The Pilgrims
Pocklington Pilgrims are currently an occasional team made up of players, some of them former first team stars, who do not want to play every week (whether thats due to work or personal commitments, or because their knees wont stand regular rugby any more).
While they currently only play every now and again, the Pilgrims have a proud history. Pocklington was a two team club up until the 1960s, when a 3rd XV, initially called Pocklington Extra A, was started, and an agreement made with the local Scouts for them to play on the back pitch.
The club preferred to give its teams names, rather than letters, and since the 1960s one of the club songs had been a chorus of the hymn He who would valiant be, which ends to be a Pilgrim. So in 1972, when it had become clear that the third team was here to stay, it was named Pocklington Pilgrims, and quickly developed its own culture and identity.
The original skipper of that time, John Ridgewell, was dubbed The Pilgrim Father until he left the area to work in Africa, and in their early days the Pilgrims had a series of high profile captains. Barry Appleby skippered the side in addition to being the club comedian (he won a talent contest in the midlands during a club tour) and vocalist/frontman of local band, the Sons of Witch, who played on the same bill as the Rolling Stones and The Who. Another Pilgrims captain was former Bradford and Keighley rugby league pro, Sid Hebden, who played for a while under the pseudonym, Keith Lea.
If the captains led from the front, at the back was one of the most prolific points scorers in the history of Pocklington rugby, another noted former local pop star, Derrick Dennington, who topped the points scoring charts year after year with his toe-end goalkicking.
After being the clubs most successful team during parts of the 1970s and 80s, the team started to struggle as player numbers fell during the 1990s. Nevertheless, they soldiered on until 2000 when the Pilgrims ground to a halt as a regular side.
The Pilgrims were resurrected by former 1st XV captain, Paul Rhodes, in 2005 in their new occasional guise and immediately enticed a handful of former stars back into action, recording some notable results along the way.