By 1873 twickenham football club had a core membership of old boys of the academy which had by then, closed. The fixture with Richmond was maintained, and an intreguing advert appeared in the local press at the time under the heading, 'Twickenham Football', advertising for boys with a maximum age of seventeen, the sons of gentlemen only, to form a boys football club. Press reports began to appear mentioning the Twickenham 'Lightweights' (no doubt the Twickenham junior football club) as well as Twickenham 'proper' and Twickenham 'seconds'. All these sides were playing 'Rugby' rules. Match reports appear regularly in the local press through to 1884, then come to an abrupt end. It then seems that the rugby tradition in Twickenham was carried forward by the Young Mens Friendly Society through to the end of the decade. They played at least two games in 1889 as Twickenham FC.

Records are then patchy until 1893 when a meeting of local footballers was held in the 'Prince Blucher' off twickenham green to 're-form' Twickenham Football Club. The first item on the agenda was to decide which rules should be played, association or rugby. The vote went 21-13 in favour of rugby, the rugby football rules were adopted and a decision to play in black jerseys with a white TFC was also agreed. A photograph of that team exists today, and is the clubs oldest artifact. The following year the club changed to the now familiar red and black hoops maintained by the present side.

As a note of interest, red and black, together or singly and plain white were almost universally adopted as the colours of early rugby sides, due to the ease of the dye process on the cloth. Hence Manchester(1860), Blackheath(1858), Wasps(1867) and Civil Service(1863) amongst others, show their heritage in their current kit design. Civil Service remains Twickenhams longest existing fixture.

At the turn of the century Twickenham were strong enough to be playing most of the senior clubs and supplying a number of players to the Middlesex team. They played games initially on Twickenham Green and used the Prince Blucher, together with the Royal Albert, as their spiritual homes.

.......to be continued..........

Middlesex Cup history

A few statistics about the Cup which may be of interest. It was founded in 1971/72 when Saracens beat Met Police 9-0 in the
final. T's who have entered every year, lost in the third round to Borough Road College 20-0.

Wasps head the winning list with 8 wins in 12 appearances, Saracens have won it 4 times from 7 final appearances. The senior
clubs withdrew from the competition from the 1987/88 season since when Ruislip have won it 4 times from 8 finals, and
Staines 4 from seven finals. Staines hold the record of four consecutive wins from 1996 to 99 inclusive. Wasps won 5 of the
six finals they appeared in consecutively from 1974 to 1979, and lost the final also in 1980. In the old style Cup only five sides
made the final in 16 years, Wasps, Saracens, Met Police, Harlequins and Old Gaytonians ( now West London) except for
1984/85 when Rosslyn Park defeated West London Institute.

In modern times, seven sides have made the final in the 14 years London Nigerians, Staines, Ruislip, Ealing and Finchley have
all won, OMT and Grasshoppers have both been losing finalists twice, as were Old Gaytonians above.

What of Twickenhams record? Well in the old style Cup they lost in the semi final in 1976/77 to Met Police, in the semi final in
1977/78 to Saracens after beating a good Upper Clapton side in the quarter final after a replay, and the quarter final to Wasps
in 1978/79. They were definitely our glory days in the old era. Many though will remember our defeat by Met Police in the 4th
Round in 1984/85 by 6-7 when we had a drop goal chance go wide in the last minute and Met Police had a certain Ackford
and Deer partnership in the second row.

In modern times, T's hold the record for the biggest Cup win 142-3 against Kodak in the second round in 1989/90. We then
lost to Uxbridge 42-4 in the next round!! In 1990/91 we lost in the quarters to Ruislip when we should have won and then had
to wait until 1997/98 when many members of the current side were in the team which lost a great semi-final to Ruislip again,
29-13. Finally in 1999/2000 Ruislip did us again in the quarters, so making last weekends win a well rewarded result.

Overall T's have lost twice to the winners, once in each era, and 5 times to the eventual losing finalists.

Now thats what i call statistics!!!!.....and thanks to David Spyer the Middlesex achivist for his help with the research.

Early history of the club launched

For copies send £6.50 to Jim Peters, 1 Chestnut Avenue, Hampton, Middlesex