MUDGEE WOMBAT RUGBY UNION TEAM HISTORY.
Born and bred in the Central Western town of Mudgee in NSW, I was keen to dig into our local history. Being an enthusiastic rugby player and follower I have chosen to talk about a local club that I have had a close association with every winter season from 1992 until 2003 , our Mudgee Rugby Union Club, known as the Wombats. .
Finding information was not easy. There have been many people keen to talk to me about the club's history but very little down on paper. Our club President Bruce .
Mc Gregor has also run into difficulty due to the lack of recorded history about the club. In 1997 he organised what he thought was the Centenary celebration for the club. However, when our Wombat team was playing in a country verse city carnival at Sydney University that year, our head coach, Ross Smith was approached by Mr. Thomas Hickie author of They Ran With The Ball all about how rugby began in Australia.
Our coach was very proud that Mr. Hickie was aware of our club's impending centenary celebrations. However, Mr. Hickie went on to inform our coach that we were celebrating 17 years too late. This minor hiccup in the organisation of the celebrations didn't really matter and our club became aware that it in fact started in 1870 and was the oldest rugby club in NSW west of the great divide. .
There is little known early history of the club apart from archives showing Mudgee Club membership of the Sydney Rugby Football Union club during the years 1874-1876 as found by Mr. Hickie.
Mr. Tom Spring, an old "Wombat" player in the 1930's recalled some interesting facts to the club about his playing days. He thanked an enthusiastic headmaster from Mudgee High School for keeping the game alive around the time of World War 1 - 1914-1918. Apparently this headmaster had 2 religions being cricket in summer and rugby in winter. His high school team really excelled in the rugby so much so that in 1916 he took the team to play in Sydney and they defeated all the teams they played against.