ONE of North Craven's best known sports clubs will celebrate its 75th anniversary on May 2.

North Ribblesdale Rugby Club, based at Settle, played its first season in 1923/24, and took part in what is believed to be Ribb's first ever competitive fixture on November 1.

Rugby was first played in Settle in 1879 by the Settle Rugby Football Club.

This continued up to the start of World War I, but after the war the club lapsed.

Soccer became the dominant sport in the Craven area, with teams in all the surrounding villages and several in Settle itself.

Many local young men had been introduced to rugby while enlisted during the war, and along with other interested players, mainly old boys of Giggleswick School, had to travel to Skipton in the immediate post-war years.

At the time, Skipton was a major force in Yorkshire rugby, and Settle players were rarely selected for the senior teams.

With the additional problems of travel, a local solicitor, Charlie Charlesworth, decided to reform a Settle club.

A meeting was called in 1923 where the proposition was well supported, and the North Ribblesdale Rugby Club was founded.

Early fixtures were with Bingley, Kirkby Lonsdale, Kendal A and Holme Wanderers and the first match was played against Giggleswick School on September 29 1923.

The club lost 6-13, but the event marked the start of a long association with the school.

During its first season (1923/24) the club won 14 of the 26 games played and the captaincy started with JR Wilson and ended with WE Burgin.

There were many familiar Settle names in the original line-up, some of whose families are still associated with Ribb today.

Cecil Clark, father of the current club president, Donald Clark, was one of the founder players.

There was also Jack Brassington, Harold Lambert and Richard Moore, plus the familiar Settle names of Percy, Maudsley and Bilsborough appearing.

One early player was Teddy Bateson, who could cover 100 yards in 10 seconds.

He joined Skipton and eventually went to Wakefield to play rugby league.

Sadly, all the founder players have now passed away apart from one, Cyril Ralph, who now lives at Stainforth House, and who was Ribb's most successful goalkicker of the pre-war years.

Early matches were played at Anley (where the southern end of the bypass is now) with an old railway carriage as a changing room, and meetings were held in a room behind the Golden Lion.

In 1924, a young Scottish engineer arrived in Settle and joined the committee.

While unremarkable in itself, the advent of SC (Syd) Davidson, his sons and grandsons was to prove a major influence on the affairs of the club both on and off the field.

Matches were then transferred, and in the late 1920s Ribb was on the move, to what is now the playing field for Settle's middle and high schools.

From here the club moved again, to Sowarth Field, where the industrial estate is now, and here it stayed until the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 limited the club's activities.

The club was gaining in strength and membership, and the name Fred Boothman begins to appear, initially as a player (Fred still holds the record for the number of tries scored in a season - 37 in 1936/37).

He later became another key member and tireless worker for Ribb.

After the Second World War Ribb reconvened - no rugby was played from 1939 to 1946 - playing at the Fellings in Giggleswick, a field which the club made an unsuccessful bid to buy in 1947.

It then went on to acquire the club's present home, Grove Park, complete with the Old Wooden Hut, a third hand timber shed, which served as the first proper clubhouse and is still fondly remembered by many older members and visitors.

Two names stand out from the later 1950s and '60s - Ken Davidson, club captain for eight years from 1946 to 1953, and the only Ribb player to play for Yorkshire while still based at the club, and Malcolm Davidson, Syd's son and captain from 1955 to 1962.

Malcolm was a prodigious kicker, holding several club points records until eclipsed by his own son, Andrew, in the 1980s and '90s.

For 45 years the Old Hut did Ribb proud and saw the club increase in strength to strength until the new clubhouse was built and opened in 1992.

Ribb has always been a family club, with a glance at the names on the team photos down the decades revealing many a father and son, uncle and nephew, cousins, plus plenty of brothers.

One family, the Davidsons, (already mentioned) boasts a 74-year long connection with Ribb, with the fourth generation now playing with the minis.

Family ties over the years are many, with lots of other local families involved, including the Boothmans, Swainsons, Sharps, and Thwaites to name a few.

Ribb has had its high points on the pitch, with the Yorkshire Shield going to Grove Park in 1979/80 and the club becoming league champions in 1987/88.

In 1993/94 Ribb gained promotion again, taking the Yorkshire I title and moving into the North East regional league structure.

Today the club plays in Thwaites North East Division Two.

The mini and junior sections were reformed in 1994 and are now competing successfully with surrounding clubs at all levels.

And the club now has a sponsor, something those pioneers of 75 years ago would never have dreamt of, and since 1992 Ribb has enjoyed a valued partnership with Yorkshire Co-operatives.

Looking to the future, there are hopes of increasing the club's facilities, with plans for a gym and improved changing rooms.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.