Early Years
West Park RFC was formerly established in August 1947 at a meeting held in the Black Bull Hotel, though occasional matches had been played the previous season under the title "Catholic Grammar School Old Boys". Games were played on the abbreviated school pitch and in 1950 the club acquired the first pitch they could call their own, in-aptly named the 'Rose Bowl' - a patch of derelict land previously the site of a ramshackle collection of allotments. Every week the home team had to collect debris which had erupted from the ground, and on one occasion a match was interrupted whilst a full-sized perambulator was excavated!
Another match venue was the Alder Hey Road field: "Remarkable for the depth of its mud, making Passchendale and Ypres look like the Gobi desert in high summer".
After exhaustive searches by club officials, land was eventually leased at Red Rocks, Eccleston Hill for the season 1954/55. Club members spent the close season - on what is now Carmel College playing fields - digging drains with the help of an ancient milk horse, called Dolly, borrowed from Friths' Farm. The same season saw the opening of the club's first dressing rooms and club room, stark and bare (one passer-by thought the building was a new public convenience), but nevertheless the member's pride and joy. Periodic improvements and extensions accomplished by prudent management resulted in the comfortable surroundings enjoyed today.
Deprived of the original pitches by a land deal which allowed Education Authority land to be used by Pilkingtons' for their Head Office, and the War Department to gain room for expansion off Croppers Hill, saw Carmel College to be erected. The land where the present pitches are situated was acquired in 1960/61 and a gigantic earth-moving operation was required to produce the current two pitches on a split-level arrangement.
In recent years the club house required extensive renovation when affected by subsidence from a burst water main, but, like the future of West Park RFC, now has the firmest of foundations.
Read more about this topic: West Park St Helens
Famous quotes related to early years:
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)