St.Helens R.F.C. was formed at a public meeting on a Wednesday evening in the Fleece Hotel in Church Street on the 19th of November, 1873.
William Douglas Herman arrived in our town in 1870 as a Chemist to work at Pikington’s Crown Glass Works, coming up north from London where he had played rugby for Crescent FC in Battersea Park on the South Bank of the Thames, he was disappointed that at that time there was no rugby in the local area of St. Helens.
William wanted to create a team in our town and placed the following notice in the St. Helens Newspaper:
“It is proposed to form a football club for St. Helens and neighbourhood. Gentlemen taking an interest in the game are requested to attend a preliminary meeting to be held at the Fleece Hotel on Wednesday November 19, 1873 at 7.30pm.”
That meeting held at the Fleece on Church Street, saw some of the most prominent men of the time attend who had both commercial and industrial connections, and on that night William Douglas Herman was named both Chairman and Captain of the new St.Helens Club.
The rest is history…
