Cumberland RLFC

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

The Daily Telegraph had carried an advertisement on its front page that morning: "A meeting of rugby footballers will be held at the Horse and Jockey Hotel, Homebush, to form a Cumberland district club to affiliate with the Rugby League. Tonight 8 o'clock sharp. J.J.Giltinan Hon. Sec."

Cumberland was made up of players from the Western Suburbs Rugby Union Club, who had earlier rejected offers to play for the new Western Suburbs RL club. The Wests RL club was formed primarily by players and officials from the Ashfield RU club (a second division club), with only two Wests RU players signing on with them.

The black and white colours subsequently used by Wests RL were adopted directly from the Ashfield rugby club. Serious animosity had already existed between the two rugby clubs which partly explains why so few Wests rugby players chose to join the new "Ashfield dominated" Wests RL club.

The Wests rugby players though obviously decided that playing rugby league was still worthy of consideration. At the Cumberland meeting twenty-seven of their players attended. At its conclusion all but four of those present paid their subs to Giltinan to play rugby league. They asked for affiliation to the NSWRL as the Cumberland District RL Club.

However, as the Western Suburbs league team was made up predominately of Ashfield's 2nd division rugby players, the League had serious concerns about their competitiveness and pushed for the Cumberland players to join together with Wests.

No compromise could be reached with the Cumberland players and the League proposed that the team play a trial match (against Easts) to prove their worthiness for inclusion in the NSWRL. Cumberland, wearing royal blue and gold, lost the trial match 18 points to 4 but convinced the League of their viability.

It is not immediately apparent why the name Cumberland and the blue and gold colours were chosen for this new western Sydney club. While the other 1908 RL clubs simply adopted the colours of their district rugby club, neither Wests or Cumberland took on the Wests RU club's colour (bottle green). Clearly the Ashfield RU players and officials got the jump on Wests RU in moving to the new game - they took the "Wests RL" club name and adopted the Ashfield RU club's black and white colours.

So the Wests RU players and officials who established the NSWRL's ninth club had to create a new name and colours. They may have toyed with the idea of using the bottle green colour of Wests RU, but to the casual observer they may have been presumed to be "Wests". It is also of some relevance that the Wests RU club itself entered the Sydney RU's initial district competition of 1899 as a merged club - between Wests and Parramatta RU clubs. The Wests RU club initially played at three home grounds - Parramatta (Cumberland) Oval, Concord Oval and Pratten Park.

The name "Central Cumberland" can be traced back to 1892 when a cricket team based in Parramatta (but covering a much larger area) took part in the NSWCA's Electorate competition - the same club is now known as the Parramatta Cricket Club.

Given that these clubs and events had occurred not long before the arrival of rugby league, it is no surprise that the name (Central) Cumberland was proposed for the new RL club in western Sydney. There is no direct evidence to support the view that the new Cumberland club would eventually play from Parramatta. There is certainly no link between Cumberland (1908) and the Parramatta Eels (1947).

However, as stated above, the Wests RU club was already playing 1st grade games at Cumberland Oval and the colours of royal blue and gold used by Cumberland were the "official" colours of Parramatta Council.

As the 1908 competition had already started the League was forced to accommodate Cumberland by undertaking a hasty re-draw of the season which now needed to include a bye. Cumberland, as with many of the 1908 teams, had no home ground and played their games at Birchgrove Oval, Wentworth Park and the Agricultural Ground.

Cumberland gained some praise for their official NSWRL debut performance after facing up to South Sydney in front of 20,000 fans at the Agricultural Ground. Souths won the match 23-2 which was played as a curtain-raiser to the First Test between Australia and New Zealand.

However, as the season progressed Cumberland and Wests on-field performances were as poor as the NSWRL had earlier feared. Cumberland managed to win only one game during the season when they defeated their neighbours Western Suburbs 14-6 in a spirited game.

In a reflection of their lack of quality players, Cumberland's only representative was fullback H. Bloomfield who was chosen for two games for NSW. In their final game on July 25 they could only field 11 players and had to co-opt two of their opponents (North Sydney) officials to make up the numbers!

They lost this farcical game 45-0 and finished equal last with Wests. However, Cumberland were awarded the initial "wooden spoon" with a for and against record three times worse than Wests.

With an inability to field a team, let alone a competitive one, Cumberland subsequently disbanded and faded into history after having only played nine games. It would be near another 90 seasons before another club would stay for only one season in premiership rugby league.

Seven of the Cumberland players subsequently moved to Western Suburbs. However only Bloomfield, Halling and Jarvis appeared in 1st Grade again and they fared no better as Wests took the wooden-spoon in 1909 and 1910.