Goulburn Rugby Union
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| Full name | Goulburn Rugby Union Football Club |
|---|---|
| Union | ACT & Sthn NSW Rugby Union |
| Nickname(s) | Reds |
| Founded | 1872 |
| League(s) | First Division (ACT & Sthn NSW) |
| Official website | |
| goulburnrc |
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Goulburn Rugby Union Football Club is a rugby union club based in the city of Goulburn, New South Wales. It was a founding member of the Southern Rugby Union, the first country rugby club to be founded, and remains the oldest country club in Australia.
The Goulburn Rugby Club was initially formed in Goulburn on Monday 22 July 1872 at a meeting held at Payten's Commercial Hotel in Goulburn. The driving force behind the club's formation was Valentine Blomfield Riley, a Bowral born former Sydney University player and captain who had moved to Goulburn in 1872 to open a surveying company with his father. It was Riley who called the meeting to found the club, took on the position of secretary and then spread the gospel of rugby throughout the Southern Tablelands and Monaro regions through his travels in his role as a surveyor.
Goulburn was the first country rugby club to be founded in Australia and remains the oldest country club in Australia to this day. In 1874 it joined Australia's original rugby body, the Southern Rugby Union, and teams from the various Sydney clubs frequently travelled to Goulburn to play or welcomed Goulburn as visitors to play them. In 1882, fleet-footed Goulburn winger Stuart H Belcher became the first ever country based player to play in the NSW side. His first match was against Queensland and he celebrated his selection with a try.
By 1893 Goulburn was itself a complete branch of the NSW Rugby Union (as the Southern Rugby Union had been known since 1892) and hosted a strong rugby competition of its own. In 1900, the Goulburn representative team, known as Central Southern Rugby Union, played the reigning Sydney premiers, the Glebe Dirty Reds and beat them by 26–6. While Goulburn pre-dates the Glebe club (later the Drummoyne Rugby Club), Goulburn would later adopt the Dirty Reds title as their own due to the maroon jumper they have worn since 1959.
In 1914 a rugby league exhibition match between Annandale and Western Suburbs was played in Goulburn and such was the interest that league clubs were set to form almost instantly. The issue was deemed so important that a town meeting was called with the mayor suggesting that the town could only support one of the rugby codes and should put all of its resources behind that code. Rugby league won although the first world war was to deprive Goulburn of both codes.
Rugby took a while to find its feet in all towns after the war and the same was true for Goulburn. There were several starts in the 1920s and '30s and by 1939 we had grown back into a Goulburn-based competition. The best players from that side played a Canberra rep side and beat them by 30–10 but then war came to knock us over again. Again, it took a while to get started after the war with a few more false starts but things were up and running again in the fifties.
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