Our History

A Brief History

Whitchurch RFC was formed around the mid 1880’s although the now official date is 1892.

The club from its inception seems to have been centred in and around the Fox and Hounds public house in

Old Church Road originally playing their home games on what is now the hockey pitch at Whitchurch High School.

The club at some point would have merged with the Melingriffith Works team and were known as the ‘Melin’.

Sadly due to the demise of the Tin Works many men left the area and this saw a decline in the clubs activities.

1958 saw a recovery and the club was once again centred in the Fox and Hounds and now playing their games, as they do today, at Caedelyn Park.

After two years the club was forced to move to the Plough, The Hollybush and then back to the Fox.

After several seasons of pushing the local establishment’s patience the club now needed a proper base and it became apparent that the old Melingriffith Band hall with adjoining land became available.

Stirling work by the then secretary Mr Gwyn Hopkins in negotiating a loan from Webb’s Brewery of Aberbeeg enabled the club to purchase the hall and land.

Now a well established club within Cardiff and District the club enjoyed some successful seasons on the pitch captained through the 60’s by A H Evans and Blanford Glastonbury.

The 70s saw stalwarts such as the legendary Bernard Davies as Chairman and Bob Hocking and Gordon Thomas lead the team and then through the 80’s with Paul Griffiths, Dave Williams and Bob Williams at the helm of the 1sts and Howard and Alan Evans captaining the 2nds.

The 90’s were a particularly fruitful period for Whitchurch under the guidance of coach John McCarthy and captains Richard McCarthy, Alan Davies and Jimmy Freeman.It was indeed the 90’s that saw a particularly successful period for the club winning the Mallet Cup in 1991 under Wayne Parsons's captaincy and with long serving players Colin Griffiths, Pierre Hogg, Tim Ingram and Gareth Pursey.

Due to many retirements and players trying their luck elsewhere the onset of 2000 saw a difficult period for the club.

In the early 2000’s emerging local talent came to the fore and from 2005 Steve Bale went onto captain the club.

This was now a time of rebuilding under the guidance of Gareth Jones as coach ably assisted by Pierre Hogg.

The progress continued with Alwyn Powell taking over as captain from 2007 and this period also saw an increase in playing numbers to add to the seasoned campaigners in Richard Cartwright, Richard Ford, Cameron Hayes and James Northover to name a few.