GORTON STREET GAZETTE Today our 1XV will be entertaining Fleetwood, who have origins as club stretching back over 80 years and were registered with the RFU in 1932 as 'Fleetwood Old Boys’ (of Fleetwood Grammar School) with the 'Old Boys' title dropped in the early 1950’s. The very first recorded fixture between Fleetwood and Eccles we can find in the archives is from the 20th October in 1928/29 Season when the Eccles Journal reported on 26th October,1928 - "A delightful exhibition of rugby was seen at Fleetwood and although Eccles only scored 5 points, the game was full of interest, some clever back play being indulged in by both sides." Final score - Fleetwood nil, Eccles 5. The return game at Eccles on 10th February, 1929 was cancelled but the following season 1929/1930, Eccles played Fleetwood Home and Away with 2 wins for Eccles. Following WW2, Fleetwood resumed its rugby activities, settling at its present location with a small clubhouse by arrangement with the Fleetwood Cricket Club and extended using old RAF huts from a local camp. Very similar to our own club story at Eccles RFC, as we moved to our home here at Gorton Street Peel Green after the war and adopted two former Army Huts for our changing facilities and pavilion! Enthusiastic club members can be seen working on the Army huts in this 1948 photo. In the 1949/1950 Season, Fleetwood O.B. make a brief appearance in the Eccles fixture list with a 9-3 home victory on 11th February 1950, reported by the Journal "Eccles broke new ground on Saturday when they visited the coast to meet Fleetwood Old Boys. The local gale-like conditions were nothing to those which met Eccles on the coast and the wind, coupled with the driving rain, made playing conditions bad with the pitch ankle deep in mud.” Perhaps those conditions explain the sporadic meetings between the clubs as the next fixture in the records is 1954-56 and then skip to 1962/63. Back in December 1948, the first season at our ‘new' ground, Eccles enjoyed a Christmas Day fixture and win over Sale “A”. Eric Salter, who had married the
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