way I played, up till then I’d always been a scrum-half.

Hard to comprehend is how rugby union was played then, but Graham found an attacking method to suit:

It was a totally different game to what we watch now. In those days you had a big pack of forwards that won the ball, and gave it to the backs. And the forwards didn’t do anything else, basically! Win the ball, get it to the backs, and the backs scored the points! So, what I found was, particularly later in my career, I could take the ball, give it, drop around behind, and support anybody that was breaking…I was never, ever a great defender! I just wasn’t big enough! The forwards stuck to their job, and the rest of the pitch was left to the backs, so there was space everywhere.

Helena went to college, she did three years at Stafford. So while I was at various places in the RAF, I could always make my way over to Stafford for half term and whatnot.

Graham was first stationed at RAF Upwood in Cambridgeshire and was invited to play for Bedford RFC. However, an incident involving a horse wrecking a biplane he was supposed to be guarding and the subsequent fallout (Graham was cleared of any neglect of duty, but his superior officer wasn’t), meant he was swiftly transferred to RAF Waddington, near Lincoln. There, he had two seasons with Nottingham RFC:

I had the time of my life! As my game developed in Nottingham, it came to the light of the RAF, and I ended up playing for Bomber Command, and then I played for the RAF. Then the RAF themselves decided my rugby career would be better served if I was down in Cornwall, so the RAF sent me down to St Mawgan, so I could play for The Pirates, and hopefully play for Cornwall!

Being in the RAF, Graham came into contact with a form of rugby not normally witnessed in Cornwall:

Playing for the RAF, I met a lot of Rugby League players, good players, who were doing their National Service. Alex Murphy was one of them, probably one of the most famous Rugby League players of all time¹, he did everything in the game. He was in the RAF, and he had a deal with them, if they allowed him to play for St Helens, he would play in the inter-service games [Union] for the RAF, and that’s why I never got an inter-service game. Alex always got the inter-service games! Years later, in my very early days at Hull KR, we played St Helens away, and Alex was playing opposite me, he came out of a maul, screaming, and the packs just piled into one another! I’m standing looking at this, thinking, should I get involved?, and I started to move in, and Alex ran, put his arm round my shoulder, he said ‘This is f___ all to do with us!’

Once back with Penzance-Newlyn, Graham formed a formidable partnership on the pitch with scrum-half Peter Michell, who sadly died aged 90 in 2023:

We came from totally different backgrounds, his background was a big house in Heamoor, which had a tennis court…very very wealthy family, Michell’s the jewellers, but Peter had no side to him, Peter was great, he got me on a sevens team once, The Public School Wanderers, in the Twickenham Sevens!

After sharing the bridal suite of a hotel in Bagshot, Peter, Graham and the other Wanderers were knocked out in the first round. Chalk and cheese, the two Pirates men were close friends:

Peter could do three things on a rugby pitch: one is catching the ball, two is kicking, and third was the way he passed the ball…but he never ran five yards! So I was out there waiting, and basically he was either going to kick it, or pass it. And the passing was good, it was always right there…

Here Graham indicates where Peter, without fail, would deliver him the ball: right in front of his stomach, at elbows-length – where every player wants to receive a pass.

Playing for the RAF, I’d never played with a scrum-half who could run, until I played with Onllwyn Brace, Welsh scrum-half who was in the RAF at the time…I played with Onllwyn several games, and found once you had a running scrum-half, it gave you a lot more room, it would suck people in…

For all his flair, Brace² was probably the exception rather than the rule. In Cornwall, 1950s rugby is remembered chiefly for its powerful, intimidating forwards, such as Redruth’s Bonzo Johns or Camborne’s Gary Harris. But who was the toughest?

Vic Roberts. He was as hard as any of them. He wasn’t the biggest by a long way, a lot of them were just throwing their weight around, but Vic was amazing. He would pick people twice his size, and flatten them! He was ferocious!

As my late uncle John had been a massive fan, I felt honour-bound to ask Graham about Camborne’s Gary Harris. His response gave an evocative window on how the game was played back then:

It was a funny set-up in those days, d’you know, forwards and backs, you’re on the same team, but you never really mixed. You tended to mix just with the people that are with you on the field. Hey, those guys just get the ball and give it to you, that’s their job, forget them…there was no real interaction.

Forwards always trained together, scrummaging, lineout, that was their game, and the backs trained together. You very rarely trained as a team. You trained as two units with a job to do.

Cornwall [for the 1958 Championship] would train on a Sunday. That was it. Everybody was working, everybody had jobs…the situation when I was there, the full-back, came from St Ives, Harold Stevens, lovely guy, he actually became a pastor, and if we met on a Sunday, to train, we had to go to the chapel first! We had to go through the morning service in the chapel, and then we could train in the afternoon. But he insisted the whole team went to the chapel first.

The image of the entire Cornwall XV kneeling in prayer before training because their skipper for the 1957-8 season happened to be a man of the cloth is irresistible.

Graham debuted against Gloucestershire in October 1957, Cornwall winning 15-6. His play was praised in the Press as a

…revelation. He took his chance in fine style.

Daily News (London), October 14 1957, p10

Not only that, two England selectors were watching. But Graham plays down any international ambitions he may have had:

The only reason I was in the team, was Richard Sharp broke his arm…in my mind, I could see the selectors thinking, Who’s Peter Michell’s partner for Penzance? That guy Paul, we’ll have him…I consider I got in that team on the back of being Peter Michell’s partner. But having got in there, I thought this isn’t going to last, I’m having a bit of fun! I played as if I didn’t care a toss!

That season [1957-8], I played every fixture, I absolutely we thought we could do it, particularly going into the semi-final against Lancashire. Harold Stevens came to me before the game, ‘Quick word, I think we can beat them in the pack. The problem is the threequarters, they’re really good. I want you cut [the Lancashire fly-half] Bev Risman off. I want you to get up flat to him, get between him and the backs’…There was actually a comment in the ‘paper about my inability to tackle Risman…what invariably happened was, just occasionally he got a kick in, but he would usually turn back inside me, and our openside flanker, played for Harlequins, David Mills, he would come up and flatten him!

It worked. An estimated crowd of 13-20,000 at Redruth RFC saw Cornwall beat Lancashire 14-8. The Liverpool Daily Post reckoned the heavily partisan crowd was worth at least three points for Cornwall⁶, and Graham’s memories give some impression of what the atmosphere must have been like:

They actually built a huge stand on the other side of Redruth ground, it was built over in the field, behind…

In other words, you had two stands in Redruth that day, the Hellfire stand and the temporary one on the opposite side of the pitch. For Lancashire, there was to be no escape. This victory set up the Final on March 8 against Warwickshire, at Coventry.

Two things I distinctly remember, the first one is, we stayed at the Leofric Hotel, which was built after the War, it was the first hotel I’d ever stayed in where every room had a bathroom suite!

Second, the morning of the game, Peter and I woke up (we were in the same room together) and went down for breakfast, and Peter said, ‘I can hear singing, what the hell’s that?’ We went and looked outside, all the Cornwall supporters were there singing Trelawny.

Helena was expecting, and when I left to join up with the Cornwall team, she said to me, ‘Go, play your rugby, don’t bother getting in touch until after.’ And when the game was all over, Peter Michell went and rang Helena, and she was in labour! John was born the morning after!

At half-time, Cornwall were 5-0 up:

The first quarter of an hour, we were up on their 25, and Peter got the ball and flashed it to me, it was a bleddy awful pass, bleddy awful, it almost went behind me, I got the ball, and I’m going back almost to get it, very rare for Peter, and as I straightened up, the openside wing forward went where I should have been, he went past me, and I just ran inside him, looked left, Vic Roberts was the blindside, he was coming down the touchline, I gave him the ball, he went over and scored…

Lest we forget, this was long before VAR…

Years and years later, Cornwall won the Championship, first time for a number of years [1991]. The team that I played in was invited to the Final. We were given expenses, seats, everything, even had a hospitality suite…it was amazing! Virtually all the Cornwall players were there, but no Vic Roberts. I wondered, where the hell is he, he’d gone down to the President’s suite. I went into the room and, in the left-hand corner of the bar, was Vic, having a drink with a couple of others. He saw me come in, and he shouted ‘Hey, Graham, come here!’ You’ve gotta remember that he’d captained England, Lions, he’d done everything, played thousands of games of rugby, and as I walked towards him, he said,

‘That was a bleddy forward pass, you know’. And it was! Nobody saw it, well actually everybody saw it, ‘cept the referee…

(Graham’s other favourite memory of the 1991 Final at Twickenham is overhearing the Duke of Edinburgh ask one of his aides what the mass of security guards were attempting to do with the thousands of Cornish fans invading the pitch. ‘They’re sweeping the pitch, Sir’, the aide said to His Highness. ‘Is that for mines?’, queried the Duke…)

Back in 1958, there was a feeling that five points wasn’t enough…

It was worrying, because we’d got so many injuries, Roger limping on the wing, and our prop, Alan Mitchell, he’d had a back knock, he ended up going to hospital. So we were concerned, but I don’t think we ever thought we were going to win.

General consensus is that this was one of the hardest Finals in Championship history. A Camborne man, Terry Symons, was in the crowd that day and recalls seeing Vic Roberts and David Mills collide early on, effectively neutralising both of them. Back in Camborne after the match, he bumped into Gary Harris, with his face ‘scrawled’ up. Harris had carried the Cornish front five single-handedly, and it showed. Several Camborne fans reckon he was never the same player again.

Roger Hosen, a centre for Penryn, Nottingham and England, spent most of the game hidden on the wing with his thigh heavily strapped. In the days before substitutions, Alan Mitchell played on with a broken jaw. Make no mistake, Cornwall were tough, but Warwickshire’s pack were a step up. Cornwall needed to score early in the second half. Graham attempted two snap drop goals⁸:

The first, I was totally off-balance, they were the only times when I’d pre-thought the drop-goal, which I’d never done before…and I got the ball, had a knock at the same time, and that happened twice…

Graham claps his hands in disgust. Warwickshire gradually took control, their ‘mighty steam-roller pack’ overwhelming Cornwall’s to win 16-8⁹. But they didn’t have it all their own way:

You know what the Cornish supporters are like when they’re wound up…but really you were too involved in the game, your job is on the field…I can’t remember looking at them [the crowd], or thinking about them, you can’t!

We accepted the fact they were probably a better team than us anyway…this was the first time Cornwall had got to the Final in God knows how many years [1928], we were pretty pleased with ourselves having got there!

Much was made in the national Press of Cornwall’s unruly, partisan support, but we might do well to remember that in Cornwall itself, its XV’s exploits were met with indifference east of Truro. The Cornish Guardian, produced in soccer-dominated North Cornwall, devoted one meagre paragraph to the Final¹⁰. One only has to consider the handful of clubs the XV was picked from (above) to conclude this was essentially a team from West Cornwall.

Graham obviously had the temperament for a big game. He was 23, at his peak, and three England selectors had watched the Final¹¹. One reporter noted his quick feet when on the attack¹², but when I asked if he considered himself close to international honours, the answer is firm:

No. I didn’t have the background. You done okay, but you’ve come out of Daniel Place, and they’re never going to let you forget it.

His main competitor at the time for the 10 jersey was Richard Sharp, himself no slouch. But Sharp himself knew who the better man was:

Graham Paul was the fly-half and was considered the key member of the side so there was no question of an alternative.

Winning Rugby, Pelham Books, 1968, p30

(Graham himself says Sharp’s statement was ‘very generous’.)

Graham has gone on record elsewhere regarding his thoughts on the RFU’s perceived selection policy at the time. In 2008, he spoke of Mike Blackmore, a Barnstaple wing who also signed for Hull KR, and played with Graham in the 1964 Challenge Cup Final:

Like me, Mike was from what you might call a modest background and it always seemed to be someone from the establishment who was selected…Background counted for a lot in those days and I think that was one of the main reasons he switched.

Independent, February 20 2008¹³

In his living room, Graham continues:

Mike was a good player, his background was certainly better than mine, but wasn’t right up in the top bracket, and the other thing was, they [Hull KR] offered him a lot of money!

Graham may have a point. Mike Blackmore captained Devon in three County Championship Finals, and had had five England trials by the time he was 22. It’s hard not to reach the conclusion that Mike’s secondary modern education would forever count against him where the RFU were concerned. Small wonder he signed for Hull KR¹⁴.

It was at this time, around March 1958, that Graham found himself at a crossroads. He would shortly be leaving the RAF, having served his time.

Graham hands me a letter. It’s an old, important letter. In fact, it’s a very important letter. Ultimately, it changed Graham and Helena’s lives.

When I was leaving the RAF, it became pretty common knowledge in the rugby world, and that I was looking for something or other. Bedford wrote to me, and this is the letter…

The implication is clear: come back to play for Bedford RFC, and we’ll see you right. Technically, under the RFU’s amateur regulations this was an offence, albeit one of the more flouted ones. But that didn’t perturb Graham:

I rang him [Perkins] up, and spoke to him on the ‘phone, and said to him, ‘This is all very well, but I’ve got a young wife and a son. Where are we going to live?’ And he said, ‘That’s no problem, you’ll get a house.’ But that was off the top of his head!

So I went to the Pirates, and I took that letter, and I showed it to the Treasurer of the Pirates, and I said to him that I’d been offered a house too, and asked him, ‘What’s on the cards for me, here?’ And he said, ‘Nothing, we can’t get involved.’

And that’s what sent me to Rugby League.

Graham didn’t need to make enquiries about switching. Even if he had, and those enquiries reached the wrong ears, he would have faced suspension from the RFU. The rugby grapevine was strong enough to be heard further north than Bedford, and did all the work for him…

There was a guy called Fairfax, he was Welsh, and he was an agent for several Rugby League clubs. I don’t know if that’s his real name even! He came to me and said, ‘Would you be interested in Rugby League?’ He came to me out of the blue…he phoned me, then came to see me. He said there were three clubs he worked for: Halifax, Wigan and Hull KR. He said, ‘Which one interests you most?’ So I said, ‘Not, Wigan, if I go Wigan, I’ll have to be a star overnight, and I’m going to have to learn this game.’ Of the other two, I said either one, and he went to Halifax, and apparently Halifax said no, we don’t need another stand-off half, we’ve got two! So, he went to Rovers, and the rest is history…

The historian Tony Collins told me that Arthur Fairfax was a top League scout in Wales and the South West. He signed Roy Francis for Wigan in the 1930s, and tried to procure Carwyn James for Halifax in the 1950s.

Fairfax had come to see me in Newquay, and then we arranged to meet in Hull, and he took me to Rovers. Would you believe, he had a fee, he was expecting a fee, and I said to him, ‘I am going to negotiate my terms, not you, you’ll get your money, but I’m negotiating the terms.’ What I didn’t want was him going in there blabbing big this and big that, I just went in there and said, ‘Look, you’ve seen me, what’s on the table?’

Hull KR had certainly seen Graham in action. On November 8, 1958, the Club’s directors had travelled to Bristol to watch Gloucestershire beat Cornwall 8-6. Scoreline notwithstanding, they obviously thought Graham a useful prospect¹⁵.

They came up with £1000, I came up with £2000, and we met in the middle!

As Graham told the Hull Daily Mail in 1991, this was

…an offer I couldn’t refuse.

January 1 1991, p12

Indeed, he and Helena were set for life:

How many people can say, they’ve never had a mortgage, or never had anything on hire-purchase? Never! And the basis for that was signing for Hull KR. They gave me a cheque for £1500 [£29,900 in 2024]…it was quite demanding at the time, selling up here, and moving up there…they [Hull KR] fixed me up with a flat, which strangely enough was over a fish shop! It was a bit smelly but okay for a while. It was also thankyou to Rovers that I got in the licence trade, because when I first got there they said, ‘We’ll find you a job…you’re going to be a car salesman.’ I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ I couldn’t even drive a bleddy car!

And the level of secrecy?

Huge! Absolutely huge! One person knew what was going on, Helena, nobody else. Not my mum, my dad, nobody. I signed for Rovers, and I had a deal with them, that they wouldn’t release the news to the Press, they would let me go one last game for the Pirates [Graham’s 100^th match], and that last game was Penryn away.

I played the game, I enjoyed it, and I’m walking off, and Peter was just ahead of me, and I caught up with him, put an arm around him and said, ‘Quick word, Peter…that’s our last game together.’ And he just stopped, and said ‘What? What are you talking about?’ So I said, ‘I’m telling you this, what you want to do with it, it’s up to you, but I’m going to play Rugby League for Hull Kingston Rovers, it’s signed and dealed, this is our last game.’

Peter said, ‘Can I tell everybody?’ And we went in the changing room, and he stopped everything that was going on, and he said ‘Stop! Graham’s just played his last game for us, he’s now a professional Rugby League player, he’s going to Hull Kingston Rovers.’

And there was a second of silence, and then ‘WOW!’

Nobody held it against me. Only thing was, word got to one or two supporters, and they’d told my father back at the Club, he knew! When I got back to the Club, he saw me and said, ‘What the hell have you done now?’

Of course, the Pirates’ fans, Graham’s family and fellow players had nothing but admiration for his switching codes. One team-mate (and fellow 1958 Finalist) who certainly didn’t object was Jimmy Jenkin, who signed for Hull KR too in early 1959¹⁶. But understandably you get a sense of the regret within the Pirates’ upper echelons. Committee man Cyril Ladner was quoted as saying

The club did what they could, but they could not compete with the offers that Rugby League clubs were able to make.

West Briton, June 18 1959, p2

Graham also knew that, under the RFU’s regulations, he could never play Rugby Union, or be admitted into a Union club ever again. As Gareth Edwards once said, ‘You’d be damned to bloody hell!’¹⁷

Graham’s new club appreciated this:

Rovers really looked after me. They were very, very considerate, they appreciated the fact that it was a different game for me, it was a new game. They had a very good stand-off half called Rowley Moat, he could play wing as well, and we used to switch…in the end I ended up on the wing permanently.

They signed Alan Burwell¹⁹, and he was a superb player, and he was a stand-off half. And they actually came to me and said, ‘Look, we’ve signed Burwell, can you play on the wing permanently?’ And I thought Phew, I’ll live longer!

Modern professional sportspeople talk of having a ‘safety net’, a backup plan, in case things go awry. Not Graham:

There was no backup plan. I was going to make a success of it.

The game was harder in those days, harder than Union, because the ball was handled so much, and there was no ‘six goes, now you have the ball’²⁰…sometimes you could go 10, 15 minutes and never touch the ball…it was physically very, very tough, but hey, you’ve got to live with these things!

I mean, I was always pretty fit, I was a PTI, but never fitter than when I played Rugby League…my big asset was speed, and speed off the mark. From standing still to flat out was about three paces!

Graham must have been like a young Jason Robinson. In September 1959 he scored a hat-trick against Halifax who, lest we forget, could have signed him themselves and must have spent the afternoon washing egg off their faces. An enterprising stringer for the Hull Daily Mail conjured up the nickname by which Graham is famous:

Other journalists deployed the moniker as a cheap pun, like at York in 1961:

It was Easter weekend, and my mother sent us up some cream [Rodda’s] to have with the kids…on the day before the match we had rhubarb and cream…the only problem was that night I had the runs something terrible, and I got down to the ground for the match, and I said to Colin Hutton, the coach, ‘I can’t play, there’s no way’ and he just said, ‘Get in there and get changed!’ There was no substitutes in those days, anyway I set a club record, I scored five tries, and there was a headline in the ‘paper:

Ill or not, Graham Paul, The Cornish Express, was a lethal finisher. He scored 116 tries in 197 appearances for Hull KR.

It shouldn’t be forgotten though that he also had a day job. Graham’s work in Hull, that of a publican and hotelier, was no sinecure. Helena told me that she never watched Graham play. One of them had to be on hand to run the business, as well as raise three children.

In 1962, Graham suddenly found himself back in Cornwall, as part of a League recruitment drive. Hull and Hull KR had decided to stage a series of exhibition matches at Penzance, Camborne and Falmouth.

They [the Hull Clubs] thought there was a source of Rugby Union players worth looking at, and starting to get them interested…the rugby standard in Cornwall was high enough that Rovers felt an exhibition Rugby League game was a worthwhile investment.

It had its problems…they gave me a week to go down and organise everything. Where were we going to play? Well, that was solved by the fact that it was close-season, and the grounds were the property of the local councils, so that was that problem solved.

Problem two, all the Clubs said to me, ‘You’re not having our goalposts.’  So…the council organised this, at all three grounds, they removed the goalposts, they put another set of goalposts up, and then immediately after the first game, those goalposts were taken down [at Penzance], taken to Camborne, same thing up there…

Next problem we had was, the Pirates wouldn’t let us use the clubhouse. Fortunately in Penzance, the soccer ground is only 300 yards up from where the Pirates were, we were able to change there, then walk down to the Mennaye Field.

When the game was over, we weren’t allowed in the clubhouse.

The Press coverage wasn’t especially inviting either²¹. Clearly for some, professionalism was a contagious disease, and those infected had to be corralled away from the healthy, amateur populus.

In 1962-3, Graham broke the club record for tries in a season, 34. He started the final game level on 32 with Mike Blackmore. It was a feat that was only bettered in 1985²². Clearly, Graham’s decision to switch codes was the right one:

Graham is also one of very few rugby players to have played in a County Championship Final and a Challenge Cup Final. In 1964, Hull KR played Widnes in front of 85,000 people at Wembley. Alas, they lost, 13-5. Online you can find a few brief minutes of match footage²³. Graham catches the ball, skins his opposite number on the outside (as you would expect), and gets clean away down the touchline:

But as in 1958, it was not to be. For once, The Cornish Express was brought down short. I was curious to know which Final meant more:

No different. Equal. I lost both of them so they were equally disappointing! They were both great Finals, the Cornish support [in 1958] was amazing…

To be honest, when we played at Wembley, I was already thinking, What’s next? Helena, three young boys, we were at a crossroads, and I was offered a job as backs coach for Hull KR, because they appreciated my career was coming to an end. Helena had been offered a job as well, and I’m thinking to myself, What do you really want? I wanted the boys to grow up in the environment that we grew up in, which was Cornwall. So we dumped everything and came back to Cornwall!

Of course, even for an ex-Rugby League player, going to watch a game of Rugby Union was out of the question:

I accepted the fact that I couldn’t go back to the Mennaye Field, I couldn’t watch the Pirates, I wouldn’t be allowed in the ground. Now I think, in the bottom of my mind, if I went down there, they wouldn’t stop me. But the other side of the coin is, I didn’t want to put anybody in a position of having to say, Look, you can’t come in.

So I stayed away, which meant I could concentrate on running the pub!

On retiring from League in late 1965²⁴, Graham, Helena and their family returned to Heamoor, and ran the Sportsman’s Arms. Fame and a steady stream of visitors from Hull meant the business prospered handsomely. Acquiring property along the way, Graham also became a handy golfer, boasting a handicap of 11. He wore a Hull KR jumper for a bet during a match where he was paired with Bill Bishop, then on the committee of the RFU. Bishop saw the funny side, and asked Graham if he would like his amateur status back:

He fixed it. I never applied…

Graham hands me another significant letter. It’s from the RFU, dated November 1991. Twenty-six years after his retirement, Graham’s amateur status was reinstated. He could enter the Pirates’ clubhouse once more.

At least Hull KR know how to treat their former players:

In 1991, Graham was interviewed by the Hull Daily Mail:

…there have been a lot of things in my life that I’ve enjoyed, but I enjoyed my time in Hull more than most of them…My only regret is that I wish I’d gone to Rovers [Hull KR] earlier.

January 5 1991, p12

Hearing this quote, Graham reflects:

Looking back on it, I would have liked to have had a longer career in Rugby League, but…Rugby Union taught me how to play. That’s where I learned the game. So I’ve got to except that.

I’ve had a life…

Graham stops, checks himself, glances at Helena:

We’ve had a life, that I never believed would be possible. It’s been fantastic.

With special thanks to Helena Paul and Phil Westren

(If you missed my previous Cornish Sporting Hero, international distance runner Emma Stepto, click here.)

Many thanks for reading; follow this link for more top blogs on all things Cornwall: https://blog.feedspot.com/cornwall_blogs/

References

1. For more on Alex Murphy, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Murphy_(rugby_league)
2. For more on Brace, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onllwyn_Brace
3. For more on Roberts, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Roberts
4. Image from: https://www.redruthrugbyclub.co.uk/news/harold-stevens-rip-1249096.html, information from: https://www.trelawnysarmy.org/harold-stevens/
5. The information on Mills is from: http://www.cliftonrfchistory.co.uk/blues/cambridge/mills/mills.htm. For more on Risman, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bev_Risman, and https://www.skysports.com/rugby-league/news/12196/12908491/bev-risman-former-rugby-dual-code-international-dies-aged-85
6. February 17 1958, p9.
7. For more on Stack, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_Stevens
8. Daily Mirror, March 10 1958, p23; Sports Argus (Warwickshire), March 8 1958, p7.
9. Sunday Express, March 9 1958, p7.
10. March 13 1958, p11.
11. Daily News (London), March 9 1958, p8.
12. Birmingham Weekly Mercury, March 9 1958, p27.
13. From: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/mike-blackmore-dualcode-rugby-player-784370.html
14. From: https://www.northdevongazette.co.uk/news/sport/1199844/loss-of-a-rugby-legend.html
15. Hull Daily Mail, November 24 1958, p8.
16. West Briton, January 15 1959, p2.
17. Edwards is quoted in The Rugby Codebreakers, BBC documentary, 2018. It can be viewed here, and I highly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo8nAtxhUl0
18. Image from: https://hullkr-heritage.co.uk/record/rowley-moat-graham-paul/
19. For more on Burwell, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Burwell
20. When Graham played, there was no limit to how many times a team in possession of the ball could be tackled before handing it over to the opposition. The four-tackle rule was introduced in 1966, and was extended to the familiar six tackles in 1972.
21. West Briton, June 7 1962, p11.
22. Hull Daily Mail, June 3 1963, p6, and https://hullkr-heritage.co.uk/record/triesinaseason/
23. Go here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=845623330024811
24. Huddersfield Daily Examiner, October 19 1965, p8.

(A version of this post was originally published as part of the story of John Jackett, 2024)

Reading time: 20 minutes

Cornwall’s largely unexpected victory in the Final of the 1908 RFU County Championship against Durham is a story many people think they know. Bert Solomon. A pasty on the goalposts. Redruth RFC. Thousands of fans. Endless renditions of ‘Trelawny’, and so on.

What is largely overlooked these days is the heavily influential role in this victory of Cornwall’s captain, John Jackett, and other key players. Triumph is normally ascribed to Solomon’s mercurial genius, masking Jackett’s development of the side over several seasons, a development that would ultimately bear fruit in 1908¹.

Also forgotten is the fact that the internal squabbles of the Cornwall RFU (CRFU) in the build-up very nearly scuppered its team’s chances of victory. It was only after the final whistle at Redruth on Saturday March 28, 1908 that some semblance of unity in Cornish rugby was achieved.

To begin to see why all this might be so, we need to begin with a discussion of Cornwall’s very first Championship campaigns, which were less than inspirational, to say the least.

They’d first entered the South Western Division (joining Devon, Somerset and Gloucestershire) of the County Championship in the 1892-3 season, and for some years following had been the region’s whipping boys.

From that inaugural year up to the start of the 1900-01 season, they’d played 23 matches…and lost each one³.

In the press, resignation was prevalent. Before the 1893-4 fixture against Devon, the pundit ‘Spectator’ had already thrown in the towel:

Victory will undoubtedly rest with the Devonians…

Cornish Post and Mining News, November 24 1893, p3

Spectator was correct. At Exeter, Devon stuffed Cornwall 38-3, majorising four of an eyewatering six tries.

That said, Cornwall were in a tough draw. After the formation of the Northern Union in 1895 had broken the dominance of the Lancashire and Yorkshire XVs, Rugby Union’s power-base switched to the West Country. In the years John Jackett played for Cornwall (52 times from 1898-1911), Devon won the Championship in 1899, 1901, 1906 and 1911. Gloucestershire won in 1910⁴.

Cornish insularity, hostility to the CRFU and inter-club rivalry were contributory factors to Cornwall’s poor showings too.

On the eve of the Devon match mentioned above, two Penzance players were named in the line-up⁵. In the event, the club withdrew their players’ services in protest at the CRFU’s decision to move the venue of the forthcoming fixture against Gloucestershire from Penzance to Redruth, their committee arguing that

…the removal has been done improperly and illegally.

Cornish Telegraph, November 30 1893, p5

Although 1897’s campaign was another whitewash, the journalist ‘Impartial’ (who was anything but) saw a glimmer of hope – and an opportunity to have a sly dig at Devonport Albion, a club long suspected of acquiring players by offering them cushy local jobs⁶. Cornwall had

…shewn a bolder front to their opponents. With a few big industries (a dockyard for instance) we shall be able to cope with the adjacent shires…

Cornishman, April 21 1898, p6

Was it time to be even bolder? Blood some youth? What did Cornwall have to lose?

By October 1898, Falmouth’s twenty year-old full-back John Jackett was a Cornwall player, and was being tipped for a bright future⁷. The upturn in the team’s fortunes though was far from immediate. Cornwall only registered their maiden Championship victory, against Somerset in the 1900-01 season. 3,000 in Redruth witnessed the two tries to nil win. Jackett played a prominent role:

…the Falmouthian did all that was required of him in a style unequalled by any custodian turned out by Cornwall…Jackett…came out of the ordeal with flying colours.

‘Touch’, Cornish Telegraph, November 14 1900, p8

(Also playing well that day was a young fly-half from Redruth, James ‘Maffer’ Davey.)

This victory however was a false dawn. Cornwall didn’t win another Championship fixture until the 1904-5 round, when they beat Gloucestershire 18-9 in Bristol⁸.

It was Jackett’s first game as captain. By now, he had had playing experience with Plymouth and Devonport Albion. He would shortly sign for the formidable Leicester Tigers and be selected for England. In other words, he was hitting his peak. It was therefore no coincidence that this was also the beginning of a new era for Cornish rugby. Belief. Flair. Success.

And it was John Jackett who threw down the gauntlet. Here’s his opening statement – at 10 – in that match. There was

…a sensational incident, for from the first scrimmage J. Jackett slipped past Butcher and found a clear field in front of him, save for the full back. On reaching the latter, he punted, and then ensued a foot race for the line…

‘The Bounder’, Cornish Echo, November 4 1904, p2

It didn’t, alas, result in a try, but Gloucestershire were stunned. Cornish XVs didn’t normally play with such gay abandon. Jackett gave his men confidence, coupled with a fast, open game plan based on what he’d seen at Devonport Albion and would shortly experience with Leicester. This is how it’s going to be.

With handling “worthy of a first-class Welsh team”⁹, Cornwall were easy winners, Jackett kicking the crucial three goals which bested the home XV’s three tries.

He’d been given the tools for the job too. The CRFU had for once picked a team based

…on form, instead of reputation…

‘The Bounder’, Cornish Echo, November 4 1904, p2

And four of those form-horses that day would be with Jackett in 1908: his brother Dick, the wing Barrie Bennetts (Penzance and Richmond), and two more forwards, Nick Tregurtha of St Ives and John G. Milton of Camborne School of Mines. (Bennetts and Milton would also win international honours¹⁰.)

They went on to beat Somerset, but came unstuck against Devon. Jackett, maybe not a natural 10, was criticised in both games for demonstrating the fly-half’s cardinal sin: greed¹¹.

Cornwall reached the playoffs, did the double over Somerset, but once more Devon proved the stumbling block. Jackett’s men had failed to win the South West Division, but Cornwall had notched up their most successful Championship to date¹².

They were no longer the South West’s makeweights. They were competitors. But it was Devon, always Devon, that thwarted them. In 1905-6 they lost 19-0 in Devonport; in 1906-7 they were on the wrong side of an agonisingly tight 8-6 scoreline at Camborne¹³.

Cornwall had never beaten Devon in the Championship. If they wanted to progress, they would have to overcome one of the strongest XVs in the whole Championship.

*

The 1907-8 campaign started well. Somerset were hammered 25-6 in the opener at Taunton. Jackett by now had reverted to 15, with cross-kicks that held The Cidermen back. A youngster from Redruth, Bert Solomon, was a constant threat in the centre. Also, a Leicester team-mate of Jackett, as big and physical as brother Dick, who claimed he was Cornish and said his name was Fred Jackson (which it wasn’t), kicked five goals¹⁴.

But then it unravelled in Plymouth against their old nemesis, Devon, who won 17-8 in atrocious conditions. Their pack dominated, which gave the Devonians’ scrum-half, Raphael Jago, an open invitation to make a real menace of himself. Starved of decent possession, Maffer Davey, recently returned from the Transvaal¹⁵, had a game to forget at 10. Bert Solomon’s partner at centre failed to create space for the wunderkind to work his magic.

Jackett was one of the few to finish the game with any credit. Cornwall were gutted. Not another season as bridesmaids.

There was a glimmer of hope: if Somerset lost to Devon, and The Pasties beat Gloucestershire, the latter three XVs would have to meet again to determine the South West’s champion¹⁶.

In a roundabout way, it was at this point that Cornwall’s luck began to change. A frozen Redruth pitch postponed the Gloucestershire fixture. Gloucestershire appealed to the RFU, arguing that, as Cornwall had failed to protect their pitch, they (Gloucestershire) ought to be given home advantage for the rearrangement.

They weren’t, and the postponement meant that Jackett, at first doubtful, could make the rearranged date. On Saturday January 25 1908, a crowd of 5,000 in Redruth watched Cornwall hand the reluctant visitors a 34-10 beating¹⁷.

To the playoffs. Devon were coming to Redruth.

It’s one of those fixtures where you wish you had been there with the other 6,000 fans to watch, or at least be lucky enough to stumble across some archive footage of the match at Kresen Kernow. For Cornwall finally realised

…the ambition of years – to thrash Devon…

West Briton, February 17 1908, p3

Jackett, as was his wont on winning the toss, elected to play uphill in the first half: let them come at us, then we’ll have a crack later on. His display overall was described as “faultless”. Fred Jackson’s kicking saw him carried off the field by a delirious mob. Maffer Davey was a general at 10. And yes, Bert Solomon scored that try:

He feinted to send Bennetts in, and the latter was so perfectly deceived that he actually proceeded to dive for the line…Solomon then with a clear course coolly romped over…

West Briton, February 17 1908, p3

Cornwall 21, Devon 3. No longer world-weary harbingers of doom, the Press were talking up the Cornishmen as likely winners of the whole Championship. What of Gloucestershire, next victims in the playoffs?

…[they] will have to show a vast improvement on their form of a fortnight ago to make even a draw of it.

West Briton, February 17 1908, p3

And what of Middlesex, potential opponents in the semi-final? They were dismissed as mere

…Varsity men and public school boys, who will probably crack up when opposed to the hurricane tactics of the Cornishmen…

West Briton, February 17 1908, p3

Not only were Cornwall going to win, they were going to rough up some toffs. The Cornish rugby identity was already resolutely working class – and proud of it.

Gloucestershire lost at home 15-3, giving Cornwall the South West Division¹⁸. The CRFU won the toss to decide the venue of the semi against Middlesex. Cornwall would have home advantage. The burning issue was, which club would have the honour of hosting? The CRFU’s Hon. Secretary, W. Dennis Lawry (a Penzance man), proposed Redruth.

A Falmouth representative proposed his own club, stating

…Redruth had had its share.

Cornishman, February 27 1908, p4

Falmouth threatened to boycott the CRFU when their proposal was dismissed. Redruth’s representative, William Hichens¹⁹, played the martyr. Getting the ground ready for such a big fixture was a “great amount of work”, but

…they should do everything for the team…He would sink his own feelings and take on the work again.

Cornishman, February 27 1908, p4

Furthermore, John Jackett

…had said that he knew every inch of the [Redruth] ground, and that was a very important thing…

Cornishman, February 27 1908, p4

Redruth’s slope fitted his gameplan.

Camborne grumbled too, and expected to host the Final – nobody seemed to doubt Cornwall would make it. But for now, Middlesex would come to Redruth. Hichens made a show of rolling his sleeves up…and doubtless afforded himself a smug grin in private²⁰.

Jackett won the toss, and made his team play uphill first. After a tight initial forty, it was a try apiece. However,

Gradually the homesters wore down the visitors…

Cornish Echo, March 13 1908, p8

John Milton, a South African-born, six-foot, 15-stone beast of a forward, took two Middlesex men with him over the line. Shortly after, swift passing ignited by Maffer Davey put Bennetts in on the wing. Another try in the closing minutes was the coup de grace.

Cornwall 19, Middlesex 3. It might have been closer, were it not for John Jackett. He was judged

…a tower of strength…he saved his side as no other full back in England could possibly do…

Cornish Echo, March 3 1908, p8

This set up the Final, against Durham.

Cornwall’s XV for the Final contained seven men who had been, or would shortly be awarded, international honours. It also contained four from Devonport Albion, which amply demonstrates how ‘attractive’ a club it must have been. Wing Barrie Bennetts, scrum half Tommy Wedge, Bert Solomon and mining students Arthur ‘Ajax’ Wilson and John ‘Jumbo’ Milton all represented England. John Jackett and Maffer Davey played for England and toured with the British Lions. Fred Jackson, though not capped by England, went on the same 1908 Lions Tour as Jackett and Davey²¹.

Additionally, Dick Jackett had been an international trialist, and is reckoned to be the best player never to win recognition by England²².

This is surely the greatest Cornwall XV. It needed to be. Durham boasted six internationals themselves, and ‘The Monkey Hangers’, as they were known, had been County Champions in 1900, 1902, 1903 and 1905 (they shared the title with Devon in 1907)²³.

This was the game of the season. The two best sides in the land. Today’s equivalent would be the Gallagher Premiership Final.

As with the Middlesex match, Cornwall had drawn home advantage. Predictably, within the CRFU debate raged as to which club would host the great occasion.

Charles Bryant, of Camborne RFC, proposed his ground. Improvements had been made to the facilities, and besides,

To have four matches at Redruth and none at Camborne is not a fair nor a proper thing.

Cornubian and Redruth Times, March 19 1908, p3

Clearly Bryant couldn’t give a tinker’s damn about the hopes or merits any other rugby club in Cornwall had of being hosts. William Hichens stamped all over his proposal. Gone was his feigned reluctance to preside over yet another county match:

They [Camborne] did nothing until they saw everything was going successfully at Redruth…such a puerile argument…

Cornubian and Redruth Times, March 19 1908, p3

Hichens claimed to have the players’ interests at heart, but Bryant was far from pacified:

You take it we shall not continue members of this Union if you have all the matches at Redruth…

Cornubian and Redruth Times, March 19 1908, p3

This was not the last time Bryant and Hichens locked horns, nor the last time Camborne threatened to quit the CRFU²⁴.

Ultimately, Hichens and the team’s sentiments held sway. Jackett had been approached on whether the venue ought to be changed for the Final. His response was succinct:

Certainly not…

Cornubian and Redruth Times, March 19 1908, p3

Redruth it was. The West Briton‘s big game preview ran profiles of the Cornwall XV. Here’s what ‘The Celt’ said of John Jackett:

He is perhaps the soundest full-back that has represented England in recent years for he possesses great kicking power, fine judgment, and is a deadly tackler…

March 26 1908, p3

This match would be the pinnacle of his four years as leader of Cornwall. He’d taken them from tournament also-rans to being one victory away from the accolade of The Best in the Land. Yes, he’d played for England. Yes, he’d led his Cornish XV against the All Blacks and the Springboks. He was doing great things at Leicester.

But in a few months, John Jackett would be thirty. Not the young gun anymore. There surely wouldn’t be many more chances, if any, to lead Cornwall in a Cup Final, to win some silverware. To be the first. To make history.

He must have wanted it badly.

So did his team. So did the 17,000 spectators shoehorned into hastily-erected stands in Redruth. This was easily the club’s biggest gate until the 1969 Final, when an estimated 23-25,000 were packed in to watch Lancashire win 12-9. As we have seen, county matches regularly drew crowds of between 3-6,000, but 1908’s gate was off the scale. Crammed in amongst the fans that day was a young lad from Four Lanes, Bill Osborne, who would, where watching Cornish rugby was concerned, have the happy knack of being in the right place at the right time²⁵.

Not that they were all there to cheer on Cornwall. A member of the Durham contingent displayed their mascot – a lynched toy monkey – on a very visible gallows: the crossbar of one of the goalposts.

For balance, a pasty in a paper bag was strung up on the ‘posts at the opposite end of the pitch.

The reporters present (and here we can imagine ‘Impartial’, ‘The Bounder’ et al) suffered the indignity of having some railings crash on them, suspending play for a time. Finally, all was ready.

The ground was firm, which suited Cornwall’s fast play. Durham had won the toss, and elected to start downhill. Jackett gave his best poker face. Fine with us, boy.

From the get-go, he was on it. Cornwall’s tactics – indeed, Jackett’s own – were to absorb pressure in the first half and catch their opponents on the break. It required steely resolve, and a full-back up to the task.

That was Jackett. His trademark (said trademark being a great distance) kicks relieved the pressure. His tackles kept Durham honest, and their scoreboard quiet. Rushes were stopped. Dribbles cleared up. And, when the opportunity came, the flair men were waiting. Durham cleared messily, and Bennetts pounced, putting Solomon in for a try. Jackson failed to majorise.

More pressure from Durham. More last-ditch efforts from Jackett. Another Durham attack – and Solomon intercepted, drew the 15, and put in Bennetts for a second try. Jackson walloped over the conversion.

Excitement was mounting. Is it our day?

Jackett was punishing Durham, his kicks covering half the pitch. Time and again the visitors’ heavy forwards had to turn and trudge back up the slope after another Jackett bomb had sailed over their heads.

Half time. Cornwall led by a goal and a try to one penalty.

The second half followed the first, except Durham were now playing against the gradient, and had to chase the game. Jackett by now was torturing the Monkey Hangers, his punts keeping them exclusively in their own 25.

And then it happened.

Solomon broke from a Davey pass, with Bennetts outside him. In a similar situation, previously Solomon had passed to his wing, but not this time. The dummy. The swerve. The acceleration. The uproar in Redruth as Solomon ghosted over the line, a brace of Durham defenders trying in vain to halt a phantom. Photographers were on hand to immortalise what has become the Final’s seminal moment.

Although Nick Tregurtha bagged another try late on, Solomon’s score put the result beyond doubt. Durham had barely got to the half-way line in the second half – thanks to John Jackett.

Cornwall 17, Durham 3. History had been made. Jackett was more than aware of his XV’s monumental achievement. In Cornwall, he later said, rugby is

…not of the first class…[teams] are composed mostly of miners and fishermen, and the way they make up their fixture lists is to play each other three or four times a season…So you can well see why Cornwall should always be more or less a weak rugby county…

Yorkshire Evening Post, February 3 1912, p3

In an era when the RFU was consciously trying to eradicate working-class influences from the game, Cornwall’s victory with ‘miners and fishermen’ was a sweet kick in the face of The Establishment. Jackett, in flagging up his players’ backgrounds and the circumstances of Cornish rugby, realised this.

John Jackett did many great – and several controversial – things in his life. But ‘Cornwall, County Champions, 1908’, has to be his greatest achievement.

Fred Jackson might have kicked 38 points in the competition prior to the Final²⁸. The Final itself might be remembered as Bert Solomon’s match, and he was indeed the “outstanding star” on the day²⁹.

But John Jackett gave

…an International display…No one knows better than the forwards what an advantage such a sound touch-finder is…Time after time he gained three parts of the field with his kicking…

West Briton, March 30 1908, p4

Add to this his tackling, his nous, his leadership, and you begin to realise that Cornwall could not have done it without him.

If you think this presumptuous of me, in 1909 Cornwall were the Championship Finalists again. Again, their opponents were Durham. This time, however, the venue was Hartlepool.

This time, Cornwall lost, 12-0. This time, Jackett played through injury. This time, as a result, his kicking wasn’t up to scratch.

But no matter. At the post-match dinner it was anticipated that the two XVs would line up in next season’s Final, and that Cornwall would win…³¹

A below-par Jackett was also evident when Cornwall played Australia at the White City Stadium in the 1908 London Olympics.

The whole tournament was something of a farce. Only two XVs – Cornwall and Australia – entered, with France failing to raise a side. Thus only one match was played. Cornwall lost 32-3, but were guaranteed silver medals.

Jackett, along with Maffer Davey, had only recently returned from New Zealand with the British Lions. His play, for once,

…was a disappointment and seemed stale…

Cornish Telegraph, October 29 1908, p8

No doubt he was exhausted, and out of condition after weeks spent at sea. He didn’t even get a consolation medal. Only one was ever awarded, and the players drew lots for it. The lucky winner was St Ives’ Thomas ‘Chicky’ Wedge, and to this day the medal remains at his old clubhouse³⁴. Here’s a replica:

After 1909, Cornwall would reach the Championship Final in 1928, 1958, 1969 and 1989. But it wouldn’t be until 1991, against Yorkshire at Twickenham, that they would again be victorious. Bill Osborne, the lad who saw the 1908 triumph in Redruth, was 103 in 1991 and witnessed that Final too. He watched Chris Alcock’s Cornwall do something that, at the time, only John Jackett and his ‘miners and fishermen’ had also managed, 83 years previously³⁵.

They must have both been sweet moments.

Many thanks for reading; follow this link for more top blogs on all things Cornwall: https://blog.feedspot.com/cornwall_blogs/

References

1. For more on Jackett, see: https://the-cornish-historian.com/2024/06/29/in-search-of-john-jackett-king-of-cornish-sport-part-one/. For more on Solomon, see: Bert Solomon: A Rugby Phenomenon, by Allen Buckley, Truran, 2007.
2. Images from: https://www.trelawnysarmy.org/ta/Pictures/cornwall-team-1908.html, and https://cornwallyesteryear.com/cornish-rugby-once-a-way-of-life-by-michael-tangye/
3. Tom Salmon, The First Hundred Years: The Story of Rugby Football in Cornwall, CRFU, 1983, p115.
4. For the full list of winners, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Championship_(rugby_union)
5. Cornish Post and Mining News, November 24 1893, p3.
6. For more on Albion’s activities, see: https://the-cornish-historian.com/2024/02/03/the-great-cornish-rugby-split/
7. He took part in a trial in October; by November, he was making his debut against Devon – as a Penzance player. Cornish Post and Mining News, October 21, p5, and November 3, p5.
8. For the results, see Tom Salmon, The First Hundred Years, p115.
9. ‘The Bounder’, Cornish Echo, November 4 1904, p2.
10. For more on Barrie Bennetts, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrie_Bennetts. For more on Milton, see: https://www.bedfordschool.org.uk/head-masters-assembly-values/. For more on Tregurtha, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Tregurtha
11. Cornish Echo, November 18 1904, p6; West Briton, November 28 1904, p3.
12. Cornishman, March 30 1905, p6.
13. Tom Salmon, The First Hundred Years, p116.
14. Cornubian and Redruth Times, November 7 1907, p3. The story of Fred Jackson, who played with Jackett at Leicester and the 1908 British Lions, is one of the most fascinating in all sport. See: Tom Mather, Rugby’s Greatest Mystery: Who Really Was F. S. Jackson?, London League Publications, 2012, and https://the-cornish-historian.com/2024/07/20/in-search-of-john-jackett-part-four-the-king-of-cornish-sport/
15. For more on Davey, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Davey_(rugby_union)
16. Cornish Telegraph, December 12 1907, p3.
17. The CRFU had to front Gloucestershire’s expenses as a slap on the wrist for neglecting the Redruth pitch – but must have been mighty glad to retain home advantage. Lake’s Falmouth Packet, January 24 1908, p6; Royal Cornwall Gazette, January 30 1908, p7.
18. West Briton, February 24 1908, p4.
19. Hichens was formerly President of the CRFU from 1896-1905, and also President of Redruth RFC from 1893-1903. Not renowned for his diplomacy in CRFU meetings, another taste of his style can be seen in an article of mine here: https://the-cornish-historian.com/2024/02/03/the-great-cornish-rugby-split/
20. Cornishman, February 27 1908, p4.
21. For more on Barrie Bennetts, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrie_Bennetts. For more on Milton, see: https://www.bedfordschool.org.uk/head-masters-assembly-values/. For more on ‘Chicky’ Wedge, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wedge_(rugby_union). For more on Davey, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Davey_(rugby_union). For more on Solomon, see: Bert Solomon: A Rugby Phenomenon, by Allen Buckley, Truran, 2007. For more on Wilson, see: https://worldrugbymuseum.com/from-the-vaults/players/lest-we-forget-arthur-james-wilson-england-31-07-1917. For Fred Jackson’s amazing story, see: Rugby’s Greatest Mystery: Who Really Was F. S. Jackson? by Tom Mather, London League Publications, 2012.
22. See his obituary in the West Briton, July 28 1960, p4.
23. For a grisly explanation of the ‘Monkey Hanger’ moniker, see: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Hanging-of-the-Hartlepool-Monkey/. For a full list of County Champions, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Championship_(rugby_union)
24. See my post on the subject here: https://the-cornish-historian.com/2024/02/03/the-great-cornish-rugby-split/
25. Unless otherwise stated, the narrative of the Cornwall-Durham Final is taken from the West Briton, March 30 1908, p4. The information on the 1969 Final is from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Championship_(rugby_union)
26. Image from: Tom Mather, Rugby’s Greatest Mystery, p26.
27. The first image is from Hellfire Awaits: 150 Years of Redruth RFC, by Nick Serpell, Pitch Publishing, 2025, the second from Tom Salmon, The First Hundred Years, p6.
28. West Briton, March 26 1908, p3.
29. West Briton, March 30 1908, p4.
30. Image from: Image from: https://worldrugbymuseum.com/from-the-vaults/club-rugby/durham-countys-golden-era
31. West Briton, March 29 1909, p3. As of 2024, Cornwall have won the Championship in: 1908, 1991, 1999, 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2022. They have been runners-up on eleven occasions. Information from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Championship_(rugby_union)
32. Image from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_City_Stadium
33. Image from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_union_at_the_1908_Summer_Olympics
34. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_union_at_the_1908_Summer_Olympics#
35. As mentioned in Nick Serpell’s Hellfire Awaits: 150 Years of Redruth RFC, Pitch Publishing, 2025, p120-1.