Penarth and The Barbarians Exhibition 27 April – 17 May 2015
The exhibition “Penarth and the Barbarians” being held at the Penarth Pier Pavilion (27 April –17 May, 2015) is part of the celebrations of the 125th anniversary of the formation of the world-famous Barbarians Football Club in 1890.
Organised by the Penarth RFC, with the support of local community it aims to bring back to life an association that lasted for almost a century (85 years), having had a massive impact on the Town and its people. Between April 1901 when the first Barbarian match was played on the Penarth FC playing fields and 1986, when the Good Friday fixture between the Barbarians and Penarth RFC was discontinued, the Town hosted some of the greatest rugby players in the world, who made the now defunct Esplanade Hotel their home for the week of the Easter Tour.
The Barbarians story started over an oyster dinner of a touring side called ‘Southern Nomads’ organised and hosted by the club’s founder Percy Carpmael, at Leuchter’s Restaurant in Bradford in April 1889. The following year on 27 December 1890, the newly-formed Barbarian FC captained by the legendary Andrew Stoddard took on West Hartlepool FC in a match that entered Rugby’s folklore as a brilliant and audacious exhibition of skill and creativity.
The names of those selected and the playing style of the new club caught up the imagination of the rugby public, keen to escape the clutches of the tight forward battles of the era. The other reason the Barbarians concept has retained its freshness and appeal 125 years after the maiden tour is the spirt of the venture, encapsulated in the famous saying “Rugby Football is a game for gentlemen of all classes but never for a bad sportsman of any class,” of Right Reverend Walter Julius Carey, one of the originals of the club without fixed abode.
Two years after their “act of birth” the Barbarians arrived in Wales taking on Cardiff in premiere in 1892 and then the powerful Newport for the first time the following year in 1893. By 1900 the Baa-Baas had become regular visitors to both Arms Park and Rodney Parade, and as their matches tended to gather around Easter time, the idea of adding the formidable Swansea to the tour became compelling. Indeed Swansea agreed to host the Barbarians on April 9, 1901 and with Newport scheduled for 6 April and Cardiff for 8 April there was an opportunity to add an additional fixture before the Newport match. This is how Penarth became the host of the tour opener on Good Friday in 1901 and the seafront Esplanade Hotel, the “home” of the nomadic club for the duration of the South Wales tour.
