Hellfire Corner gives a warm welcome to all

RUGBY was undergoing a massive boom 150 years ago so we shouldn’t be surprised so many teams are celebrating their sesquicentennial anniversary as those who glory in long words like to call it.

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Ireland, Leinster, Gala, Watsonian, New Brighton, Yale over the water … and Redruth, a powerhouse club in Cornwall from the off. All of them are celebrating this season one way or another.

Nick Serpell, a fount of all knowledge on the Reds and indeed Cornish rugby generally, has, as you would expect, risen to the occasion with a beautifully crafted club history to ensure Redruth’s legacy remains intact for posterity.

Redruth have always been part of the rich tapestry of Cornish rugby, at the heart of their great county campaigns and willing hosts for big county matches and indeed divisional matches. When confronted with the prospect of playing the famous 1908 County final against Durham the Cornish players took a vote as to where to stage the great game... and Redruth it was.

With its array of natural banks and temporary stands, the Recreation Ground was for many years listed as the third biggest rugby-specific ground in England behind Twickenham and Welford Road with an all time capacity of 21,172 although local press reports suggest a 25,000 attendance for Cornwall’s 1969 County Championship final against Lancashire. Now stripped bear it’s probably about 3,000 but it has an ambience of its own.

I was lucky enough to attend a couple of big games when it was still a ground to reckon with, notably a County championship semi-final against Yorkshire when all 12,000 of us seemingly poured out of pubs simultaneously full of pasties and beer and marched to the ground en masse behind the Falmouth Marine band. We were running a little late but the match was never going to kick off until the crowd was in.

Many of the biggest names in Cornish rugby played for Redruth and of course their rivalry with Camborne is legendary. Their Boxing Day fixture has been played continuously since 1928 and with the Camborne club only three years younger there were many fixtures before that date.