the brighter side two founder members, M. Dent and R. Copley, were the first Letchworth players to play for the County." The club's first permanent home was found the club's second season - 1926-7 - when a ground was secured in Cashio Lane. Letchworth Grammar School opened in 1931, a rugby-playing school that boosted player numbers significantly. However, there was now competition for players as in 1934 one of the biggest companies in the town - the British Tabulating Machine Company (a fore-runner of ICL) - created a team called The Tabulators. This created a great rivalry, but also split players between the two clubs (though they often worked together to help each other field teams). This period was not to last for long. The Second World War brought competitive rugby to an end, and after the war both clubs were struggling to survive - Letchworth had a bank balance of only 12s5d (62p in modern money) in 1947, and in 1950 The Tabulators folded. A new home However this concentrated the game onto one club, which - as the game grew in popularity - began to thrive. By the 1950s the club had started to out-grow its ground, and the changing rooms it was borrowing from Norton Road Secondary Modern School were less suitable for the level of opposition the club was attracting. After a search by dedicated club members Glyn Carter and Bill Howells (formerly of Cardiff and a Welsh trialist) - aided and abetted by Arthur Lamb, Miles Tabor, Ralph Wagstaff, Gordon Imber and Gordon Collinson - a new home was found at Baldock Road. The club initially hired two pitches (later expanded) on land owned by the First Garden City Company in 1955, and on 15 September 1956 the club opened its first clubhouse, with its own bar and changing rooms. This development was coupled with success on the field. In 1959-60 the 1st XV won 25 of its 28 games, drawing two more and only losing one - its best record ever. The clubhouse was expanded in 1963 to cope with the rate of growth, and in the following season a third pitch was added. By the mid-sixties the club was fielding six XVs, and international sides were visiting to play exhibition games, and in club recorded its largest ever win - 117-0 - against Hawker-Siddeley in the Herts Presidents Cup. League rugby, and the