Men in Scarlet

Second-Hand

Excellent condition

History of the Balmain, Glebe and Drummoyne Rugby Clubs 1874-2004

In our initial, fairly simple plan for this book, we set out to write a straightforward history of the modern day Drummoyne District Rugby Football Club, the Dirty Reds', and maybe, if material permitted, to extend back into the era of the Glebe-Balmain Rugby Football Club, which had changed its name to DDRFC when Drummoyne Oval was upgraded to First Grade standard (as a Depression Project) in 1932.

Very quickly, this proved to be like writing a history of Australia, commencing with Federation and ignoring all that went before to create and shape the real character of the nation. It was too simplistic by far.

As the doyen of Australian sporting writers, Jack Pollard, wrote in his great opus on Australian Rugby, "The direct origins of the (Drummoyne) Club date back to 1874 when Balmain played in Sydney's first competition. Balmain won the 1875 premiership and in 1882 the district produced the first of its many representative players when M. H. Howard, R. W. Thallon and C. Hawkins toured New Zealand with the first New South Wales team"

While Drummoyne is the name the district settled on last, in fact our research into the early past of the district showed it played a very important part in the establishment of the game. Because of intense settlement in the suburbs of Balmain and Glebe, with no space set aside for public amenity, both the Balmain, then the Glebe Clubs, were forced to turn to their neighbouring suburb of Drummoyne, which was sparsely settled, for playing areas.

We found that the then private estate known as Drummoyne Park, was used extensively for lower grade matches and many junior games from 1882. So Drummoyne itself represents a very significant name and place in the history of Rugby in Sydney.