“The Redruth Football Club was started in 1875. It was the first to be formed in West Cornwall, and I think, with the single exception of Bodmin, the first in Cornwall”.

The opening words of Henry Grylls as, late in life, he recorded how he and W.H.Willimot came back from college and brought the game of Rugby Football to Redruth. His memory was not entirely correct as Penryn trace their history back to 1872 but he cannot be blamed for this small error. Rugby was far from being an organised sport in those days and many would be hard put to say exactly when a club actually got started.

Given the way the game has seeped into every pore of Cornish life it seems incredible that, back in 1875, very few in the Duchy knew anything about it at all. It had been mainly confined to public schools and universities and, at the time, was played by teams comprising up to 20 a side with no less than 16 in the scrum. But something in the ethos of the game appealed to men who hacked through granite deep underneath West Cornwall and by 1888 Redruth were seen as the Premier side in Cornwall, a position they still hold as we go into our 125^th year.

But statistics are not everything, indeed they are arguably the least important part of the clubs history. Because what the club has always been about is people. From that small band of enthusiasts who set the ball rolling in 1875 up to the present day, many hundreds of people have played for the club, worked on committees or just come down to the ground to support the side.

What Henry Grylls would have made of the present structure of the game is impossible to say. Given that Redruths total expenditure in it’s first season was just £5.00 he would no doubt be horrified by the prospect of paid players and the thousands of pounds necessary to keep a team on the field. But he would still recognise the commitment of both players and supporters to the cause of the Reds and be proud of the way his club has grown in stature to hold it’s own 125 years later. Truly a cause for celebration.