Celebrated Wanderers
FC Potter-Irwin
Lieutenant-Colonel Augustus Charles Newman VC
Sir William Beale
Ernest Greaves Tweedy
John Bromley O.B.E.
Damian Cronin
Jeff Probyn
FC Potter-Irwin
The Club was founded in 1896 by Frank C. Potter-Irwin, assisted by Arthur J. Magson. “Potter”, as he was affectionately known, was born 1n 1874. After early years at King’s College [Cambridge] Choir School, he went to Yorkshire in 1892 to continue his education at Richmond School and it was there that he first played rugby, captaining the school in his last two years there.
On leaving he came south and played for Leytonstone RFC for three years [1892-95] and then helped to found Ilford Wanderers in 1896 as our first captain.
He also helped in the formative days of the Eastern Counties Union and was that body’s representative to the Rugby Football Union for 23 years. He edited the publication “Rugby News and Notes” from 1924-1925 and was a vice-president of the R.F.U in 1922—23 and was our President in 1930-31.
He played for Eastern Counties many times, his last appearance being in his 41st year. After his playing days were over he joined the London Society of Referees and rapidly reached the top rank. In a newspaper report of the time he was called “the Prince of Referees” - a name that stuck to him for the rest of his career. He controlled some of the most important matches of the period including the final of the French Championship and six “Varsity” matches [probably a record]. In the last of these [1919] he his recorded as awarding the first ever penalty kick given in these matches. Potter-Irwin took charge of eight Internationals between 1909 and 1920 including the Wales v South Africa match at Cardiff Arms Park on 14th December 1912, and was recorded by the Daily Telegraph as being chaired from the pitch after the France v Scotland match at the Parc des Prince stadium.
Interestingly, the first replacement of a referee in a Test match happened in 1912. The replaced referee in that instance was himself a replacement! South Africa played Ireland at Lansdowne Road and the referee appointed was Frank Potter-Irwin but he became ill and withdrew. In his place came another famous referee, John Tulloch of Scotland. He was injured during the match and the former Irish forward, Fred Gardiner took his place. South Africa won 38-0, then a record for an international. The next time it happened was in 1965 when France played Wales.
“Potter” was Guest of Honour at the Club’s 50th Jubilee Dinner in 1947 and his speech was recorded as the highlight of the evening. After a bout of ill health he died on 17th July 1951.
Lieutenant-Colonel Augustus Charles Newman VC
Augustus Charles Newman was born on 19th August 1904 at Buckhurst Hill, Chigwell, Essex. He was educated at Bancroft School and played a few games of rugby for Ilford Wanderers during the 1920’s. He went on to found the Old Bancroftians RFC. He was a member of the Essex Regiment and during World War II was seconded to No. 2 Commando.
On the night of 27/29th March 1942, Lieutenant-Colonel Newman was in command of the military force detailed to land on enemy occupied territory and destroy the dock installations of the German controlled naval base at St. Nazaire. The operation was bound to be exceedingly hazardous, but, coolly and calmly, he stood on the bridge of the leading craft as the small force steamed up the estuary of the River Loire, although the ships had been caught in the enemy searchlights and a murderous crossfire opened from both banks.
Lieutenant-Colonel Newman was one of the first ashore and during the next five hours of bitter fighting, he personally supervised the operations in the town, utterly regardless of his own safety. Under his leadership, the troops fought magnificently and held vastly superior enemy forces at bay, until the demolition parties had successfully completed their work of destruction. By this time, however, most of the landing craft had been sunk or set on fire and evacuation by sea was no longer possible. The only way out of the harbour area lay across a narrow iron bridge covered by enemy machine guns and although severely shaken by a German hand grenade, which had burst at his feet, Newman personally led the charge which stormed the position and the small force fought its way through the streets to a point near open country, when, all ammunition expended, he and his men were finally overpowered by the enemy. Newman spent the rest of the war as a POW and his Victoria Cross was not gazetted until 1945.
Lieutenant Colonel Newman also held the Order of the British Empire, the Territorial Decoration, the Legion d' Honneur and the Croix de Guerre of France. He became the Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Essex. Hen was the Guest of Honour and speaker at the Club Supper in 1959 and was recorded as having later carried the Club's President Bertie Boag around the room on his shoulders - despite having suffered a heart attack the previous year.
Newman died on 26th April 1972 at Sandwich and is buried at Boreham, Kent.
Sir William Beale
Billy Beale or “Big Bill” as he was known was born at Gosforth on January 27th 1908 and educated at Downside and Pembroke College, Cambridge. As an undergraduate he studied farming and had a gruelling apprentice ship in Saskatchewan. He then joined Green’s Stores in Ilford and joined the Wanderers.
He quickly established himself in the 1st Team as an outstanding loose forward and was elected to vice-captain in 1930-31 and then followed this with two years as captain and a further one as vice-captain. He won the 1st Team Honours Cap in 1930-31 and the following year was selected for Eastern Counties, playing for them consistently until 1933.
Unfortunately, Billy retired from playing rugby to concentrate on business in 1934 but remained a loyal member and was elected Vice-President. Rugby’s loss was the NAAFI’s gain as Bill was seconded to them after being drafted into the Royal Army Service Corp in 1940. He was largely responsibly for transforming them from a dreary military canteen service ["No Aim, Ambition or Flaming Interest"] into a celebrated institution. He was in charge of arrangements for the food supplies for the D-Day invasion and after the landings he worked in Paris, setting up stores, recreation clubs and other amenities.
In 1946 Billy rejoined Green’s but was soon asked to join the NAAFI board, of which he became a director and later Chairman. His many innovations included self-service stores, motor cars on hire purchase and the construction of sausage factories.
He was appointed OBE in 1945 and was knighted in 1956. Sir William Beale, as he now was, died in 1992
Ernest Greaves Tweedy
Ernest Greaves Tweedy was born on 8th March 1907 in Sunderland County Durham, the son of a shipbuilder. He was educated in Sunderland but lost one year of schooling after a zeppelin dropped a bomb on his house, burying him and damaging his feet. On leaving school at fifteen and he continued his education at Rye Hope and Silksmith College in Sunderland, studying butchery and Food Inspection.
He became attracted to rugby in 1925 when he played for the Sunderland junior sides but advanced so quickly that he was selected to play in the Durham Trials the following season.
In 1929 his parents presented him with a dinner suit and a motor bike. He said that he had much more fun with the dinner suit, understandably so, as he had an accident with a removal lorry whilst riding the motor bike, losing a finger and taking a year to recover.
Moving south to Harwich in 1930 he played hockey for Harwich and rugby with Ipswich YMCA. Christmas 1930 found him far from home and so he and a friend, hearing of a party, rowed a boat from Harwich to Felixstowe. From there they caught a train and finally a pony and trap to arrive at the party - frozen stiff.
In 1935, Ernie moved to Ilford and joined the Wanderers, gaining a regular First Team place and becoming Club Captain in 1938-39. During the war years his disabled hand saw him serve with the ARP and the only rugby played at Ilford involved youth teams, with Ernie keeping involved with running these sides. After the war Ernie was foremost amongst those re-starting the Club, serving as Treasurer and many other roles.
In 1964 he was elected President of Essex County Rugby Union, followed in 1969 by the Presidency of Eastern Counties. Of Eastern Counties Presidents between 1890 and the present, four were Ilford Wanderers- F.C. Potter-Irwin, A.G. Bowers, B.G. Best and Ernie himself.
Upon retiring in 1970 Ernie moved to Frinton and promptly joined Clacton Rugby Club, but remained a member of Ilford Wanderers where he was granted Life Membership. He also became a life Member of Colchester RFC.
Throughout his life Ernie really enjoyed touring. In 1993 he toured Canada with Eastern Counties and also followed the British Lions in New Zealand and in 1997 he followed the Lions again to South Africa, at the age of 90. During that year he also was guest speaker, alongside John Bromley, at the annual Ilford Wanderers Club Supper.
In 1998 he was told by his doctor that he had 6 months to live. “That’s not enough” he told him “I have things to do!” And do them he did for another four years. Ernie died on 28th April 2003.
John Bromley O.B.E.
John Bromley is associated with Ilford Wanderers mainly through his father, Eddie. Eddie was born in 1908 and joined the Club in 1929 remaining a member until his death in 1996. Slightly built and trim, Eddie would emerge from the fiercest fray with scarcely a hair disturbed. He played for the 1st Team for ten years and was picked for Eastern Counties’ trials and the Counties Wanderers XV. Upon retiring he served as Match Secretary and Club Secretary as well as a selector for many years.
Eddie’s son, John [born January 12 1934], also turned out for the Club for a short while but soon went on to greater things in the world of sports journalism. His first efforts involved sending reports of under-15 cricket matches he had played in to the Woodford Times. By 18, he had graduated from tea-boy on the Romford Times to reporter on the Dagenham Post. By 1960, the Daily Mirror had poached him from the Daily Herald to write a regular sports gossip column, where his sidekick was the young Michael Grade, and soon he had been charged with kindling ABC, to launch an ITV challenge to the BBC's sporting pre-eminence.
When he took over ITV Sport all they had was some horseracing contracts and a deal with promoters of the provincial all-in wrestling circuit, to compete against the BBC's national institutions, midweek Sportsview (established 1954) and Grandstand (1958). Bromley's ambitiously titled World Of Sport was garnished with Grand Canyon sidecar scrambling, South Pole parachuting, or Cuban cliff diving.
After his first fraught months, Bromley was keen to return to Fleet Street. But presenter Eamonn Andrews persuaded him: "Stick with it, m'boy, telly's the future." So he was to stay, and to be responsible for ITV's coverage of six Olympics and five World Cups. He was still there at the Atlanta Games in 1996, as press attaché for the British Olympic Association.
In its turn, the BBC re-preened its feathers, but his apprenticeship in adversity had allowed Bromley to build an increasingly smart team, and by the time ABC had mutated into the much slicker and more ambitious London Weekend Television in 1968, with Jimmy Hill joining Bromley in charge, the BBC was generally considered to have been routed by ITV's innovative and far more populist challenge at the World Cup in Mexico in 1970. Bromley modestly put it down to his convincing his bosses to invest £60,000 for British television's first slow-motion replay equipment. Bromley went on to join Sky Sport as chief consultant on football two years after he retired from LWT in 1989.
John Bromley was awarded the OBE in 1991 and was chairman of the Lord's Taverner’s from May 1997 to April 2000. John’s father, Eddie, died in 1996 and to record the long service that Eddie had given to Ilford Wanderers, John was made an Honorary Member in that year. John was guest speaker at the Club’s 90th Anniversary Dinner in 1986 and also at the Club Supper in 1997 alongside the irrepressible Ernie Tweedy.
Unfortunately, John Bromley contracted cancer and died on February 4 2002 aged 68.
Damian Cronin
Damian Francis Cronin was born on 17th April 1963 in Wegberg, West Germany, the son of long time Ilford Wanderer Dr Brian “Doc” Cronin, and was made a member of Ilford Wanderers by his father in the same year.
After playing for Ilford Wanderers Colts and senior sides whilst at Campion school he went on to Bath University. From there he joined Bath. His ability was soon recognised by the Anglo-Scots team and he was selected to play for Scotland against Ireland in January 1988. Damian went on to acquire 45 caps for Scotland between 1988 and 1998 and was also selected for the 1993 British Lions tour to New Zealand.
In 1999 Damian was guest speaker at the Ilford Wanderers Annual Club Supper.
Jeff Probyn
Jeff Probyn was born on Friday, 27th April 1956 in Bethnal Green. He attended The London Nautical School were he was friends with Phil Hutchines who introduced him to Ilford Wanderers. Jeff played a season at Colts level before moving to Old Albanians and then to Richmond and Wasps.
Selected in England's squad for the 1987 World Cup, Jeff Probyn did not make his international debut until 1988 at the age of 31 against France. He quickly established himself as the best tight head prop in Britain, his outstanding scrummaging technique making life very awkward for any loose head props he came up against.
Controversially left out of the 1993 Lions squad which toured New Zealand, Probyn toured South Africa with a World XV in 1989 and was a member of the Wasps side which won the English Courage league the following season. Along with Stuart Barnes, Wade Dooley, Mike Teague, Peter Winterbottom and Jon Webb, Probyn wore the England shirt for the last time in a 17-3 defeat by Ireland at Lansdowne Road in 1993. In total he won 37 caps for England.
He continues his involvement with the game as a member of the Rugby Football Union committee.
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