The sacrifices made by past and present players of Tynedale RFC in the First World War represented a massive toll on a small rugby club, with 49 who volunteered being killed.
For larger clubs it was worse. Richmond RFC’s Roll of Honours board shows the names of 59 killed and 108 Rosslyn Park players died.
Tynedale’s death toll included a number of the club’s finest players – as well as that of “Sammy” the half-bred Border terrier who had become the mascot of the 1914 Northumberland cup-winning team and had gone off to war with them.
Of the fifteen players in that Tynedale team which had won the Northumberland Senior Cup in 1914, five did not survive the war – W. Braidford, P.Braidford, F. Nevison, G. Potts and G.P. Walton.
The gallantry of those Tynedale men who served had been rewarded by no fewer than thirty-five medals, include five DSO’s, fourteen Military Crosses, two DCM’s and, not least, the Croix de Guerre, Croix de Chevalier and Medaille Militaire awarded to Tynedale men as battle honours by the French.

The Club itself honoured the Fallen in fitting style. Not only did it endow a cot at Hexham War Memorial Hospital but, in January 1921, it opened a new pavilion at the north end of its Dene Park ground as a memorial to those who had lost their lives. Consisting of a former Army hut, it had been bought out of the proceeds of a subscription list launched the preceding year and erected by voluntary labour.
At the opening ceremony, performed by the president of the Northumberland Rugby Football Unio, Mr Harry Welford, a brass tablet bearing the names of the forty-nine men who had given their lives in the war, presented by the club president, Mr George Gibson, was dedicated by the Rector of Hexham, the Rev. J V C Farquhar.
The ceremony was followed by a match against Mr. Reuben Hodgson’s XV in aid of the War Memorial Hospital and, in the evening, by a dinner attended by at least one representative from the team of every year since the club’s inception in 1876.

IN MEMORIAM 1939-45

In all twenty-seven Tynedale players, past and present, lost their lives during World War II, among them great names like Bland, Forster, Hodgson and Liddle.
On Easter Monday, 1949, a memorial plaque was unveiled in the pavilion by the county president, Mr Ben Plummer – yet another former Tynedale captain, and dedicated by the Rector of Hexham, the Rev. A G Hardie.
Also, as a memorial to those who had fallen, the Broad Close field adjoining the first team Dene Park pitch at Hexham was purchased. A fund for the purpose had been started while the war was still in progress, and the purchase was finally completed in 1948.

Both plaques mentioned above are now proudly on display in the entrance foyer at the Tynedale Park clubhouse.