England trials

[brucetrinidad]

The Wikipedia page on Birmingham Moseley Rugby Club states that The Reddings held an England trial game in 1935. However, there is no mention of another England trial game at the Reddings in 1959. My grandfather took me along to that game, I would have been 13 years old at the time. Before we set out for the ground he remarked that at the last England trial at The Reddings (presumably the 1935 game) he had to stand on one of the rough terraces which were then at The Reddings. Those terraces would have been deemed unsafe for spectators in this day and age and in the 1950s, even the bumper gates for games against the likes of Coventry and Cardiff did not spill over to those terraces. I can't remember for certain, but I think that we may have had to stand on one of those terraces for the 1959 England trial. I think that it is important that the full history of Moseley FC (as it was) and Birmingham Moseley RC (as it now is) be known. If this trial game at The Reddings is not known to today's club hierarchy, I suggest that somebody checks the records of the English Rugby Union to confirm the exact date. I am 95% certain that it was in 1959, but it could possibly have been a year or two before or after. It might be difficult to edit the Wikipedia entry until 100% confirmed, but an England trial definitely did take place around then and I attended. 

[Ewart]

Bruce,

The trial was on 14th December 1957, the Probables playing the Possibles, the Probables winning 24-0. There were no current Moseley players on view, however, Peter Robbins, who later captained the club and who was then playing for Oxford University was in the Probables team.

The Reddings staged a third England trial, on 15th November 1969, when the Whites played the Blues. Moseley wings Keith Fielding and Martin Hale were in the senior Whites side, and John Finlan played for the Blues.

[brucetrinidad]

Really pleased to see that this event has not been forgotten. Wikipedia is often wrong, misleading or incomplete.