Toc H Rugby Union Football Club – some notes

Toc H was a society, originally of ex-servicemen and women, established for Christian fellowship and social service. The origin of the name is rather interesting and dates back to the time of the Great War. The word “Toc” is the signallers’ former name for the letter “T”, + “H”, for “House”, gives Talbot House, a soldiers’ club started by Rev. P.T.B. Clayton (d.1972) in Ypres Salient in 1915 in memory of Gilbert Talbot, son of Edward Talbot, then Bishop of Winchester, who had been killed at Hooge in July of that year.

The rugby club was founded in 1924 and played at various venues in its early years. In 1947, it secured the tenancy of a pitch on Simon Field – then managed by the Manchester and Salford Playing Fields Society – which included the use of a wooden shed as the changing-room. The club rarely used this as it had come to an informal agreement with the landlord of the Didsbury Hotel to use a building at the rear of that hotel. A formal agreement was subsequently entered into with the Woodside Brewery to use the changing facilities at the rear of the Didsbury Hotel which had become vacant due to the (then) Didsbury Rugby Club relocating to Cheadle Hulme. The agreed rental for this facility was £5 for the season 1947-48.

Toc H rugby teams continued to use Simon Field to this day.