Club History
Mitcham County School for Boys was founded in 1922 and the Old Mitchamians Rugby Club in 1934. A small affair initially with moderate success, they lost their first game against Raynes Park heavily (52-3) but the club thrived and grew over the years with the school. Reg Brown was the first Captain, holding the post for five seasons.
At the 50th Anniversary Dinner, held at RFU Headquarters Twickenham, J.B. (Barry) Pritchard was a Guest Speaker on behalf of the Old Mitchamians. He mentioned that the Club went into limbo during the Second World War and started up again in 1945 with E.A (Eddie) Golbourne as Captain and playing one match against the School. The first full season of fixtures came in 1947/48 with Barry himself as Captain - a post he held for the ensuing four seasons. 1953/54 produced the best playing record - losing 1 game out of 27 and scoring 431 points to 54.
The club played at various places, Figges Marsh, Lavender Avenue, and also at the then famous and now long demolished Mitcham Stadium, (now a housing estate), as well as NAFFI (now being developed for Tooting & Mitcham FC), Kings College (now a housing estate) and Mitcham (Mill House changing rooms now a Restaurant).
The club enjoyed a successful spell in the late 50s and 60s including strong showings at Sevens, wining a number of tournaments. The club settled at their Wandle Valley ground in the 1960s, known as the “Mitcham mountain” on sloping ground alongside the Wandle Valley hospital. Club members built the clubhouse themselves. Nets had to be put up to protect the windows of the hospital before each game and patients often came round to enjoy watching the games.
The school declined towards its closure in 1969 and the club took the decision to change from Old Mitchamians to Mitcham RUFC in 1967. This was a significant time for the club as it lost its feeder school and many of the remaining old boys sides refused to play the new open club. However the club grew during this period and through the 70s and 80s was regularly running five sides with fierce competition for 1st XV places. The club again became very proficient at sevens, and had a very successful winning streak in 1974 culminating in the reaching the Middlesex sevens finals at Twickenham. At the time this was a major and prestigious tournament with around 500 teams competing in the preliminary rounds. At the finals at Twickenham, Mitcham lost to a North of Ireland seven which included the legendary British Lion Mike Gibson. This was without doubt the greatest achievement of the club to date. The sevens team regularly had a travelling entourage of 50 or more supporters at tournaments and the celebrations went long into the night on the day of qualification and at the finals a week later.
The club had another highly successful period in the late 80s including a winning streak of 21 games ended by a narrow defeat to Lensbury.
The club had to leave the Wandle Valley ground in 1992 when the hospital was sold to make way for the Wandle Valley Estate. The club then had 5 years without a settled ground, being based in a pub at Angel Hill during this time. The club moved to its current ground in Poulter Park in 1997 with the help of Sutton Council. Mitcham became Mitcham and Carshalton, recognising that it is actually based in Carshalton rather than Mitcham.
Notable players included E.J. (Eric) Humphries (Rosslyn Park and T.D. (Tony) Gathercole (Harlequins).Our most notable player to have come through the Mitcham ranks in recent years is George Merrick, formerly of Harlequins, Clermont, Worcester and currently of Newcastle and Megan Brown formerly of Harlequins.
