An imaginative plan for Banbury sport was, at this time, emerging. It was for the formation of a sports complex at Easington on which cricket, rugby, tennis, hockey and bowls would be played. A ground — the Horton View sports field of today — was purchased and laid out and the Banbury Cricket and Sports Club formed.

The rugby club was asked to throw in their lot with the new association with the added inducement of a better ground to play on and a pavilion to change in. Teams had been changing at the Bluebird Hotel and then motoring to the ground.

After much anxious thought the Banbury RUFC decided to join the new association. In October 1927 the club, for the first time, turned out two sides on Saturdays and they won the first home match against the Old Northamptonians handsomely by 11 points to 6 points.

The impact of the new ground on membership was quite clear for at the first annual meeting of the new sports club Tom Hankinson reported that the rugby section now had sixty members as compared with fifty the previous year. The difficulty was not who should play but who should be left out.

In reviewing the early years of the rugby club special mention has to be made of its chief fund-raising source, the annual ball.

The first was held at the Town Hall in 1926 and subsequently it followed the annual United Hunts ball at the same venue. For many it became the social event of the winter season. Tickets at 7/6d were eagerly sought. The second annual dance attracted no less than 360. The Lorna Cafe in the High Street did the catering and Jack Viner's band from Witney, the most popular in the district, played.

Club members and lady helpers always decorated the ballroom well. A single rugby ball tied with ribbons in club colours usually hung in the centre. Suppers were provided in the downstairs rooms in first or second sittings. The bar, often looked after by Mr. Blower, of the Unicorn Inn, was also downstairs. Chapmans were responsible for the furnishings. E.W. Brown were also among the caterers at the event.

When the numbers wishing to attend rose to nearly 400 the Borough Council became concerned as to whether the ballroom floor could stand the pressure of so many dancing feet.

Such was the club's success in this sphere that other sections of the sports club tried to copy but never with the same success.

The ball, in the early days, was always a "dress' affair, full evening dress being worn. Dancers were issued with dance cards and pencils to book their partners.

On one well-remembered occasion a "silver frost' caused havoc among home-goers. Rain in the early evening was followed by a very sharp frost which turned the roads into skating rinks. Many reached home with the milk.

A glance at the fixture list for season 1928-29 shows the way the club had advanced in its play in four seasons. The opponents were Kenilworth, Old Northamptonians, Morris Motors, Alexandra Park, Chipping Norton, Doddridge, Leamington Spa, Trinity Guild (Coventry), Olney, Old Laurentians, King Edwards High School (Birmingham), RAF Bicester, Bilton, Long Buckby, B.T.H. Rugby, Oxford Nomads, Brackley, Old Daventrians, Exiles (Oxford), Culham and RAF Heyford.

For one season, 1929-30, the club was challenged in its support by the formation of an Old Banburians rugby club and some matches had to be scratched in the A fixtures. The Old Banburians then threw in their lot with the town club and fixtures for two sides were kept in 1930-31.

The club had the advantage at this time of the arrival in the town of an England international, M.S. Bonaventura. A Blackheath player, he had won his England cap against Wales. He undertook the coaching of the Banbury players and undoubtedly improved the standard of play.

Some years later another England player, P.L. Candler, of Cambridge University and Barts Hospital turned out. He was, unfortunately, injured in the game and did not play again.

So the club proceeded happily enough. The annual ball provided the necessary additional funds and the rugby section of the Banbury Cricket and Sports Club became the most successful and financially reliable.

However, it was not long before cracks began to appear in the sports club structure. In 1936 only 15 members of a club of 1,000 attended the annual meeting apart from officials. Complaints were made of the burden of debt in the shape of loans and mortgages, decreasing capital, loss on the year's working, a paper loss on the asset of the sports ground as a building site and, worst of all, lack of enthusiasm.

The cracks could not be papered over. At a general meeting of the sports club in February 1937 it was agreed that the ground should be sold to the Northern Aluminium Co. for £2,100 which would clear the club's debts. This was done and the imaginative sports centre project ended. This meant that the rugby club had, in some ways, to start again. Fortunately it had been doing well on the playing field, turning out two teams weekly and having, in 1936, the best year since its formation.

The club found a ground at the rear of the Horton General Hospital and played there until the war upset the tenor of life in 1939. During the early days of the war matches were played on a ground "halfway to Middleton Cheney" and later on the N.A.C. ground, Horton View, and on the County School's pitch. Naturally Services sides chiefly provided the opposition and these occasionally included some "notables". All the time eyes were firmly kept on the future. Dances were continued with the object of building up a fund to acquire a ground when war ended.

Thus it was that, in 1946, a new era opened when the club secured the lease of the Old Show Ground on the Oxford Road, opposite Farmfield Road. The ground had not been de-requisitioned but with the consent of the owner, Mrs. Theo Clark, an agreement was reached to buy it when it was freed. There was much enthusiasm and every reason for it. An attractive fixture list for two sides had been drawn up, there was £6,000 in the bank, a ground to play on and the credit of having "kept the rugby football flag flying in Oxfordshire throughout the war".

At the annual meeting in 1946 Mr. G.H. Field, who had occupied the presidency throughout the war years, handed on the honour to Mr. George Clark, to whom tributes were paid for his years of work for the club.

It is interesting to note that at this meeting other stalwarts were still displaying keenness, notably Tom Hankinson, E.T. Abbotts and Dr. Tom Briggs. Captain of the club throughout the war had been S.H. Pitt. He was succeeded by George Belcher.

There were two huts available for use on the new ground and an offer of a third. Efforts were made to turn these into changing accommodation, shower and bath rooms.

Nearly another year went by before the ground was de-requisitioned. Other effects of the war lingered on. For instance it was not possible to get ringed jerseys and the club had to turn out in "all blue". The former honorary secretary and one of the negotiators for the ground, E.T. Abbotts, had now succeeded to the presidency.

In 1950 the club staged the first county match, Oxfordshire v. Warwickshire, in which the club had two representatives, J. Brierly and G.D. Webb.

The 1951-52 was the club's best ever season to date when 33 games were played, 26 won, 3 drawn and 4 lost. Points for 430, against 114.

Everything comes to him who waits says the old adage. In 1954 the club first actively envisaged the erection of a permanent pavilion and clubhouse and an estimate of cost was received from Mr. Norman Collisson, a builder and a playing member. This was approved and negotiations began for a Ministry of Education grant to help with the cost. This was eventually agreed at £1,020. In February 1956 the building was ready, equipped and furnished, the old huts had been demolished and the bank, adjacent to the hedge next to the Oxford Road, bulldozed. It is recorded that Sam Miller, subsequently county and club president and chairman of the England RFU clubs knockout competitions, struck the first sledge-hammer blow to demolish the huts.

Between February 1956 and the autumn efforts were made to secure the Duke of Edinburgh as the official opener. In a gracious letter he declined on the grounds of a full diary. Eventually Dr. William Stobie, president of the Oxfordshire RFU, was invited to perform the ceremony. He did so on September 27th. A plaque commemorating the occasion, the gift of the president, Mr. H.R. Sanderson and the immediate past president, Mr. E. Owens-Claydon, was later fixed to the wall of the clubhouse and subsequently moved inside.

In declaring the clubhouse officially open Dr. Stobie paid tribute to the "wonderful efforts" of the club's members who had "raised over £3,000 of the cost of levelling the ground and building the new clubhouse by dances, competitions and fetes".

It was, indeed, a momentous day as the club president, Mr. Sanderson, remarked. He thanked the trustees and guarantors for overcoming many difficulties, the late Mrs. Theo Clark and vice-presidents George Clark and E.T. Abbotts for their parts in securing the ground for the club.

In looking back to this big day in the club's history it seems only right and proper that the names of the club's officials on and off the field should be recorded. President Mr. H.R. Sanderson, secretary R.W. Bolton, treasurer R.S. Jones, fixture secretary D.A. Rix, team secretary P. Harmsworth, auditor J. Portergill, captain 1st XV F.R. Briggs, vice-captain J. Court, captain "A' XV S.A. Miller, vice-captain K.L. Gregory. Committee K.H. Bolton, E. Owens-Claydon, M. Cox, L.M. Gage, R. Gillett, D.S. Harris, J. Russ, J. Thurgate. Official opening committee, S.A. Miller, R. Bolton, R. Briggs and R.S. Jones.

Champagne was drunk on that opening day and, on the field, a Banbury XV defeated the county president's XV by 8 points to 6 points.

Dr. Stobie had mentioned fund raising events by the club when opening the pavilion. In those days there was little local entertainment on August Bank Holidays. The club decided to capitalise on this and to stage some mammoth fetes. The first was held in 1955. The first raised a modest £200. For the second it was estimated that 5,000 had passed the turnstiles by 4 p.m. At 4.20, however, the skies opened and seventy-five per cent of the great crowd sorrowfully went home with money still in their pockets. However, £500 resulted and this encouraged further efforts on an ever more magnificent scale. A scheme was devised to donate a proportion of the fete profits to local charities. The total given away exceeded four figures.

Tribute should be paid to the ladies tea committee which backed up the club's efforts at this time. For the first eight years from the opening of the new ground Mrs. Pat Herrington was chairman. When she retired she was presented with a brooch by the club and another who received a gift for outstanding work was Mrs. Pat Fox. The names of their helpers are too numerous to record. Not only have the committees in their time catered for as many as 120 hot meals on a Saturday afternoon but for teas for 10,000 at the fetes, cutting vast quantities of sandwiches beforehand and storing them in deep freeze for the day.

The successful fete of 1956 was preceded by a canoe row from Oxford to Banbury by club members in answer to a challenge by Alderman Don Braggins. This first effort in publicity was followed by a series of "rags' drawing attention to the fete days.