Bradby: A peep back into the past

Hafiz Marikar

Sri Lanka is the only Asian Nation in which one of the British imports of colonial era - rugby - has survived. It has a 133 year history dating back to 1879. Trinity took to rugby in 1906 under Rev. A. G. Fraser. No other school has played rugby up to 1920. During this time Trinity had to be satisfied with matches with scratch Ceylonese teams, with masters, All Englishmen, helping them in the game. Royal took to the game in 1920 under the principal ship of H. L. Reed. With few months of practices they challenged the Trinitians; they gave up football to play rugby. Trinitians accepted, and readily traveled down to Colombo.

Trinity had to field virtually a second side, as their skipper H.L. Ellis and some of the top ruggerites were taking part in the Stubbs Shield Boxing meet on the same day.

On Saturday July 31, 1920, Trinity locked with Royal at the Royal College Grounds at Thurstan Road, now the Colombo University Grounds. This as the first rugby game between Trinity and Royal.

Trinity team was made out of players like C.David, E.M. Lalyett, A.P. Maralande, N. Moonemalle, L.C. de Mel, H.R.V. Johnston, V.C.Shockman, J.L.C. Periers (Capt), C.E. Weeraperuml, C. Wells, S.Thirunavkarsu, A.P. Kandsawmy, N. Hla, W.Wethasighe A.W. Mayanga.

Royal had players like E.C. Rose, E.N.l Jonklass, A. Splendewinde, P. Batholameusz, M. Morgan, C.G.A. Perera (Capt), T.Tweed, D.R. Rutnam, C.H. Hettiarchchi, S.C. Blok, H. Valcuylenberg, E.K. de Vos, G. Senaratne, A. de Bruin, H. Sansoni.

Trinity beat the Royalists by 26 points to nil; it was A.P. Maralande who scored the first try and two more in the game.

For the next fourteen matches there is no description - Trinity outplayed Royal. Figures reveal - Trinity scored 306 points to 12 points against Royal in these fourteen games. None of the twenty-two in the very first encounter would have dreamt that someday the Royalist will turn on the masters.

In fact, in all matches there seemed to be only one team up to 1937. Royalist made their first score in 1924, although swamped 37 points to 3.

Two land marks in this series prior to the 1945 are - Royal's first win over Trinity was in 1941, their victories over Trinity in the first two match series in 1943 the second match bringing Royal their first win in Kandy.

Then in 1945, Royal Principal E.L. Bradby offered the "Bradby Shield" to the team that scored most number of points in both games, one in Kandy and the other in Colombo.

The Bradby shield and the Trinity series, is on par with the Royal-Thomian cricket matches and now the glamour rugby match in the Country will surprise the donor E.L. Bradby. It should be said; that the Trinity-Royal series played from the year 1920 was in a friendly spirit, during the past years is an object lesson in sportsmanship to other schools. At present there has been little problems mainly due to poor refereeing which has demoralized the spectator interest and the players.

The current standing of the Bradby encounters played to date 68, Trinity 37 wins, Royal 30 and 01 tied.

This writer goes back to the game played in 1957 that was on 19th of July. Trinity College - led by Ken de Joodt had players like Uvais Odayar, Sena de Silva, P. Buultjens, H. Godigama, Nimal Maralande, Denzil Kobbekkduwa, T. Wijanayake. Mike de Alwis, J. Dias de Singhe, Eric Roles, R.Abeyakoon, R. Hermon. R. Frank and I. Brohier. Royal College was led by R. Seevaratnam and the rest of the players were D.G.Samaratunge, S.K.Samaraweera, E.L. Pereira, R.Wickremaratne, J.Weerasinghe, M.Anghie, R. Pothuhera, H.S. de Silva, R.Gunatialke, L.S. de Silva, D.N. Fernando, K. Balendra, K. Jayawardene and Harry Rasiah.

This game took place at Longden Place - Trinity retained the Bradby shield which they held since 1952, this game turned almost certain defeat into a glorious victory. According to records, this was the best inter school seen that season. It is said that it was also certainly a better game than some of the Clifford Cup matches played that season. This game was not lacking of the thrills and spills in a hard resolute tackling. Royalist surprised everybody with there fine display in the first half of the game. Trinity trailing 3-8 at the first half recovered sufficiently in the second half of play to be able to beat Royal 9-8 this was the second leg. Trinitains scored two tries and a penalty goal to a goal and a try by Royal. The first match played in Kandy went in favor of the Trinitians by 8 points to nil thereby the Trinitians retained the Bradby Shield with an aggregate of 17 points to 8.