History- One Hundred Years Ago

The following is extracted from the Old Citizens’ Gazette of
August 1904.
Old Citizens will call to mind the lamentations of successive
Cricket and Football Secretaries in the School Magazine over
poor results which they ascribed to want of practice owing to
lack of a ground. We remember many such. True there were
hired strips of turf in fields shared by sometimes scores of other
teams, where ‘long-on’ or ‘square-leg’ had often to use
considerable tact in order to justify and maintain his
juxtaposition to ‘third-man’ or ‘mid-off’ in another game. And
the dressing accommodation! Twenty-two fellows in a shed
about the size of an ordinary bathing machine. We can conjure
up visions of the old Eton and Middlesex Ground, a pitch beside
the railway at Gospel Oak, another at Balham, and later on one
at Raynes Park, this last an awful place with a pitch so lost
among countless others that at times a search party had to be
organised to find the groundsman who alone could prove the
title to our disputed crease. In recent years matters have
improved. An admirable field at Beckenham Hill was leased,
and though batsmen may have cavilled at the slowness of the
wicket it made an ideal football ground. At any rate the School
was at last able to do as U.C.S., Merchant Taylors’ and St Paul’s
had done for years, that is, invite the M.C.C. down to play them.
But all this is introductory to the event which it is our
extremely pleasant duty to record. On Thursday, June 9th, 1904,
the City of London School Athletic Ground at Catford was
formally declared open by Mr Deputy C. Cuthbertson. It is of
ample size and possesses a handsome red tiled pavilion.
The opening ceremonies included a cricket match – the
School v. Eleven Old Citizens gathered together by Mr Munro
[…]. The cricket itself was disappointing, for on an undeniably
‘new’ wicket the School were put out for 17, and the Old Boys
had little difficulty in running up 170. The two teams were very
hospitably entertained to luncheon in the new Pavilion, with Mr
Cuthbertson a very genial chairman. Some very interesting
speeches were made afterwards, by Mr Cuthbertson, who told
us that the field was the School’s freehold and that the cost had
been upwards of £4000, of which about £1700 had been
provided by the boys themselves, that is to say, the Old Boys;
by the Head Master, Mr Pollard; and by Rev. T.W. Chambers
[CLS 1861–68, school staff 1872–98], who evoked loud
applause when he announced that as Treasurer of the Cricket
Field [i.e. the Field Fund, set up in 1887 by Abbott to raise
money for the purchase of a cricket field] he had sold out of
Consols at something over 110.
On such an occasion it was obviously impossible to do more
than acknowledge the services of those actually concerned in
the ceremony of the day, and it occurs to us that the present is
an occasion when Old Boys – for Old Boys have a very large
stake in this property with which their old School has just been
endowed – may place on record their appreciation of the work
of all those who have helped to bring about so satisfactory a
result.
It seems fitting to mention first Dr Abbott, who gave not
only the influence of his name and interest but headed the
subscription list with £100; Mr Rushbrooke, too, now
[Headmaster] at St Olave’s, the energetic collector of
subscriptions from boys as they left the School. Then poor Mr
Haddon, whose devotion to the School really hastened his end,
and to whom we undoubtedly owed the Beckenham Hill
ground, which he believed would have been acquired by the
Corporation; nor can we leave out Mr Munro, who has been
quietly working for a ground for years, and who, as soon as
Beckenham Hill was leased, began to show the authorities that
a ground would be made good use of by organising practice
games all the year round, sacrificing countless of his leisure
hours in his enthusiasm. Then there are Messrs T.W. Chambers
and F.W. Hill [Second Master 1890–1928], who busied
themselves with the all-important question of finance. Perhaps
most of all to Mr Pollard the thanks and congratulations of all
are due, for it must have been he who at last induced the School
Committee to believe that a ground was really desirable. And
we must not forget the Secretary [i.e. Bursar] of the School, Mr
A.J. Austin, to whom in a large measure fell the recent
negotiations, and indeed we owe to him the discovery of the
Catford site. To the School then Old Citizens will accord their
hearty congratulations. May it soon take its place among its
contemporaries in sport which it has long occupied in
scholarship!
[A rented football field at Beckenham Hill ‘not suitable for
serious cricket’ was the school’s first sports ground, from 1894
to 1901. Catford remained in use until the larger sports ground
at Grove Park, which was acquired and equipped as a war
memorial, opened in 1925.]