Old Cranleighan Football Club
Brian Browne, 38 Orchard Gardens, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 7LG
01483 548486 (h)
e-mail: bwb@cranleigh.org
The Old Cranleighan Football Club was started in 1882, the first full-time sporting club formed by the OCs. From then until 1914 the OCFC fielded between two and three full-time teams every winter, playing in London old boys leagues as well as entering the Surrey Cup, FA Cup and Arthur Dunn Cup. The base for much of that time was the Private Banks Sports Ground at Catford Bridge.
The club, like most others, ceased at the outbreak of World War One, and with the School switching to rugby union in 1916, the OCFC did not reform after the war, although a number of players did make the switch to the newly-formed OC Rugby Football Club in 1919.
Football was discouraged at Cranleigh through to the late 1980s, but since then it has become accepted as an alternative to hockey for the Upper VIth in the Lent term and the OCFC has resumed functioning on a part-time basis. At the moment it plays one game a year against the School.